Field Trip!

My son went on his very first field trip yesterday. They went to a local orchard to celebrate the begining of autumn, despite the fact that it was in the 90's and positively sweltering. Also, due to a really bad spring frost they were not allowed to pick their own apples. No one seemed to mind though, as they were promised a bag of apples fromthe orchards when they left, and there were plenty of other activities to keep them occupied. BTW, if you've never had a fresh apple, you do not know what you are missing. They are so much better than those waxy things you get at the grocery store. If you live anywhere near and orchard, get yourself there right away and get you some fresh apples. Ditto, the fresh apple cider. Which, if you're dealing with 30 Kindergarteners would probably be much better if it were Irished up. I'm just throwing that out there. Because I'm concerned about my readers.

When the kids first arrived at the orchard, they were taken on a tractor ride through the orchard, where they could see the apples they could not pick. It was hot and there were a lot of bugs, which sent the girls, and several of the boys (my son included) into hysterics. Fun!

After the hot bug filled tractor ride, we got to watch an "Entertaining and Educational" show about apples. Now I have to give Billy Jo Bob Appleseed props here, because he tried to keep the energy up, but how long can you expect a group of 5 year olds to pay attention to a show about apples? Let's face it, you can wrap it up with the word "entertaining" all you like, but if it doesn't involve something exploding or being fired from a canon (I'll get back to this later), they're going to lose interest after about 2 minutes. Billy Joe Bob did make some good points and I'll concede that apples are awesome if you think about it. They are incredibly versatile and if there is anything better than warm dutch apple pie with vanilla ice cream on it, I haven't found it yet, but exciting? No. The kids were far more interested in throwing straw at each other from the bales they sat on, which let to much shushing and sit-downing from some very hot and irritable chaperones.

When Billy Jo Bob Appleseed released us from his happy apple prison we were off to the pig races. Oh, that's right, I said it. Pig races. I don't care who you are, if the words 'pig race' comes up, you want to see it. There were 4 races around a rather large mud track featuring such racers and Brad Pig, Angelina Jolie-Pig, Pigny Spears, Paris Hamton, Mario Hamdretti, Dale Porkheart, Jr, and many other celeb names altered to add pig/pork/ham/etc into them. Apparently they have a lot of time on the farm. The racing pigs are trained with oreo cookies. The pig who makes it around the track and back into the barn first gets the oreo. This is my kind of motivation. See, if my trainer offered me oreo cookies at the end of a session, I'd be much more into it. The third race, which featured potbellied pigs was my personal favorite. I have a dog named Pepper, who my mother swears up and down looks like a potbellied pig. Pepper is half pug and half shih tzu, and pure adorable. She *might* be a smidge overweight (her vet has the gall to call her obese), but I prefer to think of her as festively plump. Now that I've seen a potbellied pig up close (hm, a sentence I never thought to write), I can see the resemblance. Pepper would never run for food though. We bring the food to her, she does not go get it. This is the way it is. We've been trained well.

Pig races over, it was time for the mine shaft slide. This is a weird thing that only children would want to do and only bored farmers or frat boys would think up. It's a 3 foot round pipe buried in a hill. A big hill. More like a mountain really. The get into the pipe at the top (which they enter through a building that has been built to resemble a mine shaft-hence the name) and zoom down through the dark and shoot out the bottom of the hill. Sign me up. I stood at the bottom of the hill/mountain and waited. They came zipping down the slide like they had been greased and screaming like, well, 5 year olds. Once they caught their breaths, the first words out of their mouths were "Let's do it again!" and back up the hill/mountain they ran. This lasted for about 4 trips to the top before they were finally tired of running 5 minutes up the hill for a 10 second ride. We then decided to do my least favorite activity of the day: the petting zoo.

I have a serious aversion to petting zoos. It's not that I don't like animals. I do (I have 2 dogs after all), but farm animals are a different thing all together. For one thing, they stink. My dogs get bathed regularly. I don't think petting zoo animals get more than wet when it rains. Also, they are one step away from being wild animals. While I'm sure they're cared for very well, all I can think of is how many germs must be lurking on their stinky little bodies. And, when you feed them (Ack!), they get slobber all over your hands, and if that's not germ-a-poluza, I don't know what is. The kids of course thought this was awesome, because what kid doesn't love cute, germ ridden farm animals? Not one. The farm animals at this petting zoo included the usual assortment, like cows, pigs (Not the racing pigs, the petting pigs were fat and lazy and thought the pigs who ran for oreos were stupid. These kids will give you food and all you have to do is look at them and grunt. Stupid racing pigs. Think they're so much better than regular pigs. Who's laughing now Brad Pig? Who's laughing now?), chickens, mules, ponies, rabbits (who, let's face it, are only there for the cute factor) and for some inexplicable reason, a mini-camel. Given that we live in the mid-west and NOT the middle east, I'm not sure how the camel plays into the whole farm scenario, but the kids thought he was amazing so what do I know? Once they were done getting germed up good, I grabbed every kid I could get my non-germy hands on and wiped them down with anti-bacterial wipes. Would it be too much to expect a handwashing station?

Once I had used my entire supply of antibacterial wipes, we did thethe corn maze. The corn maze was fun, except for one, teeny, tiny thing: it made me sneeze like crazy. I was nearly blessed to death by a pack of overly polite kindergarteners. Me: achoo! Kids (in unison): Bless you C's mommy! Cute right? Now imagine it 800 times. You're starting to understand that Irish Cider thing aren't you? Yeah, I thought so. Lesson learned: I'm allergic to dry corn. Who knew? After the 3rd trip through the corn maze, it was time for the coolest part of the entire day: the Jack-O-Lobber. Remember what I said earlier about how apples would be exciting if they were shot from a canon? Well, multiply that by about a million and you have the Jack-O-Lobber. A cannon that shoots not apples, but pumpkins! A hydrolic pumpkin canon. Oh yeah! According to Red Hot Jose (the Mexican guy who actually shoots the canon), if they put enough pressure into the cannon, they can lob the pumpkins a little over 3 miles. I'm not sure if I believe this, but I so want to. I also want to see it, but they said the neightboring farm would not be pleased to have pumpkins suddenly appear out of nowhere, smashing to smithereens in their orchard. If I was the neighbor, I'd just clear a spot and make it a pumpkin patch. All those seeds are bound to produce something. Free pumpkins. What's not to like? The kids were crazy for the jack-o-lobber and squealed with delight when it shot off: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Three pumpkins at once! The chaperones tried to look suitably impressed with the display of science and engineering, but what we were all secretly thinking was "Holy crap! That is awesome! I wonder if my kid's loudest toy would fit in the canon and how much they'd charge me to shoot it out?"

It was then time for some free play on the playground (read: the chaperones were tired and wanted to sit down in the shade ) and lunch. Before lunch, I of course hauled as many sweaty grubby kids as I could to the bathroom and scrubbed them down (several had wandered back over to the petty zoo, so you know I was't going to let them eat luch after touching those creatures). Once the kids had consumed their sugar laden lunches (I was seriously appauled at the food these kids had for lunch and the mystery of childhood obesity was suddenly solved), they picked up their bags of apples, piled on the bus (where these was much apple eating) and went back to school.

My son and I talked about his day over dinner and what he had seen and done. I asked what his favorite part of the day had been and he looked up, big tired eyes slightly out of focus and said firmly and excitedly: "Riding on a school bus!" That's my boy.