A Trip to Kilby's Museum

Today I drove out to Agassiz, turned left at the four way stop and headed up over Mount Woodside to Kilby's Museum in Harrison Mills. If you have not been there it might be a place you want to go with your children if you have some at some point. It is sort of magical. Well, all sorts of magical actually. Right now there are ducklings, piglets, a calf, sheep, a mischievous goat, free range chickens that you can hold if you really want to, rabbits and more. There is a simple tree house, a tire swing and teeter totter (located in the orchard) and there is an old general store that is magnifique. There is also a gift shop where I happened to purchase a bright pink polka dot bonnet, but if that is not your forte you could purchase all sorts of candy, carvings, art, knitting, toys, the list goes on. There is also an excellent little restaurant, and ice cream, and home baked treats, and really it is just a moment frozen in time where the staff is sweet and friendly and the whole place makes your heart happier for going.
I have been going to Kilby's my whole life. When I walked in today there was a picture of me when I was about fourteen still up on the wall!! I found a bench devoted to my grandpa there because of the heritage he worked so hard to preserve. My children had fun running wild. My sister and I had fun remembering moment from our childhood. One of my memories happened after we moved from the farm on the island. We lived in town in a BC box house with a small back yard. A mother chicken at Kilby's was killed mysteriously and her chicks were left to fend for themselves. My grandpa gave me a call and I came to the rescue. I raised two baby chicks in a card board box in my bedroom for a couple months until they were big enough to be returned to the museum. They were named Spock and Carlos. I realize now that it might not be all that normal for a fourteen year old girl to raise chickens in her bedroom in town...to have them out pecking in the garden in her back yard, to take them on car rides to grandma's....but that was me. Today I was involved in a melodramatic duckling rescue. It was a bit like coming home. I took some pictures I couldn't help it.
Here are just a 'few' (or fifty)

                                                    Disclaimer: I didn't dress them

Eight little bundles of fluff that popped through the fence, got scared by a cow and then couldn't get back in! So cute!!!!

                                                                      The beauty of this blue

A magic moment where a passenger train went by and we all waved and yelled hello..the staff came out and waved also and everyone waved back :)

                                                              The orchard play ground

 Inside the old general store. Imagine how colorful and comfortable these stores would feel with the wood stove, checker games for the old timers, and every spare inch covered in everything imaginable you might need.

                        Here I am advertising lots of fun on their play ground many a moon ago

                                          Why do I find old bottles so beautiful? Well I just do

                               Another reminder of my grandfather (one of the books he wrote)

This room made me so happy that I live in the time I do now. I wash SO MANY DISHES these days and this little room, as sweet as it is,...had no running water, and was so tiny. I love the idea of the general store and living above it and being such an integral part of a bustling community. However Mrs. Kilby and every woman of the era's before are heroes of the highest kind. Bless them all.