Fun At Wonder Tree Farm

This week's travel post is part of a travel series of our visit to see our grandchildren in Carmel, Indiana.  If you want to start at the beginning, go HERE. Other posts in chronological order are HERE,  HERE, HERE, HERE,  HERE,  HERE, and HERE!

Visiting farms is a fun educational way to teach children where their food comes from.  While visiting our kids in Carmel, Indiana last fall, one of the things we did was take the grandchildren to a local farm.  It's pretty funny since my husband and I already live in a farming community and the children could visit a farm anytime when they are visiting us...but we did it anyway!

The farm we visited was Wonder Tree Farm in Zionsville, Indiana.  It is a working farm that is open to the public on Farm Days, and they have an on-farm market where you can purchase some of their products and visit with some of their animals.  

Their market offers locally raised pastured meats, farm fresh eggs, raw dairy, and local honey.

Right when you walk through the barn doors, there are many animals ready to greet you.  They were all pretty friendly too, with the exception of one grumpy old billy goat who can you meet in the video at the end of this post. 😀

Of course, my favorite animals of them all were all the kittens!  My oh my, the barn was filled with the most beautiful, adorable kittens!  I wanted to take them all home with me.

Alethea and Atticus both love kitties too.  Just look at the smile on her face!  

Horses and goats were ready to greet us as we entered the barn.  They did not mind being petted at all and seemed to really like the attention.

Is this not the most adorable photo ever?  It's as if the farmer put the kitty here on purpose just for a great advertisement, but he assured me he did not.  The kitty really picked this spot for a nap.

Did you know chickens love watermelon?  I sure didn't.  The farmer got everyone's attention and told us to watch as he threw a watermelon on the ground.  All the chickens came running over and they ate that watermelon as fast as you could blink your eye!

A modest chicken coup can be seen in the distance.  Looks like the donkeys are enjoying the tall grass too.

Some cute ducks.  I've sure been enjoying seeing the ducks come back this spring, have you?

And this baby goat was my absolute favorite.  He was so cute.  He kept trying so hard to get some food, but the bigger goats, especially the big old mean billy goat, would push him out of the way.  Eventually my husband and I figured out a strategy but you will have to watch the video to find out what that was.

You can buy a cup of feed to feed the animals.  They seemed to really appreciate it.

Before we headed home, I had to stop and check out the kitties one more time.  I was amazed the kittens left the chickens alone.  My Jackson would have had one for lunch. 😂

They sure all loved curling up in the hay to nap!

Finally, I have to sneak a picture in here of Atticus with his grandpa.  He wasn't walking yet and was in the stroller the whole time so he didn't get as many pictures taken as Alethea did.

And now the long-awaited video.  This baby goat is so cute, you don't want to miss it!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A Day At The Minnesota State Fair

Last weekend my husband and I attended the Minnesota State Fair.  It was the first state fair I had been to other than the Wisconsin State Fair, so I was anxious to see how different it was from my home state fair.  I was born and raised in Milwaukee and I have spent the majority of my life living in Wisconsin, so the only fair I had been to before was the Wisconsin State Fair.  The last time I went to the Wisconsin State Fair was two years ago.  I wrote a post about that experience HERE.

Since I now live closer to the Minnesota State Fair which is held in Minneapolis (and only two hours away from my home) than I do the Wisconsin State Fair which is held in Milwaukee (four hours away from my home) we decided to check out a new fair this year.  

Everyone knows State Fairs are all about the food, so my husband asked all the locals at his work what were the best things to eat.  The hands down favorite were Sweet Martha's Cookies, so that was the very first place we went to.   The cookies are served warm for $6.00 for a small cone like you see below up to $16.00 for a pail.  We got the cone and split it and it was more than enough for the two of us.

Although we thought the cookies were delicious, we didn't think that they tasted any different than any normal chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven.  They sure did not measure up to the Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff, that's for sure!  My husband and I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.  I mean, it's just a cookie!  Cream Puffs, we can understand.  They are not easy to make, but cookies?  Who can't make a chocolate chip cookie?  If we go to the Minnesota State Fair next year, we will pass on these.

After we had our morning snack of milk and cookies, we then went to my favorite exhibit:  the agricultural building.  I already wrote a separate post on that amazing exhibit HERE if you missed it. It was in this building that we saw all the honey displays and found so many delicious honeys and honey treats for sale.  There were several honey bee homes on display for people to look at.  I always find this process so unfathomable...that flowers bloom, bees gather the pollen, and we get delicious honey.  God's creation certainly is amazing isn't it?

We were heavily warned that the Minnesota State Fair is extraordinarily crowded.  We were there on a Sunday, and it did seem very busy, but no more crowded than the Wisconsin State Fair.  Finding parking was tough even though we got there when the fair opened.  We never tried the State Fair parking, so I don't know how that was.  We parked quite a distance away for free in a residential neighborhood.

Being a quilter myself, I love to look at the quilts.  I am always in awe of the sewing skills of the people who make these quilts.  My favorite one of all was this quilt I found in the Senior Citizen Center.  I just love the simplicity of it...plus it has two of my favorite things:  cats and flowers!

My husband and I are both avid animal lovers, so we probably spent more time looking at and interacting with the animals at the fair than anything else.  Now here is where I felt the Minnesota State Fair did it better than the Wisconsin State Fair.  I never liked looking at the animals at the Wisconsin State Fair because the buildings are small and hot, and the aisles are narrow and crowded.  They had very nice and very large buildings at the Minnesota State Fair.  The aisles were extremely wide, so you could view the animals with ease.  They also had several animals out so you could pet them (see videos below).  We had so much fun in the animal buildings.

I loved this big bunny, his fur was so soft.

The different types of fur on the goats cracked us up.  This one looks like he is wearing a shag rug.

And this one looks like he got a perm!

 These are horses getting ready to enter the coliseum for a competition.  We saw a small portion of that competition and I included a video below.

Because I live in the country, I see cows every single day, but here are a couple I thought were interesting.  I love the coloring on this cow.  Her owner was so proud of her...she won a championship ribbon.

And these farm kids cracked my husband and I up....look at the boy playing on his smart phone!

We had the wonderful opportunity to see baby piglets nursing (see video below), except we felt so bad for one little piglet because his brothers and sisters wouldn't share a nipple.

And this pig was the largest pig at the fair.  Isn't he ugly?

Perhaps my favorite thing I ate at the fair was a home-made pretzel.  In my entire life, I have never, ever tasted a pretzel this delicious.  I will definitely be buying another pretzel if I go back to the fair next year!

The pretzel only cost $6.00 and it was so large my husband and I were able to split one.  You can choose any topping you want plus cheese for no additional cost.  We got a garlic butter flavored one plus cheese.

And here are some fun videos I took while we were at the fair.  They are all super short, most are under a minute.  They are fun to watch and hear my husband's and mine talking in the background.


We thought the horse smiling for the camera when given a carrot was adorable!

Just listen to the piglets squeal as they fight for a nipple of their mother's!

A portion of the horse competition we saw.

This large rabbit was so soft!  I was so happy I got to pet him!

My silly husband and his Aflac Insurance jokes!

And finally, the 4H musical show.  I was really impressed with these kids, and I thought their set was great!

So what about you, did you attend your State Fair this year?  I had so much fun attending a different state's fair other than my own state fair that I said to my husband we should create a bucket list where we attend every state fair in the United States.  Wouldn't that be fun?

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!