Flat Aggie Plays Hide and Seek

For the most part, I'd say that our Peace Creek pasture is aptly named. Even in the drab brown of winter, it's a fairly peaceful place.

On a snowy day, as we check the mamas and the babies, the silence is broken by the honk of geese and the chatter of sandhill cranes as they fly overhead. The mama cows in the pasture let out their deep-throated cries and their babies answer back in voices that seem bigger than their size.

Randy and I had a visitor to the Peace Creek pasture this past week, but he wasn't too talkative. Flat Aggie from a fourth grade classroom in California came to check out our Kansas farm. Flat Aggie is a project of my southeast Kansas blog friend, Nicole, and her Tales of a Kansas Farm Mom blog. (I'll be sharing more of Aggie's adventures in the days to come. Also, feel free to weigh in on my blog post yesterday and my dilemma about how much detail to share with fourth graders.)

Anyway, our Flat Aggie came dressed in jeans, which is a good thing when you are visiting a farm. He also had sturdy brown work shoes, which is good when you're working around cattle. He and Randy got along just great because they both like to wear caps.

Last week, Flat Aggie came with us to check the mamas and the babies at the Peace Creek pasture. He got to see a calf drinking some milk from his mama. Aggie thought that seemed pretty convenient.

(The little calf ran away, leaving Flat Aggie and Randy in the dust!)

Aggie also liked playing hide and seek with a different calf who decided to get in the feed trough. (The calf doesn't eat the food in the trough, but his mama and the other mother cows do. You can see what the feed looks like in the photo below, where you see it stacked on the wood.)

Then, we took Flat Aggie to look for another creature at Peace Creek - a beaver. I've never seen him, but we know he's there. I would love to share a photo of my own, but he is good at playing hide and seek, too.

(I got the photo from Wilderness Classroom.)

Our cattle drink water from the creek. This is what the creek looks like near the road.

Below, we showed Flat Aggie the creek further back in the pasture. The mama cow over Randy's shoulder seems to want an introduction to Aggie.

Even though we never see the beaver, we know he (and maybe some friends) are there because they've built a dam. They use their tails to build up dirt and plant material to hold back the water.

Randy gave Flat Aggie a closer look.

Back at the road, we saw more evidence that the beaver lives and works nearby. Beavers like to use their teeth on trees.

It looks like he's been working on this tree for awhile.

A few years ago, the beaver gnawed on one of the trees in our pasture and it fell over into the creek.

 

If Flat Aggie wants to see the beaver, he's going to have to be luckier than me and Randy. Maybe if he sneaks up to the beaver lodge, he'll be able to find him. But probably not.