Adobe Field Trip

I was bummed when I missed out on driving for the first of Leia’s fourth grade field trips - paperwork didn’t get processed in time - but I got another chance this week.

Leia’s teacher called this the ”highlight of 4th grade” and I think she might be right. The docents at Olivas Adobe in Ventura were awesome and the kids loved the hands-on demos . . . like grinding corn 

to make masa 

that they rolled into balls 

and then flattened into tortillas to be cooked over an open flame grill in the courtyard. 

 The women made 500 tortillas every day when the ranch was at its peak.

Leia didn’t like the taste of the finished tortillas but I did! Yummmmmm.

 Adobe storeroom

We got to tour the interior of the 2-story adobe ranch house - the kids were fascinated that the original family had 21!! children - and everyone got to try their hand at cattle roping  (Leia caught hers by the buttocks!)

but the highlight of the day was the “semi-authentic adobe brick making” in the semi-authentic and very cool mud pit. 

Some of the girls were hesitant to climb in the pit, but not Leia! She loved it.

The official objective was to get enough mud from the pit to fill a brick mold

which was then removed so the “adobe” could dry in the sun. 

But the kids were more interested in squishing through the mud

and seeing how much they could get on themselves.

Nobody fell in, which was a miracle, and they all hosed off very nicely. All in all, a very fun day.