On the Farm, Back in the Day

Livie and I were on a bit of a vacation for the last few days. We were visiting her grandparents for a week, and had plenty of adventures. Andrew had 4 days off from work, so he was able to come out Saturday-Tuesday.

One of our adventures was going to a place called Living History Farms, in Urbandale, IA. It's a huge, 500-acre open air museum, with re-creations of life in various time periods here in Iowa.

We visited the museum's town of "Walnut Hill, IA," which is a representation of a post-Civil War Iowa town, as it would have been in 1875. They have various buildings, such as a church, a lawyer's office, a doctor's office (the doc also being the town's dentist), a one-room school house, a millinery, a bank, and other such offerings a town of this sort would have in this time period. Plus, they have various people in period costume and "in character," ready to teach visitors about life in the 1870s (like the milliner, who taught us about which hats would be appropriate for women and girls (like me and Livie) in the time period).

I took a TON of photos, both with my little Cannon PowerShot camera, as well as my iPhone. But instead of boring you all with a million photos, I'll show a few "like" photos today (ones that are similar in theme), and then a few more over the next few days. (And of course, the Living History Farms' website has great photos for you to get a good idea of what this fun museum is all about.)

First stop, the horse-related photos:

We're at the vet's. To the left, his office, to the right, the barn.

In the barn: a wagon, and behind Livie's left shoulder, a stall with hay bales.

In the office - a horse skull, and tools in the cabinet.

A fenced-in yard outside the vet's office.

In the barn - some "advertisements" from around town.

Of course, there's a blacksmith in town.

The blacksmith - the billows that stokes the fire is in the upper left hand corner of the photo, with a "pipe" focused on the fire; it's currently in the "closed" position, having just blown out a bunch of air onto the fire. The (21st Century) boy is operating the billows' handle. Liv's hatted head is in the lower right corner.

And one cool sign from the gift shop:

Stable Inn: Stall Rentals, Riding Lessons, Horseshoeing, Training

The only thing that stopped me from buying it? No place to put it!