Little House on the Prairie

Last spring, as winter drug on and on, Miss Mouse and I spent each early afternoon cuddling in the living room chair reading the Little House on the Prairie series. I made the mistake of not sensoring the chapter about Pa being chased by wolves on his way home, so it is going to take some convincing of the poor Miss Mouse before she signs up for the second book in the series. She genuinely enjoyed learning about how bread and butter and cheese (with subtle edits by Mommy) and clothing were made years ago. She even has me making bread only by hand these days. I do use a hand mixer, but she begs and begs that we do the bread making together by hand that way rather than in the convenient, and much less house-warming, bread machine. Her favorite chapter, I believe, was about a dance held at Pa's parents' house right after a late spring snow storm. They called the snow "sugar snow", and the chapter involved a lot of information about maple syrup making, something in which her Grandpa Dick excels. Add to that a dance with fiddle music, which she knows about courtesy of Auntie Laura, and it made for quite a well-loved chapter.

Hence, it seemed natural to me that she would enjoy a re-enactment of sorts near where we used to live. We made the hour and twenty minute trip down there last Saturday and spent over two hours soaking up the summer heat and sites, sounds, and smells of life a hundred plus years ago.

In the first picture, she is trying sauerkraut with knoephla. It was homemade, and she loved it. Sunny Mouse turned up her nose and definitively refused to try it.


My Sunny Mouse did find a treat to her liking, though, in the fried bread dough with jam. Miss Mouse, of course, loved those, as well. The treats had begun with hand-cranked ice cream, chocolate for the girls, raspberry for the parents. You can use your imagination to picture why there are no photos of that experience. Just combine near-90 degree temperatures and soft ice cream...





Throughout the day there are old-time games for the kids. We missed out on the hot potato game because we were petting a kitten that the sauerkraut creators had brought along with them, but Miss Mouse got in on the tug-of-war.

Unfortunately, and horrifyingly to me, I'm sure I came across as a competitive, crazy mother. You can see Miss Mouse is at the end of the tug-of-war line on her side. When the contest got going, she stood there, sort of confused as to what she was supposed to do. In fear that she would be crushed by the rest of the group as they pulled and leaned back, and worse yet if they tumbled back on top of her, I started telling her to "Pull! Pull! Pull on the rope!" I said it all with a smile and laugh because it really was a hilarious site, but as the group got closer to her, I did lean in and pull on the rope behind her to show her what she was supposed to do. She does really well joining in on things if she understands them, and since she wasn't really joining in, I figured she probably didn't "get" the game. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized I probably looked like those crazed parents at the kiddie-track-day last spring that were yelling at their 4-year-olds to "run through the pain"! Ugh.


As you can see, the next round of the game included adults. Mr. T and a great friend of mine, whom I knew we would have a chance to see there, encouraged Sunny Mouse to join in with us, but the closest she got was to pull on my leg. Apparently that was her best effort at that time of day. She was asleep about 2 minutes after we left the farm! She really did try to be a good sport, and for most of our time there, she loved it!

Miss Mouse wanted to watch each of the spinners who were turning wool into string and then yarn. There must have been eight women or so, each with their own spinning wheel, and, since each wheel was a bit different, Miss Mouse insisted on visiting each one. I loved her interest! Some of the women ignored us, but there were four who were excited for her interest, as well, and let her feel different types of yarn and explained some of the process to her. We decided it would certainly be a long process if Mommy had to raise the sheep, shear it, wash the wool, comb it out, and then spin it...all before I even started to make a hat! It does strike me, though, to think of how valued that hat would be. My hope is that exposing the Mice to a world where they can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch how things used to be, how wool is connected to the hats that we buy or make, how pie looks and smells when cooked over a wood fire in a Dutch oven, will help them not take for granted the food, clothing, and possessions we have. Reconnecting with an old friend was another fun highlight of the day, though....I can't honestly say the trip down there was completely focused on the Mice and completely altruistic! Mr. T and I had a pretty great time, as well!