Field trip to Arruda's Dairy Farm

A friend called and said she arraigned a field trip to the dairy farm would I like to join them.  SURE.  We are always up for a fun field trip and this was free!

We learned many new things like, when you buy local you can ask the farmer as many questions as you like and he will answer them.  At Arruda's they do it all themselves.  They grow their own feed for the cows.  They raise the cows from birth.  Some cows become used for beef, some for breeding and some for milk.  


Our tour started at the barn with the calves.  They are so cute.  A one week old one tried sucking on Sam's shirt, hands, face what ever she could get in her mouth.  So funny.

 Then we went outside and learned about the teenagers- aka the trouble makers.  They are beautiful creatures.

 Then we learned about how they grow their own feed for the cows.  How it is stored and the equipment they use to plant the crops and harvest the crops.

They no longer use silo's to store the feed they use a very expensive equipment to put the feed into these huge bags and store it like that, It keeps out all the bacteria and is much easier to use.  

Then we learned about the dairy cows, and how they are milked.  We were happy to find that they do not use hormones or antibiotics in their milk.  

We had a very fun tour of the dairy farm.  I hope we can go back again one day.

This is so exciting....

watching our caterpillars form their chrysalis'.  I find Samantha and myself often walking over to the cup of caterpillars watching them.  We have 2 now in the pupa stage.  I am still hopeful that tiny will turn into a beautiful butterfly.

Volcanoes!

playing and learning all about volcanoes is so much fun.

First she learned about the tectonic plate and we did a fun messy experiment learning about how they move... take a soft boiled egg crack it a bit, draw with marker over the cracks push together and see what happens......

She wasn't expecting the yolk to come out like that just like a volcano blows its lava out. 

She learned the different types of volcanoes, how they erupt differently and what the inside of one looks like.

We then painted a fake one and experimented with different things to make it erupt   She enjoyed this so much.  We erupted the volcano many times.  

We really are having so much fun with the Magic School Bus science kits.

I am hoping this link works.  I will try it and hopefully you will get to see Samantha in action

Samantha and the Erupting Volcano

Samantha and the erupting volcano take 2

We have Caterpillars

They arrived in the mail about 2 weeks ago.  We have 6 caterpillars.  We were supposed to get only 5.

 Samantha has been recording their growth. As of today we have 5 huge hungry caterpillars and one runt.  He is only slightly bigger then when the arrived.  The others are close to being 2 inches.  This little runt is lucky if he is 1 inch long.  I wonder if he will change into a butterfly. Only time will tell.


We are at the second week mark and that is when they start entering the second stage the pupa stage.  I think one is just beginning.  I am hoping the runt or tiny as Samantha calls him will also change we are wondering if he will just be a tiny butterfly.

the runt bottom right 

I think they are starting to go into the pupa stage I think. Well the one hanging on the left he has done that all afternoon.  Wiggling here and there.  

Its exciting to watch and wait.