our miracle mile: Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill

There's always some point in the summer when I get a little sentimental. Maybe I get a little nostalgic even. I start thinking about the summers of my childhood and wanting to share those experiences and my family with my kids. I start wanting to visit the home of my childhood. So, as I do every summer, I started thinking about it, then chatting with my mom about it and before I knew it we were headed on the road to my hometown.

My dad has long been a fan of Shaker furniture and a few years ago he and my mom stopped at Pleasant Hill on the way to our house (or home from our house, whatever). This time we decided to meet there. Brad could drive his car and then come home to go to work and I could go with my mom and dad back to their house. I wouldn't have to make any part of the trip alone and we wouldn't have to buy a plane ticket.

In short, it was amazing. We stayed on the property itself in a building built in the 1800s (with modern bathrooms) above the cooper's shop. I'd spent the week before downloading the standards of learning for our state and ordering homeschool curriculum to match. I didn't order a specific social studies curriculum thinking that we would just integrate it in with other things (literature, experiences like this, etc) and I have to think this was an amazing way to learn about history and the way people once lived. I know that the kids didn't absorb just everything but miss L definitely came away with a better understanding of what "long ago" means and how these specific people lived there.

We arrived on Friday, August 10th and Saturday we woke up to a bright crisp morning. Brad and Pawpaw took the kids out while Mawmaw and I woke up a bit.

There were cows just outside our building. Mister W loves animals, especially farm animals, but he's just very nervous when he sees them.

Miss L was cold. We'd only brought shorts and short sleeves so she eventually came back with us.

This is the building where we stayed. It was just gorgeous.

The original farm and garden has been scaled back from it's original size but it still serves as a source of food for the restaurant on the property. It's amazing to think of the life that they led.

This is the old black barn.

AND... really goats are super cute, right?

Eventually they came to a grove of apple trees. Mister W took the chance to pick some up off of the ground and to "feed" them to the geese. Brad assures me that no geese were harmed during this trip.

After that it was time for breakfast and on our way to the trustees hall (and the restaurant) we snapped a few more photos. The light was beautiful and it really is just the most pleasant, beautiful place.

This is the window over the door to the trustees building. I'd love to have a door like this one day!

This is a wonderful example of the men's and women's doors on the common buildings.

After breakfast we went to explore the gardens more thoroughly. There was a children's activity in the gardens and they were going to harness the horses for the days work. We wanted to play a bit before all of that got started.

There was a patch of dirt just especially for digging and planting. Miss L and mister W together planted pieces of grass and leaves they found. :o)

There was a little room in the garden with sunflower "walls." It makes me think of planting a sunflower "fence" at the edge of our yard, except that would shade the garden! Someday we'll have to try this though. It makes for an absolutely magical little place to play. We played several games there but I know that playing prince and princess with the sunflowers as a castle was a favorite.

We also got to see sunflowers in all stages of life. There were some just opening and some that were bent low and heavy with seeds. I'm not sure miss L really knew where seeds were from. It was really neat!

I know I've said this before. Miss L has such a heart for animals. I don't know where life will take her and she may never pursue a career, etc with animals but they love her and she loves them. She's incredibly gentle with animals of all kinds and she is really intuitive about what they want and need. These goats were no exception. They seem to know that a friend is near and where mister W is terrified of them, miss L walked right up to the fence to greet them.

One of the workers noticed that miss L was enjoying the goats and asked if she'd like to pet a chicken. She fetched miss Ginger from the chicken yard.

By the time we were through with the chickens we headed into the barn to watch them harness the horses for the day's work. The horses had actually been injured some time before and were not yet ready to pull the cart and work so they simply harnessed them up for us to see.

We just kept on exploring after that. The soil in Kentucky is rocky and the Shakers were so good at gardening because they took the time to remove all of the rocks from the soil. They saved the rocks and paid Irish workers to come and build stone walls around the property. The white wooden fences were actually a later addition. The wall was really neat!

It seemed like the perfect place to get a photo.

Of course, would everyone cooperate? You never know!

I think they mostly did.

We attended the children's program in the garden. On this day they were cutting runners from strawberries to plant and take away with them.

Mister W enjoyed sitting between the rows.

Then the same worker who allowed miss L to pet the chicken also brought out a baby goat for us to see. Even mister W was happy to pet him!

We took a very short tour of one of the common buildings.

There are lots of windows all over to allow for natural light.

...and because our attention to looking at old buildings is not able to last a super long time we continued to play and explore.

We ended our day with dinner at the trustees office once again and then with a visit to a swing near the building where we were staying. We tried to get some family photos, but it didn't really work out. :o) That's okay. We got some sweet ones anyhow.