Early Spring: Puddles, Chickens, & Baby Goats

Receding snow at our nearby park

My friend said it very well today: "It's cold, but it's spring cold." Not so bitter and bone-chilling. There's more light and longer days. The two feet of snow from our blizzard has almost melted away, and when I walk outside I can smell mud and new grass. Yes!

Getting in some serious puddle time.

Last week Ladybug was in no mood to participate in farm class, which was not her fault. We'd just had a pretty miserable slog through a lot of snow, trying to walk from the train station to the farm. What was normally a ten minute walk took an hour. Yuck. So when we did get to the farm, we warmed up in a side room, reading books about insects and sheep. Then Ladybug played in puddles, and we got to see two foxes! I was more excited about the foxes than she was. Her favorite was a rabbit burrowed in a little hole. 


I mentioned in this post that I went a little overboard on winter books. This week I returned most of the forty picture books I had borrowed from the library for Valentine's and winter. I checked out a much smaller number of springtime titles. One of them is Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker. It's basically the classic "One, two, buckle my shoe" rhyme, with a little added fun at the end when all the hen's friends show up and hatch their chicks. Ladybug has also learned "Los Pollitos Dicen," a traditional Spanish children's song about a mother hen and her baby chicks.

All this reading and singing is why I was very excited that farm school this week would feature chickens! And the great part is we made it to class, with Bug in a good mood, so she got to enjoy seeing them. We even got a special peek at the "Employees Only" room where all the baby chicks live in their incubators.

    

After the visit to the poultry house, we saw three baby goats who were just days old. Ladybug explained, "The baby goats are asleep next to their mother!" Yep.

The little pile of three sleeping baby goats.

I'm so glad spring is finally here.