A Trip to Kalona: Where did students keep their water bottles?

As is tradition when Willowwind Friends attend the Kalona Fall Festival - it rains. However, on Friday, September 23rd the sun shone brightly over the rolling corn fields along Highway 6 as a picturesque blue sky and white fluffy clouds created a crisp Autumn day that was perfect for 1st through 4th graders to absorb the sights, sounds and, most of all, smells of Kalona.

As we made our way students squealed in seeing a handful of Horse and Buggies, horses grazing in their fields and oh so many cows lazily looking up from their morning snack as we drove by. The most talked animal siting from the car trip was, of course, the amount of dead raccoons we saw along the highway. Ah, life's first lessons with road kill.

While at the Kalona Fall Festival we enjoyed a morning snack of homemade Apple Butter, freshly baked bread (still warm and steamy in its bag) and to top of our Morning Snack - hot Apple Fritters. Friends were surprised to see bits of apple tucked inside their fritter and compared the chunky texture to that or our Roasted Sweet Pepper Salsa that we made with Chef Gaby. The children discovered throughout the morning that the inviting aromas of corn popping, pies baking and cider brewing really tempt your taste buds into thinking you are hungry.

Throughout the morning the Racerunners made comparisons of an Iowa Community 150 years ago with theirs of today. Their conversations were insightful as they tried to imagine themselves in the shoes of a Kalona Kid in 1850.

Racerunners discussed the size of a home for five people and were in awe of how it was smaller than our Willowwind classroom. In the home there was one lumpy mattress with a rather uncomfortable looking trundle for the children. We noted the candle molds, the lye soap, the bowl that was used for a sink and the oven that was used for heating, drying and cooking. Friends asked why the house wasn't painted and why there wasn't a sofa.  However, the most asked question of the Kalona House - where is the bathroom? How would we take a warm bath, go to the bathroom or wash our hands (note: in 1850 we would NOT have been using hand sanitizer).

While at the Post Office we wondered how many people got their mail at that location? Inside the local grocery children were surprised to see so much tobacco and discovered that lanterns must have been the most used source of light as there were so many for sale. This market certainly did not look like their local Fareway or Co-op. There were no brightly colored aisles or advertising logos - simply some shelves with tools, supplies and cash register.

The most exciting room for the Racerunner Friends to compare was of course the school. They found a lot of similarities. Students had coat hooks, lunch pails, a record player, a classroom set of books (although not nearly as colorful as ours), the alphabet and a teacher (that Caroline insisted looked just like me in her high collar blouse and long skirt). However, the differences were much more intriguing. We have a white erase board and in those days there was a chalk board. The Straw School used a wood morning stove to heat the classroom and heat their stew for lunch. There were all sorts of tools such as the rug beater (for cleaning rugs), a piano,  individual desks, and a chair in the corner with a funny looking Dunce Hat. 

"Ms. Brooke, what in the world did they use that for? Was that like their Author's Chair where they read Daily News?" 

Not quite. Instead it was a place for Time Out.

"Ahh. THAT doesn't look like fun." 

The most confusing part of the look into the Straw School classroom were the holes in the desks. Luca and Erika could not figure out how in the world students fit their water bottles into such a tiny hole. As we looked around the room we noticed that the children had tin cups hanging next to their lunch pails, and they had to go to the creek or a nearby well for water. So those small holes inside the desks COULDN'T have been used for water bottles. Instead they were used for inkwells that the children would dip their pen in for practicing handwriting, completing math tasks and writing stories. That, the children decided, was the biggest difference from our Willowwind Classroom of today.

We ventured over the Corn Mill where machines, powered by individual motors, shucked corn for Corn Meal that was to be used for corn cakes and other foods prepared in the house stove. We saw water pumps, vehicles including a horse pulled plow and sleigh for the winter, and watched a blacksmith in action. Our friends enjoyed the Bale Making Operation the most. The kind gentleman running the machine let our kids sit on the truck with him as he worked to put pieces of straw into a machine, clip as necessary and meticulously worked to make miniature bales of hay. The kids wondered: do miniature horses eat these straw bales? Not quite. The gentleman explained to us that the mini bales were used for many things including decoration. However, he was making many mini bales as apart of the Texas Cattle Relief Efforts. According to this man the mini bales are easy to ship and he can send many to the farmers who have been hit by the drought and can't feed their cattle. The kids thought this was a wonderful mission.

We ended the day in the Corn Mashing Pit where our friends kicked off their shoes and went full throttle into a tub of corn kernels. They buried their bodies, filled their shirts and sleeves and wriggled through all the while laughing and screaming. Meanwhile that bright blue sky was still overhead, shining down on us as we wrapped up our time at the 2011 Kalona Fall Festival. No doubt about it we were hungry and tired as we headed back to modern day classroom, in our modern day vehicles with our nicely prepared lunches and...water bottles.


Check out more pictures from our time at Kalona Fall Festival underneath the photos tab! Many, many thank-yous to Amanda Coiner, Katherine House, Matthew Wallis, Mick Wightman and Brian Codd for spending the morning with our friends engaging in discussions and explorations about the Kalona Community - and for driving our most precious cargo to this event. Looking forward to seeing all of my friends and their families at the Willowwind Harvest Festival on Sunday, September 25th.