Oliver Kelley Farm

Ever since I've known Chris and have been traveling north on Highway 10 to his parents' cabin, I've driven past signs for the Oliver Kelley Farm. It seemed unbelievable that a working 1860s farmstead was hidden somewhere behind exurban sprawl and a nondescript landscape. Yet I was curious. But on these drives to the cabin, I was anxious to continue on north and with the farm located 45 minutes northwest of St. Paul, I never found the time to make a separate trip to visit.

Friends who are members of the Minnesota Historical Society, which operates the Oliver Kelley Farm, invited the kids and me to join them for an afternoon at the farm and I finally got to see this hidden gem. Other friends had raved about how they were encouraged to participate in farm life during their visit, but I assumed this was because they had visited during the off season when few others were around. I discovered that this is simply how the Oliver Kelley Farm operates. The Historical Society advertises it as a working farm, but it's truly more than that. The farm combined aspects of Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum and Colonial Williamsburg to create an open-air history classroom. Visitors young and old are encouraged by the costumed staff to participate in farm life. My children helped collect eggs from the chicken coop, peel vegetables in the kitchen, pump water from the well for the animals, feed the sheep, drive the oxen to the fields, harvest crops - and learned a bit about history in the process. I also appreciated how knowledgeable the staff was and how patient they were to my many, many questions.

Oliver loved pumping water from the well. It might have been his favorite activity. They brought the buckets over to a trough for the horses.

The oxen were brought out so we could bring a cart to the fields to harvest crops.

I thought helping to harvest crops would teach our kids about hard work, but instead, it was a parenting fail. And not because they didn't love manual labor (they really did!), but because of mosquitoes! They emerged from the fields covered in bug bites.

The side of the Oliver Kelley farmhouse

My attempt at a group shot of our kiddos

#mysaintpaul

A former ECFE classmate of mine works for Visit St. Paul, who produced #mystpaul, a spoof on Adele's "Hello". The video plays up the rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul and showcases all there is to see and do in St. Paul (they are a tourism bureau after all) and watching it makes me giddy about my city. 

I love St. Paul, although I'm not from here.  I'm not even from Minnesota, although many people assume I am since I blend in rather well with a name like Kirsten and the long o's I find rolling out of my mouth.  I'm actually from New Jersey though and came to Minnesota over a decade ago to attend graduate school.  I settled in Uptown in Minneapolis because that's where one of the only two people I knew in the state at the time lived and because many university students lived in the neighborhood.

In those two years I fell in love with Minnesota and Minneapolis.  I could bus to school, walk to the grocery store and run every morning around one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes.  I played soccer in a city league and met friends at bars and restaurants in my neighborhood.  I learned to cross-country ski in a city park with a view of downtown Minneapolis. By the time graduation arrived, I already had lots of friends, a full-time job and no interest in leaving Minnesota or even Minneapolis.

I tried to buy a house in my adopted city.  At the time I was frustrated that I couldn't afford even a condo on my government-wage income, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. That's because shortly after my house search stalled out, I met Chris, and a year and a half later, he finished school in Duluth and planned to move down to the Twin Cities for his new job. My apartment, or anywhere in Minneapolis for that matter, was too far of a commute for him.  Our compromise was to find a new place that was in between both our jobs and that meant moving to St. Paul.

I considered St. Paul Minneapolis' sleepy twin. It didn't have the vibrancy I thought Minneapolis had and so little drew me to the capital city that I rarely ventured across the river. I was as loyal to Minneapolis as my friends who had been born and raised there. I moved because I loved Chris, but I felt like I was leaving a part of my heart behind in Minneapolis.

Fast forward nine years and my Minneapolis friends still tease me about living in St. Paul, but I'm proud to say that my loyalty now lies on the other side of the river. St. Paul is where my I'm raising my children. It's where my parenting community with ECFE, my kids' schools, and playground chats with other moms resides. It's where my brother-in-law and sister-in-law live two blocks away. It's where my neighbors let my kids play with their daughter's extensive Lego collection while they're away on vacation. It's where I work.  It's my St. Paul.

Cold Weather Tricks

All the years I've lived in Minnesota, I thought it was urban lore that when it gets cold enough, you can throw water in the air and it freezes. Low and behold, it's true!  And it doesn't have to even be that cold.  Just -5 degrees Fahrenheit or colder.  Since we're in the midst of Minnesota's annual mid-January cold snap and the highs this weekend stayed in the negative digits, it was about time I test out this phenomenon. 

The kids were so excited to go outside and we even dragged Celina out with us. She was brave enough to come to Minnesota, and because of that, I think she should be able to go home with some cool stories of Minnesota's infamous winter weather.  So we gave her the honor of throwing the cup of bowling water into the air. 

Winter Fun in Minnesota

Chris was able to explain to the kids the science behind why only boiling water freezes instantly, but I'll let a climatologist explain on my behalf: Cold Weather Experiments to Try.

Interstate State Park

We are so lucky in Minnesota to have as many state parks as we do, and many are within just an hour's drive of the Twin Cities.  For only $25 a year, a car load of friends and family can have unlimited access to Minnesota's natural wonders. Today's gorgeously sunny, early fall day was too perfect to not take advantage of the opportunity to get outside, and what better place than one of Minnesota's state parks. 

I can't believe this is the first time I've been to Interstate State Park in Taylor's Falls.  It's only an hour's drive northeast of St. Paul and the park, along with a park of the same name on the Wisconsin side, straddles the scenic St. Croix River.  Earthquakes, lava flows and glaciers formed the river valley, the cliffs and the glacial potholes in the park. 

We started with a picnic lunch along the tranquil St. Croix River in the southern part of the park.  The boat launch and campgrounds are at this quieter end of the park.  Most tourists head straight for the northern end of the park, where the largest concentration of glacial potholes in the world is located.  That's exactly where we headed too right after lunch and arrived just in time to join the naturalist-guided "Pothole Exploration Tour."  For someone who remembers very little of my Geology 101 (aka, "Rocks for Jocks") class in college, the tour was well worth it for me.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much Oliver learned from the tour as well, since I assumed much of the information was over his head.  We need to get him a field journal now, because he enjoyed drawing pictures of things he saw on our walk with the naturalist. 

After the walk, we spent time scrambling on the rocks, exploring more of the potholes and enjoying the warm sunshine. I wished we could have gone on another hike to get away from the crowds, but little Matteo, who technically still needs to nap, but doesn't anymore because he's the fourth child, wasn't going to make it.  So we piled back in the car and took the scenic route home.  Matteo and Kiera were sound asleep within 10 minutes. 

We had a wonderful afternoon, but I'll be honest that the kids weren't exactly thrilled in the morning when they heard where we were headed.  Thus it was vindicating to hear Oliver exclaim on the Pothole Exploration Tour that he was having so much fun and wanted to do this every weekend.  He should watch what he wishes for.  I've only been to 16 of Minnesota's 76 state parks and recreation areas and I'm yearning to see more.