Well, the weather wasn't pretty for our field trip this year, but it was better than last year. Last year it thunderstormed once we got to the farm, so my kiddos couldn't play bale tag. They were super bummed. This year, it was in the low 40s and sprinkled basically all day, though it tapered off a bit while we toured the farm. That didn't stop my students from playing bale tag! They had a blast and had the mud on their hands/clothes to prove it!
Our day started with a stop at the Jeffers Petroglyphs. We did the usual video about the site, looking at the replica artifacts they have in the center, then we braved the cold and wet and looked at the glyphs. Two times ago they'd been working on a project to get rid of the lichens that grew on the stones, hoping to find more glyphs. They'd had black plastic garbage bags held down by rocks on top of the flat stone. This time we were able to see some of the glyphs they'd uncovered. There was a huge map underneath the lichens! It's all carved in the hard stone, but you can see little dots linking a person to a circle (a town) and bison and other things. The one good thing about the wet is that we were able to see the glyphs very well.
We went inside to warm up and did a Winter Count activity. Winter Count is basically a calendar/diary/timeline mapped out in pictures. Each year, the keeper of the count chooses one symbol to represent the year and draws it on a piece of hide. He is in charge of remembering what the symbols mean and teaching them to someone else when he gets too old, so their history isn't lost. Some events include peace treaties between warring tribes, significant people dying, a meteor shower, good hunting year, etc. The next year another symbol is added to the same hide. My kids each had to make their own symbol on a paper printed to look like a hide.
After that we went outside again to throw atlatls at a fake bison. Some of my kids got super close! It was cool to watch them throw the spears. A few of the boys want to make an atlatl at home. Our guide gave me instructions to pass out back at school. We ate lunch inside the center since it was so cold out, and then we headed to the farm.
As you might guess, there was a ton of mud EVERYWHERE. I'd warned my students, so most of them wore boots. Only a few had to borrow boots from the basement. One kid had a hole in his boot (he found that out the hard way, shin deep in mud on the other end of the farm). Dad went back and got him a bag to wear inside the boot.
They got a kick out of the rope swing in the hayloft. There's not a ton of hay up there. Normally the cats live up there, but we only saw one the whole time we were up there. I'm not surprised. My kids were super loud; they probably scared the cats into hiding. We pet a day old baby calf ("It's so soft Miss H!"), saw a freshly born calf wobble to its feet and start nursing (we missed the birthing part), played bale tag, got stuck in mud, got unstuck in mud, sat in tractors, watched the teenage chicks, checked out the pigs, played bale tag again, then got washed up and piled back into cars.
One not so good thing happened on the way to the farm... I hit a Canadian goose. There were two standing in the middle of the road. I thought they would move in time. One did, but the other veered into my car and popped the drivers' side mirror off the base. Thankfully it stayed tucked into my window and I was able to grab it when we got to the farm. Unfortunately, the glass is shattered, but Pastor was able to snap it back on for me once I got to church for youth group. I'm going to see if eBay has any parts I can buy to replace the broken one. If not, I have a friend who fixes cars who'll probably be able to help. Or I can take it to Ford for a replacement. But they'll probably be expensive.
After school we had another ICY event (aka- church youth group). It was supposed to start right after school at 3pm, but we didn't get back from the trip until about 4:30. Some of the girls went home to change first since they were so muddy. Still, we ended up with seven people! That's one of our higher attended events! Pastor did a devotion about fishing and the bible, we made microwave mug cake, at pizza, and played spoons. We were going to make cards for our shut-ins, but we ran out of time.
It was a full day! Now I'm curled up on my couch trying to figure out what to do with myself. I have an audiobook due in a few days I should listen to and a program for the Variety Night to type up, so I'll do that for sure. I might read a book after that. Or I might just go to bed!
Quick tongue update: the pain is getting less and less. It's still sore when I move it around in certain ways. My chiropractor found a myofunctional therapist in St. Peter, but they have to have a referral from an MD, so a dentist/oral surgeon doesn't qualify. I made an appointment with an ENT doctor (ear, nose, throat), but the earliest open appointment is June 11th. Yikes. So I emailed my GI doctor to see if she'd give me a referral. We'll see what happens! I'm still trying to find someone who does what's called 'body work', which is working with my upper body muscles to get them to stop compensating for the restriction I've been living with for 30 years.
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