"April 14, 2010 (10am-4pm) Spring Homeschool Day: Spring is a busy time on the plantation! Visit Latta's Spring Homeschool Day and learn about all that happened on 19th century farms and plantations in the spring, including plowing and planting, baby animal arrivals, shearing sheep, processing the wool, and much more! Enjoy presentations throughout the day of sheep shearing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, planting, and springtime chores. See the plantation house and outbuildings, visit the farm animals, and honeybees. Homeschoolers can also make sheep magnets using real wool, and participate in a planting activity. We invite families to make a day of it and bring a picnic lunch, tour the circa 1800 plantation house and outbuildings, and visit rare and endangered breeds of livestock. Activities will be ongoing throughout the day. Admission is $5 per person, ages 4 and under are free. NO RSVP REQUIRED!"
We visited the bees (and elsewhere there was a discussion and display of bee products) . . .
. . . the chickens . . .
. . . and the cows and horses.
John got to make his very own magnet using a tuft of real sheep's wool.
We watched a sheep be sheared, during which the only way John could see was to place him on my shoulders. Chris does that often and I hadn't realized how much strength it requires!
I've forgotten how shocked I was at the rampant Christianity I discovered when I moved to the South. I was reminded again today when my California ears perked up to hear the man who tends the sheep at the plantation (the shepherd?) spend five minutes discussing how humans and sheep are very much alike, as God knows, and how one can learn a lot about both by reading the Bible, Psalms in particular. And the crowd acted like the Bible was a perfectly normal thing to discuss for five minutes at a sheep-shearing exhibition! Believe me, you don't hear that on the West Coast.
During the sheep-shearing exhibition, my modern girl (who couldn't see through the crowd anyway) played with my iPhone.
John was really doubtful that people ever cooked food in this pot hung over a fire. "People don't cook with fire!"
"Smile, Mama!"
John perched on the well
The kids ran here . . .
. . . and there . . .
. . . to . . .
. . . and fro.It was a surprisingly chilly day, which is why you can see one of John's tee-shirts peeking out from under Mary's dress. When we arrived at the plantation, I had to dress her in whatever I could find in the car, poor bare-legged girl! At lunchtime we retreated to the van, lifted the tailgate, and ate a picnic in the back, which the kids (forever being admonished not to play in the van) thought was wildly exciting. Then we headed home.
It was a good day.
It was a good day.
In the picture with the chickens, the look on John's face says it all; look how lit up he is!! What a fantastic place to go for an educational visit at such a bargain! And lastly, is it just me, or does anyone else wonder how in the world they manage to shear those sheep so quickly without stabbing or cutting them? I guess it's one of those, "practice makes perfect" skills.
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