10+ Family Things to Do Around Mt. Juliet This Week
Wilson County has a quiet week on paper and a genuinely good one in practice, because the state parks are doing the heavy lifting. Cedars of Lebanon has stacked four separate ranger programs into a single Friday, which means you can build most of a day out there for almost nothing.
Friday 4 September at Cedars of Lebanon
Four programs, one park, one day. You could reasonably do all four with a lunch break in the middle.
1. Bird Search on the Sadie Ford Farm Trail — free
10:00 a.m. A guided walk on the heritage farm trails, at a stop-and-look pace. Bring bug spray; September in Wilson County is not messing about.
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2. Reading Ranger Storytime — free
11:00 a.m. at the Nature Center. A nature story, then a short walk outside to look for whatever the book was about. Built for pre-K, welcoming to all ages. It picks up right where the bird walk ends.
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3. Paint your own birdhouse — $5
2:00 p.m. at the Nature Center. Real wooden birdhouses sized for wrens, chickadees and nuthatches, and staff who will tell you where to hang it. Space is limited and registration is required.
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4. Cedar glade wildflower hike
4:30 p.m. The cedar glades grow plants that live almost nowhere else on earth, and late afternoon is the best light for them. Rocky footing, so closed-toe shoes. Parking at the park office is limited — carpool.
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Sunday 6 September
5. Paint a Pet Rock at Long Hunter — free
2:00 p.m. An hour of rock painting with a ranger, no skill required, works for every age at once. Worth knowing: the boat house and fishing pier are closed until further notice, so do not plan the day around the water. Trails and the Couchville Lake loop are open.
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All week at Breeden’s Orchard
6. Pizza Night — Thursday 3 September
4:30 p.m., pay as you go. The orchard's standing Thursday evening, and an easy low-commitment outing.
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7. Story Time — Friday 4 September
10:00 a.m. at the orchard. Check with Breeden’s on cost before you go.
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8. John Deere Touch A Tractor — Saturday 5 September
9:00 a.m. Climbing on farm machinery, which is the entire pitch and needs no further explanation to anyone under seven.
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9. Story Time — Saturday 5 September
10:00 a.m., straight after the tractors. Convenient if you were already out there.
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10. And when the calendar is quiet: Charlie Daniels Park
September is the reward month for this park. The heat has finally broken enough that the playground complex is usable in the middle of the afternoon instead of only at dusk, and the ballfields are busy most evenings.
It is free, it is the city's flagship park, and it is the site of most of Mt. Juliet's community events — including Movie in the Park with Little Giants next Friday 11 September, if this week is already spoken for.
Looking a week ahead
Mt. Juliet's own calendar gets busy immediately after this window: Movie in the Park on Friday 11 September, and the Fall Community Yard Sale on Saturday 12 September, both at Charlie Daniels Park. Worth putting on the calendar now.
More on the family events calendar.
