The End Of Our 3 Day Adventure Into The Past

Today was the final day of Heritage Days at the Mountain Home Place where my family has been volunteering. It was another fascinating day of "time travel" as we joined in with the re-enactors in an attempt to re-create an 1850s Appalachian mountain homestead. Being Saturday, there were no large school groups, which made the atmosphere much more condusive to more of an authentic "feel". The visitors today were family groups and couples and most seemed to be from out of town. Since the guests only came in trickles there was more time to enjoy the atmosphere and get to know the other re-enactors better.

Here is Matthew with Judah and the horse named Peter. Judah and Peter are from Red Bush, on the other side of Johnson County.




This is Wayne from Letcher County, which is about 2 1/2 hours away from here. He operates a hand quern gristmill, which he built by hand, and was very knowledgeable about many old time matters.





Here is Charlie. He is one of the full time workers at the Home Place and can do most anything, it seems. The fellow who did the blacksmithing Thursday and Friday was participating in a Civil War Re-enactment today, so Charlie stepped into the furnace. The other days he was working in the barn or with the sorghum (or any array of other places he may have been needed), but he really seemed to know what to do in the blacksmith shop! He was a nice fellow who had many stories to tell.







This is Mrs. Lemaster and Mrs. Vose, local volunteers whom Lisa got to know working in the old church:



Here is Christina with Abigail who is one of Judah's sisters. Abigail worked in the barn with her sister demonstrating how they milk their Jersey cow and make butter and cheese.



And here Abby is in the barn with her sister Sarah and their milk cow Berda, along with their friend Shianne (from the first day).




This is Debbie, one of the ladies from whom Christina learned so much during these 3 days. Deb lives and runs a shop in Saylersville called The Keeping Room in the next county over. (If the link to her store does not work here is the web address: http://www.picturetrail.com/thekeepingroom-ky)



Charolette, our good friend from down the road, worked with basket weaving and lye soap making.




Here is Lisa with Imogene inside the old one-room school house and also outside:




Timothy met 3 year old Susie today, and they had a good time running around the Home Place. Her family was among the troupe who were performing the drama about our Mountain Heritage at the amphitheater.




They invited us to accompany them to the play. Timothy and I watched from the seats (along with a friendly cat) at first.




When they asked for some audience participation, guess who took center stage? In this picture you might see a rising star in the world of Homestead theatrics!



There were really too many good pictures today to put up in one post, but I'm going to go ahead and try to use most of them anyway!

Simon learned how to make a really cool old fashioned toy using a corn cob and 4 chicken feathers. It twirls like a propeller when thrown through the air, which made it a lot of fun!




Matthew was Mr. Photogenic leaning against the old fence in front of the cabin while taking a break from the sorghum extracting:




A rustic cooking pit:



Lisa, getting herbs from the herb garden for the demonstration table:



Inside the cabin with a fire in the fireplace, herbs drying, and a display of baskets and toys recently created:



Timothy grinding corn:



Riding bareback on the horse was a great experience for Simon:




My beautiful Christina seemed to glow in that red dress contrasted with the browns of the mountain cabin and fence:



Timothy also got to ride the horse, thanks to Joshua. It's too bad I didn't get a good picture of Timothy on the horse, but I think this first picture is really picturesque as they rode along the old rail fence:




Lisa teaching in the one-room school house:

(Did you notice the picture of the President on the wall? It's a portrait of Jefferson Davis. Abraham Lincoln's portrait is on the other side!)

I got several good shots today of Matthew working the sorghum along with Judah and Peter:








I love the old log schoolhouse, but I love the beautiful school marm even more!



Timothy looked so natural with the log school house as a backdrop that another photographer had to capture the scene. I hope I will be able to get some of her photos of Timothy! She also took shots of most of the re-enactors, so if I do get a hold of her pictures there may be another post in the future!






But for now, I guess I have shared enough!

In a future post I may reflect on some of the lessons we learned during this 3 day experience of re-enacting the "old ways" of life around these mountains. Right now the event is too recent for me to get very poetic or philosophical (but I think I feel it coming on)!

The only lesson to speak of at this time is one that I'm always amazed at. How blessed we truly are! God has been so very good to us.

Another Day of Heritage at the Home Place

The middle of the front page of today's paper was a bit of a surprise:



If you look closely, you can see Christina with the spinning wheel next to the words and Simon with his spoons between two children on the bottom left picture:



You can see Christina better zoomed up and maybe you can read the little blurb written about Heritage Days:



Here was the spread on the inside of the paper. Christina made it again and you can also see Timothy and another boy acting the part of a horse on the cane press:



I thought it was pretty cool to see the coverage of the event in the paper.

But it was even better being there in person! Today I took a day off work so I could enjoy more of the festivities.

Day 2 went very well, with around 300 folks coming through to learn about our Mountain Heritage, which was about 3 times as many as came by yesterday!

James was on hand to give rides to anyone who had trouble walking. Timothy didn't have any trouble walking (or running), but he sure enjoyed the rides on the golf cart anyway!



Matthew again explained to the groups about sorghum:



But today they had a horse to hitch up to the press, which made things much easier:



Simon again amazed folks with his rendition of "Yankee Doodle" self accompanied by his spoon playing. One lady even liked it so much that she gave him some money! (He didn't even have his hat setting out.)



Simon and Timothy shelled corn with the old corn sheller. We actually have one just like this, but have never grown enough feed corn to make use of it.



Lisa demonstrated mortar and pestle grinding as well as a hand cranked grain mill, and served samples of cornbread with sorghum and butter.




Here is Bobbi-Jo cooking on the wood cook stove in the cabin.



Christina learned how to weave today and enjoyed working the loom.




I love these pictures of her and Simon on the porch of the McKenzie cabin:




The old fashioned implement in front of the porch is an apple cider press. Here is Gary taking a break from pressing the apples. He has a large orchard and is one of the ones who taught the apple grafting workshop Lisa and I attended last year.



Timothy found himself in many cute pictures again today.








I think I'll end this post tonight with several random pictures from the past two days. There is still Day Three to come, so I will likely take even more pictures before it is all said and done. I notice that I don't have any shots of the blacksmith shop, and there seems to be so much that we have not captured on film...

But anyway, here are several more shots that we have captured: