Day 15 - A Day in the Neighborhood

Monday morning brought more clouds, and since we had hiked quite a bit the day before we decided to stay close to home and not make any big plans for the day. 

As mentioned in previous posts, the family whose cottage we are staying at was away last week and they returned late last night.  Their sheep dog, Sam, was staying with another family while they were away, but was returned on Sunday night. 

Sam is a sheep dog, and his main job is to round up the sheep. He lives outside and he is quite happy about his living arrangements. Kian warmed up to him quickly and was very happy racing him all around. 

Kian and Sam (the sheep dog)

In other farm news, a hen recently had new baby chicks shortly before we arrived here. Until today, these chicks were not allowed to come out of the shed and their mama stayed with them at all times. All the chicks are now a few weeks old. They are all brownish, except for one of them which is a light yellow. 

I asked how they know if the chicks will be hens or roosters and was told that they are still much too young to tell. Apparently when they get a bit older the feathers of a hen will be different than the feathers of a rooster. There are already 2 roosters on this farm and they are usually fighting if they are near each other. So I asked what happens if they end up with more roosters, and was told in a very matter of fact way that they will end up in the pot, and that their meat is actually quite tasty, but is very different from the kind of chicken meat you get in the store. 

We had many more conversations and learned much more about sheep, chickens, and even the horses. So glad we decided to stay on this farm. 

Yellow baby chick riding his/her mama's back :)

In the afternoon, the sun started peaking out from behind the clouds and we decided to head to the Killeen Playground, which is only a few minutes drive away.

It is a fun little playground, perfect for children under 6. It even has a climbing and slide section shaped like a pirate ship!

Pirate ship slide at Killeen Playground

The kids had fun playing on familiar rides.

As well as the unfamiliar ones. 

A circular spinning ride.  You're apparently supposed to run on it and it spins as you do, but our kids preferred holding on while it spun.

They both had a blast on the big swing. This is the second time we have seen this type of swing on our travels. The first time was at the Diana Memorial Playground at Kensington Gardens. They need to bring these to the states (or at least to NJ, I've never seen them at any local playgrounds) as they are lots of fun and seem safer than tire swings.

And the monkey bars presented a fun challenge as well since they were very very high. So high in fact that I had a hard time holding Hannah as she went from bar to bar.

We had a great time playing on the playground, and met a few very nice families who live around here. Kian met a little boy a year younger than him that he had fun running around playing tag and superheroes with, and Hannah really wanted to play with a beautiful little girl who was about her age, but I think she was just being too shy to approach her. 

All in all a great day was had by the whole family. We ended up staying at the playground too late, and since everyone was famished, we just made frozen pizza for dinner.