Monday, October 18, 2010

Poem for Monday and South Mountain Creamery Animals

A Farm-Picture
By Walt Whitman


Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding;
And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.

--------

We had a pretty quiet Sunday compared to our Friday and Saturday -- well, all of us except Adam, who was invited to the Potomac River Jam by a friend and went canoeing there, which was, to quote Adam, "epic." Plus they visited the lock house and had free fruit and other snacks. The rest of us had pancakes and scrambled eggs for lunch made with the buttermilk and pepper jack cheese we got at South Mountain Creamery on Saturday, then went for a hike at Cabin John Park, since the weather was once again gorgeous, not too warm but very sunny. We also made a food store run and I started laundries -- big excitement, I know. But speaking of South Mountain Creamery on Saturday, here are some more photos from the Family Festival of the Farm event there:


Calves often share space with chickens in the calf barn at South Mountain Creamery.


However, this was the first time we saw piglets in the barn...


...or sheep, which were not visiting at the festival last year.


There are probably always chicks, but the barn in which the incubators are kept is not usually open for visitors as it was on Saturday.


The festival had local alpacas visiting in a pen outdoors...


...and bees from a local honey producer (the queen is the one marked with a red dot).


We often meet cats at South Mountain Creamery. This one was wandering around in the barn where there were demonstrations of how to make butter and ice cream.


And of course there are cows. These had just come out of the milking barn and stopped for a drink on the way out to the fields.

We missed most of the Ravens-Patriots game while we were hiking, but we got home during the fourth quarter and watched the overtime, all of which was exciting until the very end when Baltimore lost. Later, we interrupted the Redskins-Colts game to watch Boardwalk Empire, which I'm still appreciating but not exactly enjoying; I expect everything to end badly for everyone, which makes it hard to get attached to any of the characters (the track record for women so far has not been good), but the acting and the submersion in the era of the show has been excellent -- I adored the St. Patrick's Day celebration this week, particularly the music. It doesn't look like Washington is going to manage to beat Indianapolis but at least they played respectably the first three quarters.

No comments:

Post a Comment