Giving Thanks

What's so great about living in New England? People (Northerners and Southerners) ask me this fairly frequently, actually. They can't believe we would move to the frigid North from the sunny South. They can't believe we would want to spend three times as much for a small house. They can't believe we'd want to put up with the crowds. And truth be told, we do sometimes question our decision (usually around March when it's still snowing 10 inches every day), but for the most part we like it here and feel settled. One huge reason for staying is the quality and availability of cultural resources. Want to know why I love living in New England? Yesterday we took the girls to the Plimoth Plantation with my friend Erin.

The Plimoth Plantation is a recreation of the 1627 Pilgrim settlement in Plymouth and a Wampanoag homesite. You can walk around both, talking to Native American cultural interpreters and role players who take on the personas of 17th century Pilgrims, going in the houses and gardens, watching crafts people work and villagers cook, farm, and make canoes, etc.

It was a gorgeous, crisp and sunny fall day. It's two weeks before Thanksgiving and we're walking around out in the woods, enjoying the smell of ocean air and campfires, showing the girls the real Pilgrims and Indians experience right where it all really happened. I know they didn't understand much of all that we saw (although I had checked out a book about the Pilgrims from the library for Maggie last week, so she knew some of it), but they had a marvelous time just chasing the chickens!


Maggie climbing into a canoe in the Native American homesite




Kate running through the homesite - she did a lot of running!


The English village with a view out to the ocean. Note: the Pilgrims didn't call themselves pilgrims, they just thought of themselves as English colonists.


A water cistern at the English village




A role-player/interpreter talking to a crowd of visitors




Sneaking up on chickens!


Both girls loved the chickens, cow, goats, and sheep


Communing with the chickens in the English village


This is not Plymouth Rock! Maggie resting in front of the village church. Mike though it was a barn at first, but Maggie set him straight!