October 14th: Lil' Sprouts Preschool & Soap Lake Food Bank

We had a great day today at Cloudview Farm and Soap Lake Food Bank! When we first arrived at the farm, we met and played games with the local preschoolers, singing a good morning song. We got the chance to see Jim create his own green manure (fertilizer for future harvests) out of the buckwheat, which we learned about yesterday, in order to make space for garlic, and it was interesting to learn more about the purpose of the buckwheat in helping grow other plants. Overall, our structure was pretty free, but soon after the preschoolers came, we all went to pick the squash and melons. The little kids were very helpful, and it was nice to see them having fun throwing the food into the back of a pickup truck to collect them. 

Picking the squashes and pumpkins with the Lil' Sprouts (the preschoolers) was something really nice to do, even though some of the kids weren't tall enough to reach into the truck! But after they cleared out for reading time, half of our group went to do more farm work, and the other half went with the younger ones. For the farm work, we had to yank weeds off the same patch in which we took the squashes.


While one group was weeding, the rest of us went with the Lil' Sprouts to story time/snack time and had a really nice time just hanging out with them. Once story time was over, we got to go see the animals (a highlight of the day for a lot of us)! We fed the goats, gathered eggs from the chickens, and held the farm's bunny, Bun-bun, which we all really enjoyed. After that great time interacting with the animals, we went to go pick some tomatoes, which was fun, but a little messy at times; for some reason, someone always seemed to be getting hit by a flying tomato! Still, we all enjoyed the tomato picking. 


After finishing off the morning at Cloudview Farm, we ate our lunch and headed to our next destination, the Soap Lake Food Bank. We arrived at 1 p.m., and we began our service by moving pre-prepared food item assortments from crates into bags, so they could be collected by visitors. Afterwards, we sorted food products into crates based on what they were. After our trip to the food bank came to an end, we all had around 2 hours of free time before beginning to prepare food, clean around the club house, and write this blog for you! In the end, we all had a busy, educational, and exciting day!








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