Churning Butter and Playing Cat's Cradle

Another fun afternoon at Prairie Girls today! We almost didn't go because Katie's allergies have been so awful in the past couple days -- her eyes and nose won't stop running, her face is red and puffy, and bright light makes her cry -- but she Really wanted to go, and I did read the whole of Little House on the Prairie, and it would have been a shame to waste all that effort. I was glad we went. The girls made butter and ate it on cornbread, worked on their nine patch "quilts," and sang lots of fun songs.




At first all the girls wanted to churn the butter. Katie isn't pushy.

Churning butter takes a while, though. Eventually the novelty wore off and Katie could churn to her heart's content.

The girls learned some string games, like Cat's Cradle and something about a witch's broom. More good things that Katie certainly wasn't going to learn from me.

Eating cornbread and butter on the porch. Cornbread made from scratch (instead of the blue box) is pretty good, but I certainly wouldn't want to live on it.

After the meeting the girls played with the boys in the pond. Some of the girls changed out of their prairie dresses and swam. Katie was happy to play in the mud.

She likes mud. (Can I bleach that apron, Mom?) What would Ma Ingalls have said, do you suppose, if Laura and Mary had showed up looking like this?
Pepper (the dog) must have spent a good half hour chasing this duck around and around the lake. Since they live peaceably together most of the time, I assume that the duck enjoys this game too.

Two of the little girls nearly drowned when they slipped off their float halfway across the pond. Fortunately they were fished out before any damage was done. The water is about five feet deep in the middle, and they are less than five feet. After being towelled off and given ice pops, the little girls quickly recovered their high spirits. Our poor hostess, though, was still pretty shaky when I left.