Why nobody lives here?

Miriam found Cannonsburgh Village while she was researching things to do around Murfreesboro. It has historical buildings that have been moved to the site or replicas of historical buildings (often made of reclaimed materials so they look as if they're from the time period). 

Here are the kids working on some of the "backpack program" materials...

The older kids were most interested in the scavenger hunt(s). The younger kids were most interested in colouring the map. I think Miriam and Auntie K tried playing checkers.

Both Phoebe and Ireland are lefthanded. It was cute to see them colouring side-by-side.

And then I remembered that Rosie is left-handed as well!

We'd inadvertently placed all the left-handed people on the same bench!

Ireland was so funny. She went into the first building and was just filled—flooded—with insatiable curiosity.

"Why nobody lives here?" she wanted to know. 

This question became a litany for her during our visit. No answer seemed sufficient...and we tried everything.

"Why nobody lives here?"

"This building is so old, no one wants to live here anymore."

"Why nobody lives here?"

"The people moved to a new house and this one just stayed empty."

"Why nobody lives here?"

"It's not a real house anymore. It's a museum to show us how people used to live."

"Why nobody lives here?"

"Because this is a [store/doctor's office/school/mill] and people don't live in a [store/doctor's office/school/mill]."

"Why nobody lives here?"

"Nothing in this village is real. It's like a doll house. We just look at it and pretend..."

"Why nobody lives here?"

We gave her serious answers. We gave her funny answers. We gave her truthful answers. We gave her hogwash answers. At one point I even went on a long rant about how she's right—it's ridiculous that nobody lives in these house, which the city pays money to so carefully preserve, when there is literally a homeless man sleeping on a bench outside of the park. Wouldn't it be nice if we could fill these houses with people who needed homes instead of just letting them sit empty? Of course, then it might be a little awkward for us to walk through the houses...

"Oh," she said. "Why nobody lives here?"

I tried turning the question back on her. 

"You tell me!" I said. "Why doesn't anyone live here?"

"Yeah, why?" she said.

"Exactly. Why?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

"This isn't working."

"Why nobody lives here?"

So, she just asked that question for the entire time that we were there. It was hilarious. 

Even funnier, though, was that Phoebe had been listening the whole time and so it was drilled into her mind that (1) nobody lived here and (2) the village was fake. When she came across a storm drain, she figured that such a feature was also (1) fake and (2) uninhabited by drain monsters. That meant she could examine the drain closely without fear of being snatched by a drain monster.

Look! Another fake drain! It's perfectly safe—nobody lives here!

(Just now she saw this picture and said, "Mom, why was that a pretend drain? That whole place was just full of pretend stuff. But the drain did have pipes and you said that drains have pipes so they can carry water to rivers or streams. So was it a pretend drain?" And, no. It was a real drain. But still nobody lived in it.)

Here are Zoë, Oaklyn, and Kelli enjoying a porch swing:

Here are Pheobe and Oaklyn exploring some stairs:

Phoebe was very excited about this caboose:

And the kids all really liked this chapel (which was a real building moved onto the village site; and you can still get married there if you want to—Phoebe calls it "the temple chapel"):

The stained glass windows were quite beautiful.

There was no sign telling the kids not to climb on this tractor, so we let them (although there was a sign asking people not to climb on the tractors in the tractor shed—they have a whole walk through time, with tractors from 1869 to the 1960s. Phoebe was very concerned that we had climbed on this tractor after we read the sign in the tractor shed (in a completely separate part of the village) asking us not to. I don't know if we were supposed to or not...but we did.

Here's Phoebe getting a piggyback ride from Benny, which reminds me of a funny thing she said in the cave (Ruby Falls).

There were some benches placed along the walk to and from the waterfall and she asked me why the benches were there. 

"I suppose they're there in case people's legs get tired and they need to take a little rest."

"Oh," she said. "Well, when my legs get tired I just ask someone to pick me up."

"Well, not everyone has that option..." I pointed out.

And that reminded me of something funny she said at Long Hunter State Park. After she'd played at a playground and we'd gone through the storybook walk and then walked to the lake...we were walking back to the car. She started out holding my hand and then pivoted around me so that she was blocking my path. 

"It would be better for everyone," she said. "If you carried me. We'll get there faster."

"Oh?" I said. "It would be better for everyone for me to carry you?"

"Yes," she said. 

And that was perhaps true that day, though my back would complain about this little theory of hers after carrying her most of the way through the cave...

Anyway, here are the kids at The World's Largest Cedar Bucket in Cannonsburgh Village! We didn't know we had that kind of a bucket list...but apparently we do. Zoë pretended to kick it.

Here's all the kids by the bucket (except Ireland):

And here's all the kids by the bucket (including Ireland):

While Oaklyn warmed up to me right away (she also came up to me asking to be picked up quite a lot, and wanted me to read her stories, and play with her, and hold her hand, and sit by her), Ireland didn't like me so much. So she didn't want to be in my picture and had to be coaxed. 

But I'm sure that with enough time we'll become friends.

(And totally fair for me to experience that because Phoebe was giving the cold shoulder to both Rosie and Kelli, always making sure that she had a "buffer" (another kid) between her and either of them).

Cannonsburgh Village was a pretty fun place to explore, we hope to go back some day when they have volunteers dressed in period clothing doing reenactments (though Miriam was genuinely interested in seeing reenactments as well)...so that we can see Ireland's reaction to seeing people "live" there.