Ohlone Village Day at Deer Hollow Farm

Since Jane's birth, I have been on the lookout for some more family activities that I haven't done yet and one was going to Deer Hollow Farm at Rancho San Antonio preserve. Once a year, they open up their Ohlone Village to the public and have demonstrations of what life was like for this group of Indians.

I absolutely loved it and found it fascinating- William like it but said that he learned nearly everything at Scout camp.

They showed us how to make a bow and arrow

An archery demonstration 

Had us sit in a replica sweat lodge where the men went to remove their smell before going hunting

They even had a replica redwood tree home which was really tiny- even smaller than our previous studio apartment :-) William and Jane nearly filled it completely

The most fascinating station for both of us was where they used ground acorns to make flour. What a laborious, time intensive process. They had to grind the particles several times so that they were small enough and then they had to soak them for several days so that they could at least be edible. It made me so thankful for our modern convenience of flour. 

We then went to Deer Hollow Farm which had your basic barn yard animals of cow, duck, and sheep 

The old barn

We then went back through one of the upper trails of Rancho San Antonio back to our car

I loved the sunlight streaming through the trees

Uesugi Farms Pumpkin Park

I now have Mondays off so on those days, I try and do a bigger excursion with Jane and so the Monday before Halloween we went to Uesugi Farms. I had been a couple of years ago with my sister Sarah and loved it so I was excited to take Jane and thankfully, she enjoyed it as well.

 Jane enjoyed Pumpkin Pete's Enchanted Hay Ride- and I absolutely love her shirt :-)

 The hayride took us through a beautiful field of sunflowers

 and thousands of marigolds.

The GIANT pumpkins

 

and Jane has a lot more growing to do before she catches up to this pumpkin

She is standing tall this fall though :-) 

 

And the Elf Princess became the Pumpkin Queen

 She liked dancing with Dora

 Attempting to push the wheelbarrow

Playing with the squash

 

Walking through the kiddie corn maze

And riding the train

This place definitely puts me in the Fall spirit

San Mateo Central Park

Since Jane is so active and needs constant entertainment, it means that I have been trying to find some new places in the bay area to keep us both engaged and so I have been going to more parks. I heard about the Japanese Garden at San Mateo Central Park and so we ventured out there one Monday afternoon. It is small but was free





This little gazebo area in the rest of the park was also very beautiful with all of the flowers in bloom