Cozy Cow Dairy

Katelynn's daycare provider has a great summer schedule of tours and outings this summer for the kids. They have already been to the Fire Station and are taking the reading program at the local library and once a week head to a water park in Loveland. They are definitely a busy crew, God love the woman because I couldn't haul that many kids around. They do a lot of their outings with a friend of Amy's that also runs a daycare and has some older children in the summer to help keep an eye on the kids.

This outing was to a place called Cozy Cow Dairy in Windsor and once I heard that they were going to go and watch how milk is made and actually watch a cow get milked I figured this was one outing I couldn't miss.

I woke up that morning and dropped the kids off at daycare and then turned around and drove back home to do some training on my laptop for a couple of hours. I then drove to this little dairy tucked away off the highway and met all the kids there.
I was so excited to see Katelynn's reactions to everything. It started off with a video and then a mechanical cow that explained the many stomachs of a cow and how they chew their cud. Very interesting to have this explained to me and watch the kids reaction (obviously they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know from growing up on a dairy farm). Then everyone got to sample some of their fresh milk and cheese curds. I haven't drank milk in a very long time, but thought it would be rude to not at least taste the small sample. Surprisingly Katelynn, a huge cheese lover, did not like the cheese curds, so I ate the rest of hers.
Next was a short walk over to the barn where they had 5 cows in stalls and the tour guide explained how they wash the cows and put the milkers on. They had a window so the kids could view it all and then had see through tanks to watch the milk collect before it went into the bulb tank. I really thought the kids would get more into this piece, but they liked the next two stops the best.
Off to feed and pet the animals was next. Each child got some grain and was able to feed the goats and calves. They called over the cows and as you can see in one of the pictures below one of the cows was trying to lick my hair while I was taking a picture with Katelynn.

The last part of the day was to get a bowl of fresh ice cream and every kiddo loved that. It was pretty good ice cream, but I had heard such raves of its greatness I think I thought it would taste a little like gold or something?! Each child then got a goodie bag to take home with information about cows and some toys and such.

It was great to be able to take the time to go and experience this with Katelynn. Junior slept most of the time. I think that in 2 more years she will really pay more attention to the process and ask more questions. This time round it was all about the ice cream.