Feild trip

Homeschool version of a day at the farm

They waved to their mom who was waving back at them and trying not to cry.  The twins had been home schooled their whole lives.  Now, they were twelve years old and they were finally off to their first field trip.  Two weeks before the trip, a church friend, Miss Kitty, had decided that more field trips needed to be done so all the home schooled children would be able to have some of the experiences that normal children have.  In the whole church there were about twenty-five kids.  Miss Kitty, also known as the pastor's wife, recruited parents from the neighborhood and the church so that there would be field trips, job fairs and safety lessons.  The first thing planned was a field trip to the farm of Miss Kitty's dad.  The twins, Bonnie and Clyde were excited to see farm animals and to take pictures.  Their mother on the other hand, was less than enthused.  She was more of a city girl and she never was excited to be around animals.  Thankfully, their dad was able to convince mom that the twins would be fine and they were old enough to have supervised adventures; besides there were two of them.  One didn't go anywhere without the other.  And if one got in trouble there was always the other to bail their sibling out.

 

The kids got on the bus holding hands and holding on to a backpack strap with the other hand.  They sat on the bus and laughed and joked with their class mates while the pastor drove around town to pick up the other kids and then they were off to the farm.  There was only one child there that wasn't home schooled.  Miss Kitty's son, Trent.  He went to public school but his mother thought it would be educational for him to go see grandpa's farm and learn something.  As well as see the life of a homeschooler.  She had been trying to convince her son that homeschool was the way to go.  Never mind the fact that she had forced him to go to public school while he wanted to be taught at home.  You would expect balls of paper and spit, paper air planes, bad jokes and rude remarks to be flying back and forth all around the bus.  You, by default would be put in the category of a public schooler.  Trent tried to be obnoxious by flying paper air planes around the bus.  Bonnie’s best friend, Trish, looked up from her book and glared at him.  Trish was such a quiet girl that when someone upset her, you never knew if she would yell, glare or ignore you.  This was the third time that day Trish had gotten her feathers ruffled. 

 

The bus wasn’t pure peace and quiet.  This was a bus full on homeschoolers.  All that means is that the children were far better behaved than normal children.  They quizzed each other about other school subjects they were learning about, playing Mad Lib or quietly reading their books.  The children doing work with their friends were quiet and respectful of the other children.  Bonnie and Clyde were doing none of these activities.  She was sitting up against the window while her bother had the aisle seat.  The area between them was set up to play crazy eights.  They were just plugging away at their game while the other students interacted or ignored one another. 

 

Finally, the bus pulled up at the farm.  It was ten in the morning and as soon as they got off of the bus, it hit them.  The smell of goats, cows, chickens, sheep, ducks and pigs.  Everyone gagged at the pungent smell of the farm; all except Bonnie and Clyde of course.  When the twins went to summer camp every year, they stayed with their uncle who also had a farm.  He just had chickens and cows but, the smell was similar enough that it didn’t make them pinch their noses in disgust.  Miss Kitty’s family farm also had something their uncle’s farm did not.  A lion named Jasmine. Miss Kitty's dad was fond of the movie Secondhand Lions and because of this, he went through all the trouble of buying a retired lion. 

The students explored the farm after taking a few minutes to recover from the foul smell of the farm.  Everyone had cameras to take pictures of the animals and of each other feeding the animals.  Trent flaunted the fact that his camera was a phone as well.  Bonnie finally said something to him.  She walked up to him and said, with one hand on her hip, "Trent, you have a phone because you are three years older than most of us.  You are in High School so it's pretty obvious that you wouldn't bring a camera and your phone."  Clyde came up to the both of them and said, "It's pretty silly to try and make us jealous when most of us just don't care whether or not you have a phone as your camera."  The two left as Trent just stood there in silence.  For the rest of the day, Trent was slightly more agreeable than he had n the beginning. 

They all got on the bus after saying goodbye to the animals and Trent's grandparents.  They were so tired, there was silence on the ride home.  Near silence anyway.  It's hard to say it was completely silent with twenty-five different snores mixing together to make a beautiful harmony that means and good hard day was had and fun was had all around.  Parents had to come onto the bus to pick up their children because no one was going to wake up.  The next morning everyone woke up in their own beds happy with what they had done the day before.