Stella and Georgia take the reins

Rolling Ridge Animal Ranch in Ohio's Amish Country. The ostriches and emus eating from our feed pails was definitely my favorite part. Also, if you go, you've got to feed fruit loops to the monkey-hysterical! These deer had the most velvety antlers.

top to bottom:

enjoying the creek at Friendship Park, best rock-skipping conditions ever

ice-cream and games with friends

playing with night crawlers we picked up at a bait shop

How does your garden grow? It's green bean city around here and the two little girls have pretty much taken ownership of harvesting 'the bean patch.'

pix a little out of order here...

We took a different route home from the caverns and stopped at Marie's Chocolates in the town of West Liberty. Kids had never been in a chocolate store before and Zeke was practically seizing. The last pic is the "showcase" (that's what the store called it) where I let the kids each pick 4 pieces (look at Georgia trying to decide!) Then we ate them outside. Looked through the glass door to see women making the chocolates (the women were delighted-apparently health dept. regulations disallow indoor viewing, but they clearly enjoyed seeing the kids enjoy watching and eating). The 2 top pics show how pretty much every field trip ends: Zeke passed out asleep and Georgia making up choreography to whatever music is playing. Here she was working out some moves to Peter and Ellen Allard's song 'Judah Macabee.'

pseudo gem mining outside the caverns...thrilling for the for my little quartet! they "found" dozens of tiny stones and crystals. A few days after this trip I bought them a gem ID book and the exploration continues. These hilly Ohio views make me think of the Dar Williams song "Iowa." Lots of things make me think of Dar Williams songs lately and I haven't heard her music in probably 10 years. Anyway...the caverns also had a lovely playground and lots of rolling hillside to explore. Kids were delightful the whole day.

Ohio Caverns in West Liberty, Ohio. We learned so much...

The difference between a cavern and a cave is that a cave has a natural opening to the outside. Caverns are completely underground. This cavern was discovered by a farmer in the late 1800s. We took a mile-long walk through, it even has a natural lake called "crystal lake." The names of all the rooms sounded like they were in a 'My Little Pony' story. The guide gave us a pneumonic that finally helps me remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. She said stalactites "hold on 'tight' to the ceiling" and stalagmites "grow up from the floor and 'might' reach the ceiling." Each stalactite has a stalagmite below it. They grow from the same drip of mineral water coming from the ceiling. When they finally grow together (after thousands of years) it's called a "column" (see the third photo from the top). Since everyone wants to touch the crystals and it's so damaging to them, the caverns keepers designated one crystal that everyone can touch (see bottom photo) It takes 500 years for a crystal to grow the size of a golf ball, so the crystal Scarlett is touching is about 3000 years old!