©2009 - Sandro Vannini (photo courtesy of National Geographic)
Now Matt is out of diapers, the choices for weekend fun seem endless. In the last 4 weeks we've visited: Eagle Creek Park for canoeing, a street art fair, an unusually cool farmer's market and the circus. On Friday night Sarah and I attended the celebrated King Tut exhibit (much thanks for the tickets, Stacy!). On Saturday, the kids and I took in a fall festival at a local honey farm.
Tut was more interesting than I expected. I'm not a huge Egyptian history buff but seeing the artifacts in person was dramatic. The gold and inlaid artistry was amazingly beautiful. What I appreciated most about the exhibit was how simple it was organized. It was easy to read all boards and the information was both fascinating to me, as an adult, and attainable by Sarah (age 8). While I loved the hands-on opportunity to educate Sarah about the ancient culture, she seemed most absorbed in the "spooky" aspect. Recipients of a special pass, we viewed the exhibit after the museum closed. This was very exciting to a child who's seen Night at the Museum too many times. However, she didn't seem disappointed that a mummy didn't chase us back to the parking lot.
Getting to Hunter's Honey Farm was half the fun. The trees were starting to turn and we saw a lot of them––we essentially had an hour's worth of back, snaky, hilly country roads to reach the Farm's annual Festival. It was worth it though. The farm owner (a teacher/beekeeper who is the son of a teacher/beekeeper who was the son of a teacher/beekeeper) first gave us a very informative demonstration of the hive. The 30-minute bottling tour was also fascinating. We saw honey removed from the hive, clarified, and packed for distribution. I often bake with honey and was disappointed to learn that baking depletes all nutritional benefits BUT I learned about additional by-products like pollen and tincture which we may try some time. [Pollen has 96 nutrients and is the most "perfect" food; it has more antioxidants than any other food.]
At the Honey Farm, Sarah and I remarked how different the Tut trip was from the trip to rural Martinsville. What a funny coincidence though––5 minutes after we said this, the Honey Farm tour guide said, "Anyone heard of King Tut?" He proceeded to tell us how honey never spoils and how archaeologists discovered edible honey in his tomb. Go figure.
2 comments:
Oh, the honey farm is officially on my to-do list now! Glad you guys had so much fun this weekend! I had heard that somewhere about honey being found in a tomb but didn't realize it was tut's - should have known! :)
Oooh, sounds like you've had lots of fun lately! I didn't know that baking with honey depletes it of its nutritional value -- thanks for the tip. I have a friend who has hives and someday I'm going to go and take some pictures I hope!
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