The day I wished I lived on a farm.

I have always been so envious of farm kids. I grew up in a small-ish town and went to school with lots of kids that lived on farms. My mom grew up on a pony farm, I went to University of Illinois (which has a large agricultural program), and my husband grew up in a rural area, with lots of family that still farms (I will have you know that you are reading the blog of the wife of the guy who is the ex-vice president of his school's Future Farmers of America chapter. Ha!)

Anyway, I always thought it'd be fun, but it wasn't until I had my own kids that I decided I MUST LIVE ON A FARM. When we lived in Colorado, we had lots of friends that owned huge ranches. We would drive along winding roads and drool over the orchards and vineyards that dot the countryside in Western Colorado. And when we owned our first home, I loved that I could stand in the front yard and see corn fields in every direction (our town had a whopping 1000 people in it and was surrounded by cornfields).

So now that we're back in the Midwest, we're renting while we figure out the details of where we'd like to live, as we plan to make our next home our 'forever' home. I surprised my husband when I announced that I was craving country living. Baaaaad. I want to be like The Pioneer Woman, just (unfortunately) with a lot less Le Creuset.

Sure, chickens would be fun. And horses, of course. Maybe even a llama or a pig. But what I really, really, REALLY want?


A goat! Or two! Or twelve! I just think they are so darling! A trip to the zoo last week
enforced this. We spent an hour in the petting zoo area, especially feeding these goats. Again, aren't they darling?!?!

Cal loved feeding them, and still talks about this little guy, who sneezed on him.






















One thing we will definitely not have is an emu. There is an area at the zoo where you can walk around with the emu and wallaby, who are not in cages. You have to stay on the path, but sometimes they get brave and get near you. This emu didn't seem too thrilled to have us there, so we kept our distance, which meant we had a stare-down with him for 5 minutes until he finally let us pass...Emus are kinda scary!
But, because Cal is Cal, his favorite thing to watch at the zoo wasn't a lion or the monkeys...It was a big, loud, yellow beast....

A Caterpillar excavator.