Historic Festival

One of our last scheduled homeschool field trips of the year ended up being one of our favorites.  We headed downtown to the Tennessee Agricultural Museum for their Historic Rural Life Festival.  It was a sunny (albeit hot) day and we were thankful the rain held off for this outdoor shindig.  Upon entering, there were lots of 'booths' and 'areas' where men, women, and children would inform their audience about how daily life tasks were completed in the 1800s-early 1900s.  We learned about home building, blacksmith working, carpentry, schooling, farming, cooking, letter writing/sending, sewing, childhood games, and bee keeping to name a few.  Such a fun, informative day!

First stop...learning how timber was cut and shaped into roof tiles for log homes.  Lots and lots of hard, manual labor.

 

Next up...sheep sheering for use in making fabric and other wool items.  This was a sweet family that owns a small farm of sheep and goats.  It was amazing to watch her wrangle him by the horns and cut his thick layer of wool.  

The same farm family spoke about their FAINTING goats and the milk they produce.  We watch YouTube videos of those hilarious animals dropping like they are dead when startled...so fun to see them in person!

Little kid...kept bleating back and forth with his mama.  Precious.

A local school had sent their upper elementary students to dress the part and explain various chores to the attending school groups.  They did such a good job and I loved that our boys saw children close to their age learning and serving their community.  Here, we learned about washing clothes.

Churning milk into butter - lots of facts even I didn't know!

Making corn husk brooms

Carpentry...furniture making, etc.  Such fine detail and beautiful work.

LOVED this old schoolhouse.  And the boys loved seeing a school similar to where their grandfather attended.

Checkers anyone?

Blacksmith.  Showing how tools and other metal materials were made.  This young man is an apprentice under the older gentlemen and hopes to own his own shop soon.

Washing pots and cleaning rugs

Sewing beautiful fabric patterns, clothing, rugs, and other household items on a loom.  We also saw how the picked cotton was spun into yarn with an original spinning wheel.

Inside the barn was a large petting zoo.  It was a nice reprieve from the sun, but stunk to high heaven, so we didn't waste much time on this exhibit.

Making dolls from dried apples

Bees!  And we had an exciting encounter...watching TWO Queen Bees fight to the death for which would rule the hive.  A rare happening that we were able to watch...fascinating!

Last up, letter writing and sending.  He showed how to quill pens were made, the perfect way to use them (his writing was exquisite!) and the way the mail system worked 'back then'.  Interesting fact was that the sender did not pay the postal fee...it was the recipient that paid.  Therefore, if you wrote a looong letter to someone, it was considered rude because the price would be more expensive to pay.  Simple and straight to the point was best :)  

We are SO thankful that Gigi can come with us on many of our school outings.  She makes it much more fun!