Caelah and I are wrapping up our few weeks of pioneer study-- although I think we may drag it on longer. It has been so much fun. To celebrate, we took a long drive South to Upper Canada Village. The whole place is a feast for the eyes.Since we were last there the Discovery Center was been built: a small museum with interactive displays. As you enter, there is a curtain of dry ice(?) streaming down, upon which is a projection of a battle. It was slightly disconcerting to me, but little kids simply hated it. "Mommy, I don't want to go in there!"
We had the place to ourselves, which meant that we could entice the actors into a more flexible dialogue than would otherwise have been permitted, (as the "actors" are not supposed to slip out character.) I found out from the spinning lady that you can take wool from your own sheep to a shop in Osgoode to be spun. And the school teacher let us ring the bell inside. The carriage driver told a story about a cellphone being left in a casket, then ringing. As the tinsmith laboured to curl his sharp edges under, I tipped him off about metal buffers, and he thought he might go ahead and invent it. The tavern owner and I discussed the unsuitability of my soldier boots, leggings, knee-high skirt and yellow hoody for the dance being held there that night. And the we caught the printsmith at work on a special, and illicit, project: a poster commemorating his favourite motorcycle:
