Old Sturbridge Village

Today, me and my Dad went to a place in Massachusetts called Sturbridge Village. It is a colonial style town meant to be from the 1830's.  Different people will dress up as people from that time period, and teach children about the art they are trained in, such as pottery. Me and Dad visited: The Potter, The Shoemaker, and a lady who was baking.

Sturbridge was not just people though. I also met rams, sheep, albino turkeys, cows, and even some oxen. The oxen were trained to line up in a row for tourists, and to tilt their heads while being put in a yoke ( No, oxen do not eat eggs. A yoke is a kind of bridle for oxen to wear ).

 A lady who was baking a lot of goods told us she was preparing for Thanksgiving. Can you believe that it was the most important holiday back then? People didn't even celebrate Christmas. I learned a lot about what cooking was like back then. Pickling and drying foods was useful for preserving harvest for winter, and being there was no such thing as electricity, all of the food was cooked by fire.

I thought the food looked very tasty until I saw the flies. They were sitting right on the apple pie, and the lady did not even care. It turns out people back then didn't care if they were eating flies ... or that they had to sleep in the same room that they ate in, washed in, and did schoolwork in. Houses were not very big back then, and were about the size of you average barn shed. The only big houses were owned by very rich people. Being rich was tough, which I found out in the shoe store. Cobblers back then were only paid 20 cents a pair of shoes! And a pair of girls shoes, on average cost 95 cents!

It was a very interesting experience for me. I hope that I will go there again in the near future, perhaps with my little sister. It was an enjoyable trip, and it taught me a lot of things that I never knew before.

Next post,
Maddie

Interesting facts about me

Here are some things that you might not know about me that are interesting: I sing in the choir at St. Patrick's church in Jaffery NH every Saturday from 6-7. I am one belt away from getting my black belt in karate, and I am only 10 years old. I have lived in NJ until I was about 5 or 6. I started karate when I was 3 years old. I never crawled when I was a baby, I sort of hobbled around on all fours.

I run 2 websites: www.absoluteanimals.blogspot.com, and www.maddiesthinkathought.blogspot.com. ( Note: Maddie's Think a Thought can no longer be found on search engines because of unspecified circumstances, so please write down the web address if necessary.) I am a poet in the making, and I am great with computer and writing skills.

I am sorry that this was not much of a Think a Thought. It is late at night, and I promise to make up for it in tomorrow's think a thought.

Good night,
Maddie

Highlights Children's Magazine

Highlights for Kids, a magazine company that has been running since 1946, founded by Mr. Garry C. Meyers and his wife, Caroline Clark Meyers, has been given awards by: The Association of Educational Publishers, Freedoms Foundation, Graphic Arts Association, iParneting Media, Magazine Design and Production, and a lot of others.

Highlights for kids specializes in a lot of fun activities, crafts, and in-magazine games. Some of the games include: Mazes, Search and Find puzzles, Tongue Twisters,  What's Wrong?, Double Check, and more. The arts and crafts part of the magazine allows kids to send in their own drawings and poems ( entry not guaranteed, I sent a picture in about a year ago and it STILL isn't in the magazine ), arts and craft ideas made from common house items, and funny jokes.

So now you think Highlights sounds pretty great, huh? Well, there's one little glitch. Nothing is free anymore, not even Highlights. So, if any adults reading this think this might be a good idea for their kid, or a kid reading that wants the magazine, you can know that there is more than games to this magazine. There are a lot of true stories in here about friendship, loyalty, and working your hardest to achieve great goals. There is poetry, stories that will enlighten you with new ideas, and comics for small children.

The Highlights motto is ' Fun with a purpose', and I think they have achieved their mission-To educate children, young and old, and make learning interesting with a spark of fun.

Poets Corner?

Ok, I am really sorry about this. I hope none of you think this place is becoming a poetry blog, because it's not. It's just I like poetry alot now, so expect a little more of it. So, here are 2 new poems.

Ode to Ashleigh
Ashleigh's my sister,
Ashleigh's a dear,
Always an angel,
Never a fear.
Sometimes we fight,
Like sisters do.
But believe me it's better,
Than when she goes poo.
My sis is a baby,
2 years old,
And just like her sis she's allergic to mold.
Me and Ashleigh will never part,
Always each other and always smart.

Friends

Friends are always there for you,
And though you sometimes fight,
You almost always work it out,
And make it feel alright,
You share your secrets and your fears,
Your dreamings and your tears.

More Poetry

Ode to flowers

Roses of white and lilies of red,
The sweetest fragrance fills your head,
It makes you feel like your in heaven,
Take a deep breath and count to 7,
Your floating on a lily pad,
And never ever feeling sad.

Ode to Cats

Meow, meow, meow, meow, that's how cats speak,
Meow, meow, meow, meow, to the mountain's peak.
Scratch scratch, claw, claw, that's how they defend,
Scratch, scratch, claw, claw, wounds so easy to mend.
They can, be cute, when they're trained to be nice.
But if, they're not, They are cold as ice.

Peeling the Onion

Peeling the onion: This time, you don't need goggles! Peeling the onion is a simple web technique that you can do. This idea was given to me by my Dad. He will usually start at jeffrense.com and go to a link that looks interesting, and from there go to another, and another.  Finally he will stop when he finds no more interesting articles.

This activity is called ' peeling the onion ' because it seems like you are peeling an onion. When you peel an onion, there is always a peel under it, and then one under that, and then one under that, etc. This is somewhat like peeling websites online, just in a different way.

Well, I hope you liked today's think a thought. If you wish to start peeling your own onion right now, here is a link to get you started.

www.rense.com

Cya,
Maddie

Lucky's First Snowfall

Alright, so it might seem crazy, but it's true. Up here in NH, it's already Christmas! Well, not really, but it seems like it. Our first snowfall occurred yesterday, shocking everyone. It's rare, even up here, that we get snow before Halloween. Lucky took to it rather well, he just couldn't understand why everything he had dragged in was gone ( so he thought ).

Ode To Snow

Clouds of white and skies of grey,
You will take our grass away.
And leave us here with whitish fluff,
What in the world,
Is this stuff?
It falls and covers up the ground,
It makes you shiver all around,
Winter clothes come into play,
And winds that steal our hats away!
And in the woods at Rindge's Peak,
A girl and dog play hide and seek.

Well, I stand corrected. Lucky managed to dig through about 2 feet of wet, heavy snow and retrieve an old dog bowl he brought in. I don't know whether to congratulate him or scold him. The snow was over his back, and it was funny to watch him at first. He flunked into the snow, obviously thinking he would hit the regular pavement. He did hit the pavement- just not in the way he expected. He went right through the snow up to his back, then looked back at me, like: ' What is this? Where is my yard? ' I just closed the door and left him out for a while. ( Note: Dogs who are not used to snow will get frost bite and frozen paws. )

The next day, I went out in the yard and made a kind of walkway through the snow for him. That way, if he needs to go poop at night ( he only goes out in the yard )  he doesn't have to run through snow.

Well, there is the story of Lucky's first snowfall. I hope you enjoyed it.

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