Another month passed and it feels like the majority of it was spent at work. The good thing is that many of the activities were ones that made me happy. One of the first ones of the month was Dalapalooza. We had a therapy horse at that one.
His name was Arvid and he is a Norwegian Fjord horse.
He was there on lunch break during a Dala horse painting class. Sophia took the class.
At the Washington County Fair, I saw this sunflower.
Olivia entered about a half-dozen projects. The blue Diamond-Dotz project was one of her projects.
The girls and I played Bingo at the fair.
The first week of August, I coordinated the first-ever Sewing Camp at the museum. In addition to sewing for half the day, the girls did other projects - like making these suet log feeders for the birds.
The girls also learned about natural dyes that the pioneers would have used. After the lesson, they created tie-dye t-shirts. They all turned out really well.
The girls also learned about bees and made rolled beeswax candles.
The main project was a sewing and embroidery project. They made a shoulder bag.
The following week at work, the children learned about cynotype printing. I taught my daughters how to do this when I homeschooled them so it was fun to do again with other children and see how excited they were with the photography process.
The children made stuffed tomtes and a couple other projects.
The new building signs that I had been working on since February were installed. There was a small team of volunteers and I who worked with to upgrade the signs.
The signs are in English and Swedish since Swedish immigrants settled in Scandia in the mid- to late-1800s.
The heritage vegetable garden is doing very well now. The Washington County Master Gardens have revitalized this garden and a cereal garden.
The summer intern repainted and/or created different wooden animals that would have been typical of an 1850s-1880s farm.
There was another big event at the museum - Spelmansstamman. Some of the children from the elementary school where I worked and the camp at the museum showed up which was fun.
There were many musicians at the event - including this older gentleman who was tuning his violin under a tree.
I enjoyed seeing different generations of fiddlers performing together.
The event in August had a dual focus - Swedish and Ojibwe culture and music. This is Julian who did drumming and short presentations about Ojibwe culture and music.
I liked seeing children interact with the Dala horses that we repainted and/or touched up.
My sister and nephew attended the event. They had never been to it and really enjoyed the experience.
Towards the end of August, Olivia moved back to college. She has her own room again this year as part of her accommodations. It feels so much more spacious than last year's room, and she has set it up well. Sophia gave some input, too, about arranging the room and helped set it up.
Another project at work was coordinating a Tomte Community Art Show. There are 43 artists who designed and painted 48 tomtes. The artists ranged in ages from 7 to over 80 years old.
The tomtes are all so different from one another. It's fun to see what people came up with and how some even added additional features to the wood cut-out.
On August 30th, I helped the Lions serve a meal and lemonade to students at the local elementary school. One of the students who I worked with last year (who is now going to school at the middle school) showed up. "Ms. Ann!!" I heard. Seeing him truly brightened my day.
We served food to a lot of families that evening.
I started growing dahlias this year. This is a new one that just started blooming.
This dahlia has bloomed constantly now for a month. There have been so many blooms on this plant.
We're seeing a lot of yellows now in the yard and pastures. There's a lot of goldenrod which I'm not a huge fan of, but the bees like it. I prefer these type of yellow flowers.
Even these yellow flowers I like, especially when I see they benefit bees and other pollinators.
And that wraps up August. It's been a full month.
