Hands on History

Yesterday, the Linn County Museum (you might remember my post about them that kicked off our whole museum a month thing) hosted their second annual Hands on History day. 

We started out with spinning and wool carding on the lawn of the Moyer House. I've been wanting to see the inside of that place for years, so as soon as I could pry the boys away from the wool (We've got fleece and a set of carders at home!) we went inside and they chatted with a man in the parlor who was demonstrating Victorian toys while I wandered into the kitchen and watched the butter churning.  

I've got more than one butter churn here at the house, but the woman doing the demonstration knew more about the history of butter than I would have thought possible. Did you know that it was originally used as a lamp oil and not for food? Now I've got to research that. 

One of the volunteers told us that there was an embalmer setting up in the park. What impression do we give off that lets strangers know we're going to drop everything and send us in that direction?

We must've stood there for at least half an hour hearing all about embalming during the Civil War and it was absolutely fascinating. He stayed in character, but not obnoxiously so, and went into a ton of historical detail without dwelling on the gross stuff.

I thought I took more pictures than I actually did. My two younger boys tried a cross cut saw, which had me holding my breath the entire time. I didn't think they were going to lose a limb, but I was definitely worried about the saw. They panned for gold and we got our picture taken with a hundred year old camera.

And we sort of tried to lean to dance. I love the image of my son in his zombie Shakespeare t shirt danging with a woman in a hoop skirt. He definitely caught on faster than I did!

There was a mule drawn wagon and a man riding around the streets on one of those old high-wheeled bicycles.

I'm so glad my husband let me know this was happening! We learned a lot of things that may lead to other things...or may not.  Either way, we all had fun and we're looking forward to next year.