Sukup Safe T Home

At the Living History Farms, we saw what we thought was a grain storage bin...

It had a door into it...

... and windows and a table displayed inside

Loft area under the roof

The "windows" are made of metal with a lot of small holes in it -- from the inside, you can see out. From the outside, it would protect from things blowing around -- and there is an additional door to close over the opening.

There was information provided about these structures...

Neat re-use of technology!

Living History Farms

On Wednesday night, we stayed in the parking lot of a Harvest Host, Living History Farms, in Urbandale, Iowa, just outside Des Moines. We had hoped to meet up with Carl's cousin, Jenice, but she had contracted COVID so was unable to meet up with us. 

On Wednesday evening, we were able to get some shopping done. We went to Petsmart for cat food for Miss Kitty -- she is back on a prescription diet. We had gotten one can of 3 different kinds of renal support food, and she only ate one of them at all well, so we purchased some more of that kind to try to continue her on that food. We also went to Sam's Club to get a couple of rotisserie chickens for us.

After a good night's rest at the Living History Farms parking lot, we visited the farms on Thursday morning.

We started at the Visitor Center where we purchased our entrance tickets and got a map for the exhibits.

There is a representation of the 1876 town of Walnut Hill, but we elected to go to the farms first with the plan to return to the town.

To get to the farms, we had to take a tractor cart, so we waited a little while for it to arrive.

While waiting, we saw planting beds that were marked with information...

We had never heard of Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area -- from what I've found online, it includes sites primarily (maybe exclusively?) in Iowa. (https://www.silosandsmokestacks.org/the-story/)

We were joined on the tractor cart with a group of 4th graders - some of the kids brought on 4 school buses that had joined us in the parking lot in the morning.

Tractor driver in enclosed cab -- so he didn't hear all the kiddos on the cart!

We took the cart from the visitor center to the farms area.

There were 3 historic farms represented -- the oldest was a 1700 Ioway farm.

The Ioway are native American people.

Kids being told about the Ioway farm.

A skin being stretched (on the left) and an example home

We walked from the Ioway Farm to the 1850 Farm...

...we somehow took no photos of the house and outbuildings at the 1850 farm!

There was a nice walk through the woods to the 1900 Horse-Powered Farm.

They provided QR codes to get more information.

In case you're interested in more information, these are the locations where the QR codes would take you:

Historic haymaking: https://www.lhf.org/bale/

Modern haymaking: https://www.lhf.org/hay/

Historic oats harvesting: https://www.lhf.org/oats/

Modern oats harvesting: https://www.lhf.org/oatstoday

Historic wheat harvesting: https://www.lhf.org/wheat

Modern wheat harvesting: https://www.lhf.org/wheattoday

This was in the yard of the farm house...

This was the name plate (Fairbanks-Morse) on the piece of equipment. It was not operating while we were there so we aren't sure what it was!

Animal barn on the farm...

... with horses inside munching down on hay.

Pig shed nearby with a momma pig and piglets. She told her piglets in no uncertain terms that they should NOT go out in the yard while those humans were there!!!

Windmill and the farm house - beautiful blue skies!

The sheep were not contained inside pens and were heading back from being out in the field grazing -- funny to be all in a line coming down the lane!

Some more of the school group was in the house when we got there, but we were able to go in after they finished... some of the items in the house...

Organ

Heating stove

Cook stove

Canned goods in the pantry

Apple press on the front porch

Some more of the kids outside at the farm house

We waited for the next tractor cart to come and rode back up to the "town" site.

We had planned to get off the cart at the back end of the town and walk through the town on our way out... but, either the cart doesn't stop there anymore, or it doesn't stop there unless requested, or it doesn't stop there when there are a bunch of 4th graders on the cart... at any rate, it didn't stop! We had used almost all of the time we had allocated before we needed to be traveling on, so we went back to Gracie, made lunch, and then got on the road heading south again.

We appreciated our quiet night's sleep and visit at the Living History Farms!

Adventures along the way!

Wednesday, our plan was to drive from West Salem, Wisconsin, to Des Moines, Iowa to the Harvest Host where we were to spend the night.

Just beyond La Crosse, WI we crossed the Mississippi River ...

... and were welcomed into Minnesota.

Carl handling the driving duties!

While driving along I-90 heading west toward Rochester, Minnesota, we saw a billboard for the SPAM museum in Austin, Minnesota! I was driving at that point, so Carl looked up where Austin, MN was (right along I-90) checked reviews on the museum (free admission *and* free samples of SPAM!), and called to find out where a motorhome might be able to park (there was parking behind the museum and a row of the parking was marked for RVs and buses!) -- sounds like it is made for us to visit!

Parking area for RVs and buses...

We were the only RV there when we arrived!

Town sign

Front of the SPAM Museum

In case you don't know, Carl is quite a fan of SPAM, so this was pretty perfect for us!

Wow -- SPAM everywhere!

There were quizzes at various kiosks throughout the museum...

Do you know? Answer will be provided a little later in this post!

It's not just in the U.S.A.!

Carl in the SPAM Shack!

Information about SPAM in South Korea

Gift box of SPAN in the South Korea exhibit

Specialty products of SPAM

I think this was in the Latin America display

SPAM in China

I knew that SPAM is very popular in Hawaii

Answer to the quiz question above: Dwight Eisenhower!

SPAM was not the first canned meat product from Hormel

Do you remember the can that opened with a key?

"Having mastered the art of cooking meat in its own can, Jay C. Hormel moved on to finding a use for pork shoulder, a piece of meat that was tasty, but hard to remove from the bone." ... "At the time, a 12-ounce size was considered the right size to feed a family of five for dinner."

Are you aware of the Monte Python skit about SPAM? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKNt0MhTkk

The process of canning SPAM

The center part of the museum was more about the Hormel Foods company as a whole.

Brands under the Hormel Foods ownership

Carl loves SPAM!

Gift shop with all things SPAM. We bought a couple of types of SPAM that are not available in US stores.

Outside, also in Austin - the downtown movie theater

After our slight diversion, we continued on our original journey...

... entering Iowa later in the day.

One last SPAM picture, Carl got a sticker for his phone case at the SPAM Museum.

It is fun when we can add in spur-of-the-moment stops along our way!