Here's Kira before the students went into their groups for the tour.
Parent volunteers and teachers took the students in small groups throughout the grounds and read aloud the fascinating information about this museum/farm. Here, students were getting the idea what life without indoor plumbing was like!
This is a water well that the students could try to prime and pump!
All were interested in giving it a try!
Here is the smokehouse where meat was smoked/cured and stored (no refrigeration in those days, you know). Students found the branding irons most fascinating!!
Isabella is giving one of the smokehouse tools a try!
This is a manure-spreader, which was pulled by a team of horses and must have been welcomed by the boys in the family. Before these were used, the boys in each family had the job of breaking up the cow paddies by hand and spreading the fertilizer over the fields before plowing and planting.
One of the docents demonstrated the corn stripping machine - it took those kernels right off the corn cobs so they could be ground into corn meal!
And here is the grist mill, usually powered by a couple of donkeys, which ground the corn kernels into flour.
On our trip, students took turns providing the power to grind the corn!
Inside the farmhouse, in the parents' room, a docent demonstrated for the students how cotton and wool were made ready for the spinning wheel - and then demonstrated the use of the spinning wheel itself.
Even the boys were fascinated!
After we had toured all the stations, including the tractors, hen house, farm toolshed, etc., it was time for lunch. The weather was quite brisk, but thankfully, it was also sunny, so it wasn't too cold!
The restored house in the background is the Hildebrandt house. We didn't tour it, but it's clearly in very good condition.
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