A Morning Walk

Every morning, that I'm with our Little One, we go for a stroller walk.

I specify stroller because we can go farther than if she was walking.

(we do her speed walks at other times)

A great destination for us is about 6 blocks away from our house.

What we like about this yard is that it is an ultra-mini farm in the city, right in our neighbourhood.

Benches have been set up between the sidewalk and street so we can sit and enjoy all the work they have done.

When we get there the Little One gets out of the stroller and looks around.

 

First stop is at the chickens!

They are not out everyday but we are always thrilled when they come out to see us.

We've learned a few things about chickens over the past few weeks.

They scratch the ground and then they peck at it (we're not sure if they are looking for worms or bugs) and they go "buuuuck, buck, buck, buuuuck", which we try to copy.

This ultra-mini farm has apple trees

and raspberries.

We had a conversation about not picking other's fruits unless there is a sign saying we can.

This morning my grand daughter reminded to stop and look for the little things.

Like snails and ants.

And bumblebees!

 We enjoyed taking the time to look around that we did that all the way home

 We found a community garden that has fun, informative signs.

We talked to people walking their dogs.

 We found other gardens that had lots of flowers, pig statutes and bird houses.

We counted the bikes as they whizzed by (there were a lot).

We watched the BIG lawn mower cut the grass in the park.

It was loud and a little scary.

And right by our house we saw this crane.

Wow!

All of this during a walk around a small part of our neighbourhood.

Hope you enjoyed our walk.  We did!

Chicks to the Farm

Our chicks are a week old so time to move them to the farm.

This year we were able to take them ourselves.

We are fortunate to have a very supportive Parent Advisory Council that paid for a bus

for us to travel on.

The chicks rode in the front seat all the way to Clea's place

where Clea explained that the chicks would still live inside 

for a while longer.

We started with a tour of two chicken coops,

first was the summer coop that had fresh plants growing.

The big chickens will move into that coop soon.

Meantime they are still in the winter coop.

These chickens are the ones that we hatched last year.

Seeing them gave us an idea of what this year's chicks will grow up to look like.

Next we went and visited the cows.

They were across the field so Clea told us to call them.

We yelled 'Cow, cow, here cow' and they came running.

They are very friendly and like to eat grass.

Next we met Clea's mom who is a Master Beekeeper.

She was outfitted to open a hive.

First she explained that the bottom two boxes are the bees home so they don't 

take the honey from them.

 

She lifted out one of the frames and we could see the bees on it.

She picked one that the honey was capped and brushed the bees off.

We got to taste it.  Yum!

Clea also taught us the difference between honey bees and wasps,

as well as mason bees.

Finally we settled on the grass for a snack and story

before climbing back on the bus for the ride back to school.

Crafting with our Buddies

Last week we got together with our grade 5 big buddies and made a craft.

We made bumble bees.

I found the idea at Housing a Forest.

 We used pre-cut cardboard ovals, yellow and black yarn, tongue depressors,

and googly eyes (glue needed to attach them).

Each big buddy had made their own bee earlier in their own classroom.

First they wound the yellow and black yarn around the oval.

 
As I looked around the gym I saw many buddy pairs working together.  Big buddies guiding their little buddies, letting them try to make their bee.

 Here are a few of our Buddy Bees.