Ice Cream

On Civic Holiday, Joan and I took the opportunity to go to Westfield Heritage Village with two of our grandsons; Aidan,age five, and Wyatt, age three, along with their Dad.

Westfield is a pioneer village in the Rockton area which is dedicated to teaching, by demonstration, how the pioneers lived and worked. The Civic Holiday weekend is the occasion of the annual Ice Cream festival. Given that it was close and would involve only a short car ride, it seemed like a perfect holiday outing. I learned a lot from this outing, and thought I might share some of my new understanding with you. Discerning what each of these lessons actually mean will probably take a little longer.

1. For a five year old, having a ride in a horse-drawn wagon is a lot more fun when you don’t have to wait in line.
2. Learning about weaving cloth on a barn loom is of practically no interest to a five year old boy, and being told that his great, great, great, great, grandfather was a weaver means absolutely nothing at all.
3. Watching the blacksmith hammer a red-hot iron bar into a pointed hook is infinitely more interesting than hearing said smithy explain the process.
4. Seeing how ice cream was made in small batches by putting cream and sugar into a can, surrounding that can with ice and salt in a larger can, then shaking that can gently back and forth, is interesting and fun…to a point. The idea of doing that activity for half an hour is not. Moving up a few decades, making strawberry ice cream in slightly larger batches using a hand-cranked ice cream church is also somewhat interesting, but the only part that really matters is tasting the final product.
5. Lemon Sorbet is much more interesting than plain ice cream, or even strawberry.
6. Tasting the quickly melting hand-made ice cream on the end of the wooden, teaspoon sized tasting stick is fine, but in the end, not very satisfying. Enough with the little tastes already! Can’t we just go back to the kiosk by the entrance where they sell the “real ice cream”! Real ice cream, I discovered, is already made by Bryers and fills a big cone!
7. The most interesting part of a steam locomotive is not the engine but the only part you are actually allowed to climb on; the caboose.
8. If you have been patient and are finally going to have fresh made caramel corn, having a small bag of your own that you can actually have in your hand is much better than having a huge bag to take home and share with everyone.
9. Even in a 19th century school house, teachers are teachers, and teachers think you should be able to do things for yourself, especially if you are five.
10. It is easier to be patient in order to have another ride in the horse-drawn wagon when it is closer to the end of the day and you are getting a little tired. It also helps that there are now more horses and wagons, and you may be able to ride in a different one this time.
    

Somewhere in the above list of observations, I am quite confident there are important life-lessons, even though I am not yet sure what they are. Perhaps you can see them. If not, maybe we each just need a big bowl of ice cream to help us figure them out. Enjoy!

Posted by Carman