A Donkey, A Goat and Some Hens

We live for field trips. 

Seriously. Field trips = good, good living. 

 One of the main reasons for schooling home style is to get out in the world and do some learning through living. 

Last week, our BFIAR book was Ask Mr. Bear, which was filled with farm animals.

We had a fun excuse to get up close and personal with some pigs and ponies.

What could be closer to perfection than a farm day in the fall? 

Answer: A farm with an art barn for rustic water coloring.

All play and no work, makes for lazy farmhands, so Farmer Sue put the girls on feed detail. 

Having earned their keep on the farm, our next treat was chick holding. 

With little furry creatures in hand, the looks on these little faces were priceless. 

Two ponies were kind enough to offer rides,

and some hens kind enough to leave treasures for finding. 

Claire makes fast friends wherever she goes. 

I'm thinking that we were made for farm life.  Nature and simple living are settling, don't you think?

Hay beneath your feet and a still warm egg in your hands, and the cares of the world melt away. 

This field trip gets an A+.

Fresh eggs to take home equal major bonus points.  

Pickin'

 Oh, berry patch. 
You have a special place on our yearly bucket list. 

Times spent in your rows of berry goodness are the stuff of favorite family memories. 

Searching through lush green leaves and perfect tiny yellow and white flower, 

for just the right berry. 

Bright red, plump and not a bit of mushiness.
Nothing like it. 

Even Grandma caught the fee-va. 

The littles went berry crazy,
getting a wee bit excited with every.single.berry.

Pay-off?  A big basket of yumminess. 

The berry love carried on at home

when we smashed 'em up, sweetened 'em up, jarred 'em and gave 'em away. 

Museum-ing

One of our favorite things about homeschooling is visiting museums when there are no crowds.  With our study of the 1800s this year, a local western art museum made its way onto our field trip bucket list. 

 

We packed a picnic and planned to soak up some Native American and pioneer art. 

At check-in, we were given a little saddle bag filled with interactive activities, and a "find that painting" booklet. 

The stories of history become more exciting when you get to experience a bumpy wagon ride and more personal when you stand before an Indian mourning the lose of his land. 

Chuck wagon cooking is all kinds of interesting.

We loved taking the time to notice details

and consider life lived long ago. 

Well, then there was this guy. 
He required a second and third look.  

Still not so sure...

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Golden Birthday Field Trip!

Sophia's school is studying the Cherokee Indians

and how they were impacted by the Gold Rush.

So, a field trip was scheduled (on her big day) to
a Gold Rush museum and a gold mine.

Birthday field trip?

Yes, please!

So, off we headed on a brisk fall day to
a beautiful, historic town in the mountains. 

 
We took in some history and some treats too. 

Oh, my. 

We didn't take the blessing of a day in the mountains together lightly. 

After the museum,

field trip stop #2 was a gold mine.   

Lucky for us,

our panning was fruitful. 

We found gold I tell ya!
As much as 3-5 microscopic flecks
in two test tubes for each eager panner.
But, hey, it was shiny and thrilling!

After striking it rich,

we learned about what came next in the history of gold.  

It was time to descend deep into bat territory!

And when our brains overdosed on gold rush facts,
the official field trip ended. 

Birthdays don't end at 3 though, so the adventure kept rolling. 
Following a darn good tip,

we headed out to hike to a local waterfall

on the private property of a camp. 

To our surprise, it was A to the AWESOME! 

It required trespassing shimmying ourselves over a mini-cliff,

so shimmy we did. 

How many littles can say that they walked out onto a waterfall

on the day they turned 5? 

All that shimmying forced us to seek out some eats. 

Scarfing down delicious Cajun eats on a porch overlooking the town
was a day topper. 
(Playing with the new Merida doll while we waited was a big plus too! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!)

Our bellies were full, but with it being the birthday and all,
ice cream was pretty much a given. 

Day one of being five was way fun!

Where the Tears Began

In the 1830s, Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act

forced the Cherokee Indians to give up their land and migrate to Oklahoma.  This journey became known as "The Trail of Tears". 

 

Why just read about it in history books,
when you can stand on the land where it all began? 

Sophie's first school field trip allowed us to learn about this sad aspect of our history by seeing it...and experiencing it.  Learning at its best. 

After learning about Sequoyah's invention of the Cherokee alphabet
in the museum, 

we headed out to the grounds to
tour original and reconstructed buildings.




The sunny and mild weather added to the sweetness of this experience 


of touchable history. 

"I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the west....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm with freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March the 26th 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold and exposure..."

Private John G. Burnett
Captain Abraham McClellan's Company,
2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39