morning dew, fresh air and sunday school

Today we drove for an hour to visit a farm. A real farm, one on acres and acres of land with animals roaming around freely. We chose a farm theme for Ethan's 1st birthday party, turning my family's home in the suburbs into an honorary farm for the day. This time, we trekked up to an area so rural I couldn't believe we were still in Palm Beach County. We drove on dirt roads and watched the gravel turn up clouds of dust as we drove on, past ponds and palm tree nurseries and roads without names. We arrived and were greeted by the sound of hens clucking and horses neighing. It felt like the heat was so brutal that our flesh would melt clear off, so hot that your insides burned and you had to constantly blink the sweat from your lashes. We were able to temporarily forget about this heat, though, because there was a baby zebra and so all was right and wonderful in this world. Yes, I said baby zebra.

Apparently this baby zebra has a taste for blood and loves the occasional nosh on human fingers but that, too, was easily overlooked by the fact that, hello, there was a baby zebra but a few feet in front of us and he was so cute that I thought I was just going to melt. And then we really did begin to melt because it was just so hot outside. We spent more time in the car than we did at the farm, but it was still a wonderful afternoon filled with ponies and chickens and alpacas and real produce markets with freshly grown produce.