Farm Fun - May 28th thru June 4th

For those who may not know, "the farm," is property in very remote Missouri, about 30 miles south of Salem, Missouri.  The drive is about 2 hours and 45 minutes from Springfield.   Michael's grandfather, George Hellmuth, acquired the property bit by bit over a span of 30+ years.  Michael's parents currently live on the property, and there are several other houses there that are rented out, or used by family when we visit.  It is the most beautiful place I have ever been, very peaceful and relaxing, as well as full of adventure and fun.  Also, it is right near many springs and natural attractions that we like to take field trips to when we are visiting.  So, here's what we did the first week we visited this summer.

We stayed at Uncle George's house, it has been recently renovated and has four bedrooms and two baths.  It was plenty of room for the clan we brought to the farm.  For the first weekend it was Michael, Astara, Cheyenne, Cora, Henry, George, Liam, and myself.  Michael and Cheyenne had to return to work and school on Monday, and the rest of us stayed until the next Saturday.  Here are some pics of fun times we had together.

Daddy and Liam "hanging" out

Daddy fishing....he did this a lot this trip.

Astara had a good time finding interesting creatures. 
I'm not sure how she found this one, but it
 was the smallest frog any of us had ever seen.  

Cheyenne and Cora had a mini photo shoot,

 this is one of the pictures Cora snapped of Cheyenne. 

It isn't hard to get a good picture of this beautiful girl.

One of the super fun things we did on the trip was to teach, or refresh, all of the kids on how to play solitaire.  After they got good at playing on their own, we decided to let them play double solitaire with two of the masters!  We had so much fun playing together. 

Cheyenne brushing up on her solitaire game.

During the week, we decided to have one of the nights be a "girl's night."  After the boys went to bed, Astara, Cora, and I stayed up late to do some fun stuff.  We did mud masks, from the Dead Sea Mud that Auntie Cara gave us from the Middle East.  Then, we did some hair braiding, nail painting, microwave s'mores, and we stayed up late and watched a few comedy shows. 

Cora and Astara's mud mask

Pretty toes!

This is Astara's nine small braids into three braids,

into one BIG braid.  Turned out pretty cool looking.

This is one of Cora's cool braids.

There always seems to be something new to see at the farm.  This trip it was Roaring Springs.  We have seen this on a previous trip, but it was very overgrown and hard to get to.  This time, the way to the spring had been cleared, and there was a new suspension bridge over the creek.  This was our first time seeing the bridge and the cleared area around the spring. 

 The kids striking a pose at the new suspension bridge at Roaring Springs.

On Friday, June 3rd, we took a fun field trip to Montauk State Park.  We ate at the restaurant inside the park, then we ventured outside to see a little bit of nature.  It was super hot and humid this day, so we had to take several breaks to cool off.  We got a good look at the spring that starts the Current River.  Then, we went and fed the trout in the fish hatchery.  This was a cool field trip for me, because it brought back memories for me of when we took my Grandfather there on a fishing trip many years ago.

Cora pushing little brother Liam along the trail to the spring. 

George and Henry checking out the spring that is the start of the Current River.

Henry being a goof ball.

George and Henry feeding the many, many, many trout in the hatchery pond.

Henry trying to keep his balance while wading in the strong current of the Current River.

 Super Cute Georgie Boy!

A pretty view on the drive to Montauk.  This was from a lookout point near Aker's Ferry. 

Hay, hay, and more hay was the theme for this week at the farm.  Bob was busy all week cutting, raking, and bailing the hay.  The kids and I had a good time just sitting and watching the process.  They thought it was great fun to watch the hay be put into bales and be spit out by the machine. 

On Friday night, we enjoyed our last time of "creek sitting."  Granddaddy Joe and Granny joined us and we had a BBQ and creek fun.  This was our last night at the farm for this week, so after we went home and packed up for our return home for a few days. 

Liam showing off his handsome smile.

Cora loves to show us how fast, and messy, she can eat watermelon!

More postings to come on our farm fun!  We have another ten days and more adventures to blog about.