Pig farm and cattle loading

Today we got to tour the pig farm where with my cousin Haylee, her husband Alex, and two of their adorable children.

First, we had to put on some special plastic boots to keep us clean and to keep the piggies safe.

The first one that Alex handed to Sy was too loud. This one didn't squeal as much.

We learned all about how the little piggies are fed and cared for in the nursery.

This black Chinese variety has very soft ears. 

It takes a little time for the pigs to get comfortable. In fact, when we first walked in they all ran and squealed, but eventually they will come and eat from your hand.

They have huge grain bins to keep the pigs well fed. Inside this door, above the truck, there is a machine that mixes in all the necessary vitamins and minerals to keep the pigs healthy.

This is the sow barn where pigs come after they reach 60 pounds. 

This one really wanted me to take his picture!

We had a great time and learned a lot - again! Farmers have an incredible role in our society. Each farm we have visited is growing food that we have always just gone to the grocery store and purchased without having any idea what goes on behind the scenes. We have been amazed at the incredible amount of knowledge necessary for successful farming. 

When we returned "home", we got one last lesson before we pulled out for the day. 

This cattle truck arrived to take the fattened cows to market. This trailer can carry up to 100,000 pounds! 41 head of cattle on two levels!

Ky tried out the cattle ramp. 

Here are the cows lining up to get in. It looks easy, but there was a lot of preparation to make this loading run smoothly!

Off goes the truck. (With our camper in the background.)

We pulled out moments later leaving behind one very happy helper. For a week, Jo will enjoy farm life with extended family while we head home.  We plan to pick him up next Tuesday. While we're gone, he'll have some adventures all his own.  

Lord's Day

It was good to worship with family again. After church, we got to share our family's favorite dish, black bean chicken, with Aunt Lois and Uncle Tim.

Then we spent an afternoon with family at aunt Edith's home. Another cousin and his wife were here from Atlanta. We found out both their daughters homeschool using CC! All their kids are older than ours so we plan to get together when we're in their neck of the woods to chat all things Challenge! Yay!

On the way home we drove past aunt Edith's old farm. This is where I have memories from trips to Minnesota as a little girl. It's also where my mom visited her cousins when she was a teenager and I've heard so many stories of her visits there. 

Back at "home" Ky said goodnight to her animal friends. (pic above)

Farming

4:45am Jo got up to do farm chores

Sy "can't believe the cows wake up so early". 

Everyone is excited about harvesting corn or "chopping" today, but since it's been raining and is cloudy the fun won't start til the afternoon. 

After dinner, we watched the Christian school varsity soccer game. Cousin Logan scores the final goal of the game to tie it up 2-2. 

Then we head over to the next door farm where chopping is happening today. The neighbors helped harvest here first and now everyone is working over there.

They have 3 tractors and 3 trucks running. One tractor chops the corn, the trucks collect the silage from the tractor by driving alongside at the same pace and when they're full another truck pulls up so the chopper never stops!

The full trucks drive over to the silage pile and dump.

Then, one tractor bulldozes the corn up into a pile while the other tractor drives on top to pack it down.

They did this for 9 hours today stopping only to eat food brought to them in their tractors/trucks. Some days they'll start at 7am and work til 10pm! The goal is to finish before any rain comes and before  the crop gets too dry. The kids all had a chance to ride in every machine.

Even I hung out in a truck for a few rounds. 

Ky and Sy quickly found friends their age and move on from the tractors to play. Ky's friend shares her horse

and Sy's friend jumps on the hay bales with him.

Ky also rode along with Peyton to complete her chore of pushing the feed back toward the cows.

Great fun! So glad we got to see and experience harvesting!

Blue Earth, MN

Ho, ho, ho! The green giant stood guard at the entrance to our campground!

If you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, nobody's going to come to your garage sale. Here, several ladies had organized a garage sale at the county fairgrounds. We also got a huge bag of my favorite Honeycrisp apples for $5! Fresh from the tree and super yummy!

Our day ended by completing the circle we started at the beginning of the month.

We are back at Aunt Lois' home in Minnesota.

On Monday, we'll leave Jo here and head BACK TO CALIFORNIA! We found a great deal on tickets out of Minneapolis. We plan to fly in this Tuesday and fly out the next Tuesday. We are so excited to see friends we have missed!

Icing the excrement, Capitol & cathedral, and More mall madness - AKA: St Paul, MN - Capitol #14

Icing the excrement

RV tips with Tara... we have been unable to get our black water tank gauge to read "empty". Consulting Google, we found that one fix involves filling your black tank with ice and driving around, causing the ice to rub up against the sides as it melts and clean off them. And as of this evening, I can say that it works! 

Capitol

This was the best view of the Capitol  that we got today. A couple days ago, when trying to find out what hours the Minnesota State Capitol was open, we found out it wasn't. At all. The Capitol is under construction and both the grounds and the building are completely inaccessible. But we are only doing this once, so we went anyway.

This is the state building where members of the House of Representatives have their offices. This building was the next closest thing to visiting the Capitol, so we stopped by. The house is not in session, so hardly anybody was in the building and there was not much to see. Thankfully, while we were in the lobby trying to find clues to learn anything we could, a homeschool dad walking by somehow understood that we were trying to learn about the Capitol and pointed us in the direction of the legislative library upstairs where he works. He asked the librarian to pull out whatever information she had about the Capitol and that happened to include self-guided tour brochures. So we looked at pictures of the Capitol on their computer and watched a video they had and looked at a couple books about the Capitol and the architect and that was our tour of the Minnesota Capitol. 

This is the building that houses the senators. It is newer but does not have a friendly homeschool dad or much to see. We did find a gentleman in the lobby who was willing to show us a senate hearing room. And here I realized, after 13 Capitols, my children did not know what a hearing was. So we spent a little time talking about that and did learn more about the legislative process at the Minnesota Capitol despite it being closed.

Cathedral

Directly down the street from the Capitol, is the Cathedral of St. Paul. It was beautiful, built in the same time period as the Capitol, and had a dome. So, in lieu of beautiful pictures of the Capitol, we have beautiful pictures of the cathedral.

There was a tour going on, but it was too hard to hear the guide, so I set out on my own.

These ladies were very friendly and, after learning that I was not Catholic,shared with me some of the history of this building and the various practices and beliefs associated with different parts. One of the ladies had gone to elementary school here. All three of them were visiting because Pope Francis has declared this a year of Jubilee and this cathedral has been designated a pilgrimage site.

More Mall Madness

We finished our time in Minneapolis with a second trip to the Mall of America. We were able to complete our walk around, and have officially seen ALL of the mall.

This store was a fun find because a couple years ago I started getting their catalog (not sure how) and they have all sorts of great boy activities. 

Overall, it was a very fun day.

Little House, Big Mall - 9/14

Goodbye BooBoo. 

Goodbye Jellystone. 

Goodbye Wisconsin Dells. 

Interesting landscape along the road.

We meandered back-and-forth across the Wisconsin/Minnesota border several times.

Interesting things to be found alongside America's Byways. 

Laura's little house in the Big Woods of Pepin, Wisconsin.

This is a reconstructed version of the house on the location where it really  stood when Laura was a little girl, before they moved to the prairie. 

We have been rereading the Laura books as we are driving since were visiting so many Little House sites.

And on the same day we visited the little house, we visited the big mall - the Mall of America, just outside Minneapolis.

There is a theme park in the center of the four-story mall and to walk around one level is over a mile!

Ky's first American Girl store visit.

A Lego store and interesting artwork round out our sites in the mall. 

Actually, each of these butterflies was decorated at a relay for life race somewhere in America and they were compiled here. So, since we participated at one of the races impromptu in Colfax, Washington in June, we were looking for the butterfly from our race. But we never found it - some were too high to read. 

In the three hours we were there, we only saw two levels. And that's OK, because we plan to return tomorrow to see the rest.