Frontier Culture Museum (Picture HEAVY)

Happy Wednesday!  I hope you all are getting lots done this week, I sure am!  My mom is coming for a short visit, so I have some housework that needs my attention!

Last weekend Hubby's family minus one sister (had the flu) and his mom (taking care of Grandma) went to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia.  If you've never been there, I highly reccomend it.  It is a great place for people of all ages! 

The museum has seven different farms and a working blacksmith shop.  Each farm showcases different time periods and how the people of those times lived.  Your first stop is an African settlement, made of mud!  This was a huge hit with the kids, they loved the fact that the houses and even the beds were made of mud.

The kids also thought it was awesome that the doors were so low that they could walk in, but we adults had to bend in half to get in!  The doors are low so that the roofs can be peaked steeply so in the rainy season the water just runs off.  This is a replica, but they did have people from the tribe help them to build this settlement.

Next on your walking tour is the English farm, the kids loved this!  The house is red, it gets this color because white plaster is mixed with red brick dust.  This house actually came from England and was taken apart piece by piece and numbered.  It was reconstructed here at the museum and you can still see the numbers on some of the beams.  This farm shows what life was like in the 1700's.

part of the kitchen. See the cheese press to the left?  They actually make cheese here every week, you can watch them do it!

This was the sitting room, children were not allowed in here except for church.

This is a trundle that would sleep 4 kids! There were cats in each of the houses, to help keep the rodents down.

Isn't this chest beautiful?  I would have taken it home with me in a heartbeat!

Across from the farm is one of the sheep pens, it also houses chickens. The day went they were demonstrating sheep sheering.

This sheep was so relaxed that she fell asleep while being sheared!

Washing the wool

allowing it to dry. 

The natural lanolin in the wool left your hands feeling so soft!  Tho, washing the wool was kind of gross.

Next on the tour is the Irish Blacksmith shop, again this came over piece by piece!

the blacksmith was making a twisted wall hook, they sell lots of things that are made in this shop

Now its on to the Irish farm, I believe this one was a reproduction as well.

They had to grind their flour daily! It was too humid to keep so they ground what they needed for that day, let me tell you it is not easy!!  Those ladies were strong!

This is the German farm, again taken apart piece by peice and rebuilt here on site.  The inside is beautiful, and cool feeling.

this man told us all about life on the farm, and played a cool intrument, I don't remember what it was called but it is similar to a dulcimar.

Large loom.  All these farmers had to grow flax and then weave linnen cloth

a beautiful chest at the German farm

One thing I noticed as we moved from farm to farm and progressed through the century, more color was used in the furniture and homes themselves.   This chest was very ornate, much more fancy than anything else we had seen in the other houses. 

Well, sorry this was so picture heavy, I took a couple hundred pictures, so just imagine what you could have seen!  I will finish up the museum tour on Friday, with the American section.

Have a great day!
Melissa