We welcomed the shifting of seasons into Fall yesterday with a Mabon Celebration. If you do not know what Mabon is, it is the official day of Autumn’s beginning and a day that we are supposed to give thanks to Mother Earth for all that she gave us over this last season of summer.

It is a time to reflect and relax after working hard all summer. Let go of what is no longer serving you or your soul. Let go of toxic relationships that are holding you back, as well let go of bad habits & self-destructive thoughts in yourself. Finish up the tasks you started, but have not yet completed. Reflect on goals you’ve accomplished, focus on the goals you have set for yourself that you still need to work towards, or set new ones all together.

We began our Fall festivities with a field trip attending the Homeschool Harvest Festival in Heritage Village.

We played old-fashioned games like Bobbing For Donuts. Bobbing For Apples would be a more historically accurate game, but for sanitary purposes donuts was the modern chosen object. It was still really cute, and was actually in one of my books that I use as inspiration for celebrating each season. I think that Bobbing For Apples for would still be a fun fall activity to try together – maybe as a family game night.

I loved the old time vibes mixed with all of the nature. The leaves were as big as the younger girls heads! There were so many different kinds of acorns. We collected a few of our favorite things for our Fall dinner table for our Autumn Feast.

We learned about pickling foods; why we do it and what different types of foods that people would pickle to preserve. My girls are already pros at this, and they were the only children who knew what Beets were.

We learned about using a meat smoker to smoke meat and that back then it would take 2-3 days before it was finished smoking. That would have been my husband’s favorite part of the festival.

We also learned how to make bread in the brick bread oven and Cornbread over a hearth stove. It reminded us of our latest Grace Girls meeting where we learned to make pizza over a fire. Making bread was an entire day of work from early in the morning until the sun was down, making Loaf after Loaf for a weeks worth of bread. The family who lived in that home {before it was a museum} had 15 children, so they needed a lot of bread!

It made me really grateful that today I can spread my bread baking out more than one day and that I don’t have to wear full length, full sleeve dresses with bonnets while I bake. I’d be baking myself in that attire.

During question time, one child asked how they are supposed to microwave their food.

We learned about trains and different ways of transportation since cars did not exist.

We learned about old fashioned tools, made a pumpkin on the printing press, and explored the General Store. We all really enjoyed looking at all of the antique items. They were things we’d still want today!

Their pumpkins were so cute. I think I’m going to laminate them and find a way to use them for decor. Another possibility would be to use them in our Fall Sale.

We learned about how doctors used leeches as medicine to suck the bad blood out of a patient. Each of the girls got a gummy leech.

I really loved The General Store and this Pantry. I love vintage things so much amd honestly prefer them over any of the cheaply made things today. The things back then were meant to last. You’d buy once and it would last multiple lifetimes, passed down through generations, still working. In fact, everything in the museum was still in perfect condition. The things today are meant to last one to a couple uses then either breaks or you must soon replace with a newer model to keep up. I can’t stand this way of life.

I loved how the store is set up. All of the bottom rows and anything out are meant for children to play with, and everything behind the glass is meant only for looking at. They had so much fun playing with everything and doing the scavenger hunt.

The girls learned about how electricity was not available, so people had to make their own metal lanterns to keep a candle in once the sun went down. They would push holes in the metal in pretty designs for the light to shine through. They made tin ornaments to represent the candles.

The girls didn’t want to stay for the Yarn Dolls. The line was ridiculously long. They saw some children holding theirs, and made a statement that the Corn Husk Dolls that they made in Grace Girls was a lot better to make than the Yarn. I think Yarn was a lot cheaper, faster, and easier though so for a big event like this, that would make more sense.

We also didn’t get to do candle dipping which is one I was looking forward to. We were under a heat advisory by the Park Rangers and weren’t allowed to do an outdoor fire. They prepared take-home kits for 400 children, but ran out much quicker than expected. Even though we didn’t get a kit, that makes me really happy that so many more families have decided to join the homeschool world this year.

I really want to add a scarecrow to our garden next year. I think they are so fun. I also really loved this box that was supposed to contain Herb Garden Information, but instead it contained spiderwebs. It was still really cute and would be fun to add something similiar somewhere in my front yard as maybe a Seed Sharing Box.

We enjoyed ourselves and are glad we went. It was a nice way to begin this new Fall season together. After going, I realized that I give my kids a really good blend of both the old world, and the more modern one as far as homemaking goes.

The upcoming events all sound really fun. I’m hoping for us to be able to attend at least one of them.

I also took the time to put our Fall poem we are memorizing in Ukrainian School in a beautiful layout so that I was able to print it out and hang it up for us to read daily with our Sing a Song of Seasons poem. It helps me a lot to read along to what I am listening to in Ukrainian language. Without the words, I can get a bit lost.

The Decor

We collected nature to create our tablescape. I really wanted to decorate without buying new items & show that you really don’t need to spend any money at all and still have a beautiful Fall home.

I decluttered most of my holiday stuff last year. As much as I love decorating, it bothers me that we only use these items for a very small fraction of the year while they sit in a bin in storage taking up a lot of valuable space for the rest of the year. This is a really great way to still decorate and not have to store the items once we are finished with them. Instead, we can just move some to our Nature Walls & the rest right into our compost to move on to its next life phase in our garden.

I think it ended up looking really beautiful and it meant more that we collected the nature together as a family than just bought at a store. It is just way more us.

The Menu:

The rest of the family had Pork Chops with apples, onions, and cornbread stuffing; I made Vegetarian Apple & Sage Sausage (Field Roast brand) for myself with the same side of stuffing mixture. It was my first time having apples in my stuffing and it was seriously a game changer!!!

The sides were Sweet Potato Casserole, Harvest Salad, & Sourdough Discard Sweet Rolls.

To drink, we had Apple Cider.

All of the different Fall flavors came together SOO deliciously! I’m definitely going to be remaking a couple of these dishes again at Thanksgiving!!!

For dessert, I made a Pumpkin Pie with homemade whipped cream to go with it. I loved making the little leaves for the crust and will definitely be doing that again, but with way more leaves next time. I loved the flavor of this pie, but not the texture so I’ll be re-working that in the coming weeks to prepare for Thanksgiving.

We have so many more fun Fall activities planned this year. I really want to take in each day of this season and make it extra special for our family. The last year has really been a struggle for us financially & instead of continuing to live in constant worry, I really want to slow down, live in gratitude, and begin appreciating what this last year has blessed us with instead of money, because it’s been so much. We may not have any money, but we are so very rich in all the right ways.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov