August 22 – September 1, 2018

Hello Readers!

This blog post will be about specific parts of our AWESOME farm stay near Auch.

About a month back, while we were in Valance, (see the Driving Across France post), my mom was searching for AirB&B candidates, and came across an interesting candidate on mindmyhouse.com. It was a farm stay, in which we were supposed to take care of:

-A donkey
-A pony
-17 sheep
-24 chickens, in 3 separate coops
-2 dogs
-2 cats
-2 fish
-and 3 geese

It also said that there was a vegetable garden that we were supposed to pick the vegetables from, and to water the garden. We completely underestimated how big the vegetable garden was. They had at least 10 different types of vegetables growing, but they also had fruit trees and blackberry bushes.

Annabelle and I were very excited about this possibility, and told my mom to write an application.

A few weeks later, we got the confirmation that we would be taking care of a farm. We were so excited, but also a bit scared at the same time. The first evening and morning that we were there, the family that owned the farm was there too, and showed us how to do the evening duties and morning duties. In the morning, we had to do many things, including: taking the dogs for a walk and feeding them, feeding the cats, feeding the fish, feeding the chickens, counting the sheep, sometimes bringing hay to the stall for the horse and sheep, and watering the vegetable garden. Some of the evening duties included: Checking for eggs, feeding 2/3 of the chickens, taking the dogs for their 3rd walk (second walk being midday), feeding the dogs, checking the cat food and water, and counting the sheep again.

The 2 dogs that they had at the farm were Isa, pronounced Ee-s-a, and Iago, pronounced Y-a-go. They were so sweet and caring, and really well behaved. They stayed in the yard all day, under the shade of the trampoline and bushes.

Isa loved giving you a full body dog bath, which was literally just getting licked for 10 minutes straight. Isa was 4 years old, and she was calmer than Iago, but still very sweet. She was a white and orange spotted Brittany spaniel.

Iago was so energetic, he could run around all day, and not get tired. He was 3 years old. When we got home from an afternoon away, or we walked downstairs for breakfast (we were supposed to keep the dogs in the kitchen at night or when we went out) Iago would jump at least 4 ft into the air, and I’m not even exaggerating. He was a mix of Australian Shepard and a long haired labrit. He had very long hair, which was always getting long sticky reeds stuck in it.

Another great thing about the farm was that they had a trampoline. Annabelle and I jumped on the trampoline for so long every day, until I did a somersault, got the yips (my body told me to turn over, but my brain didn’t want to) and landed on my head. Then I didn’t go on the trampoline until my neck and back felt better.

We also started school before school, which was getting into the rhythm of homeschooling. It went pretty well, but we only did a 1/2 hour or an hour of school per day. We also planned what we were going to do for school, and how long we thought school should be.

So, to close, the farm stay was really, really, really, really, really fun, and I hope we get another opportunity like this in our upcoming travels, because I LOVED it!

Thanks for reading our blog,

Amelia👩‍🌾