Back at the Farm

My grandparents bought a farm the day I was born and it has truly been the best investment for our family. It has a pond, where I spent numerous afternoons as a child fishing with Granddaddy and Daddy. Over the years, he and my uncles have raised horses, cows, dogs, and most recently, quail, chickens, and turkeys out there (see the blog in June 2008 when Jack was introduced to the baby quail). If you can believe it, I took horseback riding lessons and had a paint horse named Buck that I would ride when I had the time. Now he has a horse, a couple of dogs, a couple of quail, a chicken, a rooster, and a turkey. The other birds unfortunately didn't survive the wildlife. Anyways, Jack and I headed to Paris yesterday and it was such a beautiful day that we decided to take him to the farm. His memory amazes me because he had just turned 1 the last time we took him to the farm to see the baby quail and this time at 20 1/2 months old, he ran right to the pen they used to be in and said "chicks". Jack also loves "neighs" (horses), so I thought he would be so excited to see the horse and he was, but if we got within a foot of her he laid his head on my shoulder and wouldn't dare think of petting her. He also kept requesting to see the "bock bocks" (chicken, quail, and rooster). Do you see a trend here? Jack calls most animals by what they say.

Granddaddy wanted to take Jack to the pond to see if there were any ducks on it, so off we went on a walk through the pasture and this is when I started kicking myself for not bringing my camera. The whole way Jack was yelling "Pon! Pon!" and as soon as we got down there, he plopped down on the ground and said "Sit". Thank goodness for camera phones.

Now I don't remember ever seeing my grandparents hold hands, much less have I ever gotten a picture of such an event. It's actually a joke sometimes when I call them and ask Granddaddy what they are doing. He'll say "Oh we're just sitting here holding hands.". They were holding hands walking back from the pond and when Jack saw this he wanted to hold GG's hand too, so again, thank goodness for camera phones! I don't know that there will ever be a more priceless picture to me.

I have to tell another Jack story while I'm at it. The other day when I picked Jack up from the babysitter's they told me that her son was playing a deer hunting game on the Wii and when they told Jack it was a deer on the tv he corrected them and said it was a buck. I could not for the life of me think of how this child would know what a buck was until yesterday. As soon as we got to my grandparents' house, Jack went to the stairs, pointed up and said "buck deer". Granddaddy has a buck mounted on the wall up there and the last time we were home he took Jack upstairs to see it. Again, what a memory!