History, Logging, Box Factory

We went to the office for the local Rails to Trails program today to register the kids for the Fun Run they are having tomorrow. I had forgotten that they have a small, local history museum there. The kids had fun looking at everything. Pictures of our town 100 or more years ago and seeing how the people dressed, looking at the old lanterns (E was asking about the difference between lanterns and the torches in minecraft the other day, so now she knows what a lantern looks like), the wagon, the luggage, and the trunks and hope chests ("Mom, a treasure box!") There were also ancient things like typewriters and phones with cords. Lol

We saw pictures of the old saw mill and trains carrying lumber from the forest to the mill. On the way home, I took us the route that goes by the mill and we went slow and talked about why the mill closed and why it looks the way it does now. I also connected it to D's old job for them. Two summers ago, he worked as a fire watchman for a lumber company, and he lived in a trailer onsite. E still remembers visiting him there and seeing all the logging equipment and trucks loaded down with logs and we just happened to have been looking at old pictures of that yesterday, so that was a cool connection.

Then we went for a walk on the trail, and we saw horses, picked more pine needles for tea, and saw lots of pollen in the air. E saw some flowers and knew they were bluebells and I have no idea how she knew that. I hardly know the names of any flowers, and she said her grandma didn't tell her either. I wasn't sure what they were until we got home and I looked up bluebells and sure enough, that's what we saw!  *wrote on May 17

---

So, you know how a few days ago, I posted about how the kids and I learned stuff about logging from that museum and drove by our town's old mill? Well, without knowing any of that, my mom emailed me a link to this documentary on a Steam Sawmill Box Factory just because she thought we might like it.  The girls and I had just revisited what creates steam a few days ago AND some of the boxes that they make are for Louis L'Amour book collections and D has a huge set.

This is what I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about unschooling! The way everything connects to everything else is all around us! It's just a matter of being open to it.   *wrote on May 21