Better Days are Coming

What do you get when you cross a chicken with a porcupine?

Penelope has seen better days. It has been a rough season for her.

Her molt this summer is a little scary looking and has lasted, it seems, forever. Of course, she’s not been laying eggs the whole time.

The garden here hasn’t faired much better this year. First we had flooding, then severe drought. A double whammy. Production was dim. I managed to collect enough strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers to eat on but not enough to preserve. I’d have to chalk this year’s harvest up as an epic failure. 

After I turned the calendar page this morning I went ahead and released the chickens into the garden. They’ll spend the rest  of the fall cleaning up the foliage, bugs and spreading fertilizer.

Then maybe next year we’ll see better days all around.

I certainly hope so for her sake.

Cuteness

I’m not even sure what her real name is. We just call her cuteness.

I think she looks like a cherub and fully expect to see wings peeking out of her dress at any moment.

(I’m sure her parents would find that highly entertaining.)

The Weekend in Pictures

Home Sweet Home

Another autumn weekend. Another living history event.

The men are drilling.

And marching.

In addition to making a lot of noise.

This, it seems, is all that is necessary to make them happy.

I, on the other hand, have spent the entire chilly day doing the laundry in between rain showers.

I’m currently writing this from a comfortable hotel room where I am planning to take a nice, hot shower and fall blissfully asleep in a cushy warm bed. This makes ME happy.

It’s all good. The men can all make fun of me if they wish. I’ll be a much more pleasant person to deal with when we do it all again tomorrow.

There’s an Awful Lot Going on Around Here

My daughter.

He gave her this.

I start my new part-time job on Monday.

Oh, and he comes with a bonus.

Instant Grandmother.

I’m not old enough to be a grandmother.

This can’t be right.

I may need to start therapy on Monday, too. I feel a mid-life crisis coming on.

It is For Them

Why do it?  Why spend hours in preparation, drive half way across the state, sleep outside in 45 degree weather and not shower for days?

I suppose all reenactors have their own reasons for doing it, but for me it is all about the kids. What better way to learn history? Not just the kids doing the reeacting but those visiting. Every kid that walks by my laundress setup wants to try their hand at using the washboard. They are drawn to it like bugs to a zapper. They WANT to do laundry.

Did you hear that mothers? We’re doing it wrong! Give those kids a bucket and a scrub board and let them do their own laundry! Sure they’ll get tired of it, but what will they have learned in the process?

One of the most important things I learned when homeschooling was that not all children learn the same way. Sometimes you have to throw everything at them and see what sticks. If they can see, smell, hear, touch and taste history they’ll be more inclined to appreciate it. Which do you think the kid below will remember tomorrow, the date the Civil War started or what a fox’s foot feels like and how and why the furs were processed?

If you told a kid to go outside and beat two rocks together they would think you were crazy. Show them how to make arrowheads, however, and suddenly you’re elevated to hero status.

Any art, any craft has the potential of sparking that interest they never knew they had.

“You mean cheese doesn’t always come in individually wrapped slices?”

Live history and you teach history. That’s why I do it.

 

My son had the honor of guarding President Lincoln during his speech. I doubt there will be any questions about how that is done on the ISTEP test. I wonder if I send this to his U.S. History teacher if he could get some extra credit? Or do they even bother with extra credit in the schools anymore? Probably not, it doesn’t fit neatly on a computer graded form.

The Covered Wagons are Loaded

The kid and I are bugging out to Old Settlers Days in Salem, Indiana for the weekend. Other than the food and clothing, we’re packed and ready to go. There’s barely enough room left for us. I think I might need a bigger covered wagon.

(Yes, that is a vintage army cot and modern sleeping bags. It’s going to be in the 40’s at night. I draw the line in authenticity at freezing to death. We’ll just cover them with civil war era quilts so no one can see them.)

Which reminds me that I forgot to show you my finished quilt. Uh, it is crammed in there somewhere. I’ll have to wait to get a shot of it once we get our camp set up.

I’ll be working on hand piecing another quilt while I’m there.

One of the gals in my quilt guild started working on the Civil War Tribute block of the month pattern. She finished six months worth of blocks, by hand even, then threw in the towel and donated the kit to our annual auction.

I nearly had to break a woman’s arm to get her to stop bidding against me.

Hey, no judging. It belonged to ME. When the flag barer goes down in the battlefield, men fight for the honor of carrying it on. I saw a quilter going down. I had to do something.

I totally get why she chose to pass the torch, though. Month seven is a humdinger of a block set. It was time to bring in the reinforcements. It will take me a while to finish this one (it’s humungous). I figured the Civil War spanned four years and my progress on this quilt will do the same.