Pioneer for a Day

We took a family field trip to Pioneer Farms in Austin recently. And by field trip I mean we spent some time walking through displays of old stuff while snapping at the kids not to touch anything followed by eating a lunch of Chik-Fil-A nuggets in a park. 

Despite how it may sound it was actually a really fun and educational time. Part of the education was learning about how settlers from the 1800s lived in Texas, and part of it was learning that taking a 3-year-old through historical buildings is a terrible idea. 

I have to give the farm credit for being very hands off and low key about kids running around and providing self-guided access to so many buildings. There are just a lot of things a 3-year-old can fall into, over, under, behind, or through that make it somewhat of a parental challenge.

Then again, it may be a testament to the weenie-fication of modern Texans that lofts without railings, unmarked cliffs, and the occasional aggressive donkey seem like dangers.

Admittedly, we must have looked like the least capable family in Pioneer Farms history as we wandered around the grounds unable to find the trail to the second part of the farms. The early settlers sailed from Germany to Texas and then made their way across the wilderness to settle in Fredericksburg, Pflugerville, and New Braunfels. 

Me? I couldn’t get 100 yards past the gift shop before taking a wrong turn and walking the family up to the maintenance barn that was definitely not part of the Pioneer Farm exhibits. My boys now think Central Texans in the 1840s had John Deer tractors and Chevy pickups. 

I eventually did figure out the way to the back portion of the property (and still blame an inexplicable “Wrong Way” sign placed on the trail) and into pioneer country. There are some really neat buildings and great examples of traditional homes that bring perspective to how far we’ve come (or perhaps how far we’ve gotten away) from those simpler, agrarian times. 

Our visit was on a picture perfect fall day, where the front porches are idyllic and the interior of the houses are perfectly comfortable. As you read the placard on the “dogtrot” houses you’re reminded how easy it is to romanticize the difficult lifestyle these people lived and forget about the other eight months of the year when it’s stifling indoors with no air conditioning. And also that the outhouses on the property were not whimsical backyard tiny houses. 

The boys really enjoyed seeing the chickens, longhorns, and horses around the property and I really enjoyed only getting lost one other time while on the fenced-in less than 100 acre property. Look, the farm was doing a special “Pumpkin Night” display for Halloween and some of the fencing blocked part of the path so I thought it was the end of the trail and it wasn’t. So, when I found a map at the entrance showing we missed the indian teepees, we had to walk another mile back to look for them.

I’m telling you, back in pioneer times there were families who loaded up their wagons to head for the West but came back to town a week later because they couldn’t find their way out of Delaware. These were my ancestors. 

Despite some navigational hiccups, our visit to Pioneer Farms was a blast and I highly recommend it as a family outing. But maybe take a compass. Just in case.