Trip to the Farm

Last Sunday we took a tour of James Ranch, where we have been getting our produce this year. Norah was looking forward to the adventure and, to tell the truth, so was I. Not many people these days have the opportunity to learn about where their food comes from by actually seeing where it's grown and produced!

For more information on James Ranch visit this site. If you live here in Durango, I would highly recommend that you look into joining the CSA program and get your produce from them like we have.

We told Norah that she had to take a really good nap if she was going to go see all of the plants and animals. She took us seriously, because when I went up to get her, I found this:


She slept for about 3 hours.


Once I managed to wake her she was ready to go! The first thing she found at the farm was a table that was just her size.


She was pretty excited about it!


I was pretty excited about the view.


My parents were pretty excited too (believe it or not).

We took the electric cart tour. As members of the CSA, that tour was discounted for us. It was really smart of them to do that for us because now all I want to do is go on the Twilight Dinner Tour! How amazing does that sound, right? You can see the James Ranch tour options and pricing here. I will definitely be adding the ranch tour to my repertoire of fun activities to take our out-of-town visitors!

Our tour guide (who Norah calls Farmer Jen, and insists on waving and yelling to every time we pass the ranch) is one of the James' kids and grew up on the property. She did a great job of incorporating interesting facts about ranching with family stories and a lot of local history. The tour was incredibly informative and managed to keep Norah's attention most of the time. This is no small feat, trust me.

I didn't get any pictures of animals because they were all a little far away for my camera (and I didn't get off the cart much since I had 15 pounds of baby strapped to me).


I did get a few good pictures of my favorite little animal on the swing!


In the background you can see Mark, my dad, my in-laws and the one other guy who took the tour with us. That poor, brave soul!

Even though I didn't get pictures of them, Norah got to see the 5 acres of gardens where we get most of our produce. She got to see the dairy cows, the angus cows, the pigs, the chickens and their laying house, the sheep and the donkey who protects the chickens and sheep from predators. (Her name is Xena. She's a warrior princess donkey.) We even got to have a little snack of cheese, cherry tomatoes and locally made bread at a duck pond on the property. The baby ducks were adorable.

All in all, the girls were amazingly good for a two hour tour. I think it helped that we got to ride on the cart and there were planty of things to look at on the way. Penny got a little indignant at the end, but I kept giving her Cheerios for the last 20 minutes or so. Her mouth was busy enough chewing that she didn't have much time to complain.

And that, my friends, is where (a lot of) our food comes from!