local tourist::morning star farms

Without a doubt, Morning Star Farms and Qualicum Cheeseworks is one of my favorite little spots here.  I love this place.  First of all it’s simply adorable.   They have these ridiculously cute signs everywhere with lame-ass puns and I eat that stuff up.  It’s cute!  And always makes me chuckle even though I’m at this farm a lot in the summer.  Secondly, it’s free.  Do you know how few things like this are free these days?  Very, very few.  In fact, most farms I know of where you can frolick with the animals aren’t free at all but rather charge a crazy entrance fee to hang out with your future meal.

There is also a picnic area beside the goats, and this not-at-all-suitable-for-toddlers-or-woman-wearing-unappropriate-footwear trail with gorgeous views of the mountains, and then there is a gift store that sells made-on-the-premises cheese, local bread and preserves, locally made wine (I LOVE THIS PLACE) , ice cream and an assortment of gifts that are farm related in a way (like John Deere tractor toys, cheese plates and other accessories and the like).

Basically if you come and visit me out here, we’ll go there.  Everyone who visits me is forced to go to the farm eventually.

Farmall

baby cow

petting the rabbits

tractor

walking the trail

froliking

We decided to walk the trail around the farm this trip right at the time Claire would typically be napping beacuse WE ARE STUPID.  The trail is the tractor road between the fields and the fields are fenced with an electric fence.  Did I mention taking three children around a road with electric fences on both sides is stupid?  Because it is. 

At one point Claire starts to turtle.  She’ll no longer walk, she wants to be carried but my Mom refuses to carry her because Claire’s a big girl, was wet and muddy from some sections of the trail and walking through a field, and you know, she’s HEAVY.  I’m nursing Anna so I couldn’t carry her on my back, and honestly, the kid can walk.  She’s holding her ground doing her two-year old dramatic gig and we walk away because in theory the child should start to follow us? Yes?

She doesn’t because she’s two, and instead just stands in the middle of the trail carrying on.  We get a fair distance away and are trying to encourage her to come along with us when she gives us this evil look, walks straight for the fence and hovers her hand above it.  Through this whole scene she is looking at us dead-on.  Daring us not to come back for her.  We understandably flip out and scream.  She touches the fence.  We lose our  minds.  She cries.

Of course we go running, the kid just clasped her hand on an electric fence.  She’s crying!  She could be really hurt!  My Mom gets to her first (me with the baby attached to my boob being not very swift on my feet), picks up Claire and touches the fence herself to gauge the shock. 

THE DAMN FENCE WAS OFF.

Claire 1 : Adults 0