A Hike to Spring?!?

The kids and I recently walked to Bachman's to welcome the spring by playing with the farm animals in the petting zoo and by each planting an impatien plug into a tiny pot.Carl, Gus and Louise got to pretend for an hour that they are indeed farm kids and not just city kids, dreaming of their farm someday. On the way home we talked about what animals we would like to have at the farm when we move there. Carl informed me that a pig would be fun because he'd like to slop the pigs. "You can feed them the food scraps that don't go in the compost, Mom." Oh... good thinking, Carl. Previously I had thought that there would never be a chance of owning a pig, but suddenly as a form of recycling, I could be game. Except of course, there reaches a time, well, unless we want to enter a 1,000 pound pig at the Minnesota State Fair someday, that well. You know. I'm thinking that we're going to be slightly wimpy farmers and won't be able to deal with the butchering aspect of rural life. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just need to spend a little more time in the rural landscape, getting my hands dirty, my boots muddy, and opening my eyes to the reality of country life. For now though, goats and chickens are what we're thinking. A sheep or two, maybe?