Whimsical September

A Family + Lifestyle Blog

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What’s Living in Kansas if You Don’t Make a Trip to the Farm?

A couple weeks ago I got an email from a fellow blogger here in Kansas extending an invitation to come out to her family’s farm and pick an unlimited amount of sweet corn. It took me all of three seconds to decide that we were definitely going to accept!
One of the most fun parts of this crazy military lifestyle is getting to soak up all of the different cultures we have the chance to live in, so I was really pumped to bring Hadley along to visit a real farm and see how things are done. 
When in Kansas, right? 🙂 
We made the two hour trek down to McPherson, Kansas where we stopped at Baldwin Farms. We were greeted with some fun swag bags full of goodies from Kansas Farm Bureau, Common Ground, Kansas Wheat and the Soybean Checkoff, and then we headed over to check out some farming equipment. Who knew tractors could be so fancy and high tech? Holy moly!
I was definitely the most naive blogger there when it comes to farming equipment and farming in general, so I had plenty of questions that everyone was very sweet to answer. Everyone was also incredible with Hadley!
Around noon we traveled the dirt roads over to the main event – corn picking! My new friend Kim who blogs over at Alive and Well in Kansas was prepared with lots of bags and tagged along with Hadley and me so that I could get some good pictures and lots of sweet corn!
Note to self: Always ask what the dress code is if you’re not sure! A sundress and sandals was probably not the smartest idea. 😉

We seriously had a blast plowing our way through the fields and grabbing ear after ear of corn. We ended up with 41 ears of corn to take home! Talk about major generosity!

The temperature was sitting right around 100 and the air was as still as could be, so we got hot fast. Poor Hadley was sweating so much but didn’t let it bother her a bit! She was cracking everybody up with how proud she was to carry her ear of corn. 
You can’t see her little bite marks on the corn, but she was the first one to dig in! I didn’t try any until I sat down for dinner that night with Jamie, but it was worth the wait! I’ve never tasted grocery store corn that tasted as sweet and delicious as this fresh corn did. Jamie may or may not have eaten three ears in a row.

Before we loaded up to head to lunch, I noticed Kim’s husband and son out in the field and I thought it was the most picturesque moment. I can see how people fall in love with the farm life. Though I’m sure the work is back-breaking at times, it’s so peaceful and beautiful out there.

We were treated to lunch courtesy of Monsanto at a cute little family restaurant over in the town of Inman. Because I like to keep things real, my daughter may or may not have lost her stomach the very second we walked over to our table and I may or may not have wanted to the floor to suck me under at that moment. Super embarrassing, but poor baby was so over-heated and had so much water in her stomach from my efforts to make sure she was hydrated. Hashtag glamorous mom life.

Thankfully everybody was super helpful and we quickly got it cleaned up so that we could finally sit down to enjoy some yummy food and good conversation. 

Around 1:30 that afternoon we said our goodbyes and headed home to Manhattan. Hadley slept the whole way, and I spent almost the whole way chatting with friends and family on the phone (Hands free! Bluetooth all the way!) yakking about what a great day we had.

We definitely hope to return to the farm again soon! 

PS: If you want to see more super cute pictures of Hadley from our farm trip, check out Kim’s blog here. She took some really good ones!

Thanks again to Monsanto for providing our lunch and covering a portion of our traveling expenses. We really appreciate it!

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