Farm Living Is the Life for Me

Or at least farm visiting. I didn't realize that I had not yet taken Dennis on a grand tour of my Aunt & Uncle's farm near Prairietown, Illinois. I had been telling him about picking blackberries though, and we wanted to meet up with my Mom and Chris before they left for Indiana for a few days, so we decided to kill a few birds with one stone by heading over there for the evening.

First we stood around petting Commanche and Star for a while. Dennis is a little shy around horses, but he likes them. 'Manche is too sick to ride, so we just talked to them and smashed a few horse flies. Then we headed out to the cow pasture to get blackberries. I did not realize that Dennis has never ridden a four wheeler before, so I had to teach him and remember to not run off without him.

We picked about 300 yards of brambles along the back pasture fence. There were berries everywhere. These are the serious kind, with deadly thorns that reach out and grab your arms and legs, and sometimes swing around behind you and smack you across the back. I always thought that a little bit of blood makes the berries taste sweeter. We wound up with about eighteen cups (a gallon plus a little) worth of them. (I didn't measure how many they ate before they could get into the buckets.)



The next stop was the cow herd. They've taught the cows to come when they are called by feeding them day-old bread. We hollered the secret code word ("Dolly, Dolly, Dolly") and the whole herd came rambling over, headed by the new red Limousine bull. We were hand feeding them hamburger buns for about half an hour. You can even reach out and pet the bull on the nose after he scoops the bread out of your hand with his tongue. There were two babies that were just a few days old, and as cute as can be. We got on the same side of the fence as the herd, and walked among them. It was really cool. This is a new trick, the bull they had when I was in High School would have killed you if you tried this. He ran me up onto more than one hay bale in his time. I definately like the new bull a whole lot better.

We ended the night by eating at the Village Drive In in Bunker Hill. It is right next door to the apartment my Greatgrandma used to live in with her canaries, and right down the street from the Catholic church where we used to have all of our family reunionis. The food is very good, and very cheap. *yum*