Field Trip: Landis Valley Museum and Plant Fair

This weekend we went to check out another fair -- The Landis Valley Herb and Garden Faire.  Plants are a lot less exciting for the kids than the animals at the poultry swap were. To keep everyone's interest we alternated between plant stands and museum exhibits. 

I love when historical sites have people in character telling us about how they would have done things in that time period. These ladies were actually cooking over an open fire and baking bread in a brick oven outside.  I asked her whether she felt that recipes were simpler then or now.   She said that the trouble with old time recipes is that the measures are not exact.  Just enough to remind the cook about the steps -- she would have been shown by her mother how much "a little flour" was when she learned to make the recipe. 

 Nice pottery.

 Their old time veggie gardens were in progress, but not as nice as the flower beds around the buildings which seemed to be mostly perennials.

 They grew and made flax on the Landis farm.  It was fun to consider what it would have been like to plan clothes a year ahead instead of just ordering them on amazon.

 Cute round smokehouse.

 I bought a good sized witch hazel tree. I am excited about the fall flowers and of course it is a wonderful medicinal shrub. I took a picture so I could remember the instructions. They say it grows in shade, but the internet says sun to part-shade...

 The tin smith was the most fun historical building. She told the kids about how people used to give gag gifts for the 10 year wedding anniversary -- all kinds of silly things made of tin.   She let the kids try on these tin hats, a fan, and even a tin bouquet.

 We visited another little historic house that was part of the museum.  It had this creepy chimney where the smoke comes out of the head's mouth.