Our friend Lorrie owns a beautiful farm about 20 minutes from us, and she’s been telling us for ages to come bring the kids, pet the horses, and pick some oranges. Last Saturday we were down to our last blood orange, and so we decided to re-stock by picking our own!

The outing started with a dazzlingly beautiful drive. We drank in the view: lush green fields of artichokes and oranges, fields of neon yellow flowers and new almond blossoms, bubble gum-pink and cerulean-blue homes set like jewels in green velvet, and snowy Mt Etna presiding over it all. I took a deep breath and relaxed.

Once on the farm, we picnicked… or rather the kids ran to the swings and so we attempted to feed them as they swung! Messy but successful. Later we picked oranges and then visited the many animals on Lorrie’s farm: horses, dogs, chickens, goats, and a gigantic pig. Such a beautiful afternoon in our rural island home!

“Soooo bloody!” says Lena.

Gil kept himself busy taking out every orange we put in and throwing each with all his strength about 6 inches away.

I love the sunkissed look of a blood orange!

Finding ladybugs for Lena to admire and Gil to… maul.

Feeding the goats! We all want our own someday so that (among other reasons) we can make our own goat cheese instead of buying it almost every week. (We all LOVE goat cheese.) However, a friend told me that goat cheese starts to smell like dirty goats when you’re around them a lot… so am I willing to give up my love of goat cheese in order to own a few goats? Well… I think so!

Would you ever like to have goats? Or chickens?