Alpaca Farm

Every year our local alpaca farm has an open house. The girls love to go and this year the owner generously let the girls into the pasture. She has 36 alpacas here.

Three babies. The darker one is almost four weeks old, the smallest one is a week and a half, and the other on the far right is two and a half weeks.

Afterwards we went inside for some snacks, got some wool for felting, and looked at the displays.

ELP Eco friendly farm visit

For ELP class, we visited this eco-friendly farm. The family, mom, dad, and daughter, lived in a tent for 1.5 years while they built the home. They built the frame, filled it with straw, and used clay from their own land for the "drywall." You can see the results in this photo....gorgeous windows, and no paint...the clay is colored. Here the owner is showing the class photos of the house being built.

The counter tops are recycled glass.

These lights are made from painted jars.

The upstairs...wish I had gotten more photos inside the house. The toilet flushes using gray water from the sinks. The floors are concrete, painted with soy based paint and  heated with geothermal energy. All the windows are on the South side of the home allowing for natural heat in the winter, and there is a powerful fan in the second floor ceiling to bring in cool air at night in the summer.

Outside of the home.

The chickens were a big hit with the children. Hard to see, but in this photo, the hen is off the ground jumping up to get a bit of cracker.

The brave ones chased and picked up a hen.

collecting eggs in the hen house.

learning the difference between a fresh egg and an older, store bought one.

The family planted nine acres of native prairie.

Here the children are going down into the clay pit, where the clay to build the home came from.

petting the pigs.

New puppy

Meet Barley...our new addition....

He is part Australian cattle dog, lab, and pit bull

Ted likes him a lot!

Barley was on mild replacer for a couple days

our neighbors got Barley's brother, Henry

Zumbro Bend Rendezvous Mantorville Minnesota

Last year, these folks got evacuated due to flooding....the two previous years, it rained each day. Finally, this year was perfect weather! They set up on Tuesday and stay for the week, open for education days on Thursday and Friday, and open to the public on Saturday and Sunday.

Zumbro Bend Rendezvous

Since we went on our own, we joined up with some other homeschoolers from Rochester and Pine Island.

Our first stop was learning about the matchlock rifle.

                   
                                                    Here is a video of it being fired...
                                                     Matchlock rifle being fired.

This lady taught us about dyes....it was very interesting to learn how denim used to be dyed with indigo, and what they use for synthetic dyes now....my daughter vows to never wear denim again.

Foxy lady has been trapping beaver her entire life. She is wearing a beaver hat from the early 1800's.

Of course the girls loved the archery!

For lunch, we walked downtown.

We were going to eat at the historic Hubbell House, but they did not open until 11:30. This was originally built as a stagecoach stop in 1854.

Lunch at the County Seat.

My panino was yummo...avocado, feta, tomato, onion, spinach.

heading back.

sharing some fudge

This guy was the girls' favorite. He talked about native American life.

Here is showing us us his millefiori beads made in Venice. He also had chevron beads, but I did not get a photo.

He explained why this bow is decorated with diamond back rattlesnake skin.

Learning about the Hudson Bay Company.

This gentleman told us of the daily lives of Puritans.

another video I took.

A look around the Rendezvous

On our way out of town we stopped to see the old stone church.

and the ruins of a brewery.