I've never milked a real cow, this plastic one will have to do!6am: It's Homeschoolers day at Sturbridge village which means that the usual admission of $20 is just $7 today. Emily isn't working so she'll be able to join us. I haven't been since I was a little girl and am looking foward to it!
6pm: We had a great time at Sturbridge village. Laurie picked us up a little after 8am and we traveled up 495N, to the Mass pike then to 84. Sturbridge village is right off the highway and we made it there in just over an hour and a half. The day was cool and overcast and as we pulled in I noticed a beautiful pine forest, perfect for cicada nymph hunting. We paid our $7 each admission and began exploring.
As we walked through the doors, back in time, I couldn't help but think this was the time I was meant to live in. The dirt road sloped up hill. To the left was a rustic rail fence and beyond a garden filled with corn, and pumpkins. To the right a stone wall, then trees for as far as the eyes could see. On the left past the garden was a laborer's house, a simple two room. The women were sitting, talking and knitting. They were dressed in simple dresses and bonnets, neither the same, but neither too different either.
Children ran around and even though the children are raised in today's society, somehow being in these surroundings inspired a sense of safety and the ability to be carefree, their only really concern was not getting in the way of the horses when the carriage came by. They ran around with abandon. I could easily imagine Laurie and I being those two women. Both Mikes working down at the saw mill. She and I spinning wool, making butter, or tending the animals. Emmy and Dan sitting in 
the one room school house, then running home to do their chores so they could meet their friends for a game in the common. My sister-in-law Kristin toiling away with her canning just down the street, chickens running around her feet. Early family dinners and slow nights sitting by the fire. How great it all seems....until I think of those cold New England nights and the outhouse that is truly out. That's when my craving for the old is replaced by my appreciation for the new. I don't know who invented indoor plumbing, but I'd like to shake his hand!
It was really a remarkable place, and much bigger then I remember it being when I was in Junior High. If your interested their website offers a pretty interesting tour of everything we saw. http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/village_tour.html The
highlights were the blacksmith who was doing a welding demonstration and really interacted with the kids, and a woman who was dying hand spun yarn with soaked and cooked tree heartwood.We broke for lunch right around noon and Emily chose my pine forest for a picnic. I had a few minutes afterI finished eating to check some of the trees and found nothing to my dismay.We went back into the village to see a butter churning demonstation, the grist and saw mills, we walked under a cover bridge, check out the Parson's house, lawyers office and the mercantile, which was really amazing. On our way out we stopped at the gift shop to purchase some fudge that was calling to us. They had about 20 different varieties. We settled on
a bar of chocolate,
one bar of Chocolate raspberry and a bar of my favorite, Chocolate Peanut butter. We enjoyed every delicious calorie sitting outside the gift shop in the cool but wood scented air. We all had a great time!
Cool caterpillars we found in Sturbridge Village
The first picture is of a Spotted tussock moth caterpillar & the second is a Southern pine sphinx caterpillar.
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