Old Time Harvest Days at Fryer Park

This is a hugely picture heavy post,  but this was a really fun day and you wouldn't want to miss anything, right? Fryer Park on Orders Rd is always a great place for an adventure. There is a super exciting playground, a large pond, and a small collection of historical buildings that have been relocated here. They have events a few times a year, but this is the first one that we've been able to attend. It was extremely well organized, had an amazing amount of activities set up, and was totally free! It was perfect for kids, and the littles were very interested in everything there was to see. I also saw younger kids who were able to do many of the activities with help from parents, and quite a few older kids/teens as well. The only thing that was missing this year was the wool carding and spinning demonstration, due to the volunteer being sick, but my kids get to see that at home :).

Stamping Leather

Knot tying

Pony!

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Sick, but making the best of it

While it was never fun getting sick as a kid, I still remember how great it felt to be able to get into my parents bed and stay there all day, warm and cuddly, watching tv and eating toast. With two 4 year olds running in circles around me, it's usually not quite as relaxing now as it used to be. How sweet it is, that the mister stayed home yesterday, and I got to stay in bed. I've set up camp in the room that passes as our guest room, since it's the only room in our house with both a bed and a door. I've got a down comforter, a few books, and the laptop. Every once in a while, a little loud visitor comes up to see how I'm doing. It's like a little vacation, and I think I love it. Well, except for the searing pain in my throat, ringing in my ear, and the coughing that wakes me up every hour or so.
With this sudden free time, I've been clicking around on Pinterest, and found a few recipes that sounded like they'd go well with my current state. Thursday night, I made this carrot ginger soup. The only changes I made to the recipe was to add a couple of cloves of fresh garlic and a whole chopped pasilla pepper. I figured the spicyness would help blast some of the germs out of me, and the pasillas have a ton of vitamin C. It was quick to make, and was super tasty.

Source: joythebaker.com via karma on Pinterest

Then, last night, I needed something cold to help put out the fire in my throat. We'd baked a giant squash earlier in the week, so I thought I'd use it in place of the pumpkin in the pumpkin pie milkshakes.

Source: wearenotmartha.com via karma on Pinterest

I had to do some fiddling with the ingredients since we are dairy and gluten free, but it turned out pretty well. I used coconut milk and soy ice cream, and replaced the graham crackers with Envirokids animal cookies. I would have preferred to use the gluten-free craham cracker crumbs that I used to make the s'mores, but didn't have any. It tasted exactly like pumpkin pie, but colder and much more soothing.
An optional part of the pumpkin pie milkshake recipe is a caramel drizzle made by melting caramel candy. To keep ours dairy free, I called on another Pinterest recipe that I recently found.

Source: alwayswithbutter.blogspot.com via karma on Pinterest

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make this one dairy-free, but I did! In place of the heavy cream I used Mimicreme, and it worked perfectly! I also used raw sugar in place of refined sugar, and cut the whole recipe in half in case it turned out badly. It didn't turn out saucy, I think because I cooked it too long. Since the raw sugar is already darker in color, it was difficult to know when it was finished cooking. So, the finished result was definately not able to be drizzled, but was so unbelievably yummy crumbled up and sprinkled on top of our milkshakes. I guess I'll just have to try making this one again to see if I can get it to come out the way it's supposed to. Darn.

Not to put too fine a point on it

Sharpening pencils and crayons!

 The littles asked to do some writing practice, but the pencils they wanted to use were dull.

We got out the sharpener, and then all thoughts of writing were gone. They spent at least 45 minutes sharpening pencils, and then crayons. They'd take turns between the 2 sharpeners, and sometimes one would peel crayon wrappers off so that there was always a pile ready to go. 

We can always write another day.

Old Time Harvest Day

Old Time Harvest Day 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 2
Old-Time Harvest Day in Grove City will give today’s generation a look into the past at historical Century Village, 4185 Orders Road. The City of Grove City and the Southwest Franklin County Historical Society collaborate annually to organize this fun, free and educational event for the community. Demonstrations such as leather tooling, soap making, blacksmithing, butter churning and two-man sawing will be presented throughout the day along with period-appropriate harp and dulcimer performances. Most activities are hands-on and appropriate for all ages. Children will also have the opportunity to make crafts and learn old fashion games. Concessions will be available. Century Village, located at Fryer Park, represents the initial stage of development for a typical central Ohio community in the 1850’s and features a one room school, outhouse, windmill, log cabin and barn.

Slightly underwhelming natural history exhibit, saved by the public library

Stick Insect

We visited the World of Wonder exhibit at the Grove City Town Hall and Visitor Center, thinking it would be a good afternoon activity. However, even though the collection was pretty impressive, it is most certainly not for small children.

Green Nymph Stick Insect

 The Visitor Center has a small collection of historical items from Grove City's past and are also currently exhibiting an aisle of display cases containing the Rodney Eaken Collection of crystals, insects, fossils, and shells. Our small group of 2 adults and 5 children walked into the Town Hall/Visitor center, and were greeted only by dozens of small signs warning us not to touch anything. We never did find anyone to answer any questions about the historical items or the natural history collection. The kids enjoyed looking at the insects and fossils, but I found myself having to constantly remind them not to touch, leaving us all feeling tense before we'd finished looking at everything. We'd been pretty excited to see the dinosaur egg fossil, but sadly ended up missing it.

Walking Leaf Insect

Ammonite Fossils

Trilobites

 After a snack and a calm-down on a park bench outside the Visitor Center, we all decided it would be a good time to walk across the street to visit the library. We knew that there were a few more cases of shells over there, and the kids wanted to pick out some new bedtime books.

More enormous shells

 I knew that the larger libraries in town had extensive collections of in-library materials for kids, and computers set up with learning games, but I didn't realize that our little local branch had those resources as well. The kids had some fun playing on the computers, but then found the LeapFrog readers and decided to park themselves at a table for a while with them. It was really cute watching them figure out the systems. They told me pretty emphatically that they want to go back to try the other books soon.

Having fun with soft toys and puppets at the library

 All in all, it was a successful outing. We got to see some really interesting fossils and insects, and the kids are even more excited to be able to go to the Smithsonian Natural History museum someday. We also learned about a cool new feature of our local library, and got to visit with some of our favorite friends. Bonus: the kids stayed awake on the way home, and went to bed easier and earlier than normal. Yay!