Thanksgiving point has been advertising than on Tuesdays (in August) admission for either Farm Country, the gardens or the Museum of Ancient life is just $2/person. So I asked Kyle to take a Tuesday off of work and let’s just go to Thanksgiving Point and do what there is to do. So he did, and we went. When we got to Thanksgiving Point the line to get into the museum was just insane. So we decided to go check out the line to get into Farm Country, and it was a lot more acceptable so we parked and went there. There was so much to see there. There were a few baby chicks and a baby turkey to see, and there were some eggs in an incubator.I got a picture of Tyra and Dinah sitting on a large cow statue (Ethan wanted to sit on it by himself, but didn’t get the chance because other people beat him to it, and Jeremy freaked out when Kyle tried to put him on it.)
We looked around a bit inside and there was a cow statue with rubber utters that the kids could try ‘milking’ and there were bucket weights to show the kids about how much food each kind of farm animal eats in a day, and there was an area showing where milk comes from and the process it goes through from cow to bottle.
Then we went outside. There were goats of all kinds (well many kinds), and Llamas, big horses and little horses. Various kinds of turkeys and chickens and even a male and female peacock. There was also a pond with various water fowl. There were several different kinds of rabbits, and one of them even had a bunch of babies (not brand new babies, considering they were out of the nesting box and had fur already). And there were cows and sheep (Kyle says there were some pigs but I didn’t see them).
There were some dispensers that you could purchase corn from to feed to the animals, but Kyle and I didn’t have any quarters, so our kids picked up whatever corn they found on the ground that other people had dropped, and they had a lot of fun having the goats and other animals lick the food out of their hands.
We went for a wagon ride (pulled by a team of large white horses names Holly and Bell) while we were there. And I enjoyed checking out their small garden area for ideas for what to do with our garden. They had raised beds (we do too) and I really liked the way they had water going to each bed, so we took pictures for future reference. 😉
The kids played in a couple of play houses and there was a building with a whole bunch of vegetable and fruit cards that the kids could ‘plant’ in the ground (actually it was a large tire with plywood in it that had slots to place the cards) or hang the card on a bush or tree (to help the kids learn what type of plant each food grows on).
There were several baby cows to look at and I think the teeth on this one are awesome (Kyle thought so too, so he decided to take the picture). They look like they are too big for the calf’s mouth. Dinah also started crying that the cow bit her thumb, but she kept changing which thumb got bitten, and I didn’t see any marks so she was perfectly fine, but she was certainly afraid to touch any of the animals after that.
And to finish the day off, we purchased tickets for the kids to have a pony ride. Actually we said that we would do the pony ride next time but Jeremy was very upset about that, and since the pony line had died down since we had first got there, Kyle decided to go ahead and get tickets so the kids could ride the ponies. Well after waiting in the line, when it was finally their turn, I went in with the kids to help them up on the ponies (and I walked next to Dinah’s pony to make sure she didn’t jump off 😛 ).
As soon as the ponies began walking though, Jeremy (the boy that was very disappointed at being told we wouldn’t ride ponies today but next time) freaked out! I just looked at him and told him to hold on tight. 😉 (The above picture was taken BEFORE the pony started moving.)
We all had a lot of fun though, and there are more pictures in the photo gallery.