Unexpected Surprises.

The past month has been an exhausting one for my family.  Lot's of traveling, being away from home, teaching art classes, entertaining the girls, dropping off and picking up at a variety of kids camps......I'm pooped.

Last week the girls were in 'Farm Camp' at this fabulous called Latta Historic Plantation.  Oh my word......they had the time of their lives.  They learned how to take care of a different animal everyday and came home with so much information.  They couldn't stop educating me on farm life whether I wanted the education or not.

And their favorite part of camp?  You won't believe it...........
Cleaning up poop.  Yes, you read correctly.  They LOVED cleaning the stalls.  Cleaning up after horses, pigs, sheep, goats, mules....you name it.

I thought......gross.  Why would this camp force my kids to scoop poop and why, for the love of all that's holy, would my kids enjoy it????

So the last day of camp came and I show up to grab my kids....late as usual.  And the kids start BEGGING me to let them stay so they can go back to the barn and scoop poop.

Come again?

Um.....no.  I'm exhausted and we are going home.  You can scoop dog poop out of the back yard.

But then.......we ran into the farmer who taught the kids all about the animals.  The one who spent so much time with them these past 4 days.  And I know him.  He goes to our church!  And what does he do?  He grabs the kids hands and says, 'Let's go!'

The kids followed Ken around like little puppy dogs.

And off we go to hang out with the animals again.  We 'road'  Bambi, the horse, bareback.  We gave the pig, Delilah, treats.  This pig sat on command and stood on it's very tiny back legs to get treats.  Not NEARLY as cute as a dog doing tricks.....but pretty cool, anyway!

Then we went and sang a rooster to sleep while Ken, our farmer friend, rocked him back and forth......

........... had a fun photo op on a real covered wagon.....

..........and then topped it all off with (be still my beating heart) picking figs from a HUGE fig tree.  For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit obsessed with figs.  But, hey.....if you have to be obsessed with something.....

What a grand afternoon we had.  I was sweating like a pig (although we did learn that pigs don't sweat. No sweat glands).  It was a bra soaking hot day (girls....you know what I'm talking about) but I had a blast.  I even made a LONG sprint back to the car to grab my phone so I could document our fun time.

And I almost missed it.  I almost missed an unexpected, joyous afternoon because of my impatience and desire to just get home.  So glad God put Farmer Ken right at the right spot for us to run into him and get ushered into a fabulous experience.

And I think I also figured out why my kids were so into cleaning the stalls (they've asked about 20 times since the end of camp when can they go back and clean the stalls again!).  It was good, hard, joyous work.  They felt like they were doing something valuable.  They were taking care of these precious animals they had grown to love.  And working with ones hands......it's satisfying.  It's rewarding.  It gives purpose and meaning.  It feels good to be tired after a hard days work.  And it was so awesome to see my kids get a taste of that.

Whenever I turned around, this was in my face!

So.......I'm not sure if I have a 'moral' for this post.  I just wanted to share a good day.  No....a great day.

I'm so glad we didn't miss it.  A little nugget from God.

Oh....and apparently roosters like a good lullaby.  Those suckers conk right out.

Oink.