And This Little Piggy Went...

Yesterday we went back to what I'm learning will be our hot spot this summer; Davis Farmland. For those of you outside of Central Mass (or inside and not yet privy) Davis Farmland is North America's largest private sanctuary of endangered farm animals. It contains loads of today's modern farm animals' ancestors (DNA-wise anyway), and a great way for kids to get up close and personal with them. In addition, it has a splash pad, large play structure, and an 'imagination' zone with a crop of outbuildings decked out with kid sized tool stations, etc.

H had his first pony ride, which was a roaring success, milked a goat, and saw his first piglets...not sure how we missed them before. Looking at those baby pigs brought back memories of the days when I raised hogs for FFA in high school, as they were about the same size as when we'd load up in our trucks and head over to get our picks of the litter. As the piglets got more and more eager for their dinner to arrive, and started bothering one another, their quiet snorts turned into the signature squeal, making H turn to me and say 'What's that noise?' Yeah, generally, I don't encourage the noise identification portion of his animal board books to include the ear piercing scream of a pig.

Another while-away-the-hours locale has been the plethora of fenced-in parks. They are great because you can sit on a bench and watch your child play without fear that they'll dart into on-coming traffic; always a bonus. How else is The Other Boleyn Girl going to be completed before book club? H's favorite is generally the sandbox, so I don't really have to worry about him anyway because he settles in and enjoys playing with all the shovels, buckets and digger toys that are provided by the parks system; great because no child can get too bent claiming that it's 'mine'.

This leads me to this morning. I was checking out my little sister's new blog, when I heard H wander into the kitchen. I called down for him to stay out, which was useless, so I did a little investigation of my own. Literally, 30 seconds of him being in the kitchen and he had already created his own sandbox at home. Sweet...he'd found the cornmeal. He was so happy that it was 'pink' sand (aka yellow), but not so happy when I sucked it all up into the vacuum. I know! I'm such a spoil sport, I didn't even let him play in it.

Don't get me wrong, I love waking up with the little cherub at 5am, especially when he wakes up at midnight as well, but when you find a pile of cornmeal on the carpet of your dining area, you just want to go 'wee wee wee' all the way back to bed!

Fun on the Farm Fact (according to my omniscient source Wikipedia): Occasionally, in captivity, pigs may eat their own young, often if they become severely stressed.