Health, Yaks and Amish Land

We always have our first day of school be a field trip of some kind and though we aren't plugging away at books quite yet, we did count this as our first day. There is just too much nice weather for us to enjoy than to be sitting inside doing books.

Jonathon as been researching different cattle that he could be interested in raising and somehow he came across yaks. After finding a yak farm in Michigan, he decided we needed to go visit them. There is also a health musem that I have wanted to take the children to, but it was just too far away for me to take a day trip with them and drive all the way there just for that. The health museum in St. Joseph Mercy Health Center and the Yak farm were just about 18 miles apart, so we combined them to make a fun day. The health museum takes you on a walk through the body. There were lots of fun activities for them to do, read, and compete in.

We figured out that most of us read the word better than seeing and saying the color in ink. This was an interesting activity.

Who wants to crawl through the intestines?

And who wants to come out to the end...our little stinker, that's for sure!

They learned how much money it costs to smoke and what smokers could buy instead.

This nose, if you sat under it, would sound like a really big sneeze. While Diella was in the bathroom we decided we would have her sit under it and take her picture of her reaction. Well, she didn't care at all. I, on the other hand, when I sat under there when noone was looking, got out of there real quick. Good thing the camera wasn't on me at the time. : )

Jonathon seeing how strong he is.....too much work apparently.

Okay, that's better. I was starting to worry about how strong my man was. :D

They learned that their right arm is stronger than their left, except Josiah. He was the same which would make sense since he is ambidextrous (is that how you spell that word?).

And as the competiveness arose in him, he way out did his sisters in this challenge.

Benaiah loved the two slides they had. Just the right size for him.


Now onto the Michigan Yakkers!

We had such a good visit at this farm. The owners were entirely more hospitable than we could have imagined, the children had a fun time playing with their son and we enjoyed learning about the yaks and other critters they had on their farm. They have yaks, sheep, turkeys of all sizes, chickens of different kinds, ducks, a bunny and bees. What a lovely place this was!!!

I believe we gained some knowledge in how the animals are and loved how docile they were, but when Benaiah snuck into the pen with the yaks, I sure wasn't gonna let him get close to those mommas. Yikes, okay, gave this momma a little scare for a second, and I learned that I can squeeze through a split rail fence in short order if need be. : )

They also prepared a meal for us! We were not expecting to be fed, that's for sure. They served yak short ribs, potatoes and beans from their garden. All right up our alley and everything was just delicious! The meat was so moist and definitely liked by us all! Thank you to Michigan Yakkers (Tom and Cayce Kelly) for being so hospitable to our family!

One more stop on the field trip day....Joshua Murphy's Homestead

We weren't expecting horse rides, but what a great way to end our day! We got all sorts of goodies at this stop. Let's see, a bushel of peaches for $17.50 (guess I better figure out what to do with them now), a loaf of homemade bread, watermelon for a snack, horse rides, a bag of organic field corn cobs (so I can make some of my grandma German's corn cob jelly), Jonathon got his first peek at an ice house, saw a mass production of eggs from free range chickens, and I got a lovely, quiet visit for a bit with my sister, Ellen. We don't get too many of those opportunities, and I think my brother was disappointed that he didn't get to join us, but sometimes us ladies just need some chat time. : )

What a full and fun day! We learned so many things from a broad range of topics. I do believe this was a sufficient day of schooling for the children.