On the second day of our trek we woke up early to go on our six hour hike. It was sad to leave the caramel colored horse behind, but luckily we brought another horse to bring our baggage. I even got to ride the horse. It rained hard and light for most of the day. It was hard to see. It was slippery and we slid and fell lots of times.
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| From the big field trip |
The Chachapoyas built the trail 1,000 years ago. The stones have been scattered around because horses have been using the trail for hundreds of years. Next to the trail there were ruins. The Chachapoya people made the fortress for protection. I saw what was left of the circular walls of the ruins that used to be homes. It was called the Pirquilla ruins.
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| From the big field trip |
We finished our hike at a town called Congon. The people in Congon were very excited because the road that let cars come to the town was just made one week ago. The people were farmers. I saw them growing coffee plants, platanos (bananas), and cotton. I played with little children who were very generous. They even let me play on their swing and hold their baby chicks. When I tried to get the chicks from the mama hen, I had to get a stick and push the mama hen aside and get all the chicks and run off with them. The mama hen would run back where the chicks used to be and look all over for them. Then I would put one chick down and it would run to another mama hen.
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| From the big field trip |
My family and I stayed at a house in Congon. It just got electricity less than a year ago. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT? I met a girl who lived at the house, and I drew and wrote about a farm in my journal while the girl did her school work. She had black hair and was very kind to us. She had a very big, kind, chubby, white and caramel colored dog. I met five more friends who had a very big pig. I could even ride him. Cyrus and my pappy watched a bullfight on TV at an L-shaped house that was also a store. Cyrus and I slept in one room. If you turned on the light for a long time it would attract mosquitoes and other bugs that you would not want in your room at night.
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| From the big field trip |
The next day we left Congon. I did not want to leave, but when I saw the horse that I was going to ride I wanted to leave. I wish I could have brought a chick with me.
Goodbye everybody,
Isabella Kirkman
p.s. Does anybody have a funny story that you could tell me about farm animals?
Tags: Ancient Sites · Chachapoyas · farming · Peru4 Comments
4 responses so far ↓
Hi Bella, Reading your writing, I feel like you are talking with me and I am with you. So happy you are doing this so I can feel like I am taking the trip with you. Hummm, a funny farm animal story???
I remember going to my cousins, Susie and Jeanie’s farm in Idaho.
We were told to take some VERY LARGE pigs to the clover field
They didn’t seem to want to cooperate, so my cousins, who were very small girls, grabbed these very large hogs by the tails and pulled them to the clover field. The pigs made very loud noises and resisted, and I was amazed at my cousin’s bravery and strength.
Another farm animal experience was my grandparents would send me out to get eggs from the hens. They would fly at me with their claws and peck at my ankles. I would dance and flap around trying to get away from them. I probably looked pretty funny. Then my grandmother would come out and they wouldn’t move a feather when she would get the eggs out of their nests. They must have smelled the little girl’s fear. I told my grandparents I did not want to go get eggs.
Bella Rose, I really enjoyed your writings and hope you continue to share your experiences with us.
Love you, Grandma Cole
Bella, Great Grandma Diedrichs reminded me of a funny farm animal story. When she was a little girl it was her job to milk the cow. One day she decided it would be fun to shoot the milk into a kitten’s mouth. While she was doing it, the cow got upset and stepped into the bucket of milk. She told her father that the cow got the milk dirty by stepping into the bucket, but not what she was doing with the kitten. Her father said, “It can happen to anyone. Give the milk to the pigs, they will enjoy the milk. Great Grandma Diedrichs said she never tried that trick with the kittens again.
Love you, Grandma Cole
Bella,
Grandma Bertie said that a horse once took a bite out of her hair because he thought it looked like straw.
You are such an animal lover…you remind me of your mother when she was a little girl. Just don’t go sticking any tadpoles in your mouth!
Love you, chiquita!
Bella, this is so much fun. I love your comments and pictures. Aunt Connie and I have lots of funny farm animals stories but I’m not sure I should tell all of them. We could be naughty. Just one of those anyway. Do you know how to put a chicken to sleep? Just tuck his head under his wing and while holding the chicken in that position move your arms in a big circular motion about 10 times. Presto, you have a sleeping chicken. They don’t stay asleep very long. Maybe it’s another fate, as I don’t think chickens wear deoderant. Just kidding.
Aunt Connie and I use to have the chore of feeding the new baby calves. We had a bucket that had a sort of sucking nipple on it. We would mix some special powdered formula with water and then hold the bucket ofer the fence so the calves could eat. They weren’t very good about taking turns or sharing and sometimes we’d drop the bucket. I always wished that their mother would teach them better manners, but maybe it would have been better if we’d have had more than one of those buckets. I’ll try to respond more, now that I figured out how to!