The Hood River "Fruit Loop"
On the road with Farm-girl Greta and Farm-girl Mathilda
(The following wonderful pictures were taken by Lisa)
(The following wonderful pictures were taken by Lisa)
The first stop of two is Rasmussen's Farm where an apple celebration was under way. But I don't have any pictures of apples. These amazing looking pears are Canal pears. They taste pretty good, but I still like a bartlett or an Anjou better. These ones were so pretty I kind of wanted to get into the bin with them. (The bins were really large. I could've fit.)
Children among the corn...The one thing the kids enjoyed (for the four minutes it lasted) was the corn maze which I thought was pretty neat. As you go through the maze you see little 3-D scenes from the three little pigs made of gourds and antiques. It was pretty cute.
Draper's Farm, the second of two stops. You probably won't believe me when I tell you that this dude has four horns. Rams usually have two. Why isn't this guy famous? Lisa did take pictures where his side horns are more visible, but this was the handsomest one. This guy is quite a stud.
These are the same kind of pigs we saw at the Oregon State Fair, only these are babies. They make the best noises imaginable and snorffle around for grub with the most charming insouciance. These babies will become very large in time. It turns out that Lisa and I both really enjoy hanging out by the pigs.
OK, how can you not find this tail at least a little bit charming? C'mon! Don't you want to pull it out of curl and watch it spring back? Not even a little?
The Horse Princess is reaching for fruit that is no longer there. Or maybe she's just busting a little dance move. Does it matter? She looks so sweet, not at all like a feisty little girl who can rile up a pack of boys faster than I can take a swig of beer.
The Hooligans catch a rare moment of real fun on the swing at the farm. I love this picture so much because of how it stops them in motion...if only this was my real life super-power we could have sat down to enjoy this view of Mt. Hood and our boys laughing and not complaining at all. There's still time for me to accidentally fall into a vat of nuclear waste...
It only lasted a few minutes, but it was really nice. I actually did sit down for a couple of minutes and enjoyed watching these guys forget all their "boredom" and complaints to just goof off and be in the moment.
Who wouldn't want to live here? (As a matter of fact, the Draper Farm is for sale.) If I didn't already love where I live, I'd totally be contacting the real estate agent. But the pigs would have to come with the twenty acres.
We had to take a picture of it. To get home from the "fruit loop" we drove all the way around the base of Mt. Hood and saw a few really nice looking camp grounds and views. This one kind of caught my breath. You can't see it, for many good reasons, but there are three children peeing right off to the side of this majestic view. Amazing how the mighty and the quotidienne blend together in harmony every day, every where.The DO's and DON'T's of travelling with a six year old, a five year old, and a three year old without parental sedation:
- DO multiply the number of children you are travelling with by the average number of times each one will have to pee to get the number of times you will have to stop to pee whether or not there is a place to stop for peeing.
- DO bring plenty of changes of clothes for the accidents and "accidents" that will inevitably occur. (There is no mathematical equation with which to prepare yourself for these as accidents are as random as the lottery.) (Notice that I have not claimed "accidents" to be random since we all know what I mean by these.)
- DON'T assume that gently asking two boys to stop pestering a feisty-yet-sensitive three year old will suffice. Not even if you ask them five times. Be prepared to threaten them with bodily harm in order to scare the living bejeezus out of their heathen souls in order to get them to even hear you.
- DON'T expect the three year old to help maintain order amongst the heathen boys, she has just as much of the wild heathen in her and will help to stir the pot of exciting trouble just as you think you've got everything under a firm hand.
- DON'T assume that just because children have consumed entire bags of fancy goldfish crackers, huge bags of Nilla Wafers, some popcorn, milkshakes and sodas, waffles, granola bars, and Cheese Nips, that they will ever stop being hungry.*
- DO assume that just as you have taken care of the capacious needs of one child's tummy that the next one will suddenly find that they have more room in their tummy too. Do assume that they will never all be hungry at the exact same moment.
- DON'T expect the kids (especially the five and six year old) to be as impressed as you are with the gorgeous mountains (Mt. Hood) and powerful rivers (The Columbia River) that you are passing. But if they do suddenly get excited about the trecherous cliffs they see out the window, enjoy it, because in five seconds the bickering over legos will resume.
- DO treasure the moments of pure fun like when the little heathens are swinging on a swing at a farm whose situation in front of Mt. Hood renders it a gorgeous spot to pretend you aren't about dead with exhaustion even though it's only three in the afternoon and you won't get home for another four hours.
- DON'T look at other people when you take three kids to a restaurant or you may be forced to see the less sympathetic element glaring at you because your boys are using the table as a landing pad and base for an army of lego fighters. They will continue to glare at all the loud demands the kids make and the noises of discontent emanating from your table. Just keep your eyes on the food or pretend you're not sure how the hell you landed at a table with three strange kids you've never met before.
- DON'T travel two and a half hours with three children to see anything less exciting than a NASA space shuttle about to take off. Corn mazes will not excite them for more than five minutes. Even four-horned-freak rams offer only seconds of amusement to your average child. To the naturally sharp minded kid, the amusement will actually only last a nano-second.
- DO acquaint yourself with the litter laws in your state before taking a trip during which your children may ask you to open the windows in case you notice things mysteriously flying out of them. It's possible that state troopers will think poorly of popcorn flying out the windows of vehicles.
- DO make sure there is plenty of beer to drink at the end of the road. And fantastic food. And a dungeon to toss the children into for a few hours of parental decompression. Don't worry about the child protection services busting you for this, all the best parents are doing it now!
*It should be noted here that this is not the usual daily diet of these children, not even Max.