Last weekend on the 11th, we went for the first time to The Center in Palos Park. One of its main draws is its farm. The farm is open on the weekends for family tours. We are going to start a Junior Farmers program here in two days (about which I will write a separate post), but they had a sheep shearing demonstration here on Sunday, so I was so glad it worked out for us all to come.
Before the shearing started, we were able to start looking at some of the animals. Many of the baby lambs were out on the field for the kids to pet.
We stopped by the baby chicks and ducklings. The kids, of course, were thrilled to hold them with a little help.
Then the demonstration started. They go all out by having a bagpipe procession lead the way from the barn to the yard where the sheep are to be shorn, with children leading the sheep behind the musicians.
There was a pretty good turn-out and we didn't get the greatest place to stand, so the pictures I took weren't the greatest. Hopefully, it give you a little idea of what it was like.
After discussing the history of sheep shearing, the man proceeded to shear one sheep using an electric razor. After he was done, another man demonstrated the traditional hand shearing, but Jared and Alexa had more of this in mind.....
so that's what we did. Then we went on a tour of the rest of the barn and the animals. First stop - the horses.
....then chickens...
...and pigs...
.... then brushing the goats...
...and finally the calves.
There was an awesome bridge that ran across the busy street near the farm. So, we HAD to run across it once before we left.
1 comment:
That looks like an awesome place! I'm going to have to add this of my list of places to go!
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