Halloween School Parties & Farm Kid Costumes



Princess, hero and...cow?

 

Halloween parties at school have now become Fall parties where we live.  Our elementary age kids are still allowed to dress up in costume and parade through school for everyone to see.  This is an annual tradition for the kids, just as much as organizing the party is for the parents.  I've always tried to do my part and can't count how many cheese trays, gallons of chocolate milk and other treats I've hauled into the classroom for the kids over the years.  Like most other Mom's, I did it because I wanted to and enjoyed alomost every minute.  Unfortunately, my boys have now grown out of the elementary tradition.  The parties will always be great memories for me with the exception of arguing over costume ideas.





The only kid dressed as a cow.



Costumes always brought about the biggest delimma.  My idea of a great costume didn't always agree with my kids.  Go figure.  Farm kids are just like all other kids and want to be something or someone really cool on Halloween.  My boys have been a country singer (with guitar), a fireman, batman, farmers (one even with an inflatable tractor), football players, and one year my greatest challenge...a cow.  What started out as a great idea for both Mom kid ended in doubt for my son.  The closer to the big day, the greater his doubts about wearing an inflatable cow costume became.  In the end, Mom won (sort of) and kiddo wore the costume.  I have pictures to prove it.  What I don't have pictures of, is me in my cow costume.  Yep, Mom had to wear one too.  Ah, the things we do for our kids.  I'm sure another mom snapped a picture of me in my full cow glory, but I haven't tried too hard to find it.

Dairymom blog?

Do you love your job? Do you take your work home with you? Can you imagine not being able to leave work? While this may sound extreme, it's what most farmers do every day. We live on the farm that we work on and it's where we raise our family. It has it's ups and downs, but for the most part, I don't think we would change much about our way of life.

Last month I started blogging. Some of my friends think I've lost my mind. Honestly, some days I think my mind went out the window a long time ago. So why would a mom/wife/farmer want to blog or tweet? Maybe it's a form of venting, but mainly it's a way for me to get the true story of agriculture out there.

There's nothing like having your child come home from a school trip and inform you that we're "bad people" because we farm. He was told on this field trip (sponsored by a water shed group) that "farmers pollute the water". After the initial shock wore off, I talked with my son about how many regulations we abide by and how much good water quality means to us as dairy farmers. Not only does the well that we get our drinking water from supply our home, it supplies water for our animals and is used to clean our milking system. The well gets tested on a regular basis to ensure that it's up to standards for cleaning the milk system. Thankfully he understood, but the damage was already done and would be very hard to undo to his very impressionable classmates.

So here I am, blogging, tweeting and spending time on facebook trying to undo some of the misconceptions in agriculture. Will I be able to make a difference? Maybe. I guess if nothing else, I can do some venting.

You can also take a virtual tour of our farm on : http://www.farmersfeedus.org/mo