From Colleen and Flat Mrs Cripps travelling from Wisconsin to Minnesota, USA to Zach.
Good Day Zach! I wanted to let you know that Flat Mrs Cripps arrived through the internet. She was just in time to come out to a wheat field in Almena Wisconsin to help with the harvest! Flat Mrs Cripps horses would love to eat the wheat.
She travelled to a wheat field. The field was planted in the spring so it is called hard red spring wheat. Most wheat is used in the United States for making bread, cookies, pasta, and cakes.
Our seasons are opposite of yours so our summer is coming to an end and fall or harvest time is approaching.
The wheat is harvested using a combine. This is the same type of machine that harvests corn and soybeans.
The grain that the combine harvests is then used to make flour. The stems can be baled and fed to farm animals or used for their bedding.
Flat Mrs Cripps will be heading to another state today. She will be crossing the Mississippi River and entering into the state of Minnesota. Stay tuned for more adventures.
From Katie and Flat Mrs Creed in Washington DC, to Hudson M
Dear Hudson and RHPS Students,
Thank you so much for posting Flat Mrs. Creed all the way to my new home in Washington, DC!
My name is Katie Niemeyer, and I am from the United States of America. I am originally from Chatfield, Minnesota - a place that your Assistant Principal knows very well! (In fact, I had her as a teacher when I was in third grade!) I very recently moved to Washington DC after living in Malawi - a small country in Southern Africa - and now live only a few light rail stops away from places like the White House and the US Capitol Building.
I can't wait to receive Flat Mrs. Creed via postal mail and show her around all of the sights in Washington DC, but in the meantime she has been such a huge help even via email. You can see from this photo that she helped me unpack in my new apartment with all of my memorable items from my travels around the world. I'll tell you more about what I do - and how that is tied to where I live - in future emails. Until then, stay well - and know that Flat Mrs. Creed is enjoying new experiences alongside me in the capital of the U.S.!
Sincerely,
Katie Niemeyer
From Deborah and Flat Cody in Yukon, Canada:
Hello Ms. Moore! It's been great fun having Brodie visit the Yukon and join me on a couple of outings these past weeks. I've attached lots of links to images in google drive - I hope they're easy to open and share. I've also included links to some interesting information and video explaining more about the areas Brodie has seen.
This is one intrepid young adventurer! In his short visit to the Yukon, Canada's True North, Brodie has explored century old gold claims, visited historical sites, battled mosquitoes as big as his hand and helped harvest wild strawberries & mushrooms!
Brodie is an easy traveller - very few demands for the good snacks or pee breaks, and never ONCE has he asked "are we there yet?!" so he is a very welcome companion.
So far, one of Brodie's favourite outings was a trip to his host Deborah's farm, though she kept trying to put him to work! He saw a couple of Yukon wild hares along the roadside on the way to Tagish. That was exciting, but Deborah was too busy driving to stop and take photos - and those bunnies were FAST!
The road trip to Dawson City town was fun too, though Deborah was a bit keen and posed him just about everywhere (so embarrassing!). The massive cinnamon bun at Braeburn was CRAZY!
Dawson City is a historical town - protected as a National Heritage Site. Dawson was the mining hub during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. During the gold rush, many thousands of gold-mad miners made their way across the country, over the Chilkoot Pass and into Dawson to strike it rich. Few did, but many great adventures were had.
Dawson's Historic Firefighters Museum was pretty neat TOO- Brodie was excited to see a New South Wales Bush Fire Service sign in their collection!
We did a really interesting tour of Dredge #4 - it's HUGE!! This piece of apparatus was built to extract fine gold dust from the permafrost beneath the ground along Bonanza Creek. When it was operating, the sound was so loud it could be heard 5km away in Dawson City. History is very cool, and this machine is amazing. It was built under the direction of Joe Boyle - a true Yukon character - one of "The Colourful 5 Percent" whose ingenuity and grit helped build the Territory. Brodie tried to tell Deborah about the gold rush in Victoria, but she wasn't really listening and kept talking about how the Yukon's Klondike Gold Rush was just the biggest and best ever. Okay Deborah. ;)
Carcross is a pretty cool place - a tiny little village that was an important Indigenous community for thousands of years before the settlers came during the gold rush. A route on the trip to Dawson, many relics of the period remain. The Carcross Tagish First Nation has done incredible work building the area on the strengths of the landscape, and the resilience and artistry of its people. The community itself has become a destination and sees hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Deborah herself comes here almost every weekend for a latte and some baked goods or soup. Yum. The photo shows Deborah and Brodie in front of a traditional Carcross Tagish Nation button blanket on display in the Visitors' centre. (Deborah is actually soaking wet after picking mushrooms in the pouring rain).
Indigenous people in the Yukon have negotiated land claim agreements which mean they do not live on reserves, but on their self governed traditional lands. The 14 self governing nations have functioning governments that are considered equal to the territorial government in most ways. While it's still not perfect, the system is a huge improvement over the colonial governance imposed 150 years ago which treated indigenous people very badly, stripping them of their culture and languages. The Yukon is seeing a renaissance in the empowerment of indigenous people, and a resurgence of indigenous languages.
So far, Brodie is enjoying his time in the Yukon, but he can't quite understand how the summer temperatures here are the same as the winter temperatures at home, and how he happened to arrive during a pandemic and in the year with the worst mosquito population in a generation. Also - you'll see in a photo that he has a clip on his shoulder... there was a minor injury but he is quite recovered now, and thankfully there wasn't much discomfort.
LINKS:
[http://Dawson City Yukon - Home of the Klondike Gold Rushdawsoncity.ca]Dawson City Yukon tourism site
17 minute youtube video by Parks Canada
Dredge #4 Info
Dredge #4 YouTube historical Video
Our Agreements - Mapping the Way Yukon First Nation Land Claims and Umbrella Final Agreement
PHOTOS & VIDEOS, Brodie in action!
