22. Flat Stanley Wears A Kilt & Goes To A Living Historical Farm

I received an email update from Stanley's friend Chris in Nova Scotia the other day. She wrote:

"Hi Alexa.

Well, Stanley finally got out on a little excursion to the harbour in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a day when the weather was sunny - for a change. We have been having a lot of rain this summer. so, we saw some sailing ships, and Theodore Tugboat (He had his own TV show a few years ago, but I don't know if you would have got it in the US) We also looked at some sculptures of dolphins, and one of a cow outside a famous-in-these-parts ice cream store called "Cows". And Stanley got to wear his Nova Scotia Tartan kilt, along with two guys who are running a summer business called Old City Walking Tours here in Halifax.

I am going send pictures, and will try one at a time to make sure they get through, so Stanley in his kilt should be attached to this message.

There is some information about the Nova Scotia tartan and its history here:

http://www.jennifers.ns.ca/our_tartan.htm




This one is Stanley in his kilt, with two guys in _their_ kilts near the Halifax waterfront.



This is me (Chris) with Stanley and a sailing ship that does harbour cruises. (You may use my picture on the blog if you want. Also, I got permission from the kilted fellows at Old City Walking Tours to use their pic online as well).



Stanley and Theodore Tugboat, who also goes on harbour tours, and had his own Tv show, too.

Here is some more info on Theodore:

http://www.murphysonthewater.com/theodoretugboat/



Flat Stanley with another sailboat at the waterfront. Do you recognize the Canadian flag on the stern of the boat?



In this one, Stanley is getting acquainted with the big cow sculpture at a well-known ice cream store here called "Cows."



And finally, Stanley is having a ride on one of the colourful dolphin sculptures that have landed on the waterfront for the summer. You have to look carefully to see Stanley right up on the dolphin's head.





I hope all these pictures came through OK to your e-mail and didn't clog up your in box too much. I will be sending another Stanley report form Nova Scotia probably in a couple of weeks.

Cheers for now!

Chris"


Nope we have plenty of email space and love getting emails and pictures by and about Flat Stanley! Thanks for sending them, we love him in his kilt!



Yesterday we took our hometown Flat Stanley with us to Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm. Here are some excerpts from its website explaining what it is all about:

Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm is a non-profit, educational corporation dedicated to the preservation and presentation of Pennsylvania's agricultural heritage.
A living museum - like stepping back in time!

We are open to the general public... with period-dressed "family" members reenacting the life of the original Pennsylvania German family who lived on the farm from the 1760s to 1913.
Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm consists of over 100 acres of pasture, woods and fields. The farm buildings at Quiet Valley, including the barn and farm house, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Quiet Valley raises a variety of historically appropriate livestock and fowl that are quickly disappearing from the agricultural landscape. Traditional Pennsylvania crops such as wheat, corn and rye are grown as well.

Buildings include a farm house, spring house, cabin, school house and barn. Animals include rabbits, horses, chicken, goats, mule, cow, sheep, pigs and turkeys. Field crops include flax, wheat, corn, rye and potato.

The history of Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm begins early 1760's when the Depper family left their home in the Palatinate region of Germany to start a new life in America. They sailed from Rotterdam to Philadelphia in, arriving in 1765, and eventually made their way north looking for land that they could farm. They settled in Quiet Valley near modern Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1780 their daughter Katherine married Johann Ludwig Meyer who had originally come to America as a Hessian soldier during the Revolutionary War. Johann and Katherine passed the farm on to their son, a carpenter/farmer named John Simon Meyer. John Simon Meyer's daughter and son-in-law, Hannah and Peter Marsh received the farm next. They sold the farm to thier son Horace who lived on the farm until 1913 when the farm was sold outside the family.

In 1958 Alice and Wendell Wicks purchased the property from the widow of Thomas Hess. Attracted by the beautiful natural setting, they intended to develop it. When they began to look around the farmhouse and barn, however, they realized the historic and cultural value of what they had purchased, and were inspired to preserve it and make it available to the public.

The original portion of the farmhouse, known today as the ‘cellar kitchen’, dates from the last quarter of the 18th century. A ground-floor bedroom and a loft for the children were added soon after. The farmhouse as it stands today was completed in the 1890’s with the addition of a parlor and ‘new’ kitchen furnished with a wood burning cook-stove. Up until that time the cooking for the family had been done at the open hearth in the original cellar of the house. From the 1890’s modifications until the Wicks purchased the farm in 1958, there had been no further modernization to the property – no plumbing and no electricity. Much of the house remained as it had been in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, along with many of the artifacts and furnishings. The barn dates from the 1850’s and is a beautiful example of a traditional, early American barn. The upper barn is made of wood with a mortise and tenon construction, and the lower level where the animals are housed is made of stone.

Alice and Wendell Wicks along with their daughter and son-in-law, Sue and Gary Oiler, restored the farmhouse and on July 13, 1963, opened to the public as Quiet Valley Farm Museum. That first year the farm was open during the summer season only. Over the years additional farm buildings were renovated and reconstructed – a ‘granddaddy’ cabin, out-door bake oven, icehouse, smokehouse, dry house and various smaller barns and sheds. Later as the farm was used more and more for educational purposes, additional storage was built and also a modern education building and a picnic pavilion. In 1994 construction was completed on a reconstructed, one-room schoolhouse circa 1893.

Since 1974 Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm has been owned and operated as a non-profit, educational corporation governed by a board of directors. Until her retirement in 2001 at the age of 85, Alice Wicks remained actively involved in the management of the museum. She had played her role as ‘Gram’ in the 1830 bedroom for over 30 years to the delight of generations of school children and summer visitors.

The farm is open to the public daily from June 20th to Labor Day every day except Monday. The tour of the farm is much more than an opportunity to see a museum. Period costumed ‘family members’ reenact life on the farm during two time periods – 1830 in the granddaddy cabin, cellar kitchen and bedroom; and 1893 in the ‘new’ kitchen and parlor. The actors strive to make their first-person interpretations as authentic as possible and they are always just as entertaining as they are educational. Family members will also show you the barn, complete with the appropriate farm animals and demonstrations of period farm equipment. Children love to try out the hay jump. A variety of 19th century crafts and skills are demonstrated daily with special demonstrations scheduled several times a week.

Here are a few pictures from Quiet Valley:

Flat Stanley Meets Some Dinosaurs and Lives A Day At Wick Farm In 1779!

Flat Stanley certainly has some great adventures with his new friends Tim and Lynda in Canada! We received another update from him, which said:

"Alexa,

Yesterday we went to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller. I am sending some pictures. The first couple show the Badlands area of Alberta. I think they are called the “Badlands” because they are bad for ranching, bad for farming and not much good for anything else. It is here that many of the dinosaur finds in Alberta have been made.

Most of the Tyrrell museum sets up displays of the bones of dinosaurs found all over the world. There a few displays where they have done the dinosaurs up as they might have looked if they were alive. The next picture shows one of these where the dinosaur seems to be looking at me. If you could see the bigger picture you would see that there is a huge dinosaur looking at him for lunch.

No visit to the dinosaurs would be complete without a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and here is ours. Next is a Camerasaurus, a great dinosaur for a photographer. It is a huge plant eating dinosaur. To give you some idea of the size, the next picture shows me on a Camerasaurus thigh bone. To get an even better idea of the size of some of these use animals the next picture shows me standing next to the leg bones of an unnamed dinosaur. When he’s that big I just call him Sir!

Another favourite of mine is the Albertasaurus, a smaller cousin of the T. Rex. Here we have pictures of him with and without his skin. He is named for the province where he was first found, Alberta. He may be the smaller cousin, but he is still pretty big.

Our last photo from the Royal Tyrrell is of a modern Bison, what we here in North America call a Buffalo. I include this because I hope to soon be going to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, a place that shows how the local natives gathered the buffalo and their parts for use in the daily lives of the aboriginals.

Once we finished with the museum we went into downtown Drumheller for lunch. There are statues of dinosaurs all over town, so we decided to have lunch with an Allosaur. What you see in the picture isn’t exactly what I thought they meant. It was much more fun riding the Triceratops. Almost like being back in the Stampede.

Take care and keep well,

F. Stanley"
























Those were fun! Although poor Stanley nearly got eaten for lunch! :) And upon viewing the submitted entry, I see this site is once again eating some of the pictures for lunch and doing some cropping in some places I'd rather it not. I hate when it does that. I'll have to see if I can fix them later.


Okay! So I had posted recently about how Anne DeGraaf, the Chief of Interpretation at Morristown National Historical Park in New Jersey, had tried emailing me a "Flat Stanley Packet" after being contacted by my sister, Alexa's Aunt Robin. However I had been unable to open it as it was a Word document and I did not have Word on my computer. My sister tried converting it for me and was unable to do so. She sent me a printout snail mail which was great because then we could see all the text and pictures. But it didn't help in regard to being able to post it HERE, even though at least we'd be able to keep it.

So, the other day I installed Microsoft Word on my computer (it will come in handy for other reasons, too) and was able to download the document. Now that it is saved on my computer, I tried copy and pasting the text, which I had no problem with. But I also tried saving the photos so that I could upload them, and that I DID have a problem with. I was not able to do it. So I am going to have to post the text without being able to post the pictures. Which is unfortunate because it was loaded with great photos. But here is the text:

"Dear Alexa,

The staff members at Morristown National Historical Park in Morristown, New Jersey recently opened an envelope and a cute little boy named Stanley came out! He asked us for an adventure here in New Jersey. We put him in the park’s magic time machine and sent him to live a day at the Wick Farm in Jockey Hollow. We sent him to December, 1779…"

(Here there was a picture of an old farm house).

"Henry and Mary Wick lived in this farm house with their youngest daughter Temperance. On December 1, 1779 the Continental Army rented the Wick's large farm and house for a winter encampment. Approximately 13,000 soldiers camped on and near the Wick Farm. General Arthur S. Clair of Pennsylvania rented the Wick House as his temporary home and office. He lived there for six months with his two Aides De Camps (army secretaries).

Stanley woke up in a bed at the Wick farm. It was very cold so he went to the open hearth and tried to light a fire."

(Here there was a picture of Stanley in an unlit fireplace).

"Since he is so young, Stanley was afraid he might burn himself. However, he learned that in the 18th century (more than 200 years ago), children as young as two-years-old started fires in the morning. He was very careful and with the adults' help he got the fire lit."

(Here there was a picture of a fire in the fireplace).

"Stanley learned the Wicks had chores for him to do during the day... He measured skeins of thread on a niddy noddy. He then wove thread on table and lap looms to make fabric. The thread was spun from wool on drop spindles."

(Here there was a picture of Stanley with the looms).

"He had to make butter by using a butter churn. It was hard work."

(Here there was a picture of Stanley with the butter churn).

"The Officers staying in the house asked Stanley if he could read and write. Stanley said he could so they asked him if he could help. Stanley helped write letters, orders, and other paper work for the American Revolution! This was done by hand with a quill (feather) pen. It was a little messy."

(Here was a picture of Stanley with some papers and a quill pen).

"Stanley helped to set the table with red clay plates and bowls called earthenware."

(Here was a picture of Stanly with the earthenware).

"Stanley was asked to get the sugar. Stanley learned that sugar was a very special item bought from the West Indies (the Caribbean). Because it had to travel by ship to New Jersey, it was shipped in hard cones. He had to use the Sugar Nippers to clip pieces off the cone for everyone. It was a special treat."

(Here was a picture of Stanley with the sugar cone).

"After tea, Stanley went back to work for the officers. Stanley got to write more reports with a traveling writing kit on a portable desk the officers let him borrow. He learned they used sand in a tin shaker instead of erasers for mistakes. It was very hard work but he had fun.

It was now getting late and since there was no electric light, it was too dark to work. The officers thanked Stanley for his help."

(Here there was a picture of Stanley with an Ink Sander).

"Stanley washed his face and got ready for bed. He was very tired. 18th-century beds used ropes instead of box springs. The ropes loosened sometimes and made the mattress sage. Stanly used the bed wrench to tighten the ropes."

(Here there were two pictures; one of Stanley next to a little wash basin and pitcher, and one with Stanly on a bed with a bed wrench, or bed key).

"Stanley told us that even though he was really tired, he had a great time and learned a lot. The park staff hopes you enjoyed his adventure and some day come to Morristown National Historical Park to have an adventure of your own.

So that was it! It was really nice of them to put that together for us, it was a lot of fun to read in conjunction with the photos they set up for us, and I just wish I'd been able to save the photos so I could have uploaded them here!

When I emailed Ms. DeGraaf to tell her how much we enjoyed it and to thank her, she said: "I'm glad you enjoyed it. I can't take credit for it; some of my creative staff members worked on it."

They did a great job :)

Incidentally, I did just email her again to ask her if there was any way the pictures could be sent to me as a separate attachment in a manner in which I'd be able to save them. If that does happen to come through, I'll come back here and insert the photos in the appropriate places. If it doesn't, at least the content of the text is here!

We are looking forward to hearing more news of Flat Stanley. There are a lot of them out there we haven't heard anything about yet! We hope they are all having fun and learning a lot.

20. Flat Stanley Goes On A Wildlife Safari!

On Monday, July 6th, we took Flat Stanley to Lake Tobias Wildlife Park, which is about an hour from where we live. Lake Tobias has zoo exhibits, a petting zoo, a reptile house and more. But its main feature is its wildlife safari tour:

"Safari tours are the main attraction at Lake Tobias Wildlife Park. Specially designed cruisers take you across 150 acres of rolling land where you see herds of wild and exotic animals from around the world.

Tour guides travel with you giving expert information on the various species and their habitats.

You will be surprised at how close you come to these animals."


Safari Tour animals include:

Aoudad Sheep
Buffalo
Elk
Emu
Fallow Deer
Llama
Red Deer
Rhea
Scottish Highland Cattle
Sika Deer
Texas Longhorn
Water Buffalo
Watusi
Whitetail Deer
Yak
Zedonk


The history of the park is as follows:

"Since 1965 Lake Tobias Wildlife Park has been fascinating patrons with its wild, exotic animals and adventure-seeking safari tours.

The late J.R. Tobias founded the park on the same property where he was born and raised. His unique ideas of touring the herds in their natural habitat and transforming school buses into "safari cruisers" have been duplicated by others today. The stream-fed lakes located throughout the park were also created by Mr. Tobias.

Today, with his wife and seven children in charge, the park continues to be a self-sustaining and family-owned business. Mr. Tobias's love and interest in animals has grown to become a favorite family attraction for over 100,000 park visitors each season."


It was our third time visiting the park and we always enjoy it. It was, of course, Stanley's first time there :)


Here are some pictures- and by the way, Stanley had another unfortunate accident, as you will see. You may recall from yesterday's entry that our Flat Stanley lost his left eye while we were visiting the Kutztown Folk Festival. We had to take several pictures of him with just one eye and re-glue his eye when we got home. Would you believe that the next day, at Lake Tobias, Stanley lost his RIGHT eye and we AGAIN had to take one-eyed pictures of Flat Stanley? Both of his eyes are currently repaired and doing well, in case anyone is wondering and/or concerned ;)

Alexa in front of our safari bus. For some reason she thought it would make a cute picture if she were pretending to pout and look sad.



Alexa and Flat Stanley on our safari bus reading to feed packages of special crackers to the animals:





On the safari








Flat Stanley got mistaken for a cracker and nearly got eaten!




Another safari bus in the distance




Our tour guide (who was quite amused to pose with Flat Stanley)




In the reptile house



They had a porcupine named Cuddles



and a sloth



Flat Stanley hangs out with a goat in the petting zoo




Oh! I almost forgot to add this! I also got a message board update from a friend who is hosting Flat Stanley in North Carolina. She wrote:

"Flat Stanley had a great 4th in NC. He played in the water at a sprayground, and listened to a band. He is wearing a life jacket since he is hoping to go out on a boat soon!"

Here are the pictures she sent:





I love the life jacket and the sunglasses! Cute!

19. Flat Stanley Goes To The Kutztown Folk Festival

Alright, I'm caught up on the updates you all have provided us. So today's entry will just be news of our hometown Flat Stanley. On Sunday, July 5 we took him to the Kutztown Folk Festival.

"2009 is the year of the 60th annual Kutztown Folk Festival; the oldest, continuously operating folklife festival in America. This 9 day Festival continues to draw visitors from all over the world, entertaining families while providing insight and understanding of the traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch and their fascinating way of life."

It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a nice time. We saw all different handmade crafts and got to watch people at work, like blacksmiths and glassblowers and wood carvers. Alexa got to try her hand at basket weaving. There was music and singing; Alexa even got a short guitar lesson. There was lots of food. There were some rides and face painting and a petting zoo and a puppet show and many photo ops for Flat Stanley, who we brought along.

Here are some of the pictures- and incidentally you may notice that in quite a few of them, Stanley only has one eye. Poor Stanley lost one of his googly eyes shortly after we got to the Festival, but don't worry! We fixed him right up after we got home!











sheep shearing:


petting zoo:






replica of lime kiln:






Flying Swings Ride










hammock swings:


glass blowing:


gallows:








Lying on the grass listening to music:


Bees!