Iowa Farm Fun, Baby Chicks, and Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Farm Animals

Picture a warm summer day in the midwest. I’m on my way through Iowa. The corn is about as high as an elephant’s knee, and I see — a giraffe! Wait, what? That’s what happened to me last summer…

Seen grazing just north of Clarinda Iowa. I was hurrying to meet a friend, so found the giraffe again on my way back for its photo op. S/he was still there a few weeks later, on my next midwest trip.

By October’s trip most of the corn was harvested, and I didn’t see the giraffe anywhere. But “just up the road a piece” something else caught my eye…  It’s further from the road than it looks here. I used significant zoom.

A moosely cutout. It’s good to know that farmers have a sense of humor. I wonder how many people noticed this Iowa moose. It was still there on Thanksgiving week.

And yes, the title here is “Farm Animals.” I haven’t forgotten. But these are animals (sort of)– and they’re on a farm.

Here’s a little farm-reality from same part of the country. On last year’s trip I saw these squirmy baby chicks at the Mennonite Country Store. They wouldn’t hold still for their close-up …

Chicks at the Galaxy Country Store – I heard them peeping before I saw them. 

All the Easters of my childhood flashed before my eyes at the first peep, each year’s downy chick a little side-kick to follow me around, to be raised in the yard and eventually taken back to the farm by the time Easter came again. Now I suddenly wonder what happened to them after they went home. At the time, I pictured them hanging out in the pasture, garden, and chicken house with the flock, eating bugs, laying eggs, squawking, scratching, all those chicken-activities. But, um… now I know that life is not kind to chickens. Still, I hope they survived.

Are there Easter chicks in your past?

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