Farm

Fresh
 Click & the Kids story and art by Betsy Page Brown

Click
Martin Uncle Jim and
Amy Aunt Mabel the farmers
market

Can we put labels on You sure can, dears.

the jams and jellies, There’s a lot to do
Aunt Mabel? before we head to
And collect the farmers market
the chicken tomorrow morning.
eggs? We’ll start by helping
Uncle Jim pick the
vegetables.

2
Remember when we helped But now look! How did
plant the carrot seeds? those tiny seeds grow
into such big carrots?
We sprinkled
them in long rows
and covered them
with dirt.

Nature provides the sunshine. But the farmer

helps too. Harvest time is when I know that all
the tilling, hoeing, weeding, and watering were
well worth it.
Carrots always taste
better when you and
Aunt Mabel grow
them, Uncle Jim.

3
 We sell every last jar of Don’t take all the jars.
Aunt Mabel’s jams and Save some for us.
jellies when we bring them
to the farmers market.

People love my canned

vegetables too.

By canning part of the harvest, Let’s not forget to

we can enjoy a little taste of gather the eggs.
summer all winter long.

Race you to the

henhouse, Martin.
Pickles are my
favorite vegetable.

4
Do you think the They sometimes squawk a little, but
chickens mind it Uncle Jim says that laying eggs is
when we take how they pay their rent.
their eggs, Amy?

You have to get up

early if you want to go to
the farmers market.

5
 Fresh-picked
carrots!

Try Aunt Mabel’s

raspberry jam!

6
 Got Milk?
Most of the milk we
drink comes from cows.

A cow makes milk

inside her body after
she has had a calf.
Her milk is food for
the calf. Lucky for
us, she makes a lot
more milk than her
calf needs.

On a dairy farm,
a baby calf is soon
moved to its own pen.
It is fed milk from a
bottle until it is big
enough to eat grass,
hay, and grain.

7
 A cow keeps
giving milk even
after her calf no
longer needs it.
To make good
milk, a cow needs
lots of food to eat
and lots of water
to drink.

These cows will move into the barn when

it’s time to be milked. A cow needs to
be milked twice a day—morning and
evening—every day. Even on holidays.

8
To milk a cow
by hand, you
gently squeeze
her teats, and
the milk comes
out. But most
dairy farmers
use machines
to do the
milking. The
machines don’t hurt the cows, and
they make the milking go faster.

Big trucks come to the farm every day

or so to take the milk to the dairy.
There, the milk is bottled or made into
cheese or butter or ice cream or yogurt.

Thanks for
the milk!

Thanks for the

cheese too!
 Tractor!
Tractors do all kinds of work on a
farm, but their main job is to PULL!

Equipment is attached to the

tractor by a big hitch. The
hitch has levers that can lift
and lower the tool. Power from
the engine is transferred to the
tool by a spinning rod called
the power takeoff.

Big, wide tires spread out the

tractor’s weight and keep it from
sinking into soft, muddy ground.
The ridges grip the ground, so
the tractor doesn’t slip.

10
A tractor’s big, powerful
engine works hard, not
to go fast, but to pull
heavy equipment. It can
also supply power to
the tools it tows.

In the past, tractor drivers sat in the open, but

now they sit in a covered cab. Modern cabs
have heat and air conditioning. Some tractors
use computers and can even drive themselves!

Most tractors have

four wheels. The two
big wheels in back get
power from the engine
to move the tractor.
The two smaller front
wheels are used to
steer. Some extra-big
tractors have eight
wheels, all huge.

What
does a
tractor
pull?
Turn the
page to
see.
11
 A baler collects cut
hay and rolls it into
a big bale that can
be easily moved and
stored.

A plow or cultivator
breaks up hard soil
and turns it over, so
weeds get buried.
New crops will grow
better in the loose,
plowed soil.

Seeds drop from the

bins of the planter in
neat, straight rows.

The big yellow tank

on this spreader holds
liquid fertilizer. Can
you see the fertilizer
being sprayed on
the field?

12
Yo Wants to Know
by Lea and Alan Daniel

“Where are your cows and pigs?” Yo

asks the farmer.
“We grow apples, not animals,” says
the farmer. “In fact, we grow five
kinds of apples in our orchard.”
13
 “McIntosh are my favorite,” says the
farmer, “and they’re ripe and ready for
picking now. Just turn the bottom of each
apple toward the sky and pull gently.”
14
“Like this?”
asks Yo.

“Perfect,” says
the farmer.
“Next year
another apple
will grow there.”
15
 “You should try a Golden Delicious,”
calls a worker. “We sell lots of these
to supermarkets.”
“Here’s my favorite,” says Dad.
“Granny Smith.”

16
“What if we get tired of eating apples?”
asks Yo.
“We’ll make apple pie,” says Dad,
“and applesauce and apple jelly.”
“Don’t forget candy apples,” calls
the worker.

17
 “Hey, Dad! The
farmer was wrong.
They do too have
animals here,”
says Yo. “This
one really likes
apples.”
“Luckily, there’s
plenty to go
around,” says
Dad.

18
 A Visit
from the
Farrier
by Meg Moss
photographs by Seth Mynhier
and Mark Mynhier

W hen Mikey the horse

needs new shoes, he
doesn’t go to the shoe store. His
owner, Alyssa, calls Natasha.
Natasha is a farrier. Her job is
taking care of horses’ hooves.
Natasha brings all her tools
with her to Alyssa’s farm. The
first thing she does is check how
long Mikey’s hooves are. Horse
hooves grow, just like
fingernails. In fact,
they are made of
the same stuff as
fingernails. It’s
called keratin.
19
 Wild horses walk and run about 30 miles
a day, and that wears their hooves down
naturally. Pastured horses like Mikey don’t
run around as much, so Natasha has to
trim his hooves to keep them healthy.
Trimming doesn’t hurt, just as it doesn’t
hurt when you trim your fingernails. But
hooves that grow too long could make it
hard and painful for Mikey to walk.

First Natasha uses

a hoof pick to clean
out the dirt that
builds up around
the frog. This frog
isn’t a little green
animal that says
ribbit. It’s a triangle-
shaped pad on the underside of the hoof.
It cushions the hoof, and if there’s too
much dirt around it, a horse can’t stand
or walk properly.
20
 Next Natasha
grabs her nippers.
They do the same job
that nail clippers do.
Natasha uses them
to clip off the extra
growth around the
wall of Mikey’s hoof.

It’s hard to make all the clips

even, so Natasha must file any
rough edges smooth. She has to
hold Mikey’s leg to file the bottom
of the hoof wall. But she can use a
hoof stand to support the leg while
she files the sides of his hoof.

21
 Now it’s time for the shoes. Horseshoes are
C-shaped pieces of metal. You can’t tie them
on like sneakers. Natasha hammers little
nails through the horseshoe into the hoof
wall. Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt!

Mikey gets ridden a lot, so he

wears shoes to protect his feet. Other
horses wear special shoes to help
I wear shoes to
protect my feet
too!
correct problems with their hooves.
And sometimes cleats are added to
horseshoes to give working horses extra
grip on snow or slippery ground. But
most horses go barefoot, especially if
they have strong, healthy hooves.
22
 The other horses on the farm
don’t need new shoes or a trim
today, but Natasha stops by every
two months or so to check on them.
Here she is filing Sarah’s big hoof.

And here she is cuddling little

Star after her first trim. Baby
horses don’t wear shoes, but their
tiny hooves need trimming when
they are only a few months old.

Natasha loves
her job and her
horse buddies.
And they love her!

23
 Moo or Boo?
Cows say moo. Pigs say oink. Horses say neigh.
And roosters say cock-a-doodle-doo! At least, they
do in English. But other languages have other
words for those same sounds.

Rooster
Arabic kuu-ku-kuu-ku
French cocorico
Filipino tik-tee-la-ock
Igbo (Nigerian) kokoroko
Turkish oo-oore-ooo

Pig
Hungarian ruff-ruff
Polish khrum-khrum
Japanese buu-buu
Swedish nuff-nuff
Vietnamese oot-oot

24
 Horse
Danish p-r-r-ruh
Russian ee-go-go
Icelandic ho-ho-ho
Korean hee-hing
Hebrew hee-hee

Spanish mice
say yee.

Cow
Dutch boo
Thai mor-mor
Finnish ah-moo
Hindi mo-mo
Mongolian um-boo

25
 Ant Not
this.

Farms
art by Paula Becker

More than 200 different kinds of ants grow This.

their own food. What do they grow? Fungi.

People eat fungi

too. Mushrooms
are fungi, and
so are the yeasts
that make bread
rise. But the fungi
that most ants eat
look like clumps
of tangled white
threads.

These ants cut pieces of

leaves and carry them to
their giant underground
nest. They chew the leaves
to make a spongy mix that
the fungi grow on. Like
human farmers, the ants
fertilize their crops and
protect them from pests.
26
Ants farm animals too. Just as people
keep cows for their milk, ant farmers
raise little insects called aphids for the
sweet juice they make.

To make the juice, called

honeydew, aphids need to
eat fresh plants. Ant farmers
help by herding their aphids
to good feeding spots and
chasing away ladybugs that
would eat the aphids.

I think I’d
rather eat ice
cream.

To milk the aphids, the

ants tickle them with
their antennae. That
makes the aphid squirt
a drop of honeydew
from its backside.

Yum!
27
 E mma loved Thursdays. That’s when
she and her dad pulled her wagon to
her friend Laura’s house. The first time
Fresh
they went, Emma thought it was to play from the
Farm
with Laura. But Laura wasn’t home,
only her mom—and six big boxes sitting
on the kitchen floor. “Choose one,” said
by Buffy Silverman
Laura’s mom. art by John Nez
Emma looked inside the boxes. They
were all filled to the brim with colorful
vegetables, and—yum!—each held a little
basket of ripe strawberries. Emma picked
the box with the biggest, reddest berries, her
favorite. Then Emma and her dad rolled the
box home, and he explained, “We bought a
share in Farmer Jane’s harvest. She’ll deliver
boxes of fresh vegetables to Laura’s house every
Thursday, and one box will always be for us.”

28
 Each week Farmer Jane filled the boxes
with whatever food was ready to pick at
the farm. In June Emma munched on
crunchy pods of sugar snap peas. She
washed red and green heads of lettuce
and tore the leaves up for salad. And
she snacked on sweet, juicy strawberries
whenever she had the chance.

Strawberry season was over too soon for

Emma, but she loved the big bags of green
beans that Farmer Jane packed in July. “Can
I eat some green beans raw?” she asked her
mom. Mom gave Emma and her little brother
Derek a plate of beans. Derek stuck two beans
under his lips and pretended to be a walrus.
Emma laughed. One week she looked in the
box and found a bunch of carrots with leaves
on the top. “Look,” she said. “Some of the
carrots are purple!”
29
 In August Emma was excited to
see tomatoes in the box. There were
red ones, orange ones, yellow ones,
purple ones, and even striped ones.
Some were the size of grapefruits! “I
like the tiny, red tomatoes best,” said
Emma, and she popped one in her
mouth. Farmer Jane had also packed
long, skinny green zucchini and
yellow summer squashes. Emma’s
mom sliced and cooked them in a
big pan with herbs from the box.
She served them on top of spaghetti.
Yum! Emma loved spaghetti with
vegetable sauce.

Sometimes the farm box had

vegetables that Emma had never
tasted before. Would she like beets,
Swiss chard, bok choy, or kale?
Bravely, Emma took a tiny bite of
a dark green kale leaf. “Yuck!” she
said. “Kale is bitter.” But then Emma
and Dad tore the leaves into pieces
and baked crunchy kale chips. “They
taste like potato chips!” Emma said,
and she gobbled them up.
30
 Every family that had bought a
share in the farm’s harvest took a
turn helping Farmer Jane. All summer
Emma asked when it would be her
family’s turn to help. The big day
finally came in September.
At the farm Emma saw a tall
boy wearing a cap. “Do you know
Farmer Jane?” she asked. “We’re
here to help her.”
The boy smiled. “I’m Luke, Farmer
Jane’s son. Follow me and I’ll show you
what we’re going to harvest today.”
Emma turned to her little brother.
“That means picking the vegetables,”
she explained.

31
 “That’s right,” said Dad. “Sometimes you need
special tools to pick vegetables.” He carried a
garden fork that Luke had given him.
Emma ran to Farmer Jane when she saw her
in the field. “What are we going to harvest?” she
asked.
Farmer Jane smiled. She had a fork in her hand
like the one Dad carried. “We’re picking potatoes!”
Where were the potatoes? All Emma saw were
pale, floppy plants. Then Luke showed them what
to do. The potatoes were underground!
Dad dug carefully in the soil the way Luke
had shown him. He lifted a plant. Round, brown
potatoes hung from the roots, covered in dirt.

32
 Emma and Derek felt in the soil and found
more potatoes. It was like finding buried treasure!
They put the potatoes in buckets. That afternoon
they helped fill many buckets of potatoes.
“Can we bring a bucket of potatoes home?”
asked Emma.
“The potatoes need to dry first,” said Farmer
Jane. “Then we’ll brush off the dirt. But on
Thursday you might find some potatoes in your
vegetable box.”
Every day Emma asked how many more days
it would be until Thursday. Finally the day came.
She and Dad walked over to Laura’s house to get
their box.

33
 Six boxes stood on the counter. And one of
them had her name on it! “Farmer Jane said
this was your special box,” said Laura’s mom.
When Emma and her dad got home, they
unpacked the vegetable box. Emma took out
tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and zucchini.
There were winter squashes and bags of lettuce.
At the bottom of the box was a special
treasure—Emma’s potatoes! She found a note
from Farmer Jane too. It said, Thank you for
helping harvest potatoes. She and Dad washed
some potatoes for dinner. Emma could hardly
wait to eat them.

34
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HE E
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H
horse horse cat cat

cow cow chicken chicken

duck duck donkey donkey

 CLICK TAKEOUT PAGES Please remove carefully at fold.
Heads
and Tails

lamb
The cards on

pig
these pages show
10 different farm
animals. You can play
a memory game with
the cards by finding
pairs that can be put
together to make a
whole animal. First,
cut out all 20 cards on
the black lines. Then
turn all the cards face

CLICK TAKEOUT PAGES Please remove carefully at fold.

down, so that you

lamb
pig

can’t see the pictures.

The first player
turns over any two
cards. If the two cards
go together, the player
can keep that pair
and take another
turn. If the two cards
don’t go together,
the player turns the
two cards face down
again after all the
other players have
goat

dog

seen them. Then it’s

another player’s turn.
Try to remember

CLICK TAKEOUT PAGES Please remove carefully at fold.

where the different
animal pairs are so
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match on your turn.
The player who has
the most pairs when
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wins the game.
goat

dog
!
 The Photographer Who’s GOT MILK!
By John Grandits
July/August 2025 Volume 28 Number 5 cricketmedia.com $6.95 Illustrated by Brian Floca
When you drink a glass of milk, it’s
probably milk from a cow. But other Sheep’s milk is
animals give milk too. yummy. It’s a
little bit sweet.

Milk from water

In many
buffaloes makes
countries
excellent cheese. I like
goat’s milk is
buffalo mozzarella
the favorite!
on my pizza.

But I’m nor sure I’d want to

milk a buffalo. Those horns look
pretty sharp.