Mount Vernon

Today I am taking down my beautiful Little Bo Peep mobile and putting away Pelle's New Suit, our basket of wool, and the hand carders... tomorrow is a new unit! We had a marvelous time in our week of wool study. I got to almost everything I had wanted to do, miraculously. Didn't demonstrate spinning wool into yarn or complete a weaving project with wool yarn. But we did the rest of it: the Pelle's New Suit circle play, the field trip to Mount Vernon to see the sheep shearing, a wet felting project. Mount Vernon worked out well.. after I found the place! They used to have good signage for it as soon as you got over the bridge from MD to VA but the bridge was torn down and replaced with a new one and I guess they haven't gotten to signposting the new bridge properly. So I am writing the directions here, so that I have it for next time: go over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Take first exit in VA which is Route 1. Head for Alexandria, not Fort Belvoir. Turn right at first light onto Franklin Street. Turn right on Washington. Follow signs to Mount Vernon. When leaving, take 495E/95N to get home.

At Mount Vernon we first hit the visitor's center so I could get my photo taken for my annual pass ($18 vs. $13 for a daily pass). Kids were free. They had a wonderful furnished dollhouse-size replica of Mount Vernon which Natalie looked at, also full size bronze statues of old George, Martha, and their grandchildren Nellie and Washy which they raised as their own. Then we headed out of the building, walked past the mansion but didn't go in (we'll do it when the kids are older) and headed for Washington's farm exhibits. He was big into agricultural experiments, actually. We saw his Seed Beds (why buy seeds when you can grow your own?), the pig pen complete with a passel of piglets resting in the sun, a mule, a horse (blind in one eye), two cows (or oxen, I'm not sure) and then we went to his Tomb. Now that's not something I would have gone to, but Natalie really was curious what was up the little path so we trotted up. She wanted to know who had died so I told her George Washington... she looked for a while, and then came back to me and whispered "He's not there". So I had to explain that he was buried and we had a little talk about dying -- not something that I had planned for the day but what can you do. She wanted to know why he had died, not being familiar with the idea that people can die of old age. She is lucky enough to still have all four of her great-grandparents from my side of the family and the ones on Steve's side died way before she was born, so she never even knew about them. So after her questions ("He didn't like his number?" -- that one made me laugh) we walked down the road to the Wharf. The mansion was built on a river, naturally. Don't ask me which though, although I should know, having gone over it on a big bridge...

Then we ground corn into cornmeal in an old mortar and pestle and sieved it through a piece of mesh. The pieces which were fine enough fell down into the trough and the pieces which were too large went back to be ground again. Then the sheep. The kids had a good time, I think, but they didn't want to stay and watch the shearing for too long. We headed for the barn where Washington threshed his wheat. This is actually a really cool design, which he invented. The barn is built on a hill and the top level you walk right into although it's quite high up (like an attic) and the bottom level you access by going around to the bottom of the hill and walking in. The top level is built of slats of wood with spaces between them, like a grate over a drain. The entire thing is a circular shape. So you lay your wheat down on the slats, harness up a team of horses, and walk them around and around in a circle. The little grains of wheat fall down in the cracks to the bottom level and the parts of the wheat that you don't want (called the chaff) you just sweep away. Slaves also used a hand-cranked fan down at the lower level to blow off any remaining pieces of chaff from the wheat. It is a nifty design. Then we took the Forest Path up to the cafeteria, ate, shopped a bit (I like to get a few linen dishtowels each time we go) and headed home. All in all, a very successful day!