Our Camping Trip to Mansfield...

So we took a trip to Missouri to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds' Spring planting festival. We try to go every year and this was our 3rd year. We took the tent instead of the motorhome (less work) and more flexibility in where you can drive. Naturally it was rainy when we got there... although not as bad as some of the stuff we drove through on the way... we put the tent up very quick, if i say so my self and got every thing inside, beds, food, clothes. Then it started to rain harder... we ate some sandwiches and got into bed... it poured until we fell asleep.

In the morning it was beautiful and we had some sunshine. We went to visit the horses that the campsite owners have and had some breakfast... then the kids played a little outside, climbing the tree behind the tent and stuff... We also noticed these gross slugs slithering across our tent... i think we found 3 of them.


Of course we took a few photos! Couldn't resist!





Those cute little feet hanging down... He always wants to climb trees (We called him monkey when he was little because he tried to climb up us) but we don't have any climbing tree around the house... all the limbs are 10 feet up or so. But this little tree was perfect! Even Anthony tried climbing a little and Jerry of course! haha! Oh! their pants were rolled up because the grass was still so wet and we didn't want their pant legs to be soaking!


Finally we got in the truck and decided to drive around and explore and make our way to Len's house for a visit. (Len is the guy we are the soil distributor for) But on the way into town we had see a caboose at a park-like spot, so we decided to go see that first. They discovered this nest of eggs a few minutes after they got there! What beautiful eggs!!! The mommy bird was squaking and tweeting away, sitting on top of the caboose!!!

The boys played a bit on it, they pretended to drive of course and made all kinds of noise!

Then we started for a drive through countryside toward Len's. We took every back road we could find that was sort of headed in that direction... The poor gps, it kept rerouting us and i am sure if it could think would have thought we were idiots! But we found some beaustiful things along the way! They have these streams all over... and most of them are made so that if they get too full they just run over the roads, or they run over the road anyways... ha! But so lush, green and clean smelling, it was so refreshing exploring!

I don't think the boys could run out of rocks here to throw!!! But they would try if they were there longer! The water was sooooo clear! and beautiful!!

While Jerry and Alex explred an area that Anthony couldn't cross and i didn't want to go through the poison ivy... Anthony and i did a mini photo shoot. (are you surprised!?)

Dirty jeans and all...


Oh! and he threw some more rocks! he would poick them up on one side and throw them over the edge on the other side!! So funny! We were here a good 20 minutes and we never saw another car!


When Alex got back from exploring (and finding a dead armadillo) i made him pose for me too!!! Can't you believe it!!!?

He was thrilled...

This one is for April, my sister...



We saved a turtle form the road along the way and then we found these lazy cows... They looked so funny sitting down in the grass... their little ears sticking up...




The next day was the show... and it was perfect!!!! no rain... and sunshine and some clouds! Last year it rained all day... and had been raining all week... it was a MESS!!! But this year was great!!!


We need one of these old gadgets... you put the dried corn in and it takes all the kernals off when you crank the handle! We dried corn last year to make corn meal with... it is so sore on the fingers to get off the cob when it is dry!!! This thing was cool! We will have to keep our eyes open for one!

Then the guy demonstrating would dump the kernels in hear after blowing away the junk... and this would grind it into cornmeal. We use quite a bit of cornmeal at our house for some reason... we make corn bread a lot... everybody loves it and we can buy 25 pound bags of organic cornmeal locally... so this would be great to use.



Alex picked up the corn kernels from the ground at the previous display and put then in a bags... then he fed them to the chicken that they have. We met a family as we were waiting in line to enter and we saw them again over at the chicken section... so Alex shared his corn with the boy...

Anthony fed the grass to the chickens with the little girl of the family. These kids were so cute! I think they were Amish... the little girl kept trying to squeeze Anthony's cheeks!


On our way home we saw this creepy cloud... it was moving so fast and it went right over and kept on blowing and keeping its shape...

Anthony was sleeping one of the times we stopped at a rest area on the way home.... Alex convinced Jerry to "play" with him for a few minutes at the rest area playground! so funny!
We bought a few seeds and met the Majerus Family that makes the Clyde's Garden planners. That was fun and they are such a beautiful (inside and out) family! We went to a few classes, one on composting, it was my favorite this year. Although we did learn in another class that there are about 450 named types of garlics in the world! goodness! we only have 5! We bought some purple basil and talked to the guy who we bought a bluebird house from our first year. We looked at ALLLL the chickens and were scared half to death by a crazy donkey!!! They are soooo loud! Alex liked to watch the blacksmith at work in his shop. We bought a couple rhubarb plants, some sweet potato starts and my favorite parsley called Forrest Green. I think we walked around every thing at least twice. It was a great day and over way too soon!!

Someday when we have ready the Little House on the Prarie books with the kids we will take them to Laura Ingalls Wilder's house... it is there in Mansfield and i am sure will be neat for the kids to see... when they care!

The trip went way too fast, though. We had to spread the tent back out when we got home so it could dry... we woke up at 3:30 in the morning... we just couldn't sleep... the boys were both sleeping with us and there was a train the kept coming by a few miles away, but we could hear it... so we whispered that we were ready to go... to we packed everything up in an hour in the dark!!! and Headed home!! We were some tired puppies when we got home... i mean what kind of freak wakes up at 3:30 in the morning to take down their tent... Us, i guess...