The most recent entry is
immediately below this line. Read down to experience the
year.
Friday, November 30
The weather has turned off cold in Pryor Hollow and with this entry yet another
year will have come and gone at The Homeplace. We've had a very good year with
over 45,000 visitors coming out to visit and see the farm. On the Thanksgiving
weekend we had over 500 attend the Christmas in 1850 program that was
highlighted by Santa arriving by horse drawn buggy and delivering oranges to the
children. On Sunday Charlotte and Sarah made lye soap in 20 minutes because of
the cold weather. A foraging skunk was bold enough to stop by and visit during
the program. He even went in to the parlor to see what all was going on.
It's been a good year and we are already in the process of planning out our
programs for 2008. On Saturday, March 1st we will have a program focusing on how
pigs were used on the farm as we make sausage and smoke hams. In late March
there will be a basket making workshop using non-native materials. April will
see the quilt show again as well as Wildflower Weekend and we will be shearing
sheep the first weekend of May. It's hard to believe that it is all only three
months away! Until then, thank you all for coming to visit with us this year and
we look forward to seeing you in 2008!
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, November 14
With the dryer weather that we had late last week Jonathan was able to
begin plowing the field in front of the Double Pen House using Bob &
Jake separately to do the job. Both horses did quite well and turned
quite a bit of earth in only 2 days of plowing. Jonathan has been
plowing the field "reverse" which entails starting on the outside edge
and working inward to the center of the field. This practice will help
to level out the field so that we avoid having a hump in the middle of
the field from repeatedly plowing from the crown in the middle of the
field. As well, all of the bean poles and okra stalks have been taken
from the garden so it is ready to be plowed as well.
On Saturday, Rob had a program titled, Good Timber Warms You Twice, once
when you're cutting it and twice when you're burning it.
Rob demonstrated 19th century logging methods in moving a small log to
the Tool Barn and then working at it with a variety of hand tools such
as a cross cut saw and cant hook which acts as a lever and is used to
roll the log into position. The small log will then be made into tobacco
sticks to hang tobacco in the barn next season. We did have some rain
Tuesday and today which has brought the tobacco currently in the barn
into order so that it is easy to handle. Rob spent Wednesday afternoon
taking down some of the tobacco and sorting it by its quality and then
tying it up into bundles called "hands" as this is how the tobacco was
prepared for market in the 19th century. Our tobacco will be kept at the
farm for demonstration and interpretive programs.
At the Double Pen House, the ladies have been doing quite a bit of hand
work and have been preparing rags from old worn out clothing to be used
this Saturday in a Rag Bee where the strips of cloth will be made into
useable rugs. This would be a form of 19th century recycling as the
clothing's purpose has changed from clothing a person to decorating a
floor while helping to keep the chill of the November wind from coming
through the cracks in the floor.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, November 7
This past week the weather has turned a little cooler which has allowed us to be
splitting out some seasoned firewood for the Double Pen House. Also we've been
splitting fence rails using wedges and mauls (wooden sledge hammers) to split
pieces of oak into sections that we will use to repair fences around the farm.
Other fall chores that are going on include cleaning out the garden and firing
tobacco. At the Double Pen House, the ladies dipped beeswax candles Saturday and
then had visitors go into a room lit only by candlelight to demonstrate just how
effective candle power is at illuminating a space.
On Sunday, the "Friends of LBL" had their annual volunteer recognition dinner.
There was a good turn out for the event held at the Brandon Spring Group Center.
This year all facilities were asked to select one volunteer that made an
outstanding contribution to their facility. I had a unique plight because we
have a number of adult volunteers, but we also have a number of youth
volunteers. So I split the award into categories. Selected as The Homeplace
Volunteer of the Year in the Adult division was Mary Ann Scurlock of Dover, TN.
Selected as The Homeplace Volunteer of the Year in the Youth 5-17 division was
Sarah Appleton of Paris, TN. Selected as The Homeplace Volunteer of the Year in
the Youth 0-4 division was Sam Rounds of Murray, KY. Each of these volunteers
has provided outstanding service to The Homeplace each in their own way during
the past season. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has
volunteered at The Homeplace during this season. Your help has been invaluable
and we hope to see you soon!
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, October 24
This past Saturday The Homeplace hosted an 1850s styled wedding which was
attended by 570 visitors. The program was done in first person so that the staff
who were dressed in period clothing not only looked as if it were 1850, but they
presented themselves in speaking to visitors as though it were 1850 as well.
Mary Campbell was wed to John Vinson with the Rev. Ezra Jones conducting the
service which was held at the farm of John's parents, Daniel and Elizabeth
Vinson.
Capt. Louis Partain gave away the bride and
Chauncey Cook acted as Best Man. A splendid service was held under the Maple
Trees. After the ceremony was completed, the bride & groom enjoyed wedding cake
and visiting with guests. Later, a lively band played up and the dance caller
had the wedding guests performing the Grande March, Virginia Reel, Broom Dance,
and several waltzes. Wedding games included Run for the Jug, Cat in the Quilt,
Run for the Broom and Tossing the Sock. A marvelous time was had by all.
And then......it started to rain Monday. And rain and rain. We've had well over
5 inches of rain, perhaps as much as 8 inches in 48 hours. It's a good soaking
rain which is good and is much needed. However, I hope that the rain will clear
out by Friday as that will be Snap Apple Night, a sort of 1850s Halloween
complete with bonfires, storytelling, Halloween games and surprises.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, October 10
This past weekend was Autumn Nature Celebration and The Homeplace and
Woodland's Nature Station offered several programs focusing on subjects
of the fall season. October is the perfect time for a campfire and they
had that at Nature Station along with storytelling. At The Homeplace Rob
and Lora Ann presented a program focusing on natural fall harvests:
nuts, berries and other edibles. Visitors were able to sample walnut
fudge and other items while learning how that fall's natural harvest
would be very important to a 19th century farm.
I worked with Bob & Jake this week. I hitched them up as a team to move
a log so that it could be split for fence rails. These horses are worth
their weight in gold. They walked even and slow to where the log was
located. They were very calm as I hitched them up. Then they
pulled the log with little effort. Jonathan gave Bob a bath Monday and
really got him shined up.
Jonathan also has been busy making shingles. If we
can get enough of them made we hope to use them to re-roof the chicken
coop next year. To make a shingle you use a tool called a froe. You also
use a maul with the froe.
Image courtesy of SignPost eZine by Bob Dillon Winsor Chairs - Issue
Number 16
It acts as a wedge as it splits into the wood but it
has a handle on it so that you can use it as a lever to pry off the
shingle. We've got some nice stacks of shingles sprouting up around the
tool barn but a lot of scrap as well and we've been using the horses to
haul that scrap to the tobacco barn were we use it for firing the
tobacco.
At the house, the ladies have been preparing for the wedding which will
be October 20th. Jennifer has been gathering flowers for the bride's
bouquet and getting the house spruced up to receive guests. Charlotte
has been working on embroidering new sheets for the parlor bed.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, October 3
This past Saturday, LBL observed National Public Lands Day by offering
free admission to The Homeplace, Woodlands Nature Station and Golden
Pond Planetarium. At The Homeplace we were very busy with over 800
counted visitors and perhaps in all 1000 coming through the front door.
On site, visitors enjoyed the staff cooking dinner at the Double Pen,
working with the horses and Rob's Still Looking For a Gourd Time program
which featured many different varieties of gourds and their uses.
We're still fire curing tobacco on a daily basis and Jonathan has plowed
up this year's tobacco plots and harrowed them off to get them ready for
next year. In the garden, Lora Ann has sown a plot of turnip greens. We
have a very abundant crop of cotton still in the front field which is
producing new open bolls of white cotton daily.
We had some trouble with the sheep last week. The merinos got into the
Single Pen House and made quite the mess getting manure on the quilts of
the bed and the floor cloth of the kitchen. Robert found that one of the
merinos was not acting right and called the vet to look at her but she
died shortly after the vet's visit. The sheep was then taken to
Hopkinsville to an animal diagnostic lab to determine cause of death.
Visitors to the farm will notice some new sidewalks near the Horse Barn
and Double Pen House. These are being installed to better serve those
with wheelchairs and strollers. Although the sidewalks will change the
look of the farm a bit, once the project is complete it should greatly
improve accessibility to the farm site.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, September 5
We had a very successful Labor Day weekend at The Homeplace with close
to 1500 people coming to visit with us over the 3 day holiday weekend.
On Saturday, Rob and Cindy presented a program on flax, which is a plant
that is grown to make linen. During their program, they demonstrated how
the flax was broken up to remove the chaff from the fiber, how the fiber
was cleaned of the chaff, and how the fiber was spun into linen thread.
Sunday, Robert had a program titled, "Where's the Still?" which focused
upon whiskey and its role between the rivers. Monday we had a
program which we called a "Watermelon Social". The program focused upon
19th century recreational activities and we achieved this through doing
some storytelling and enjoying some ice cold watermelon. We also had a
seed spitting contest that was enjoyed by all.
We've also made some moves with the poultry and waterfowl on the farm.
We had purchased some Black Cayuga ducks, which is a breed that was
available in the 19th century and is considered rare today, to replace
the adult Rouen ducks that we've had for 2 years. The young Cayuga ducks
are now big enough to free range the farm and we needed the brooder
space for the surprise batch of Dominique chickens that appeared last
week, so the hen and chicks have moved to the brooder and now are on
site where they can be seen, the young Cayugas are now in the duck coop
near the ox barn, and the adult ducks have been dressed (offsite) and
will be used in our interpretive cooking demonstrations at the Double
Pen House.
This process was an all too common part of life in the 19th century as
young animals would replace mature animals who were once young, cared
for very well, and then were used for food. Some living history sites
actually do on site butchering demonstrations for the public. Their
rationale is that people are so far removed from where their food comes
from that being able to witness the process will enable them to
appreciate what it really takes to put food on the table. Although I
can understand that point of view, I'm not sure everyone who may come to
a living history site is up for seeing an animal killed in front of
them; not to mention that things don't always go as planned. However, I
feel that it is very important for visitors to understand that the farm
animals are not pets and do have roles to play on the farm. The horses
provide draft power, the sheep provide fiber, and they as well as
the other animals provide food. Each season, the pigs from the farm are
taken to a locker plant in Paris, TN and butchered. Then every March,
our first program of the year focuses upon how the cuts of meat are
processed into sausage as well as being smoked in the smokehouse. In
fact this year, Jennifer interpreted the making of head cheese, which
involved boiling a pig's head to remove the bits of meat that were
edible.
By doing this type of demonstration, visitors can get up close with the
tasks needed to put food on the table. As well, this seasonal rotation
of pigs helps to preserve the Tamworth breed as we obtain new pigs each
year from a producer is trying to make a living raising pigs.
This is
much more sustainable than The Homeplace breeding pigs and continues the
cycle that was continued with the ducks, young animals replacing mature
animals that are then used for food.
In college, I had a friend who worked in a commercial meatpacking plant
one summer. When he came back to school in the fall, he was a
vegetarian. He said that after he saw how the meat was handled in the
plant, he would never eat processed meat again. My experience yesterday
however makes me want to counter his thinking in that I helped to care
for the baby ducks when they arrived at The Homeplace, I helped care for
them when they were older and free-ranging the farm: changing their
bedding, keeping kids from chasing them, hauling their feed from the
store, and keeping their water unfrozen in the winter among other
things. Then having cared for them for two seasons, I was there with
them when it was time for them to fulfill their purpose as food. I was
very conscious towards them being stressed as little as possible in the
process, catching one at a time, holding them so that they would be as
calm as possible, and then killing them quickly. Afterwards, I helped to
dress the ducks by removing the breast meat and prepping the meat for
the refrigerator. Knowing how the ducks were cared for and being
personally responsible for how they how they died plus doing the
handling of the meat that would be eaten made me that much more focused
on doing everything right, and this cycle is what is lost by simply
going to the supermarket to buy food.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, August 29
The heat and dry weather continue for us in Pryor Hollow which has
caused us to go ahead and cut the tobacco early. Over the past 2 weeks
we've cut a little each day and now we have it all up in the barn and
will begin fire curing it soon as this is how the tobacco was cured for
chewing tobacco. This process will take about 6-8 weeks.
In the garden, everything is pretty well done for. Jennifer picked the
last of the tomatoes to make green tomato relish. If we should get some
rain then we might have a good fall pea crop. The ladies have also been
busy at the house making new sheets for the beds.
We had a bit of a surprise delivery recently. A visitor stopped by the
Double Pen House and mentioned that they saw a baby chicken walking
around the farm. The staff thought that they might have seen a baby
bird, but certainly not a chick as we didn't have any birds sitting on
nests. Sure enough, it turned out that one of the hens had made a nest
under the Single Pen Crib and had hatched 11 eggs. Jonathan and Robert
retrieved the birds from under the building and relocated them to our
off site chicken coop. The young birds are doing well and should be out
on the farm site sometime after Labor Day.
We have some volunteers from Transylvania University helping at the farm
this week. They've helped us to re-stain our picnic tables, farm
benches, cut up slab wood for our 1850s Halloween program, Snap Apple
Night, and helped us to get the winter barn cleaned up as December 1st
will be just around the corner.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Thursday August, 16
It has been hot and dry over the past week or so. Temperatures as of late are
hitting 100 degrees daily with little relief in sight. On one hand at least the
high temps are not accompanied by high humidity. This at least makes sitting in
the shade tolerable. However with the hot dry conditions nothing is growing
either. The corn is all done. Brown stalks that have been ravaged by deer and
squirrels now stand in the field in front of the Double Pen House. Rob cut
several stalks to be used at Snap Apple Night in October. The rest we're going
to have bush hogged. It's not even worth shocking. As well the garden is just
hanging on. Jennifer picked the last of the tomatoes yesterday to make into a
green tomato relish. In a normal year we'll have tomatoes hanging on until
October.
The weather has also affected our tobacco cutting schedule. We have been
irrigating the plants because the tobacco is the one crop that we will actually
use for interpretive programs and should be in somewhat decent shape. We were
all talking last Friday and observed that the irrigation wasn't doing anything
now more than keeping the plants alive. Usually we would wait until Labor Day to
cut. Monday I cut 2 rows at the Tool Barn and hung the plants on sticks along
the fence line. Tuesday I cut another row. Wednesday, Rob, Robert, and I cut the
last 4 rows and put it all up into the tobacco barn. The tobacco was very heavy
and brittle. We took our time and took plenty of water breaks as well and were
done with it all before noon. Once we cut the back field of tobacco sometime
before Labor Day we will then prepare to fire cure the tobacco. This is how the
tobacco was cured in the 19th century. Low fires were built in pits in the barn
and the heat and smoke cured the plants, colored them a dark brown and gave them
a flavor that made it all highly in demand as chewing tobacco.
As I did some coopering in the Tool Barn yesterday afternoon I saw 2 wrens
fluttering about. They were snagging tobacco hornworms that were falling out of
the tobacco in the tobacco barn to feed to their young who are nestled on the
top log of the workshop behind a cradle which looks very similar to the scythe
used by the Grim Reaper. It struck me as a little paradoxical that the little
lives in the wrens' nest was being protected by something often used as a symbol
for death. Not to mention that what was bad for the tobacco (being cut down) and
for the tobacco worms (being snagged by a wren) meant that the young wrens would
live another day.
I also wanted to mention that the little pig who we had offsite for awhile is
doing well and is now back on the farm site. He's a runt and quite a bit smaller
than his brother but he's filling out and seems to be doing well. Also our
little ducks are getting bigger and trying to quack. We did lose one to a Black
Rat Snake but the remaining seven are now enjoying being out on the farm site
during the day, looking for bugs, getting into the water trough and hiding in
the shade under the Single Pen House.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, August 1
It is with still a heavy
heart that I must let everyone know of the passing of Tic our 27+/- year old
Percheron/Morgan Draft Horse who has been an anchor of our live animal program
for over the past ten years.
Tic came to The Homeplace
sometime in the mid-90s. He and his partner "Doc" were purchased at auction in
Paris as retired logging horses. Doc was the lead member of the team, but Tic
was the muscle. Doc worked well single, Tic just worked at anything you put him
to even if he didn't do it as well as Doc. We lost Doc to colic in May
of 2001. We had Tic put down on Sunday, July 29th.
Last year Tic had shown a
considerable loss in his mass and we began to discuss what to do with him. It
was agreed that as long as he could walk and eat and was not in discomfort that
we would do what we could to care for him. February of this year, Tic gave us
our first clue that this would be his last year as he got down on the ground and
could not get up. The vet was called and treated Tic for colic but he kept
acting like he wanted to get up but just couldn't get good push to get there. As
he tried to roll up, we got behind him and "pushed", Tic got up and tried to
walk away from us, but we caught him and ran some mineral oil through his system
just in case.
This has happened once
or twice a month since then. We would find Tic down on the ground but with a
little help, he would be up and on his way. Tic had been down at the modern barn
since mid-June when he rolled through the upper pasture fence and had cut his
leg pretty bad. At the barn we could keep a fan on for him and he could graze
the lusher pasture to help maintain his weight. We also were feeding him 3
gallons of Purina Brand Equine Senior a day mixed with an arthritis medicine. In
the meantime we were planning on what we should do if we could not get Tic up
and those plans were put into action this past Sunday.
About 10:30am, Rob found Tic
on the ground and called for me to help him. Tic was lying on his side in the
middle of the pasture trying to simply roll up. Rob and I both tried to push as
we had before but this time Tic could not do it. He fell back down. Jonathan
came with a halter and put that on Tic's head. He tried to pull as we pushed
but it wasn't successful. He then said what we were all feeling, "I don't want
to try again, he's just not going to get up". I then went to call the vet as
Jonathan and Rob stayed with Tic. We gave him a big dose of Banamine to help him
be in comfort until the vet got there. We put wet towels on his body to help
cool him down. Jonathan tried to feed him and give him a little water. He wanted
both.
After calling the vet (who
would not get there until 4pm because he was tied up in emergency surgeries) I
then worked with Darrin, our Facility Manager, to coordinate a backhoe to bury
Tic. From here it became a waiting game. There wasn't much else we could do for
Tic except to keep him comfortable as we could. I went on to the farm site and
Jonathan stayed with Tic awhile until Rob gave him a break for lunch. Then when
Cindy went down to talk to Tic a little, Tic just somehow got up and went on
like it was any other day. This put me in a tough spot to make a decision; but
with a little discussion, the choice was clear. None of us wanted to go through
this again on a day when we did not have as much say in our circumstances (such
as in the middle of winter during an ice storm).
With Tic getting up we could
feed him, brush him and spend a little time with him before the vet got there.
The backhoe arrived about 3pm and began to dig a hole down near where we buried
Doc. Dr. Edwards from the Gateway Animal Care Group arrived closer to 4pm and
was very sorry that it had taken him so long to get out that way. Jonathan put
the lead rope on Tic and we slowly walked down to the backhoe, Tic stopping
along the way to get a bite of grass.
Dr. Edwards was
extremely compassionate and professional in his task. He gave Tic one injection
to make him groggy and when that took effect, he gave him another injection to
put him on the ground. As Tic's breathing remained steady, Jonathan and I talked
with Tic and petted on him. Darrin and Jennifer stood not too far off. The rest
of the staff needed to be on the farmsite. As Dr. Edwards administered the last
euthanizing injection, Tic's breathing slowed. I was petting his muzzle and
looking Tic in the eye. He gave a little noise with his moth which he always did
when he was glad to see us or just letting us know that we were late feeding
him. I looked at his mouth as he made the noise and when I looked back at
his eye, I realized he was gone.
Dr. Edwards checked Tic's
pulse and confirmed that Tic was dead. He then confided, "It's hard to do this
with dogs, with horses it just seems even that much harder". His statement was
true. Even with all the preparations that we had discussed and how ready we were
for this day to come, it was hard to lose Tic.
Staff from Ecotone Services
then buried Tic and I must compliment him as well with the consideration that he
gave us in doing his job. He just had to bury a horse on a Sunday afternoon when
he was supposed to have been off work, but he did his job as though he was
burying his own horse, the greatest horse that there ever was and I greatly
appreciate the help of Ecotone Services to assist us with this task.
I spoke with Jennifer and
Darrin a little as I walked by the barn. I then went out on to the farm site to
help with putting up the livestock. I stopped by the Horse barn to pet on Bob &
Jake a little. They knew. Perhaps it was just because I had Tic's scent all over
my clothes but as intently as they sniffed all over me and made their own
snorting noises, they knew.
Tic will be missed. He was
ornery, cantankerous, and didn't really care for anyone in particular but The
Homeplace staff and our visitors loved him greatly. I could write ten pages of
times when Tic did something amazing, came through in a pinch, or just really
made someone's day. I received this email from Dan Stone who was our Education
Program Coordinator a few years ago and had the opportunity to work with Tic,
I
just got Jennifer’s email and I wanted to send my condolences to you and
everyone at The Homeplace about Tic’s passing. He was definitely a good ol’
horse. I was just thinking about the time that we were doing the logging
program with him and he was supposed to pull out a stump. He gave a tug on it
in one direction and then started to walk in the other direction. We all
thought that he had given up, until he then went back to his original direction
and we realized that he knew what he was doing a lot better than we did. He was
loosening up the stump so he could pull it out. He always seemed to know his
moments to shine. Anyway he will definitely be missed.
Tic was a good horse.
Bob Holliday
Lead Intperpreter
Wednesday, July 25
We've been enjoying a recent
cool front that has come through over the weekend and has taken the bite out of
the middle of the day. This has allowed us a chance to work with the horses a
little more recently as well as yoke up the oxen for some driving practice. With
the hot weather returning, the past several days I've been working on a bucket
at the Tool Barn during the middle of the afternoons. This bucket is made of
sassafras staves from another bucket that had fallen apart. I'm reshaping the
staves in order to fit them to make a 10 inch diameter bucket. I started on the
bottom for the bucket yesterday. It will be made from poplar. Time will tell if
my bucket will hold water or not; once completed, the bucket will be soaked in
water to allow the staves to swell and as they pinch together they will tighten
and hold water...I hope.
This kind of light work would
be common in the middle of the day on a 19th century farm. People then had a
better sense of how to efficiently make use of a work day than we do now. In
the 19th century, there were limits as 19th century families paced their work
day in conjunction with the pace of the sun. When the sun was coming up it was
time to go to work. When the sun got high in the sky during the summer it was
time to quit and do some light work in the barn or take a rest in the breezeway
of the house. When the sun starting getting low it was time to go back to the
fields to worm tobacco or put in the fall garden. When the sun went down, it was
time to go to bed. I've heard it said that our modern generation has more
leisure time than any generation in history, but we also have more chronic
stress than any generation because of all that we constantly do to try to
maintain our standard of living. Some would argue that 19th century life was
simpler. If this is so it is only because they could not work 24 hours a day as
we now have the opportunity to. It's idyllic to think of 19th century life as a
something to long for but when you take in to account the toll diseases such
as cholera and diphtheria took upon the population, the general lack of
sanitation, the infant mortality rate, and the fact that the harbingers
of secession were sounding the drums of war, the 19th century could begin to
look a little less appealing.
Wow, where did that come
from? I'm supposed to be telling about the happenings of the farm not waxing
philosophical. Yet in my day to day encounters on the farm I find more and more
truth in this notion. 19th century farmers had no control at all over the length
of the workday, how much rain they would get, how many chicks would hatch, or if
old Bessie the milk cow would make it through one more winter. Yet in the 19th
century worldview, not having this control was acceptable. Today it seems that
so many people are trying to do as much as they can all the time in order to get
more and more out of a minute, trying to bend the very hands of time to do their
will so that they can gain the control over their lives that they desire to
have. What's troubling to a number of visitors who get to talking with me about
this subject is that just when we think that we know all the answers, someone is
going to change the questions. Because no matter what kind of dressing you put
on it, you can't eat money.
Ok, now I'll get off the soap
box. At the Double Pen House, the ladies have been getting a lot of positive
comments on the rearranging of the parlor and have been doing some rug hooking.
Lora Ann and Jennifer plan to plant the fall garden sometime later this week.
The tobacco has evened out pretty well with a 3/4 inch rain that we got last
Thursday. Even with the rain though, we will not be getting much corn as the
deer and squirrels are really working it over. Robert has been doing some
leatherwork trying to repair a halter that broke and our young Cayuga ducks are
growing daily. We'll probably keep them in the brooder area until they begin to
grow in their adult feathers.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, July 18
This past Saturday we had an
invited artist, Tim Parson who was on the farm demonstrating 19th century wet
plate photography. Mr. Parson was well received by the visitors who enjoyed
learning more about historic photography processes and some also had their
picture made during the day. On Sunday Robert had a program at the Tool Barn
where he demonstrated the how's and why's of tool sharpening.
On Monday Hunter, one of our
12 year old volunteers, came to The Homeplace again. He helped Charlotte by
picking corn from the front field for the dinner she was cooking. Then he helped
Jonathan with moving some feed with Bob, one of our Percheron draft horses, and
a sled. Then he made it down to the barn where Robert and I were worming the
sheep and trimming their feet. After his last rodeo, Hunter was a little anxious
to get back in the ring and successfully put a sheep on the ground. As it
happened one of our last sheep was one of the smallest Merinos. Hunter got the
sheep in a corner and turned her head as he tried to lift on the shoulder and
push on the rump. The first two attempts were unsuccessful but Hunter is not one
to give up so he hung in there and used all of his 50 pounds to get the sheep to
fall down on top of him as he lifted, pushed down and leaned with all of his
might. He then held the sheep in place while Robert and I trimmed her feet.
Before dinner, Hunter and I had a chance to hoe out some tobacco and in the
afternoon we removed the bands from the baby Cayuga ducks that we received in
the mail late last week. These ducks are black in color and will grow to be 8-10
pounds. They are a minor breed with low numbers still around but will be a nice
addition to the farm. They can be found in the brooder near the Single Pen
House.
In the garden, Charlotte has
been picking beans and has gotten a few tomatoes. Monday she cooked up a fine
meal of pork, squash, potatoes, cornbread, bloody butcher corn, green beans,
fried green tomatoes, and afterwards we had watermelon. Hunter didn't have much
on his plate so we told him he would have to try fried green tomatoes or squash
before he could have watermelon. After some persistence on our part and some
embellishment on his part, he tried some squash.
Today, the Double Pen was
busy in the afternoon as we hosted a program called Work Before Play. During
this program, children could actually dress up in 19th century period clothing
and then help with chores around the house including carrying water, beating
rugs, hauling wood to the stove among others to understand the theme that 19th
century children had many work responsibilities around the home. It's always
interesting how children are more willing to work doing 19th century chores. The
last time Hunter was here he got a visitor's son to help him to hoe corn. In
fact, the family went and toured part of the farm and when they came back, their
son was still hoeing corn. Speaking of children's activities, on Saturday,
August 18th we will be having our Children's Festival at The Homeplace from
9:30-4pm. This day of different activities focused towards children's life in
the 19th century is going to focus upon children's interactions with farm
animals this year and will be an occasion to be enjoyed by the young and the
young at heart.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, July 11
We have had a very busy
extended 4th of July week/weekend and have had a lot of people out to visit us
at The Homeplace. Saturday we had a Watermelon Social which was a very fun time
for the 100+ people who stopped by. I did a session of storytelling and then we
had watermelon. As everyone was enjoying watermelon we held a seed spitting
contest which was fun. Rob then told another round of stories and Jennifer
helped with marbles and washer pitching.
Sunday Jennifer and Lora Ann
had a program called Step In To My Parlor in which they were going to do some
renovations to the parlor of the Double Pen House. The parlor would be an
important part of a 19th century household for social gatherings such as
quilting bees, spinning bees, courtings, weddings, funerals, etc. This would
also be the room that company would stay when they came to visit. However with
our parlor as Jennifer noted, we had a bedroom that we were also using as a a
parlor, instead of having a parlor which also acted as a bedroom. So with
Jonathan and Robert's help the bed was moved to another corner of the room where
it became less of a centerpiece and the furniture was rearranged to allow more
of a sitting room setting. New curtains were made and hung and some final
touches such as the clock and china figurines of George & Martha Washington were
added to the mantel and new andirons were put into the fireplace. All of this
work was based upon research that Jennifer has done concerning what 19th century
parlors could have looked like.
In the field Jonathan, Rob,
Robert, and Bob the horse have been working to cultivate, hoe and worm the
tobacco which has been doing well with some recent rains we've had. We've also
had to do some more irrigation though. I had run a soaker hose in the tobacco
overnight this week and it did so well that the ground was too soft for me to go
out on to recover it the next morning. In fact, the ground was still so soft in
the afternoon that when Charlotte tried to heard the chickens through that field
she almost lost both her shoes in the mud.
Mentioning the chickens
reminds me of how we've had some more interesting wildlife encounters around the
farm. Sunday the chickens had been put up in their coop but we had some visitors
out on the farm late in the day so Jennifer went to open the coop for them to
look in and see the chickens. What Jennifer saw was a 7ft Black Rat Snake
constricting one of the 3 month old chickens. She got the snake out of the coop,
but the chicken was already dead. I then took the snake and the chicken, which
it was trying to eat, 2 miles away from the site. Also a wren has built a nest
on the wall of the horse barn. It's tucked in behind one of the stall doors. She
has 2 eggs that she is sitting on. Also at the horse barn, yesterday in fact, I
was bringing down the horses when a fawn with spots ran through the horse lot as
fast as her little legs could carry her. And with it being so hot lately, we've
been having to fill up the water troughs at least twice a day. This past week I
went back to check on the water for the cattle and when I went to fill up the
trough I saw something hopping in the bottom of the spigot housing. A toad had
gotten down in there but was stuck and my hand would not fit to reach it because
of the tight space. Remembering the Aesop Fable of the crow and the water jug, I
put the hose down into the opening and watched the toad float to freedom as the
water filled the expanse.
Speaking of animals, I should
mention that Tic's leg is doing a lot better. We are planning on keeping him
offsite for awhile yet as he can graze that good pasture at will and he has come
to enjoy having a fan to stand in front of during the day down at the new barn.
The little pig is still not putting on as much weight as we thought he might
yet, but he is very active and rooting around his lot which is a good sign as
this is what pigs are supposed to do. Abel (one of our young steers in training
to be an ox) has been limping a bit lately. Jonathan trimmed his feet and now
he's walking better. Smokey (our farm cat) had an unpleasant adventure
yesterday. She caught herself on a sticky trap that had caught a mouse which we
had out in the first place to catch brown recluse spiders that we sometimes find
in the Double Pen House. Robert and Charlotte were able to free her without too
much loss of fur on her paw. By the end of the day, Smokey seemed fine although
she has let us all know how displeased she is with us having moved her furniture
around in the parlor. It's Smokey's world. We're just passing through it.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Thursday, July 5
Yesterday we held our annual Independence
Day Celebration which went over very well. We began the festivities at
1pm with the raising of an American flag and 3 cheers for the union.
Then Henry Clay (as portrayed by George McGee through the assistance of
the Kentucky Humanities Council) took the stage with a presentation on
the life and actions of the Great Compromiser from Kentucky. Afterwards
there was cold watermelon for all, a variety of games throughout the
afternoon, music, a hog calling and watermelon speed spitting contest, a
reading of the Declaration of Independence, and we successfully launched
a paper hot air balloon. We had 550 visitors come out to celebrate the
4th with us and the weather was very much in our favor as our activities
continued throughout the afternoon.
Also over the past week we've had some
good rain which has really helped out the crops. It has also helped out
the weeds. I took Bob (one of our Percheron Draft Horses) through the
cotton patch Tuesday and crosschecked it with a double shovel
cultivator. This process involved going between the rows in one
direction and then going through the rows in a perpendicular direction
to get around each plant as the plants are spaced about 40 inches apart
from each other. This leaves the field looking very much like a
checkerboard.
In the garden, the ladies have been
digging potatoes and cleaning out the last of the spring garden. This
area will then be cultivated and planted for a fall garden. Last Sunday,
there was a "Nooning" program held at the Double Pen House. Nooning was
a traditional act of taking the afternoon off after dinner to rest and
relax a bit. During this program, there was homemade ice cream, music,
and a little storytelling to pass the time.
At the Tool Barn, Jonathan has been making
wooden handles from a piece of hickory that he cut originally to use the
bark from to bottom a chair. I've been doing a bit of coopering to refit
a bucket that had fallen apart some time ago and Robert and I have been
working with Cain and Abel our shorthorn oxen in training. Rob had an
interesting program last Saturday focusing on a variety of 19th century
cultivators, how they were used, and how important they were to raising
a good crop. When Rob had done this program in year's past, he would
then have participants actually use the cultivators in a nearby field
but it was just too wet last Saturday to do that this time.
The wet weather of late has extended the
turtle season in LBL. Usually May/June is when you find a great number
of turtles crossing the roads throughout the property. The recent break
in the drought seems to have brought them out and about again.
Unfortunately, some of them get squashed as the trek across the
pavement. People will often stop and "help" the turtles across the road
so that they don't get run over. Jennifer often will stop on her way to
work to assist some wayward turtle out of the path of traffic. I must
confess that I have stopped too. In fact there was one recent turtle who
was not in a good place. As I drove past the first time, I saw that this
troubled terrapin was not only in the middle of the road, but he was
upside down as well so I turned my truck around and went back to assist
by moving the turtle off the road and into some nearby bushes.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Thursday, June 28
This past Saturday I presented a program
on coopering which is the process of making watertight containers out of
wood. I demonstrated the process of making staves for a bucket and
demonstrated how this was done. I also had several sizes of barrels
around to discuss the barrel as a shipping container in the 19th
century. An activity that accompanied this program was to use a neck
yoke and buckets for children get a bit of an appreciation for the point
that water had to carried in the 1850s and a reliable water source was
important for the success of the farm. This kind of program and activity
allows for some fun interactive visitor encounters while leaving them
with a message as to the importance of trees and clean water as staple
resources of the 19th century.
Sunday, Lora Ann presented a program
called "Puttin' By the Garden" although the summer garden is pretty slow
in growing, the spring garden is ready to be harvested for the last
time. In fact the root crops such as potatoes and carrots did quite well
this year as they developed better root systems to get water and did not
put their energy into producing greenery.
Monday, the ladies aired the bedding at
both houses. Maybe perhaps this would just be too tempting for the
rainmakers and the clouds would part in order to get the bedding wet.
Actually, it might have worked as we have had scattered showers Monday
evening, Tuesday evening, and are expected through Saturday.
What rain we've got has really made a
difference in the tobacco and the cotton. Jonathan was actually able to
cultivate some of the tobacco for the first time this month. It has also
allowed us some cool mornings where we have been able to get the oxen
yoked up and take them for a drive around the back of the farm. As I
write this I glance at the sore spot on my right foot where Abel stepped
on me the other day. :)
Offsite, the little pig is doing well.
Being by himself he has no competition for the food and can get all that
he needs. To supplement his diet we have purchased a variety of high
fat/high protein foods and the Piggly Wiggly of Dover, TN has donated
loaves of day old bread to fatten him up. He has become particularly
fond of peanut butter sandwiches; having six or seven a day should have
him back on site soon. In fact he's gotten to where he will whine and
cry until he gets a peanut butter sandwich in the morning. As I
mentioned that he is by himself, I should mention that he is not alone.
We have a radio playing 24 hours a day so that he can hear a human voice
and have some social stimulation. I think he's really a Fleetwood Mac
fan.
Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow,
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Saturday, June 23
This past week I've had to do something
that I have never done before and that has been to irrigate crops at The
Homeplace. In the seven years that I have been working here, we've not
had it so dry for so long. Some local residents say that this has been
the driest May/June that they can remember. Of course the weatherman had
called for a 70% to 80% chance of rain for this past Monday/Tuesday but
every bit of it went south of us. Because of this I hauled out hoses
Tuesday night and set up a sprinkler on part of one of our tobacco
fields. We had talked at staff meeting about what crops we really needed
to water and decided that the tobacco had the most priority as we used
it for different programs. The corn is holding its own ok and the ladies
would prefer to interpret drought conditions for the garden as we can
always purchase vegetables for our cooking demonstrations.
We've moved our smaller pig off site for
now. The vet when he was here felt that the little pig was not strong
enough to compete with his bigger brother for the best vegetable scraps
and feed so we moved him to another barn to fatten him up a little. He
seems to be doing well so far.
Today we had a special group on site from
Murray State University. This group has been spending the week at the
Brandon Spring Group Camp and participating in activities that focus
strongly upon changes over time with emphasis on math and science
curricula. At The Homeplace they had four stations: Storytelling, Music,
Paper Marbling, and Horse & Ox Power. During the Horse/Ox program, I
discussed that understanding how horses and oxen work will help the
participants to understand why they were so important to a 19th century
farm. We had the participants driving at yoke, pulling a sled, doing a
human horse driving activity, and learning about energy transfer,
acquired behaviors, and the importance of preserving rare breeds for
future use. The participants had a good time and learned more about 19th
century life while getting to experience one of the Glimpse of the Past
programs that we offer for school groups.
I also want to mention a little bit about
another LBL experience I had recently. A friend of mine was in town and
brought his 7 year old daughter Colby along. They arrived Wednesday
afternoon and after a cookout we went to South Welcome Station to throw
Frisbee and play on the playground there. Interestingly enough, South
Welcome Station is near an area that is going to be managed as a Nature
Watch Area which will allow various opportunities to view wildlife.
During our hour there we saw several deer, heard Whippoorwill and
Coyote, and saw a great number of fireflies which Colby delighted in
running after. She did manage to have one land on her and she of course
wanted to keep it which opened up an opportunity to get her to think
about why the firefly should be left to live with the other fireflies.
She then left him go and went home to get ready for our first day
traveling LBL. Seeing Colby experience so many wildlife encounters at
one time in one place really got me excited about what the Nature Watch
Area could be someday.
Thursday morning we rented a canoe from
Energy Lake Campground and paddled to the far end of the lake where we
saw a beaver swimming to his lodge, a water snake, cranes and all sorts
of fish. Colby had brought her fishing pole and would fish a little and
help us paddle a little. We passed another canoe where the family in the
boat showed us the 6 pound bass they had just caught. Then Colby really
wanted to fish. After returning from this trip we went swimming at the
Energy Lake boat ramp for a bit and then it was off to the Woodlands
Nature Station for a picnic at there pavilion area and then we made it
to the Nature Station in time to see a program on snakes, salamanders,
toads and turtles. Colby learned how some animals will have bright
colors to let other know that they might be poisonous. We walked around
the Nature Station then and saw several owls, the bobcat, and the
elusive Red Wolf which was Colby's favorite. She then bought two beaver
finger puppets at the Gift Shop because they reminded her of the beaver
she saw that morning. In the afternoon we did some more swimming and
then headed home, but the adventure was not over.
Friday morning we went on a 90 minute
horseback ride at Wranglers Riding Stable's Equine Adventures. Colby had
been talking about this since the minute she got to Dover and she did
very well at handling Roses, her horse. Afterwards we had a picnic lunch
at the Golden Pond Visitor Center and saw the 11am show at the Golden
Pond Planetarium which focused on the search for life in the universe
narrated by Leonard Nemoy. Colby enjoyed this a lot but it was time to
get back outside so we went to the Elk & Bison Prairie where we saw
about 40 buffalo with about a dozen calves all right in the middle of
the road. That was the closest that Colby or her dad, Scott had been to
such animals. In the afternoon we did some geo-caching in LBL. This
involves using a Global Positioning System unit to track coordinates to
a specific point where a cache (usually a waterproof container) is
located above ground but hidden from plain sight. Within the cache is
usually a logbook to document that it was found and a variety of
trinkets which the finders might take one of and leave something for
someone else to find. It's kind of like a treasure hunt and it was a lot
of fun. We located 4 out of the 5 caches we were looking for and along
the way learned more about a young boy who was a drummer in the
revolutionary war, the former community of Tip Top, and I took some
opportunities to teach Colby more about tree identification. Even when
I'm not working, I guess it's just natural to find something to
interpret to someone else.
Anyway, we had a great time and Colby had
a blast. There is so much to see and do at LBL that we didn't have time
to go to The Homeplace. Oh well, that will have to be next time I guess.
And until next time, an outdoor adventure awaits you in Land Between the
Lakes!
Come Outside and Play!
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
The Homeplace
Wednesday, June 13
Pickin' Party went very well this past
weekend. We had almost 1,000 people come out to enjoy the music,
workshops, and children's activities. During Pickin' Party, I spent some
time at the ox barn working with our two oxen in training, Cain & Abel.
I was trying working Cain as the off ox putting him on the side farthest
away from me while having Abel at the nigh position next to me. This
didn't work out well at all as the two steers kept fighting in yoke.
Cain would through his head towards Abel and he wanting to get away,
stepped towards me and onto my foot. My foot is still bruised. On
Monday, I decided to put Abel on the off position and have Cain beside
me. This worked a lot better as I could hold on to Cain's halter to keep
him from throwing his head. This worked so well, we not only went for a
walk around the lot but also walked around outside of the ox lot. Then
afterwards, I thought I'd try something. I yoked Cain to our 10 year old
ox, Blaze. They looked a bit funny together as Cain is half Blaze's size
but they worked extremely well together in yoke. Blaze's size (2000 lbs)
and experience guaranteed that Cain wouldn't try anything silly.
Things are getting bad water wise. As of
right now we are 10 inches behind on what we should have for this time
of year. The grass is beginning to crunch under our feet. Nothing is
turning yellow yet, but nothing is growing either. In the garden, the
ladies have put up bean poles and put straw mulch under the tomatoes
while the tool barn has been the focus area lately for the men with the
rain holding off. Jonathan has been working on several buckets,
re-bottomed a chair, and made a rolling pin on the lathe. Rob has been
trying to make a hat out of flax (which is used to make linen). Keep
your fingers crossed for rain this week.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, June 6
I was out in the cornfield hoeing when I
heard the thunder but resigned myself to the fact that this thunderhead
was going to pass us by. Then I felt a few rain drops start to fall.
Looking in the direction of the Double Pen House I saw that the tickings
(mattresses) where still out on the roof where they had been set to air.
Not seeing Charlotte or Jessica I went to the house to see if they
needed help as it is not good for the ticks to get wet as it takes
forever for them to dry because of their feather insides. As I got to
the house Charlotte was busy upstairs trying to get the rooms put back
together before the thunderstorm hit. As Jesscia was helping her, I went
back out front to hoe corn while there was some nice cloud cover.
Halfway down one row of Bloody Butcher
corn, I heard it. I felt my eyes widen as I knew what it meant. It
sounded like wind that was slowly approaching, but what it was was a
downburst quickly closing in on us. I ran to the house just in time to
meet a family with 4 children who wanted to see the house before it
started raining. I mentioned some quick facts about the house and told
them they could go upstairs if they wanted as I grabbed armloads of
quilts that Charlotte had taken off of the railings from airing but had
set in the breezeway on a bench. She and Jessica had gone to the back of
the farm to try to get the chickens and ducks put up before the storm
moved in. After dumping the quilts and linens on the bed of the main
house I raced to the parlor to close the windows. I glanced at
the rocking chair on the porch but decided to get it last as it could
stand to get a little wet. As I entered the main house, a fierce wind
blew through the side door. In fact, it made it hard to shut the door
and bar it. Just as I did, water poured underneath it. The family was
trying to help me shut windows and doors. Just then the rocking chair
blew through the breezeway and landed 20 feet out beyond the porch.
The children were getting nervous with the
wind and fierce rain. The washtub being blown off the wall of the
kitchen and clanging through the breezeway as it was tossed off of the
porch didn't help things, so I lit a candle and we sat on the floor of
the house and I told the children 2 stories to pass the time and focus
their attention on something other than the storm raging outside.
Meanwhile...
On the back of the farm, Tic (who had been
free-ranging) stopped eating clover and started acting agitated and
spooked. He knew what was coming. As the rain closed in, Robert ran to
the barn to get the horses under cover and let a grateful Tic back into
the barn. Charlotte and Jessica had been successful in getting the
chickens and ducks put up and were taking cover under the eave of the
chicken coop when a huge limb was torn out of a nearby walnut tree. They
made their way to the Single Pen house and barred the door against the
wind. In 15 minutes it was all over. There were a lot of branches down
around the farm, a large walnut limb and the top 25 feet of a Redbud
tree that had been snapped off from its trunk, but no one was hurt, and
no damage was done to any of the buildings. At least we got some rain.
Robert was planning to cut up the big limbs today and use the horses to
haul them off to the woods.
I was hoeing the corn in the first place
because it had been cultivated over the weekend. The culltivator had
broken up the ground enough that hoeing out the Johnson Grass that still
remained was relatively easy to do. Johnson Grass is an invasive species
that grows so tall, full, and fast that it will choke out corn or other
plant life that is near it. It's one of those great things that we have
to deal with now that 19th century farmers didn't have to worry about as
Johnson Grass is believed to have been introduced to America in the
later 19th century.
As a follow up to an earlier entry, I
wanted to mention that we have been treating the pigs' eyes with
Neosporin and they are doing just fine. Also, since they have been
wormed, they are no longer coughing. The chickens have been dusted with
Sevin twice and are showing no signs of mites or fleas. The little
chicks are doing well free-ranging the farm although they are not as
organized as a group anymore since a predator (hawk possibly) killed and
ate most of the hen that had been watching over the chicks. This
certainly isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened nor will
it be the last. It's just a trade off that goes with the natural world
interacting with farm. Interestingly enough, we had a wood duck and her
brood come through the farm one day. Just when you start to think that
nothing new is going to happen today, nature has a way to make any day
more interesting.
And interesting is the word to describe
one of our volunteer's experiences recently. Hunter is an 11 year old
boy that helps out on the farm from time to time. Well Hunter was at the
farm Monday when it was time to trim the feet on the Merinos. He had
watched Robert catch one the of the sheep, turn its head and toss it on
its rump so that the hooves could be trimmed. After this, Hunter said he
wanted to try it and Robert let him. Hunter's approach needs a little
work though as he successfully snuck up on the unsuspecting merino.
However, the sheep weighed about 75 pounds and Hunter weighs about 10
more so when Hunter lunged at the sheep and got it by the neck trying to
turn its head, the sheep decided to make a run for it. The tighter
Hunter held on, the faster the sheep ran. Hunter got his 8 seconds in,
but it was the sheep that won out and got away. Neither the sheep nor
Hunter was the worse for wear, although Hunter might be a bit wiser from
the experience.
It goes without saying that experiences
will be in the making this weekend as we host our annual traditional
music festival known as the Pickin' Party. Many local performers
including Dan Knowles, Red River Breeze, The Dixie Volunteers, and
several others will be taking the stage Saturday and Sunday. If you
visit bring your instrument as there will be pickin' sessions at the
Tool Barn and even an open mic session at the stage. Fun for one and all
will be at The Homeplace so bring your lawn chair and enjoy. Festival
foods will be available for purchase.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, May 30
The Memorial Day weekend has come and gone
and we were very busy at The Homeplace. Saturday's program was Let's
Make a Deal with the Peddler where we had a wagon of material goods
set up for display. I portrayed a traveling peddler, someone who made
their living bringing the goods of town out to farms around the area. In
addition, Charlotte had a display and quiz activity where visitors could
see what material goods were actually available in the 19th century and
what weren't. The program was meant to go from 1-2pm, but was so well
attended that we continued the program until 4pm. Other programs over
the weekend included Jessica portraying Fanny Fern and delivering
women's advice while discussing the role of literature and newspapers in
the 19th century. Monday Charlotte fried up some fish for dinner and I
was at the Great Western Iron Furnace discussing how iron was made. All
these programs; though different, had one theme in common. The theme was
that rivers were an important part of 19th century life. Rivers allowed
material goods to make it to families in this area, allowed for the
distribution of advice and news, supplied food for the table, and
allowed for industrial and agricultural materials to be exported out of
this area which helped the local economy.
We had beautiful weather over the weekend
which was a blessing for visitation, but a curse for cultivation. The
corn and tobacco aren't turning yellow yet, but it won't be long if we
don't get some rain. There has been a high pressure system just sitting
over the entire southeast for the past 2 weeks or so. The forecast does
start to call for rain chances Saturday, but even then it's only 20%.
This situation is exactly what many of the trees didn't need at all.
First they lost their leaves to a late freeze, then we have a drought
during one of our usually wettest months of the year. Several trees
around the farm are definitely showing the stress of the situation.
In other news, Rob has harvested and
bundled the flax. It's hanging in the tobacco barn to protect it from
the sun and rain (if we get any). We did have to move it one tier higher
to protect it from the Merino sheep. Seems they like to nibble on
things. In fact, they have nibbled the fringe off of a coverlet in the
Single Pen House. Jonathan has been doing some coopering of late. He has
a bucket almost completed and has made a piggin' which is a small bucket
with one stave left long to be a handle. The ladies have the garden in
very good shape for the lack of rain and will soon be harvesting
potatoes. They have also been busy with handwork, quilting, and spinning
wool.
Last but not least, we've all been getting
ready for Pickin' Party which will be Sat. & Sun. June 9 & 10. This
traditional music festival is always a lot of fun as visitors are
welcome to bring their own instruments and you can see groups sitting
around the farm playing music with friends or members of the performing
bands. Maybe we'll have rain by then...
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, May 23
Robert was trying to ask me something. I
could see his lips moving, but I couldn't hear a thing so I shook my
head and mouthed, "I can't hear you". He laughed and I had to as well as
the screaming cry of the pig that I had my hands full with pierced the
morning air. We've had our pigs since mid-April and have noticed that
they have been coughing. We've also noticed that they have a build up of
white matter at the corner of their eyes as one might have when they
wake up in the morning. The vet recommended worming them as the coughing
could be due to parasites making their home is the upper respiratory
system of the pigs. As to the matter in their eyes, the vet felt that it
could be seasonal allergies and confided, "Pigs and humans have more
physical similarities in common than we'd like to admit." So there
Robert and I were catching both pigs to give them an injection of Ivomec
to take care of any internal parasites they might have had. We've been
cleaning the eyes of the pigs as needed and will have the vet look at
them when he comes out in early June to give the horses their bi-annual
checkup.
Robert and I had had a busy morning having
already worked on the chickens. We had just dusted all the chickens with
Sevin Dust to treat them for lice and mites. (Lice tend to be species
specific and chicken lice are not likely to transfer to humans, mites
can transfer to humans) Both of which we found in great abundance in the
nesting boxes. Although disgusting, this is perfectly explainable. We
had left five chickens sitting on nests for almost 40 days hatching out
a chick here, a chick there. Most likely, wild birds entered the coop to
eat the chicken's food. As the chickens weren't moving from their nests,
the lice carried from the wild birds found the ideal environment to
exist in the chicken nest boxes. Monday I removed all the bedding from
the coop and treated the nest boxes with Sevin. Tuesday we had the
chance to treat the chickens. We'll wait 10 days and then do it all over
again to catch any lice or mites that have hatched in the mean time. At
this time the chicks and their bedding areas show no signs of lice, nor
does the duck coop.
This information might be more than you
really wanted to know about the farm. However I feel it's worth
mentioning because it takes a great deal of behind the scene's work to
keep The Homeplace operating. Feed just doesn't show up on its own,
water troughs don't just clean themselves, and no matter how hard we
might close our eyes and think real hard, the electric fence on the
night time pasture won't fix itself if a small tree falls on it. Think
of The Homeplace as a duck, cool and calm on the surface but paddling
hard underneath. Now with that all said, I feel that our efforts are
bearing great fruit. I've had several visitors comment on how wonderful
the farm looks and what great care put into everything. I've also
received a number of comment cards saying that their experience far
exceeded their expectations and that The Homeplace was the best living
history site they had ever been to.
Speaking of trees and chicks, the
hardwoods have finally leafed out and seem to be doing well. However,
the squirrels seem to be more active than usual. It's as if they know
that this year's nut crop is going to have been greatly affected by the
freeze in early April. The chicks are getting big enough to start
hopping over the brooder fence, so we've been letting mother hen free
range with her brood the last couple of days. She actually went after a
squirrel when it got just a little too close to her chicks.
In the fields we've again cross checked
and hoed the Bloody Butcher corn and have planted cotton. All the
tobacco has been set out and the flax is blooming. The summer garden is
planted and the spring garden is finding its way to the table of the
Double Pen House. All we need is a little rain to help things along.
With Memorial Day weekend fast approaching
both Homeplace and Woodland's Nature Station will be hosting a number of
thematic programs that tie to the rivers around LBL. As such, the title
for this weekend is River Days. At the Homeplace we'll be having
programs throughout the weekend that will focus on how the rivers
brought material goods into the area, could carry new ideas about daily
living, and were a source for food for farm families. Also on Monday
there will be a free program at the Great Western Iron Furnace from
1-4pm that will focus upon how pig iron was made and how the rivers were
key to this once thriving industry. Until next time,
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, May 16
Last night we had some much needed rain
come through. This should really help out the tobacco seedlings that we
have set out over the past week. We completed setting the field by the
Tool Barn and have 2 of 7 rows set in the field behind the Ox Barn. On
Saturday, Robert and I cross-cultivated the corn field. By doing this we
go between the rows in a perpendicular method to the rows that were
cultivated last Tuesday. We also have finished plowing ground for a
cotton patch. Cotton would not have been grown really as a cash crop in
this area in the 1850s but could have been used for home use. The cotton
that we raise will be used for quilt battings. In the garden, the spring
garden is doing well and the ground has been planted for the summer
garden. Several varieties of beans, tomatoes, okra, melons, and other
items have been put out, most of which are 19th century heirloom
varieties so their seeds can be saved from one year to the next.
The ladies aired out the main
house yesterday. This involves taking all the quilts, sheets, and tics
(mattresses) out of the room and laying them over the railings of the
house so that they can air out. The ladies have also been busy
demonstrating quilting, spinning wool, and handwork for students touring
the farm.
Our little chicks aren't so little
anymore. They have all developed their tail feathers and their wing
feathers are growing in. They've adjusted quite well to life in the
brooder house and will stay in that fenced area until they're big enough
to hop the fence. Then they'll free range the farm with the rest of the
chickens. At last count we had 13 chicks.
Tic was found free ranging around the farm
Monday morning before we opened. A check of the fencing on the upper
pasture revealed a location near a gulley where it seems that Tic got
down to roll but rolled under the fence somehow. Once on the other side,
he got up and spent the night grazing. He seemed none the worse for
wear.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, May 9
Our little chicks are doing well. The
oldest ones are beginning to get their tail feathers and are becoming
very active around the brooder. We've had a few more hatch and am now up
to 13 with 15 more eggs under hens so we'll see how many we do end up
with.
The sheep have been sheared! They feel a
whole lot better now that they are without their wool coats but they do
look kind of funny. The sheep were all hand sheared by Gary Lawson when
he was down Saturday. In a bit of a surprise, our best merino whether
has turned out not to be a whether at all, but an in tact ram.
Unfortunately, he's already started to show signs of aggression and
we'll have to sell him. He's been observed sniffing at the urine of the
females and curling his lip. This is a sign that he is sexually active
and is smelling for pheremones from the ewes to let him know when they
are in heat. This ram is one year old and as it turns out, merinos can
become sexually active at the age of 6 months; so who knows, we may end
up having some merino lambs or merino/cotswold lambs. We'll see.
At the Double Pen House the ladies have
been busy spring cleaning as they take up the rugs from winter and scrub
the floors. The dye garden, herb garden, and spring vegetable gardens
are all looking great and we've had fresh onions and broccoli recently.
Soon we'll be planting the summer garden.
Speaking of planting, our Bloody Butcher
corn is about 6 inches tall and is doing well. Jonathan cultivated in
Tuesday with Bob. We've also finished hilling up the back tobacco plot
and will be ready to set plants once the weather conditions are right.
Ideally we're hoping for a cloudy day after a recent rain to allow the
plant's root systems to take after having been transplanted.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, May 2
We have chicks!
Dominique chicks to be exact, 8 of them
that are doing quite well in the brooder with a mother hen keep close
watch over them. We also have three more hens sitting on eggs so it's
anyone's guess how many chicks we'll end up with. The dominique chicks
are black with a yellow blot on top of their heads. They are doing quite
well. In fact I watched one today catch a wasp and devour it. Now we'll
have to keep watch that no snakes, crows or Smokey the farm cat should
make their way in to the brooder area. I really don't think that Smokey
will have to make her way to the back of the farm anytime soon though.
She's been quite busy with mice and rabbits lately. In fact she did an
outstanding job of demonstrating just how much she is not a pet by
catching a mouse and presenting it to a passing school group. The
teacher actually had the group of students watch Smokey eat the mouse
just to emphasize that all animals on a 19th century farm had a job to
do and why it would be so important to have cats to keep the rodents and
rabbits at bay.
In the fields we've been working on a plot
of land back behind the ox barn where we will be setting tobacco soon.
The ground was plowed using Bob over the past 2 days and today Rob used
both Bob & Jake to harrow and drag the soil. The spring garden is
looking really good and we've worked up the soil for planting the summer
garden. Speaking of the garden, Cindy was down the other day to help out
with some school groups and cooked dinner that day and in addition to
pork tenderloin, white beans, hominy, and apple cobbler, we had fresh
broccoli, turnips, and onions. Now that was good.
We're looking forward to hosting several
invited artists over the next couple of weeks that you won't want to
miss. Gary Lawson will be at the farm on May 5th shearing sheep. Denise
Berryhill, an herbalist, will be there May 12th. Jack Martin a broom
maker will be on the farm May 19th and Layne Hendrickson, a blacksmith
will be at The Homeplace June 2.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, April 25
Well the Spring Wildflower Weekend turned
out very well. Visitors enjoyed the many program offerings LBL wide and
could see a number of seasonal wildflowers despite the damage done by
the late frost. As to the frost, the maples have not seem to have been
affected but the oaks, hickories, and tulip poplars (among others) have
yet to really leaf out again.
One thing that is "leafing out" is our
Bloody Butcher corn that was planted this week. When mature the stalks
will be over 12 feet tall and will have 1 - 2 ears per stalk. The corn
is planted on a cross-check pattern so that it can be cultivated in both
directions. The space between rows in both directions would be about 36
inches. Also, the Spring garden is doing very well with potatoes coming
up and cabbage and onions doing well. We're trying to get some cotton
planted but the weather has not been cooperating with us.
The sheep will also be "leafing out" soon
as Saturday, May 5 will be the date for their annual haircut. This is
called "shearing" and will remove the entire fleece from the body of the
sheep without any harm being done. Invited Artist Gary Lawson will be
hand shearing sheep from 10am - 12pm and from 1pm - 4pm.
Baby chicks should be hatching any day
now. Who knows how many we'll end up with when I write again!
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, April 18
The cool rainy weather of the past couple
of days has leant itself to projects other than plowing. Jonathan and
Rob have been busy at the tool barn re-decking a groundsled which is
just that, a wooden sled with wooden runners and a board decking for
hauling pretty much anything. I liken it to a 19th century version of a
wheelbarrow. You can haul almost anything with it and as it can be
pulled easily by Bob or Jake, can go pretty much anywhere. Speaking of
sleds, Jonathan and Rob also constructed a new sled that can be weighted
and used to level ground after it has been plowed and harrowed. Jonathan
has also made a pair of sawhorses which he will use to finish work on
the Single Pen House. The lean-to kitchen that is attached to the house
was added in the mid-1990s but was never quite finished. A ceiling was
never put in and the cook stove was never hooked up. Now that he has the
tools and lumber he needs, Jonathan will be looking to do both.
The pigs are adjusting very well to being
on the farm. It won't be too long until it will be time to move them up
the hog lot for two reasons. 1. The pigs will be too big for the brooder
and 2. The brooder will have new tenants as we have no less than 3
Dominique hens who have been sitting on eggs that are due to hatch some
time about April 28th. They and their chicks will then be transferred to
the brooder until the chicks are big enough to hop the fence. Then
they'll go up with the other chickens at night.
April 28th is shaping up to be a big day
as we might not only have new chicks, but The Homeplace Quilt Show will
be in full swing from 10am-4pm. Last time I talked with Lora Ann, she
said she expects to have in the neighborhood of 84 local quilts on
display. Some of which are historic quilts from The Homeplace collection
that have never been on display to the public.
We received a nice gift from Law
Enforcement recently. It never fails that stray dogs end up at The
Homeplace. Once these dogs are caught, they are transferred to the Law
Enforcement office until they are relocated to a NO-KILL Animal Shelter
that LBL works with. I have been told that over 100 dogs per year can be
expected to be collected in LBL. Well anyway, as to our gift, Law
Enforcement procured for us (with the help of Glen Kinder from the
Forest Service) a brand new large dog kennel/carrier so that the next
time we should contain a stray dog it can be transported easily to the
Law Enforcement office for placement. If you would like more
information on this effort to place stray dogs and cats found in LBL or
would be interested in helping out with the NO-KILL Animal Shelter's
efforts through a contribution please contact the LBL Law Enforcement
Office at 270-924-2196.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
The Homeplace
Wednesday, March 28
Well we got some much needed rain today and
that has gone a long way to help the flax and garden plants out. A number of
trees are budded out around the farm including Red Buds, Dog Woods, and
Tulip Poplars.
The 2,000+ acre burn to develop the Oak
Grassland Restoration Demonstration Area around The Homeplace happened
Monday. All seemed to go well. Travelers will notice a lot of blackened
ground around the Great Western Furnace but with the rain, these areas will
green up very quickly.
We've been keeping an eye on our 27 year old
Percheron-Morgan, Tic. He's lost some teeth over the past 3 years and has
been gradually losing weight. We've had him on a specialized feed for older
horses for quite some time and that helps a lot to keep him going. There's
been a morning or two where we would find him sitting with his front feet
out and his back legs tucked under him like a dog but he'd have trouble
getting up. He's also been rubbing his legs incessantly on fences around the
farm. The vet says that Tic is old and as long as he's eating grass and
Senior Feed that is pretty much all we can do. He has a strong appetite and
gets around pretty good so hopefully he'll be around awhile yet. We've
started him on an arthritis medication called Cetyl-M and he seems to be a
bit more limber for it. The vet did say that Tic may have some type of
neurological issue possibly an opossum borne disease that Tic may have
contracted years ago but that is becoming pronounced with his age. He
explained that the leg itching is similar to restless leg syndrome in humans
where the nerve endings tell the brain that the leg itches. So we'll see.
He's a good horse and he'll be missed when his time comes but as long as
he's not in discomfort, can walk and eat, Tic will hopefully be around for
some time to come.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, March 21
We have been quite busy with fence work around
the farm. We have a number of split rail fences surrounding our crop plots
around the farm and they need repair every spring. About every 5 years they
need to be taken down and restacked to sort out any rotten rails and tighten
the fence. The purpose of fencing in the 19th century was to keep free ranging
livestock from eating the crops or trampling them underfoot. Often the fences
were made from oak or American Chestnut. Logs would be felled and cut to
whatever length wanted for fence rails (we cut ours at 10 foot lengths) The
logs are then halved, quartered and split into pieces about 4 - 6 inches in
diameter using wooden mallets called mauls and metal or wooden wedges. The
fences are stacked at angles to strengthen the fence as the rails have no
nails or other adhesives of any kind. Cross pieces about 6 feet long are
driven into the ground wherever the rails cross in order to hold the fences
together. All in all this is a lot of work and we've had some great volunteers
from Hamilton in upstate New York who have helped out tremendously. While they
were here we also picked up four trailer loads of brush that we removed from
the farm's perimeter.
In other news, we have cleared out a lot of the
small trees that surround the large oak near the Double Pen House. This will
expose the tree and make it much more visible. Based upon it's massive size,
it's easy to say that this is one of the oldest trees in Land Between the
Lakes.
Speaking of the Double Pen House...Jonathan,
Charlotte, and Lora Ann have completed a new floor cloth for the kitchen. This
is a piece of painted canvas that is varnished to make it act as a piece of
linoleum. This will protect the wood floor of the kitchen and add a little bit
of color to the room.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
Wednesday, March 14
This past week we were able to get a bit of
fieldwork done as Rob and Jonathan continued to work with Bob & Jake to
prepare this year's garden, cornfield and tobacco fields. The ladies have
planted about half of the spring garden in early crops such as cabbage,
lettuce, onions, and turnip greens. They've also continued to smoke meat in
the smokehouse and have been getting ready for the quilt show that will be
on Saturday, April 28th.
Robert gave a program on Sunday called Powder,
Patch and Ball. During this program, he discussed the development of black
powder rifles from a flintlock design to a percussion cap design that would
have been common in the 1850s. Robert then went through the steps required
to load and fire one of the rifles. He also discussed how rifles such as
these contributed greatly to elk and bison becoming extinct in the region by
1850. At the time of European settlement when these kinds of animals were
common in Kentucky and Tennessee it is believed that the landscape was more
open without tree cover but very thick in savannah grasslands called
barrens. These areas were called barrens because they were mostly barren of
trees and therefore believed to be too barren to have good soil. The
opposite was true. As native peoples managed these grassy areas with fire,
the grasses thrived and with their complex root systems held onto the very
rich soils beneath them. Today, the Forest Service is attempting to recreate
this sort of landscape in a 5,000 acre tract of land around The Homeplace
that will be called the Oak-Grassland Restoration Demonstration Area. In
development of this area, prescribed fires have been used in close proximity
to the farm to protect from the risk of wildfire as a very large portion of
the burnable fuels that were on the ground no longer exist.
We also had some guests on the farm this week.
An Alternative Spring Break Group from the University of Florida helped out
Monday making repairs to the hog lot, cutting wood to fire tobacco,
whitewashing the Single Pen house, moving brush, moving fence rails, moving
3 rick of stove wood, and raking off the garden. There help was invaluable
as it would have taken staff at least a week or more of solid work to
accomplish everything that these students helped with around the farm.
Bob Holliday
Lead Interpreter
