Bringing the community together

Family Fun at the Farm was today!  This year it was hosted by K&K Dairy Farms.

The committee does such a great job.  It's always so organized, so well-staffed with volunteers, and so fun for everyone who attends!

We've been every year - even when it was Breakfast on the Farm - and it just gets better and better. (This year just Kris volunteered from our family because I didn't know if I'd be home from a work trip yet.) I took the boys around and we saw not only the dairy farm, but all the extras!  Chicks, rabbits, a corn box, we made butter ... and saw everyone we knew!  The entire farming community comes together, and we also knew lots of the attendees who come for a great and free event.

This is Kristi Keilen, one of the owners!  Their farm looked great.

Kris was lucky to be stationed in the nice and cool freestall barn.  (It was really hot today.)  But the cows are kept cool with fans and a nice roof.  It was easily 10 degrees cooler in here.

They had chicks you could pick up and hold.  (I made the picking up chicks joke more than once.)

My kids were most looking forward to the corn box, which Rob West built and sewed the curtains for the night before, his wife Erin told me!  Nice job, Rob!  This was after dealing with a fire at the dairy he manages ... good time management.

They had tractor pulls ...

And here Graham Filler and Mindy Voisinet are showing people how to shake heavy cream into butter.  My son told me he felt just like 'Farmer Boy' (by Laura Ingalls Wilder.)

This display was great - not only could you milk water out of a cow, but to make it even more realistic - that is a bucket full of manure!  I felt this was really getting into the spirit of things.  I was talking to the guys running this station and one said to me, "Wait ... don't you live on a dairy farm?" As in, why are you here and why are your kids so eager to milk this pretend cow?  BECAUSE IT'S FUN!

I had to do a little research on this one.  Kids were running around with these gloves from the vet station.  My friend RaeLynne asked me why it had one elongated finger ... and I didn't know, since I'd never seen one like this before!  I asked and found out that it's for the internal ultrasound wand. Later, our friend Nick, who is our vet, said he hadn't seen one like this before last week.  It's apparently the latest in vet glove wear.  In stores now!

Stephanie Luark, Melissa Humphrey, and Caleb Stewart - this event wouldn't happen without people like this organizing every single detail ... and planning for months!  (Thank you to all of the volunteers and host farmers - we appreciate it!)

We ended with a visit to the parlor ...

And enjoyed some chocolate milk.  

We look forward to next year.  If you live in Michigan, we hope you can join us.

Then it was back to our own farm, our own cows, and our own little farmer boys.

Thanks, Family Fun at the Farm!

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