Day #17/175 Days – Field Trip

Today we headed about two hours north to Leonard’s Mills a living history museum. We’ve only been there once before about two years ago. The boys assured me they didn’t remember a thing!

**Warning** This post is photo heavy.

This museum is unique in that it hosts “living history” days. There are a large number of people dressed in costume doing chores and living as if it were 1790. They also now have a small encampment from the 20th Maine Civil War unit camping just outside the gates. I find things like this a lot of fun. Lego-Man – who begged me to leave him home today – enjoyed himself immensely. I’m pretty sure the two younger boys did as well. Sometimes it is hard to tell.

First we checked out a new mill they have added since we were here last. It’s a small sawmill that cuts cedar shingles.

Before we could cross the covered bridge to get to the village,  we came across the 20th Maine camp. We stopped to check out a few things and chat with the men. 

They were great about explaining things, answering questions, and letting us poke about.

This is actually paper coins that were printed during the war. The gentleman here knew a lot about all the artifacts he had displayed and was more than happy to share his knowledge.

 

There were oxen pulling logs and horses pulling wagons. The horses were huge draft horses – well, tall ones at least. The boys and I took a ride around the village in the wagon.

 

I was talking Little House on the prairie to them the whole time. We are currently reading through the series and I hoped visiting would help make some things more understandable. Although, having the guy driving our wagon chatting on his cell phone kind of brings us quite quickly to the modern time.

We then headed over and let the boys have their hand at tossing a hatchet. Happy almost took out the back of his head, so I stopped his attempts at getting it in the target, but Lego-Man and Conductor were both successful.

  

They had just thrown some small pieces of green wood on the fire and the wind was blowing the smoke straight at us.

From here we headed to the blacksmith shop. It was a pretty busy place today. We sat for a good ten minutes here watching the blacksmith make pot hooks.

  

Our walks then took us past some nice and scenic areas. I snapped lots of nature photos on this trip as well. We then headed to another new exhibit – the smokehouse. This was an Eagle Scout project and the boys built it all by himself. There was a very nice lady there smoking sausages and we were able to taste some – well Happy & I at least. It was pretty yummy!

The next stop was the “drinking fountain.”   It is really a hand pump with a trough attached. Conductor found out the hard way that controlling the stream of water isn’t that easy – especially with your six-year-old brother pumping.

The boys favorite place was the sawmill. It is powered by the water wheel outside.

All-in-all it was a fun field trip. I just hope the boys learned a lot. We’ll be doing a report about it on Monday so I guess we’ll find out!