Frances at the Fruitlands Museum

So, I was a little confused. I had heard of the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, and I got it into my head that it was a Shaker village, and therefore worthy of a visit. When Mark, Frances and I arrived, we learned it was the site of a former Utopian community that lasted for the six months its members could stand to live without wool (a taboo animal product) in the Massachusetts winter. Now it's a museum dedicated to the area. We started our visit at one of the homes used by the Utopianists.


Frances was fond of their grape arbor.

We slowly made our way up the hill, stopping for quite a while to help with dandelion seed disbursement.

There was a house of Native American artifacts, both from the region and the rest of North America. Frances wasn't all that interested in the artifact displays, but she did like the wigwam.

Next, we visited the Shaker house that had been moved to the museum from a nearby Shaker community, hence my confusion. No pictures from the house, though. Frances was done with it in about 40 seconds. She was more interested in the modern art we visited just before leaving the museum.

The rock was disappointingly fake to her cynical mother, but Frances didn't mind.

We wrapped up our trip to Harvard, Massachusetts, at a Shaker cemetery. Visiting cemeteries may not be every child's idea of a fun activity, but Frances is learning to indulge her parents at an early age. She wandered around amongst the grave markers for quite a bit. The Shakers separated the sexes even in death; the graves were grouped into male and female areas.

Then Frances jumped off a rock for a while.

We all had a really lovely day. It was so nice to do something together as a family after Mark's long semester.

Next up, graduation!