Cool Chickens at Pineland Farms

Young chickens at Pineland Farms.

One of my favorite things about the Summer of 2010 is that we had the chance to hang out with our family nearly once a week for beach excursions, Smiling Hill Farm, state parks and finally to take part in the Cool Chickens family program at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, Maine. Our “little” group consisted of seven adults and eight children. This past winter, we had a great time learning how to milk the cows.

First, the children made some cool chicken artwork and the storytime revolved all around chickens, of course! Then we were off to meet the chickens and collect some eggs. I was relieved to see happy, free range chickens after seeing clips from Food, inc.

Off to meet the chickens! My Godmother and Isaiah.

Isaiah preferred watching the chickens from the safety of mama's hip.

Kai collects some eggs.

My little brother Seth holds the collected eggs.

We really enjoyed collecting eggs but the highlight for the children was getting to touch the comb of  our new chicken friend.

Before we went to clean off the eggs and package them to sell, we took a stroll through the farm to see some of the other animals including pigs, goats and of course our favorite the cows. Just love them SO MUCH!

Hello Beautiful!

Wylder washing eggs and Kai placing them into the cartons.

Kai and my niece, Wylder were amazingly gentle when washing the eggs. They placed the Pineland Farm labels onto the containers and filled them with the clean eggs. The fabulous aspects of this program are that the children see that eggs come from chickens and actually take part in the process of caring for the chickens by feeding them and getting the eggs to the market, where we then purchased the eggs at a discount, for all the children’s hard work.

From the chicken to our kitchen table.