Day 89

18th March 2022

Farm School

Someone was up early this morning and captured this sunrise on my phone.

It was Mila. She’s usually our sleepy head when it comes to mornings but not today.

Today was our first day out of Covid lockdown AND we were going to Farm School!

They’d already organised their things the night before and we’d received a txt from Farmer Jim saying,

“Pack swimmers tomorrow.”

I thought Mila was going to burst.

Liam was still feeling tired, so I drove them to the farm. I attempted to put sunscreen on them as they dodged me left & right, and then they were off!

I sat down at a cafe to start work, but every time the waitress came over, I felt obligated to spend more money and after a couple of hours it was costing me a fortune so I bailed, and went looking for the library.

I was sent on a detour through the prettiest countryside.

I was cruising along, the sun was shining, U2’s “Where The Street’s Have No Names’ came on the radio, and I felt free.

Big Blue Slide!

At the end of the day, they piled out of the van wearing their swimmers, dumped their bags at my feet & ran straight to the park.

“Ah, hi!” I said.

“Mum, do we have any plans?” Lincoln called back to me.

Crap! No, no, no, no. Quick, think!

This is a trap.

If I say no, I could be stuck at this park for an hour. But it’s 3pm, I’ve been at the library all day, I want to go home.

“Ah, well I was thinking we could get some pies from the pie shop.” I said, like an undefeatable warrior. 👍

His eyes lit up.

“20 minutes?” He negotiated.

“5.” I retaliated.

“10?” He came back.

“8!” I said.

Then he was gone.

$20 for pies and 8 minutes. That’s ok. I can do that.

Once we were settled with pies & driving home, I asked them all about it.

“How was your day?”

“We went on a 2-story slide!!” Mila blurted out, finally ready to talk.

“It’s bigger than Jim’s house!” Lincoln said.

“He needs to pull it with a tractor.” He continued.

“We can only slide for 2 hours because it’s so big it overheats his system.” Lincoln informs me.

“We put soap on our bums, and it made us slide so fast!” Mila went on.

“Yeh, Jim just randomly yelled out SOAP!” Laughed Lincoln.

“Cool!” I said. “Did Jim go down too?” I asked

“Yeh, he went down with Saxon.” Mila said.

“Just before we jumped, we were all calling out, tell my parents I love them, because it was so high.” Mila said.

Watch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIkd1vYAV8

“After that we stayed in our swimmers & went to the waterfall!” Mila said excitedly.

“I went in the car with Jadey and all the girls.” Mila continued.

“We played Enchanto the whole way and we sung the whole way!” She went on. (Enchanto is her favourite!)

“We had a stick race.” Linc joined in.

“Jim won twice. My stick was called Porcupine. I also used a leaf. Jesse used moss.” Mila said chatting away.

“Really, how did the moss go?” I asked.

“It didn’t. It sunk.” She answered with a giggle.

“So, what happened next? What was the plan?” I asked

“We planned for carbs.” Lincoln said.

“We peeled potatoes with that spiral thing and then we put them in the pot.” Lincoln continued.

“Then Jade made mashed potato and we had bread rolls with garlicy mashed potato and CHEESE!” He announced.

“Cheese?! You love cheese.” I said.

“I know. REAL cheese.” Mila said.

“It wouldn’t be farm school without some carbs.” Lincoln declares. 😂

“We made a hair train, mama.” Mila says.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, we all sat on the trampoline and braided hair. I did a fish braid in Maddy’s hair because her hair is really long.” She went on.

“I’m buying a motorbike off Jim for $100.” Lincoln declared.

“Oh.” I said nervously.

“Jim said no one uses it. I told him I have $100, but he said he paid $300 for it. I’m going to save up some more money and ask him again.” He said. 🙄

Not long after, they fell silent.

The pies eaten.

They were yawning as we pulled into the driveway and were in bed by 7pm.

They asked if they could go to Farm School every day. 😍