A Day on the Farm. . .

A few weeks ago, we went out to a farm. Christiane is the gal who does my nails. She's my manicurist. But I don't really like manicures all that much, so I don't see her as often as I'd like! She and her husband live around the corner from Mollie, so I drive by her house quite a bit. A few times in the last month, I've stopped to chat with her. She's great. Really a sweet gal! Several times she's invited us to her family's farm, about an hour from here. Finally, we picked a Sunday and decided to go. Mollie went too and it was like a field trip for us all!

My first time ever milking a cow! For some crazy reason, I've always wanted to milk a cow. It was way more difficult than I thought!! Emma was as surprised as I was!

Christiane's mom was teaching Emma how the electric milk pump works. Emma acted like she was interested, but since it was all in fast Portuguese, I'm pretty sure she was just humoring the woman! Then again, knowing Emma, she probably did understand everything.

I thought someone turned a hose on so I turned around quickly. Never in my life have I seen so much pee come out of anything! It was insane!

This amazing contraption brought back wonderful memories of pumping while I was nursing Emma:) It was so fast and efficient! Craziness, I say!

Chique farm girl

Staring contest, which the cow won.

I think he's screaming for his life. Or he's trying to get some air. She had a nice little grip on his entire body!

Banana tree. I'd be baking Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins or Banana Bread every day if I had a banana tree in my back yard! (Or maybe I'd just eat a lot of bananas.)

I absolutely love barbed-wire fences. Maybe it's because I grew up in the country and I saw them everywhere. It's certainly not because of the 3-inch scar on my left hand that I acquired while trying to save myself from a fall. (I didn't save myself and the scar is a constant reminder of my failure to do so.) However, I still really love the look of these fences.

We walked about a quarter of a mile up a small hill for this view. I decided I wanted to be a farm girl someday. Then I remembered the peeing cow and I changed my mind.

On our way back to the farmhouse

This is the milk that we extracted from the cow an hour earlier! They boiled it and then we added powdered chocolate to it. Lots of powdered chocolate. And instant coffee. We drank our fresh-milk mochas, ate some homemade bread with homemade jelly, and then sat down for lunch. Of course we had churrasco. The meat was from a cow they had butchered and it was incredible, which is quite a compliment coming from a girl who doesn't eat much red meat! We had strawberry juice (made from frozen strawberries that they had harvested earlier in the year) and potato salad (which didn't include raw eggs). Then, we ate some dessert! Needless to say, I felt like one of the cows out in the stalls (I just didn't need to pee that bad.)

After we were uncomfortably full, we left Christiane's parents' farm and drove about 25 minutes to Alvaro's parents' farm. They had pigs. Lots and lots of pigs.

Oink. Oink.

First time on a horse!! She was pretty excited!

I think he has something in his teeth.

I'm not sure what possessed her to attempt to eat the corn, but she threw it down after a few seconds and told me it was too hard! We gave it to the horse later.

Her new buddy, Christiane

She asked if she could swim in the pond. Even though I did it as a child, she probably won't get the chance to do it here in the bacteria-infested waters of southern Brazil!

The day wouldn't be complete without a little chimarrao! This is a traditional, very cultural drink in our state. It tastes a little like grassy tea. We had a great day spending time with Christiane and Alvaro's families. It was a very full day of speaking a ton of Portuguese, but it felt good.