when we first arrived back in winston, i was really worried about finding homeschool communities that matched with our lives. there’s a lot of co-ops and groups here, but they aren’t much of a fit. i did learn about a local chapter of the wild + free homeschoolers starting up, and i even went to a mom’s night out, which didn’t give me the best picture of what they were like, so i sort of dismissed it at the time.
well, they were having a field trip to a place sort of nearby, and a few of the moms in our co-op are involved and had mentioned it to me, so i figured i would give it a second chance. off we went. to bethabara park.
i packed us lunches. i mean. look at the perfect keto lunch for me. then i forgot mine. but, thankfully, derek delivered it. so i didn’t starve. the girls chilled with me, while isaac was off with new friends (that just that morning he swore he was not going to make).
girls lunch. 
perfect keto lunch.
the girls got busy exploring the ruins of some of the buildings that used to be here. (bethabara was home to a small moravian community that settled here in the mid 1700s). both of them found friends that they knew from co-op, so i was allowed to relax and chat with moms.
for act two (or three, if you count lunch separately) of our field trip, we made our to the potter’s house, where there was a live demo being given by the current potter-historian guy. it was informative and fun to watch. he was working with clay, dug up from the ground, just as a 1750s moravian potter would have done, which made it a little unpredictable, and there were many crashes and failures before a successful mug was produced.
potter. 
hazel. front row. 
anna and her (chatty) pal. 
captivated. 
happy pottery admirer.
for the remainder of the field trip, we went down to a little creek that runs through bethabara. it was muddy, and likely had snakes, and hazel kept bringing me “sea glass” which was really just shards of broken bottles. but. everyone had fun. isaac disappeared around a bend for most of the time. hazel and a friend played. and anna waffled between being very annoyed that we weren’t leaving and having a great time with a friend.
then, isaac cut his foot, probably on a shard of glass, and we decided that was as good a time as any to make our exit.
so, all in all, we had a good time with the wild + free group and look forward to another hangout when our schedules work out (maybe tomorrow even, which might make the blog in several months…)