Field Trips

Today I got to accompany Ella and her classmates on a field trip to the Yardley Fire House. They've been learning all about fire safety at school this past week so we got to walk down to our local firehouse to learn even more. Firefighter Jeff and Firefighter Cory were there to tell us all about a firefighters' life here in Yardley - their uniforms, equipment, fire trucks, and tools.

What's interesting about our firehouse is it's completely run by volunteers. So, when there's a fire or other emergency, the fire alarm sounds, the volunteers are paged and then they have to book it to the station, suit up and head out. Firefighter Jeff said they average three calls a day and it takes them about four to seven minutes to respond to a call. That's amazing. I didn't think they'd have even one call a week. Thank goodness they don't sound the fire alarm every time because we live just a few houses down from the firehouse. (Or maybe they do and I've just gotten so used to it?)

Getting a lift into the fire truck.
Checking out all the gadgets on a fire truck.
Don't be scared, kids. It's just firefighter Cory all suited up and ready to save the day.

Two weeks ago, Kendall, Brooklyn and I were lucky enough to tag along with Ella and her classmates on another field trip to one of our local farms. At Snipes Orchard, we learned how they make fresh apple cider. We also met some of the farm animals, played on the playground, went on a hayride, and had a picnic lunch. We each got to take home a little pumpkin, which the squirrels thoroughly enjoyed eating in the 30 minutes the pumpkins were outside our house.

There's nothing better than spending a beautiful Fall day outside on the farm.

On the hayride, Brooklyn kept saying, "love. hayride." over and over again. Of course Kendall was out cold as you can see, and Ella was sitting up front with her friend Michael.
Brooklyn driving the huge wooden tractor on the playground.


The cider press was quite interesting. First they wash the apples, crunch them into mush, pour them into what looked like a blanket but was actually a kind of "filter", then pressed the blanket flat so all the apples' juices ran out of the filter into a container.