October brings lots of history activity at the museum or sponsored by the museum. Many opportunities to be a Colonial Pioneer woman in the New River Valley.
On Sunday, we had the annual Spirit Trails, but this year it was held at the restored historic Belle Hampton home and property, 280+ acres with several buildings that have been restored. The General Store is an Air B&B, the main house and additions cleaned up and available by appointment to visit, the cottage in which the owners live, plus the addition of a lovely huge pavillion that was the home base for the mule driven wagon rides through the history of the property and the various people that lived, worked, or fought on the land.
The owner Tom Hoge portraying the Governor.
Unfortunately, a strong line of thunderstorms came through during the third ride and the remaining tours had to be cancelled with one portrayal held in the pavillion for those folks who stayed. There were treats to be had, displays to see. Period dance lessons, cider pressing, and some kids activities as well.
Monday morning brought the first 70 4th graders from Pulaski County for Fall on the Frontier. We had 7 stations for them to visit, history of the town film, cider pressing and corn shelling, slavery talk, cooking, bobbin lace making, spinning and weaving, and militia with flintlocks fired.
We will host more classes tomorrow and Friday. The classes are always interesting as the students learn more about the history of the region in which they live and how it differed over 200 years ago.
Today’s news had throwback photos of October 10, 1979.
On that day, a surpise early snowstorm dumped up to 10 inches of snow on parts of the Shenandoah Valley. When I saw the article, I asked my hubby if it had any significance to him but he said it didn’t until I reminded him of where we were and what we were doing.
We had taken a weekend backpacking trip along the Skyline Drive. On Friday night, we tent camped at the Big Meadows Campground rather than walking in a trail we were unfamiliar with in the dark. I was an avid backpacker at that time, trail Supervisor for the Appalachian Trail Club in Tidewater area of Virginia. They came out monthly to clear a section of the AT from Maupin’s Field to Three Ridges, but this weekend it was just the two of us. Being Autumn, we figured it would be a nice, mild weekend to go see the fall leaf colors, so we borrowed a fairly thin sleeping bag for hubby. That Friday night ended up being very cold and I exchanged sleeping bags with him so he could have the down bag as I had a down jacket I could wear in the thinner bag. Saturday was gorgeous. It probably got up in the mid 70’s and we had a great hike down the trail and a signifant elevation loss to a hollow where we planned to spend the night. Camp was set up, dinner prepared and enjoyed, and a lovely evening as it got dark, looking at the stars. The night stayed relatively warm, a surpise after the prior night.
On Sunday we woke and were about to prepare breakfast when I looked in the distance to see a very ominous black cloud. The decision was made to pack up, grab something we could eat on the move and start the hike back up the hill to where our car was parked. We hadn’t even begun to walk out until it started to rain, then hail. The temperature began to plummet and the hail turned to sleet, then snow. By this point, we were hustling to get up the slope and back to the car, a few miles away. Packs tossed in the hatchback and we set out to get off the Skyline Drive when we saw a young man, improperly clad, hiking up the road. We stopped and asked his if he needed help and he asked if we could drop him off at the site where his group would be or would gather. We did, and slowly through accumulating ice and snow made our way to Afton Pass where we got off the Drive and stopped to finally get food at Howard Johnsons. While we ate, we heard a report that the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway were being shut down. We hoped the young man found his group and a safe place to stay. The Drive and Parkway were shut down for 3 days due to the storm.
That was a trip we remember in detail 46 years later. I don’t remember ever seeing snow in Virginia in October, prior to or since.
Last Wednesday evening, I trekked over to the museum to teach an old skill. No costume required for this event. We set up 4 stations for 4 ladies + 1 second grader accompanying her Mom and they learned to make basic lard and lye soap. We used a mix of old school and modern skills and equipment so we weren’t there all night stirring the mix. Of course they were given some history of soap and soap making and why we now use a lye calculator and a superfatted recipe to be sure we end up with a body friendly product. I put together kits of a small heat safe plastic bucket, two rigid plastic stadium cups, a spatula, and a silicone loaf pan for each participant that they keep at the end of the session, along with the a three page history, instructions, and two recipes; one for the lard and lye and one for a vegan soap with Shea butter, Coconut Oil, and Olive Oil, and of course, their mold of soap. We “cheat” by stirring with an immersion blender to speed the process up to keep our session within a 90 minute window. As I dug out some of my equipment and essential oils to scent their individual batches of soap, it seemed a good time to go ahead and make soap for 3 friends and our household.
The batches at home were made Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. On Tuesday, a double batch of one scent was made and I won’t do that again as it took forever to get to the consistency to pour it in the molds and is still not as firm as I would like to slice it into bars. The Wednesday batches will be unmolded and cut tomorrow to cure for a month before going to the folks for whom it was made.
Today as I sat waiting for hubby to have a consultation visit and then I waited for my annual mammogram, I spun. In public, I spin on either a top whorl drop spindle or a Turkish spindle. When doing it, there are surreptitious glances, to out and out staring and occasionally someone will ask what I am doing. Followed by the question of what I then do with the yarn I spin.
The other old skill that really hasn’t been done so far this year is canning and preserving. There have been pickles fermented and stored, but the tomatoes haven’t produced in sufficient quantity to bother canning them. I have frozen a couple of gallon bags, made one big pot of sauce to use one night for pasta and the rest frozen in wide mouth pint jars. There is a basket of Asian pears from the orchard sitting on the dining table with a couple of oranges to make pear/orange marmalade, but I haven’t gotten around to dragging down the canning pot to do it. As there are still many jars of applesauce from last year unopened, I doubt that any will be canned this year. The only other produce that has come in quantity are greenbeans and I freeze some of them, but don’t like canned one at all and barely tolerate them from frozen. I like to buy local, but come midwinter when green vegetables are at a premium if at all available, I do buy from the grocer.
All of these skills have been learned since retirement. You can teach an old dog new tricks. And I truly believe in the each one teach one. I am grateful to the friends who taught me to make soap, spin, and improve my knitting skills. The canning and fermentation, I have learned from books and the internet.
The school year is winding down here and so, the class groups at the museum are coming to an end. Today, we had about 40 second graders visit us. Not as many rotations, fewer volunteers, but the kiddos did very well.
It is a bit more challenge with the younger students as they haven’t had the history in their Social Studies classes in any depth, their attention span is much shorter than the middle school aged students, so my presentation takes a much simplified form.
I start with asking them, “How many outfits do you think you own?” Answered by 10 to 1,000,000. “Where do you get your clothes?” Answered by Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc. From there, I try to get them to imagine having only 1 or 2 outfits, having to make them, including making the cloth they are made from, and wearing that same outfit until they outgrew it and handed it down to a younger sibling. They have a hard time with that idea or having only a handed down outfit themselves. How no handmade cloth was wasted, that worn garments were taken apart and the cloth reused for bags or quilts.
Trying to get them to imagine living in a 10′ x 10′ log home with parents and several siblings with no kitchen and no bathroom is also difficult for them to comprehend.
There are some good questions, some wrinkled noses over how few baths they could take and how that process works. How they had to help shear sheep, skirt and wash fleece, help card the wool, then help spin it on spindles. I have a handful of small spindles I have made for them to try and for them to see how difficult the process is initially, as I have been spinning on a spindle the entire time I have been talking to them.
There are lots of flax, hemp, and wool samples to pass around. Some woven pieces, box loom tapes, and lucet cords to see what even as kids that young would have helped make.
It is fun to have the various ages and drawing from my teaching skills with them.
There was a lot of living history this week. On Wednesday, we had about 80 fourth graders and 7 rotations with the museum history, slavery in Appalachia, a bit of William Tell fun with suction cup arrows and a plexiglass shield to protect the”victim,” women’s duties on the frontier, blacksmithing, fiber production at home on the frontier, and frontier Militia that includes the presenter firing a flintlock rifle for the students. After we were done, the curator showed them a covered wagon and how it would have been loaded to travel the Wilderness road to the western parts of Virginia (now Kentucky and Ohio).
Thursday we had over 100 sixth graders with some changes in rotations to match the available volunteers. These groups are fun to do and also have some of the frustrations that teachers deal with daily. Some the the youth are very engaged and have great questions. Some would rather be anywhere else and poke and prod their neighbors, or engage in flirting with another student.
The door to the loom house is low, about 5’5″ and most kiddos that age walk in without a thought, but there are a few as tall or taller than me at 5’7+” that have to duck to enter. The space inside is tight to put 15 sixth graders, but we make it work.
Wednesday night threatened cold so the flowers planted in the deck pots were covered for the night, there are no more nights much below 50 f for the next 10 days.
The first Hummingbird was spotted this morning. The single feeder that is currently out will empty quickly and soon additional feeders will be added.
The vegetable, sunflower, and herb seed have sprouted under the grow lights. They will begin to get acclimated to the outdoors in a day or two.
The Amaryllis bud opened with only 2 flowers but is 22″ tall.
After the museum yesterday it was time to mow the lawn for the first time. The riding mower original battery was so dead there wasn’t even a hint of light from the headlights, much less turning over the engine. I edged around the house and pulled out the gas push mower and it wouldn’t start either. Our once a year pushing the heavy riding mower up on to the trailer and trip two towns over to drop it off wit the repair guy was done. Once it is repaired, the grass will be so tall it will be difficult to mow, but that is all I can do for now.
We are looking forward to warm days and mild nights. Tomorrow, grandson will come help me get the rest of the garden ready to plant soon.
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It is that time of the year when I dress up and present to local elementary and middle schoolers what it was like to have to make everything you needed to live on the frontier and to trade and barter with neighbors, provide your extras to the community store for the wagons moving farther west into what is now Kentucky and Ohio. The cabin was originally built in 1769 on Peak Creek and moved to the Wilderness Road in Newbern in 1830. When it was moved, a loft was added, you can see the stairs in the background. The footprint of the cabins in the “planned” community were 10′ X 10′ some with a loft. A fireplace for heat and cooking. The barn loom behind me, similar to the one that was in this cabin for an enslaved woman who was the village weaver. The walking wheel also behind me is one I made functional at the museum and demonstrate it and the drop spindle for making yarn to be used for the fabric needs. Last Wednesday when this photo was taken, it was dreary and chilly, about 47f and the 100 kiddos moving between the 8 stations every 15 minutes had to hustle and pack in tight for some of the stations. They huddled in every porch and building that had space to eat their lunch. I thought I was going to freeze and it took several hours once home to thaw out.
That sent me on a quest to make or find a historically accurate cape because this week’s groups begin on another chilly but dry day. My quest turned up a navy blue wool reenactment cape with hood used, on ebay, for a very good price and quick shipping. It arrived today and I won’t be cold again when the weather does not cooperate.
The cold night last week was hard on the new flower starts I put out, I guess a day too early. Today we bought marigolds and petunias as well as some flower seed that mostly will go in a ground bed once I get it cleaned up from winter and the hardier starts were put in the spots in the pots on the deck that were hit the hardest by the 25f night. Also some zinnia and nasturtium seed were interspersed with the small plants, so hopefully the pots will fill in with color as the spring moves on. There are no near freezing nights for the next 10 days and I will cover the pots with row cover if we get threatened.
The vegetable, herb, and flower seed under the grow lights haven’t sprouted yet, but they aren’t due to go in the ground for at least a month, maybe 6 weeks.
With the altered plan to be very hands on and low key on the history part with today’s 2nd graders, things went much smoother. I had inexpensive homemade spindles, tape bands, Lucet cordage, a small woven towel, and a small knit along with the flax and hemp fiber samples for them to pass around and handle. As they entered, I was spindle spinning and didn’t draw attention to it until I explained that by their age, they would have been contributing to the family thread and yarn production using a spindle, or making tapes on the box loom, or cordage on the Lucet. They tried to spin with the homemade spindles and were amazed that though it looked simple as I did it, they could not. I did demonstrate the Great Wheel, letting them touch the quill after a reminder of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. They were surprised that it wasn’t sharp enough to prick their finger. We had 40ish children, divided into 5 groups as today, we were fortunate to have volunteers to cover Colonial militia, and Slavery. With the museum video, the games and corn shelling, with me and very, very nice weather, it went as it was planned. It was fortunate that we had extra rotations and good weather, well behaved children, as I was operating on very little sleep.
Our last pup, the 12+ year old German Shepherd faltered last night, and passed away shortly after I went to bed, but before hubby came to bed. We discussed what we were going to do and as it was well after midnight, decided that she would just spend the night on her bed and we would load her into the car and be at the vet’s office as they opened at 7:30 this morning, to take her for cremation.
That put us in town much too early for me to make the 40 minute drive to the museum for the 10 o’clock school group, so I settled in my new favorite local bakery for a pastry and cup of coffee while hubby took the other car back home. Tonight, I will sleep well.
The Colonial outfit has been put away until needed for an event at the museum. The tools and wools I use there, reorganized in the basket with the tapes and cordage and it too has been put away until needed again. The top whorl spindle only gets used for demonstrations, at home I use my Jenkins Turkish spindles and my non historic Louet spinning wheel. June 1 there will be a living history day at the museum and I will likely spend at least part of the day spinning for visitors.
I do love the school groups, especially when they are engaged in the process. It is a great volunteer activity for me to use skills I have learned and to draw on my many years as an educator.
This morning at 4:15 a.m., Son 1 and I headed down the mountain to meet the bus on campus that took him to the train and home to his apartment and job. The moon was so full and bright on my way home that I had to stop halfway down our long drive and get a photo as it was setting below the trees and ridge to the west.
Seldom am I up to see this.
When I was toasting his bagel to go with a previously boiled egg, and a cup of fresh coffee, the toaster that has been failing did. I tried to toast a slice of bread for me and one half of one side got slightly toasted. Out on errands later, a new toaster was purchased. The old one might have been more than a decade old. The new one isn’t fancy, a dial that will allow darker or lighter toast, a bagel button, and a cancel button. The display had ones that looked like they should have been able to make the bread and then toast it for all the settings.
Over the weekend, the idea lightbulb went off after having talked with my trainer last week about 2nd graders (her oldest is second grade), and she encouraged me to have lots of things they could touch. Back a number of years ago, when I did a couple of summer camps in the community, I started making simple spindles from a wooden wheel, a length of dowel, and a cup hook. They only cost about a dollar each to make, so we went to the local craft store today and purchased the supplies. There will be 8 spindles already started with a bit of wool on them to pass around for them to “try out,” a couple of small hand woven matts, the flax, hemp, and cotton fiber samples, a few of the box loom tapes as well. I will show them the lucet in use, and pass a length of the cord you make with it. And will be spinning on a drop spindle when they enter and while I introduce them to the house and life of the period. There are supposed to be about 60 children, so I hope we have more volunteers and more rotations of interest to them. The weather should be a good day.
The chicks still had not ventured out into the run. Every time one of them approached the pop door, a hen would run up and put them in their place. This afternoon, a long length of 3 foot high erosion fence was staked out around one side of the coop and I moved the chicks into the grass and sun. Their food and water placed in there with them. The hens are absolutely beside themselves that they can’t get to them. I did cover the top with another section of the plastic erosion fence to deter the hawk. Since I have made it a point to handle these chicks often as they have been growing, they don’t run squawking away when I approach them, so returning them to the coop later will be easy.
Tonight we have a near freezing night, then tomorrow it will be back up to 70 during the day and most nights will be near or above 50. The hanging porch plants can be taken back outside from their winter in the utility room and I will just have to keep an eye on the nighttime temps. The hummingbirds are back, though I have only seen a couple so far. They love the big pot of Columbine on the back deck and the feeder is up in the front. I love watching them flit around. One of the half barrels was planted with the hardy herbs that have been outdoors for several weeks now. They were in smaller pots that I couldn’t keep wet enough. The half barrel holds moisture better. The half barrel with strawberries is blooming, though I don’t think there will be more than a couple berries this year. I’m more interested in starting more of the runners, so an actual bed of them can be started.
It is delightful to have warmer weather, and lighter layers on when we go for our walks.
We have had a taste of summer this week until today. Warm nights, very warm days for walks, and if it rained, only late afternoon thunder storms. Today is cooler and we had rain.
Yesterday, we had 119 sixth graders at the museum, and we had 6 stations to rotate them through. Unfortunately, our 7th station, the blacksmith was absent due to illness she didn’t want to share with the kids or us. It went well, they were very engaged. That age group understands the history for the most part and can comprehend the seed or sheep to garment process in the period before mills and yard goods could be purchased. The weather was perfect for them.
Today, we had 23 second graders. It seemed like 230 of them. We thought we were going to get by with decent weather, but after they were there for about 40 minutes, it began to rain. The first thing after they got there, the adults with them gave them a snack, Capri sun drinks and Rice crispy treats, so they started off sugared up. Second graders are very curious and very tactile in their approach. They lack the history foundation, the concept of age (asking me if the people that once occupied the 1810 loom house were still alive), and can’t follow the fact that they couldn’t just go to the store and purchase their clothing and the food they ate. That the 10 by 10 foot building housed a family, that they cooked in the fireplace, that there was no electricity or bathroom. Next week’s group is also 2nd graders, so my presentation will be more tactile, letting them handle some of the equipment, passing around more items to feel, and just going with the flow of “what is that?” questions that punctuated every minute of the 15-20 minutes they are with me.
To add to our difficulties today was the fact that we only had three stations, the inside of the museum with a 12 minute historical video of the region, the old German barn with lots of equipment to see, and me in the loom house with the loom, spinning wheel, and my stuff. By the end of the third rotation with it still raining, they left without the outdoor games that would have appealed to them more than the rest. We only had to tell several of them, that “No, Abe Lincoln didn’t live in that log house.”
On one of our walks this week, on the paved Huckleberry trail, we saw a quartet of folks with two dogs stall as we were approaching and start tossing small sticks into the path, then dodge out into the grass around the edge of the path. Upon arriving at the spot, we saw a large black rat snake, lazily making it’s way across the warm asphalt.
This was the 3rd snake we have spotted this spring on these walks, the first two were small garter snakes.
The garden is generously providing the first produce of the season with lots of asparagus. I love them, hubby doesn’t. Today, I shared bags of them with the coordinator of the museum and with my physical trainer at my session after my museum stint.
We have cooler weather this weekend before a return to the warmer, milder weather. Soon it will be time to plant the remainder of the garden.
Last night when I went over to check on the 4 hens that somehow escaped the run and tunnel earlier yesterday, and to check on the chicks, who are now quite large, they had managed to pull down part of the barricade and half of them were perched beside the older hens. This afternoon, the barricade was pulled down entirely and they will share the coop. The young ones haven’t figured out to go out yet and when they do, there will probably be a few nights of catching them and showing them how to return to the coop. It will still be 12 or more weeks before they begin to lay.
For now, I am drying out my Colonial clothing from today’s rain, trying to figure out next Thursday’s second graders, and just generally unwinding from a busy week. Son 1 will come in late tomorrow night to spend Sunday with us, before being put back on the bus to the train very early Monday morning. It will be good to see him, and we will all go to daughter’s new house to grill out on Sunday.
Spring is the time the museum gets school groups to learn local history and pioneer life skills. Today we had about 97 sixth graders from one of the local middle schools to learn about western expansion from post Revolutionary War through the 1830s. The kids were divided into 6 groups that rotated through the 6 stations for about 20 minutes per station. As the resident spinner, I am privileged to get to use the loom house, an original Newbern, VA home, a 10 x 10 foot log cabin that was relocated from another lot in Newbern to the museum property in 1830 and given an upper loft. A bit of history about Newbern and the house which was occupied from 1830’s til well after the Civil War by an enslaved woman and her son. She was so valued as a weaver that after emancipation, she was allowed to continue to live in the house and was paid for her weaving skills for the community. Her son was the first African teacher for the freed African children and paid enough that he later paid his way through Hampton Institute to earn his teaching degree.
With me in this photo is Sarah, a local whose ancestors were enslaved Cherokee and Africans and she teaches about slavery for the groups. I discussed cottage industries of spinning and weaving and the life of a frontier woman.
Though the weather began dark and drizzly, we ended up with a mild, cloudy day and only an occasional mist, so very lucky as two of the 6 stations are outdoors and the groups of 12-15 students had to shift between the stations every 20 minutes.
Over the next two weeks, we will have 3 other groups visiting us there, another sixth grade group from a different middle school, a 4th grade group, and a 2nd grade group. The second graders might prove to be the most challenging to keep engaged, though I suspect their rotations will be much shorter.
As a retired educator, though not in history, I thoroughly enjoy working with the children and work hard to make the sessions interesting and engaging, throwing in tidbits like few baths, only about 2 outfits that are handed down until worn out, and the tasks that they were likely to have had to help the family. Many of the 4th and 6th graders have read some of the original fairy tale versions, so the Sleeping Beauty finger prick is fun to discuss from what probably really happened to her, as I am demonstrating spinning on a walking wheel with a quill. They are a fun age to teach.
I look forward to the future groups scheduled and any additional ones that may fill the calendar.
Cabin Crafted 