Country Girl?

I am a country girl. At the very least, I am a small town girl. What I am not is a farm girl. True, when I was younger we had gardens and canned and froze lots of vegetables. This was definitely the case until I was 12 and we moved south to Louisiana. Even though we lived in Bossier City for several years, I have always thought of myself as a smalltown country girl. I was so pleased to move to Siloam Springs. I am thrilled that Brian has embraced small town life. He comes from (gasp) the city. (North Little Rock)

When we moved from northern Michigan to Louisiana when I was 12, I remember driving through Little Rock. We thought the skyline was enormous!

All of this is to tell you about what I have been doing the past couple of mornings with my son, Noah. We have been driving to the farm of a friend to feed their pigs while they are in Minnesota for a funeral.

The pigs are both girls, Mary and Chiquita. They are , I don't know, upwards of 60 pounds I would guess, probably about 70-80. They stand almost to Noah's waist.
If you are a farmer and do this kind of thing all the time... please forgive my naivety.
For those of you who don't... you can picture this maybe??
We go in the morning and mix the food in a 5 gallon bucket. Noah has to scale the pen and heft the bucket over so he can go and dump the feed in the bowls in the pig pen. These pigs are hungry and friendly. They nibble at his shorts and he has to literally shove them out of the way to try and get the food to the pen. They try to eat the food out of the bucket as he is trying to pour it. My job is to throw marshmallows at a distance away and try to keep the pigs busy so that Noah can get in the pen without being knocked over. This morning we brought apples off the ground from our tree (to distract the pigs) and Caleb to throw the marshmallows so I could help heft the bucket over. (Noah barely made it yesterday... and their pen is VERY muddy.) Well.. we were only somewhat successful in our distraction techniques, but happily the pigs are fed. (and sunscreened, they get burned and so get treated!)

It is a really neat experience to have with my boys. Noah takes his job VERY seriously and follows the directions given to the letter. (I always KNEW he could even if he doesn't always show that around here!)

So we have a few more mornings of helping out at the farm. Noah said he likes it. Who knows??? Maybe someday he will be a gentleman farmer. I am just enjoying the adventure with him.