Friday field trip at the pioneer farm

Last Friday we went to Homeschool day at a really neat pioneer farm called Philip Foster Farms.  They had all kinds of hands on activities for the kids to experience what it might have been like to live during a time when we didn't have all the luxury and technology we have now.  It was different, but fun at the same time.  Really, it was different.  When we first arrived and it seemed pretty quiet I thought, maybe this won't be a very exciting field trip, and the kids might get bored real fast.  But, they didn't!  I pressed on even though I wasn't sure at first.  Once we got started going around to all the stations I was glad we stayed.  It was a drizzly morning, but not pouring so it was nice.

First we went in a tiny little store to pay and they had a lot of old fashioned things to buy.  All the people that were there helping and working in the store were dressed in old fashioned pioneer clothes.  It really added to the whole feel of the pioneer time.  Even some kids came dressed up.

After we paid we stopped off first at the apple grind and press.  This is certainly a lot slower than Bauman farms apple press!  You put one apple in at a time, grind it, and then when you have enough apples you press it to fill up that little bucket.  Aaron thought grinding the apple with the crank was pretty fun.

Then, the kids noticed a tree swing.  They had to try it out!  It was so picturesque.  My kids would love to have a tree and a swing like this in their front yard!

Of course all my pictures are blurry!  I couldn't get them to stop swinging for a picture.

April kept saying over and over again, why don't we get a farm?  I would love to!

They looked so cute swinging together.

Each kid got a piece of corn and had to put in something to get all the kernels off.  It was a really interesting process.  Another thing to crank.

Aaron would crank all day if you let him.  Maybe he would have been a perfect pioneer?

Then they took their plate of corn kernels over to the corn grinder to make some corn powder.

Puttin' the kids to work again!  He loved it.

Then they had a hay bail tied to a rope with some pulley's.  The kids had fun trying to lift the hay up.

That's how far they got it off the ground, but I saw some kid really get it up in the air by himself.  He must have been pulling the right way!

They used an old fashioned drill. and looked at some other old fashioned tools (non-powered).

Then they got to build a log cabin.  There were lots of kids here doing this activity.  Mine didn't get to do much building.

Aric felt so strong!  He loved moving the logs around.  Love this boy!

They even got to try out sawing a log!  It took them a while, but they cut off a whole section of the log.  Aaron loved that too.

Some other things I didn't get pictures of were the house and blacksmith.  They preserved the old farm house and modeled it after what it might have looked like when the Philip Foster family lived there.  It was really neat to see all the old fashioned things inside the house.  Some things we thought were interesting on the tour were that the kids were not allowed to go into the parlour unless there was company over.  The upstairs had a landing where the family would spend most of their spare time (what spare time) knitting, sewing, cross stitching, and there was an old fashioned baby cradle for the baby in the middle of it.  No electronics devices anywhere, it was all from the pioneer times.  The rooms had very little "toys" or non-useful things.  Just a few trinkets, and books.  The boys room had a real fur from an animal that the oldest boy had to shoot.  The house tour was very neat.  I forgot to take my camera out while we were in there.  We also didn't ever make it to the blacksmith station.

To learn more about Philip Foster farm you can visit their website by clicking on the name.