Country Kids in California

Driving up the West Coast of California, north from Santa Barbara, we made a pit stop at a place in the country called Avila Valley Barn for a ‘Fall’ experience Californian style.

The youngest of our family was the most enthralled. She tore into her roasted sweetcorn with the appetite of a cowgirl that had been working hard on the ranch all day (well she had ridden a pony for the first time in her life, as well as tackling some hale bales).

She’d had a go at being a scarecrow, along with one of her older sisters too. They did a pretty good job!

The array of fresh fruit and bright, natural colours from all the lush foods of the farm was a feast for the eyes. If time had allowed we would have taken a ride on a tractor trailer to see more of the farm, but one of our group wasn’t keen to stay for long (let’s just say hay, farms, flies, animals and smelly doo doos are not our eldest child’s favourite things!).

I couldn’t leave without snapping a pumpkin pic (Miss 3 tried to lift the largest she could find too – insisting we take one along on our road trip up to San Francisco – but we managed to escape without an orange friend!).

A perfect stop to celebrate the season of Fall here in California (though it felt like a hot summer’s day to me!). I live in hope that our eldest child will one day not be so disabled by her ‘super senses’ and be able to enjoy the beauty of life on the farm (I too recall finding the overpowering smells too much for me as a child). Thankfully, she understood how happy the visit made her younger sisters and was quite content to wait in the comfort of the air-conditioned car with her Daddy for a spell.

We drove on up to Monterey (our stop for tonight) with a happy family in the car, enjoying the scenic drive and admiring the farm workers in the heat of Californian sun.

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