Day 3 – Agriculture Museum

Friday, July 15

Our third day was at the farm.  We headed off to the Canada Agriculture Museum to see what we could learn about various farm animals and machinery.  Our first stop was in the dairy barn where we could visit the cows and feed them and later learn about how they are milked.  They had demonstrations throughout the day where the kids could learn different aspects of farm life.  Having grown up on a dairy farm and Rob having plenty of farm experience we were able to explain it to the kids ourselves, but they still liked the various demonstrations … even if the people were not very knowledgeable (student employment)

During the Feeding Demonstration they talked about the various foods that cows eat and then the kids were able to help mix up a selection of pellets and pick a cow to feed

  

Matthew’s cow:

Take note of the names of the cows that the girls picked:

 

Petting the calves in the calf barns

 

The playground was very very cute and nicely done with it being a farm set-up that the kids could climb and slide and ride on

Matthew inside the silo

The upper part of the one barn had a museum and information about how tractors evolved.  What a luxury farmers have it doing field work now compared to 100 years ago. 

Matthew liked this tractor.  It was a simulator of the differenced between steel wheels compared to rubber wheels.  You could chose the type you would like by pushing the lever down on either the steel tire or the rubber tire. 

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Marietta giving it a try

This tractor would simulate a bumpy tractor ride.

The ice cream demonstration was well attended and all the kids stood in line to take a turn or two stirring the ice cream maker handle.  Since I have an ice cream maker at home this concept is not totally new to our kids.  Their recipe was different then the basic one I use … and it was delicious … likely due to the fact that when I make ice cream I do it to reduce the sugar (and make a healthier version then then the many additives of the store bought variety).  I’m sure if I added as much sugar as the recipe calls for mine would be just as yummy :) 

 

While we were visiting Eeyore the Donkey Mr Billy-Goat decided he wanted some attention also and stuck his head through the fence behind Matthew and tried to nibble at him to get Matthew’s attention.  

  

We also seen some rabbits, chickens, horses, pigs and piglets, a farrowing crate display, a butter making demonstration, as well a very nicely done informative honey bee demonstration/displays

Matthew saying hi to one of the Clydesdale work horses which would pull people around for wagon rides. 

It was another day with lots of walking around in the hot weather, but the kids had fun and the museum grounds was small enough that we did not have to be with them every minute.  The playground was in the middle with a nice shaded picnic area, where we had lunch and let the kids play and roam around for a bit while we relaxed and napped.  It sure gets easier once you have kids out of diapers and older kids to babysit!

I’ve had a difficult summer as far as allergies go and after 20 minutes in the dairy barn I was sneezing, my nose was constantly dripping and I had an extremely itchy palate (mouth) , my eyes were itchy and I needed to keep my distance from the barn after that.  I’ve never had an allergy reaction so quickly and strongly before … but then, I’ve never had allergies as bad as this year before. 

By late afternoon we were hot enough and had walked around enough that we decided to head home and cool off for a bit … thankfully the air conditioning was actually on at the house … altho you couldn’t tell in our room which continued to be a sauna the whole time, even with a large fan going (which I asked for as a hint that the room was hot)… setting the temperature at 26C on the main floor does not make for a very cool upstairs.  I really should not complain seeing as that is what we usually set our a/c at when we had central air at our old house … but our bedrooms were on the main floor/upper floor … there was no upstairs to cool … heat rises!!  Even though we said our room was hot the temperature remained high and we ended up opening our windows at nights to get some relief from the stuffiness (how’s that for efficiency?).  The last night someone touched the thermostat …teehee … and it wasn’t me since I knew how frugal the lady was, but I should have just done it myself the nights before.  Wow it was lovely that night, we slept in comfort and relief from the heat.  She came in the kitchen in the morning to comment that someone had put the thermostat at 19C and I could honestly say it wasn’t us but I did also say “well it worked, it was actually cool in our room last night!”  Too bad it took until the last night.

After supper we decided to check out a splash pad for some cool fun. We looked on mapquest and then I took my computer with so we would have a map since we did not have a mapbook … just my luck, the page closed and once we got in the vehicle we no longer had internet service.  We couldn’t find the park so we ended up just going to the one right by where we were staying … but gave up rather quickly as all that came out of it was a trickle.  After telling our hostess about our unsuccessful find we received a mapbook to borrow … came in very handy and we were able to find some better splash pads later.