We recently discovered Great Brook Farm in Carlisle, Mass. It's definitely my favorite new spot. Ice cream, farm, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, pond and trails. We've been twice in a month.
A quarter buys you a bit of food to feed the animals. We went through a lot of quarters that day.
Once we ran out of quarters, the kids just picked food pellets off the ground to feed the goats. Resourceful little beasties.
The farm's main attraction is a dairy barn. Free, 35 minute tours of the barn are offered. Mark and I thought 35 minutes might be a bit long for the kiddos, but we gave it a try and the tour turned out to be fascinating for old and young alike. The coolest bit was their milking machine. All of the milking is completely automated. The milking machine recognizes each cow and adjusts to accommodate her udder. Whenever a cow gets uncomfortable, she just walks herself over to the machine. Each cow will visit the machine several times a day. That makes for a lot of milk.
The next part was a bit iffy, to this ignorant city-dweller. The babies and mothers are separated almost as soon as the babies are born, and the babies are kept in these pens. We were assured it was for their own safety, but one of the calves was so young, it still had it's umbilical stump. The babies sure were cute, though, and very willing to give anyone a lick. I tried not to think about veal.
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