Kaw Valley Farm Tour

A couple weekends ago we went on the Kaw Valley Farm Tour.  It's a tour of the local farms in the area.  

We started the morning at a dairy.  There were lots of new calves.  They all had names.  Hazel's favorite was named Luna.

They had fabulous ice cream.  We tried an orange flavored ice cream.  It tasted like a Dreamsicle.

But her most favorite animals were the kittens.  The farm was even giving them away.  But, much to Hazel's disappointment, we didn't take one home.  I am allergic to cats; they make me sneeze and itch.  Not good.  They would have to be outdoor cats.  We'll have to wait until we have a farm for that.  But all the kids enjoyed playing with them anyway.

Next we went to a tree farm.  The highlight was a pumpkin chunking trebouchet.  Everyone loved that.

We also went on a hayride.

And Hazel, Aspen and I painted pumpkins.

The next farm we went to specialized in grinding their own chocolate.  It was heavenly.  But my favorite part was this fabulous 100 yeard old hay barn.

It was really cool inside.  Besides new shingles and a few slabs of plywood, the barn is still mostly original.  There are small spaces between the wood siding to allow for air circulation and it made really cool lighting.

The family plays basketball in the loft and they had batting cages set up too. The owner said that next summer they were going to install a slide from the loft to the swimming pool below.  I wish we could be their neighbors!

Another favorite was the rope swing.  I think the kids could have spent the whole day there. 

Farm number three was an organic vegetable and mushroom farm.  There were fresh roasted peppers.  Growing mushrooms was more involved than I imagined.  Very interesting.

While we were walking around the back portions of the farm, I realized Hazel was missing.  I thought she had followed us but she suddenly wasn't there.   I found her playing with more kitties, of course.

The last farm we went to was a country market.  They had greenhouses, a store, a cafe of sorts, and lots of fun stuff to do.  There was a butterfly house.

The plant flowers and roll up the sides of a hoop house to let the caterpillars in.  Then roll down the netted sides to keep them in for everyone to see.  We got to hold a lot of them and watch some hatch out of their cacoons. 

We went on another hayride, followed the right turn only maze and had a water pumping contest.

The kids buried themselves in the bin full of corn.

And then we slingshoted mini pumpkins at targets set up in the field.

At the start of the day, the kids were unbelieving when I said that they would have a good time.  At the end of the day, they all admitted that it was indeed a fun day.  We didn't get to see a lot of other farms on the tour.  There was an alpaca ranch, a bee farm, wineries, and other organic vegetable farms.  So I guess we'll have something to see next year.