Back in the 1800's

Last Friday I went with Eli's class on a field trip to the Riley Apple Orchard and Farm.

The farm was established in the 1800's so they do a lot of things on the tour that show what life was like back then.  They played us some music with their old time instruments.

Then the kids got to build a log cabin.

Here they are all in front of it, unfortunately there was a tree in the way of me taking a straight picture, it really wasn't that crooked.

Next they rotated around doing other activities that were common in the 1800's.

Like cutting firewood

Writing with ink and a quill

Washing clothes and hanging them out to dry

Playing tug-o-war (Boy have kids playtimes changed!)

And they picked up dead apples off the ground

Right before lunch they got to make fresh apple cider, which was very interesting to watch.

First they washed the apples

Then they put them through a hand cranked chopper

The pulp from the apples fell into the wooden bucket below that had a net with holes in it. Any juice leaked through and drained into the metal bucket on the floor.

Once all the apples were chopped he put the bucket under a disk that could be spun down.  He put a wooden circle over the top and spun the disk until it pressed on the circle and squeezed all the rest of the juice out of the pulp.

Then he poured the cider into a jug and let the foam spill over so that we would have a whole gallon of fresh apple cider.  The kids were so proud that they had made something that looked store bought.  Today at school they get to taste it.

It was a lot of fun spending time in the 1800's with Eli and his friends.  It only makes me want to grow a garden even more.  Hopefully some day.