A couple Sunday’s ago we crossed the state line after church to go to Lyon Family Farms in Tennessee. I didn’t tell you about it because I was suffering under the tyrannical rule of Write 31 Days at the time.
It was a really nice day. Of course, since we have a family history of losing kids at pumping patches any day that doesn’t involve having to alert the authorities is a really nice day. That’s a story for another time, though.
Now I was born and raised in Huntsville so I like Tate Farm as much as the next girl but I gotta say I like Lyon’s better. It’s bigger and there are more things to do.
Lyon’s is surrounded by cotton fields so we took the obligatory pictures in the field.
I’m pretty sure that cotton field pictures are a requirement of southern families in the Fall.
The kids did all the prerequisite pumpkin patch activities: zip line, corn maze, swings, slides, corn crib and, oh yeah, the oversized rocking chair.
On the hayride to the pumpkin patch I tried to provide a bit of education to my little neanderthals.
See this view, kids? It looks just like the painting Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth. He was a famous American painter and Christina’s World is a very important painting.
I patted myself on the back and thought ‘Aren’t these kids lucky to have me? When they are twenty and playing trivia at a fancy party in a big city they’ll know this answer and they’ll look back at this moment and remember it.’
I continued on with my diatribe whilst pulling the real picture up on my phone.
“See guys, isn’t it interesting how we can’t see what her face looks like? What is she thinking? Wyeth painted this in 1948. I actually got to see the real painting when I was a teenager!”
I mean, y’all, I was just really teaching them some IMPORTANT stuff! We were having a moment! They were listening attentively and I thought ‘now this right here is what we call a teachable moment! Boom. I’m nailing this parenting thing!’
Henry said ‘Can I ask a question?’
I was totally READY for the important art question he was going to ask me. Maybe he was even going to break into some theology. ‘Yes, Hank, you CAN ask a question!’
“When we get home can we carve my pumpkin to look like it’s barfing?”
…Um…But…Art…
“Sure, Hank. Let’s carve pumpkin barf when we get home.”
I guess somebody else is going to have to answer that trivia question at that fancy party in the big city.