"Our" Museum and Log Cabin

Okay, I have to admit that Daryl’s volunteerism has led to some pretty cool opportunities.  This is definitely one of them.

Last year, Daryl joined our little town’s historic society and was nominated as Vice President.  This year, he was automatically bumped up to president.  When he asked who wanted to take charge of the city museum and log cabin, there were no takers.  Some members had been shouldering more than their share for years, so he took it on.

This past month, he has been busy with the kids doing things to prepare for the grand opening today.  They swept the log cabin, arranged displays, cleaned up unfortunate bats and birds who’d met untimely ends, went through donations and so on.

Along the way, they’ve learned a ton of history about our town, railroads, pioneer life and more.  And helped our community.  And had fun.

And best of all, we now sort of have free run of our own little historic museum and log cabin.

The site is only open for two hours on Sunday afternoons.  It’s been that way for years and Daryl is hoping to expand that.  Victoria may take a shift to open another day and time.

I suggested seeing if the high school would donate their leftover greenhouse plants to the site to plant around the cabin as a historic garden.  Daryl checked with the principal and superintendent (they’re also on the committee) and they said sure.  Today, Daryl and Anna stopped by and picked up flats of marigolds, snapdragons, tomatoes and more.  We planted until we were too tired to do more.

On our way off the site, we turned off the lights to the museum and looked around one last time.  Victoria was taking pictures of artifacts.  Daryl showed me the sled from the giant old waterpark that was on one of our local lakes decades ago, until the owners shut it down rather than involve the government and pay taxes (not that it would have passed safety inspections either, by the looks of it!).

I love that my boys climb into the rafters of the log cabin for fun.  I love that my girls are taking on their on garden responsibilities to beautiful the spot and add a little more authenticity.  I love that Jack knows railroad history and hobo culture.  I love that Alex runs barefoot through the clover around the cabin and climbs on historic farm equipment.  I love walking through antiques and memories from a hundred years with my children before turning out the lights and locking the doors.

We have lots of plans for activities to draw more visitors and add more interest.  It’s a fun project and I’m very glad Daryl took it on.