Two Days of No School!!!

School was closed this past Thursday and Friday for Rosh Hashanah and that also meant that the after school program was closed.  For parents that work, the closing of school so often is a problem – you can only take so many days off or work from home for so many days.  It seems the fall has the most half day and full days of school being closed.  This coming week school is letting out early on Friday after they practice the emergency evacuation plan, then Monday closed for Columbus Day and on the same week Friday is a half day for teacher work day.

On Thursday I had 3 other children here and it was raining, so what to do?! A lot of Barbie playing was had, along with fort building, dress up and one show on Netflix.  To keep my sanity I made banana chocolate chip bread and got caught up on emails.  We got all ready to go for a walk in between the rain, but as soon as we were ready to walk out the door the rain started coming down in sheets.

Friday I had one other child and the sun was shining in between cloud cover and we all knew that we needed to get outside and enjoy the day – the forecast is rain for the next 5 days – I am starting to think that we live in the rain forest and maybe that is what our climate is changing to.  We packed some snacks, water bottles and light jackets and headed north to do some pumpkin and apple picking – it was glorious.  The girls had had a sleepover on Thursday night – so they slept the whole way up – the quiet was nice.

Our first stop on the farm was the sugar pumpkin patch, since this is close to the children’s village.  The girls went crazy, filling the wagon up – I had to stop them when the count was 11! I have a lot of pumpkins to cook this weekend.  We were off to the children’s village next.  This is a great village with many small buildings for the kids to play in, barn, chapel, post office, jail, school house, general store, etc – I think there are about 10 buildings.  What made it even more enjoyable was the mud – there is no place for the water to go anymore and streams are running everywhere.  The girls ran around there for about 30 minutes.

We headed for the apple orchards and the girls picked red and golden delicious, fuji, macoun, empire and mutsu apples – picking the ones that “caught my eye” as they kept saying to each other. I, of course, pulled the wagon all throughout the orchard with some “help” from the girls – it will be awhile before my heals are the same.  The smiles, giggles and conversation was so worth two sore heals!  Now we needed to find the perfect pumpkins for the stoop and of course, to carve.  We walked up and down the rows several times before we found the perfect pumpkin – not so round and with so many warts!

 

To the main building we went, to pump our own water for drinking and washing of our hands, to pay for our goodies, lunch and for me apple cider donuts – love them.  Afterwards the girls ran through the maze made of hay bales and then back to the children’s village – for me it was an hour of sitting on a rock, listening to children laughing and screaming, looking out at the mountains and letting my mind daydream.

We headed home, had to walk the dog, get Stella’s soccer clothes, unload the pumpkins and goodies, then off to drop Stella at practice, home to feed the animals and then back to the field to pick her up – a really good day!  Now I have to start baking the pumpkins – never made pumpkin butter, may have to give that a try!

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