Pumpkin patch

This morning it suddenly dawned on me that it is already mid-October. We have yet to get out our Halloween decorations, start making costumes, or bake anything made with pumpkin. What is going on here?? So today we got down to business. Or at least started to.

There's a farm near our house that we've visited in the fall every year for about five years now. They have pre-picked and u-pick pumpkins, plus farm animals, cider and doughnuts, fall decorations, and this year even a straw maze for the kids. They grow gigantic, misshapen pumpkin behemoths that we have no desire to set on our porch, so we never buy pumpkins from them, but we visit and enjoy their hay ride, snacks, and the general fall landscape.

But Calvin and Jon did the fall farm visit without me today because I stayed behind to watch what turned out to be a rather depressing football game. My absence may also have had something to do with the 35 mph winds in 50 degree temperatures, but I'm not letting on about that. The guys had a nice time together while I watched that oh-so-painful football game, and now the Halloween season can officially start in our house. Which means Calvin and I have two weeks to get his costume made. Here's a hint: it's going to be black and white. Guesses? It will be done in...oh, about two weeks I'd guess.

The philosophy of ability

Today being Friday we spent the afternoon with our new homeschooling group. It was the first meeting of the year that was held indoors in a rented space with a youth room and gym, and the kids mixed over air hockey, foosball, blocks, and playing tag. At one time I looked out the second story window and saw kids in the trees.

My son spent most of the time exploring the game tables and watching the other kids play. He is happy being a watcher and playing in a game world made up in his own mind. He is imaginative and self-sufficient and happy, but I sat at tables with the other mothers and fretted. Should I go over and play with him? Should I help him find something to do or some way to fit in? Is this something I need to worry about???

In the car ride on the way home I asked him if he'd had a good time and he answered in the affirmative. I asked him if he had just wanted to play alone or had he not found anything to do with the other kids? He hemmed and hawed a bit about that one but I think the answer was that he'd tried to play and hadn't been welcomed, but that he wasn't unhappy playing by himself. And this is what it had looked like to me at the time, too, so I had reassured myself that the point of the meetings was for him to mix with other children and to explore and discover new things, which he certainly couldn't do with me hanging over him.

My inner jury is still out, but I think mine was the wrong answer today and if I had it to do over again (which presumably I may at subsequent Friday gatherings), I would join him in exploring the games or playing in the imaginary world of his choice. What, after all, is the downside? That he'll never learn to get along? That he'll never learn to play by himself? Clearly he's already very capable of both of those things. He has learned them the same way that he has learned reading, writing, spelling, math, piano, science, everything else worth knowing—simply by living, by trying, by watching our examples. When he is picked on he moves on, when he is left out he watches in interest and learns, when he is included he participates with consideration and enthusiasm.

Kids are confident, curious, and resilient all on their own, each in their own way. Because Calvin is confident in his own abilities he doesn't question them when others do, nor does he question his value even when others don't seem to see it. Oh what I couldn't have done with that kind of self-assurance back in school. So if he is by himself again next week I think I see myself trying out foosball and maybe I'll learn some of that self-assurance from his example.

Michigan Stadium out of Legos

About a week ago Calvin asked to run a search on the iPad. He was searching for instructions on how to make the Michigan football stadium out of Legos. This morning, after having looked at some other examples, he made his own. He has plans to add scoreboards and boxes in the near future. I'm liking this concept to research to carry through process.

Greenfield Village

Yesterday was a birthday in our house. Jon got the day off for his birthday, and we, deciding to make the most of that and the beautiful weather, headed to Greenfield Village. Calvin has been talking about the Village since we visited the Henry Ford Museum last week. Greenfield Village is outside on the grounds behind the museum and is a collection of authentic historical buildings, like Ford's birth home, Edison's laboratory, The Wright Brother's shop and home, and slave quarters from a brick "plantation" in Georgia. The homes and buildings were purchased and actually moved to the park and set up to give visitors a chance to experience life from a time long ago.

Houses and buildings are not from any one time period, but provide a look at many eras throughout the history of the United States. This is another great place to find serious reenactors at work. We walked through the farm field where farm hands were seriously plowing like mad, trying to get the fall crop planted before the first freeze, then inside the house we met the two women who were preparing the midday meal that would be eaten by all farm workers, and a woman out back who was doing the laundry and hanging it out to dry. These people are for real.

Not all of the village employees are reenactors. Reenactors are always in period dress, while "experts" are dressed in a village uniform. Experts are not in character at any given time, but were wonderfully knowledgeable about their respective positions. Some are mainly docents, like the lady in the printing press and the tinsmith, while others are actual tradesmen, like glass blowers and train restorers. We got to see all of them performing their trades.

We took a wagon ride through the village part of the village

We played in the beautiful fall sun.

Calvin loved the round house—an authentic building, but also one of the only buildings on site that went "out of character" with a museum style room. It also allowed us to go down in a pit underneath a fabulous steam engine.

There is so much to see that, like with the museum, we know we'll have to go back. We didn't spend much time on the village street in the shops, but we did take a trip through town in a Model-T.

We enjoyed midday birthday celebration meal at the mid 19th century Eagle Tavern, Calvin J. Wood, proprietor. We met Calvin Wood on our way in—a truly enjoyable reenactor who loved our own Calvin and offered him a job planting corn in the spring at nine cents an hour, twelve hours a day. We sat at community tables, ate traditional dishes prepared with local foods, mostly organic, and sipped drinks through noodle straws. Really delightful.

We took a train ride all around the park, and watched them fill the ancient steam engine with water at one of our station stops. Calvin loved watching the bell ring, and I loved feeling the moisture of the steam, and getting slightly dotted with soot.

The guys rode on a carousel made in New York almost a century ago.

Covered bridges, scarecrows, beautiful fall folliage, beautiful day. We had such a great time.

Pioneer Days

In a tiny township not far away, a well organized group of history lovers gathers every fall to present the surrounding communities with Pioneer Days. The event is put on by seasoned reenactors as well as local volunteers and even a few families who live today in the manner of yesterday.

Fall seems to me like a great time to discover history, and one of the neatest things about an event like this is being surrounded by people who really care about our past and its preservation. The reenactors are there to spend the weekend living in the world of over 100 years ago, and it is fascinating to watch them do it. Sure they're putting on a show, but it's not a start, stop, rewind, replay show like in a museum, it's a whole weekend long show, and if you stop by and see them cooking in the morning that's because they are already starting the meal they will actually eat later that night. Most reenactors are plenty happy to share information about their activities and the world in which they (are pretending to) live, while a few would rather be left alone to the living itself, teaching onlookers merely by doing.

These local, historical society organized events can be a great place to really touch, smell, hear, and believe history.

From watching the shearing of sheep, to the carding of the wool, to the spinning, and then to the booth where you can by the yarn.

Churn the butter, and taste some that was finished earlier while you're at it, then go inside and see how that butter is being used to start dinner.

Help shred cabbage for the making of sauerkraut...

help collect, clean, and press apples, then taste the cider...

Then go for a hay ride—and not just any hay ride, but a ride through the still active farm fields that belonged to the family that lived in the house you've been visiting. This is the ride the workers would have made to look over the crops, and to bring stores from the barn.

Then go around the corner to the one room school house that the children from the farm would have attended.

That's living history.