The Trip that Keeps on Giving

Remember my trip to Kelsay Farms a couple weekends ago?

The one when my nephews had a GREAT time in the giant corn box.

The one when my floor was covered in corn kernels once we returned home.

Here's an update on where I have found corn kernels in the two weeks AFTER our trip to the farm.

1. The backseat of my car.
2. The guest bathroom.
3. The rocking chair in my living room.
4. Underneath my kitchen table.
5. In my couch cushions.
6. And I'm guessing many more places in the days to come!

Oh well, the boys had a great time at the Kelsay Farms so it's worth the extra clean-up. There's still one weekend left to experience the farm. Visit Kelsay Farms website for hours and a list of activities.

Pumpkins, Cows, Straw and Corn, Oh My

A trip to Kelsay Farms each October is becoming a tradition. 

This year, Baby Sister and I took her daughter and our two oldest nephews with us for an afternoon of fun on the dairy farm where we, of course, saw the cows.

The farm is just outside of Greenwood, Ind. and is a working dairy farm. They open the farm to the public every weekend (Friday night to Sunday evening) in October.

They do a great job providing lots of fun activities for all ages, including a corn maze.

But, it's all about the straw and the corn box when my nephews are there.

The photo above does NOT do the straw mountain justice. It is HUGE with tunnels and slides. It's a perfect place for boys to run around, make friends and play tag.

They expanded their corn box this year (think sand box but with corn) and it was a happening place.

My only complaint about the whole day is that the boys brought a little too much of the fun home with them...

Not sure if you can see it, but there's corn all over my floor...from his pants pockets! Oh well, he picked it all up, though I'm not sure where he put it...

This was supposed to be a Wordless Wednesday post so I'll wrap this up with some other fun photos from the day. Enjoy! If you want to know more about Kelsay Farms, visit their Facebook page!

Moo-Choo Express!

Pumpkins!

"I love my pumpkin!"

Calves...23 days old.

"Bye calves!"

Tuckered out!

Kelsay Farms did provide me with a couple of admission tickets to the farm but the thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own, of course.

Some Pumpkin Humor while "Experiencing the Farm"

Lil' Sister and I took her son and two of my (our) other nephews to Kelsay Farms - outside of Whiteland, Ind. - earlier today. Thank you to Liz and Amy over at Two Maids a Milking for the free passes! (Find the answer to the joke at the end of this post.)

It was a gorgeous day for some agritourism. Actually we are experiencing almost record highs here in central Indiana for this time of year. The high today was supposed to be around 84 degrees and tomorrow's high around 86! Thank goodness there was a breeze today and some places of shade on the farm.

Well, I took loads of photos - more than anyone other than the family cares to see - of the boys enjoying the great activities they have at Kelsay Farms - all of which are free (except for the food). So once you pay the admission fee, plan to put away the wallet until it's time to grab a milkshake, grilled cheese or cheeseburger (the burger is made from Dougherty Farm Fresh Beef - a local beef farm).

Instead of posting all of my photos, I decided to do a Top 5 Countdown of my favorite experiences at Kelsay Farms during. It was hard to narrow it down to just five, but I did. And in true countdown fashion, I'm starting at number 5!

5)  The excitement on my nephews' faces when they saw the two 16-day-old Holstein calves.

Doesn't it kind of look like the boys are behind the bars? Sometimes I wish I could put them in one! Guess that's why I'm an aunt and not the mom!

4)  The "King of the Mountain" moment on top of the Straw Pyramid.

This was by far their favorite attraction this afternoon. They loved the climbing...

the crawling...

and the sliding.

3)  The opportunity to rest in the shade and listen to a story. Each weekend they feature some special activities at the farm. This weekend Rodeo Ron (a real-life rodeo clown) came and read a book under the food tent. All the kids got to have their picture taken with him afterwards.

Then Liz and Amy served cookies and milk. The book was about a cowboy riding into a town called Cavity (I think) where sugary sodas were the drink of choice and how he showed the townspeople how good a milkshake can taste. So the kids cold add their own flavoring to their milk. The eldest nephew loved that activity.

Miss Liz made and shared the cow-shaped cookies. Here she is with Amy's two cowgirls!

The two youngest nephews really enjoyed the cookies. Doesn't he look like he has an icing goatee?

2) The youngest nephew running face first into a standing cornstalk in the Corn Maze. Now, I know I'm an awful person, but it was laugh out loud funny - even his mom laughed! I didn't get a photo of it, but I did capture a couple of special moments.

The eldest nephew was our fearless leader...maybe that was why by the time we found the end the little boys were whining for a drink and Lil' Sister and I were ready to blaze our own trail out! I do think if we didn't have the little boys, I would have had a lot more patience and had a lot more fun. Still a must-do activity!

1) The memories made and the opportunity to spend a few hours with my family at a family farm who is doing a great job educating folks about today's agriculture!  Amy is a former Extension Educator so teaching is in her blood so this experience is really about more than just fun...but there is a lot of that to be had as well.

Ever heard of a "corn angel"...

Now, for the answer to the Joke of the Day: How do you mend a broken Jack-O-Lantern?

Take it to a PUMPKIN PATCH!!

City Kids + Dairy Farm = Entertaining Education!

One warm hot day this summer, Hannah of Off the Cuff and I headed over to Kelsay Farms to 1) tour a working dairy farm and 2) observe a group of inner-city kids experiencing a farm for the first time.

A group of farmers sponsored trips to Kelsay Farms for busloads of schoolchildren from the Indy Parks summer camps. This was a great hands-on, real-life learning experience for the kids.

Aren't they cute in their matching T-shirts?

Amy (meet her over at Two Maids a Milking) took the group (and me) into the "milk house" and the milking parlor to walk us through the milking process.

She explained that her family and their employees milked 500 cows three times a day. I'm a visual learner so I appreciated her props...see the 8 gallon jugs below?

These 8 jugs represent the average daily milk production of their cows! 1 cow = 8 gallons of milk/day

They keep all of that milk in this 6,000-gallon refrigerated milk tank until the milk truck comes to haul it away.

After a trip to the milking parlor (photos turned out way too dark to post), we headed to the barn to see The Ladies "at home."

As you can see the barn is open so the cows can have a nice breeze (and when there isn't one, there are fans). To teach the kids about where the cows sleep and eat, our tour guide asked the kids about the things they have in their own homes and then pointed out the similarities between their home and a cow's home!

For example, she asked the group what they eat for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Then she asked them what they thought the cows eat.

The answer: Cows eat about 100 pounds of feed each day, which is a combination of hay, grain and silage (fermented corn or grass). They drink a lot of water too – up to 50 gallons a day. The tour guide made a great comparison to get the point across that cows drink a lot of water. She said that one cow drinks the equivalent of a bathtub full of water a day. Yikes!

Once we were done in the barn, we headed to the shed where a new born calf was resting. The calf was a huge hit with the kids.

They all wanted to pet it and all it wanted to do was sleep!

To end the tour of the farm, the group gathered in the shed for a little nutrition lesson.

When the lesson was over, everyone got one of their three servings of dairy in the form of string cheese. Yummy!

Overall, this was a great experience.Watching these kids who didn't have any idea what a working farm looked like, was awesome.

The other cool thing...Kelsay Farms opens their "barn doors" to the public in October and has a lot of awesome activities for the entire family - like a corn maze, hayrides, rope maze and a lot more.

Check out http://www.kelsayfarms.com/ for more information!