Another post on farming practices!
But what the hey---"the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.”
A quote from Daniel Webster
Human history is directly related to agriculture, from the earliest civilizations to our modern day. Yes, even today it's the farmers who are feeding us. And it's because of this historical connection I write on the subject so often. Add to that how autumn/harvest is such a wooden time of year.
Most readers of Passion for the Past may be aware of our colonial cabin experiences, where we spend a day "living" in a cabin as if it were 250 years earlier.
This is not one of those.
And yet, it is.
In a way.
Read on to make up your own mind...
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I'm not a farmer.
Nor do I claim to be a farmer.
However - - - I suppose I'm a farmer at heart. I do believe it is in my blood---my DNA. Perhaps this could be the reason I am so very much drawn to it, though I would have to say it is the historical factor that I'm drawn to most of all. Similar, in a way, that the military reenactor - oftentimes who would never actually sign up for the military - is drawn to war and battles. We both are drawn to our historical passions, and therefore will practice the art of reenacting and/or living history for our own personal experience. And to teach the public.
And my passion is historic farming.
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| Colonial era folks are seen chopping wood, cultivating the garden, and gathering kindling wood and vegetables. Plow horses can be seen breaking sod. (This image is from THIS site) |
I very much enjoy deeply researching historic farming practices and the daily lives of those who lived this life.
I also, with my presentation partner, Larissa, speak on this subject.
I also believe that if I were living before the 20th century, I would most likely had been a farmer - nearly every ancestor in my family tree, right up through my own grandfather, were farmers.
I've been around farms my entire life. As a wee lad, my grandfather, who farmed as a youth and had the most amazing LARGE gardens (yes, with an "s") of anyone, would frequently take me along on his walks to visit his farm friends.
As I grew older and got married, I spent many a-day, along with my wife and our children, watching historic farm practices at Greenfield Village's Firestone and Daggett Farms.
And I/we still do.
That being said, I do love presenting about historic farms, watching docu-dramas about historic farming, learning about the heirloom plants...and, most of all, I love experiencing historic farm chores and practices.
Living out my dreams from decades ago.
As many of you may know, a few of us spend time at the log cabin at Waterloo Historic Farm Museum in Waterloo, Michigan. And though the cabin is from the 1840s, a cabin is a cabin is a cabin, meaning there are very little changes in cabins from the 18th to the 19th centuries. So utilizing this as our 1770s "home" is quite appropriate.
This mid-August day - August 17 - was a day and date Tony Gerring, head of the Revolutionary War military unit, the 1st Pennsylvania, set aside as a sort of work day at the cabin, so the members of his unit could work on their clothing, hats, shoes, or leather straps that needed to be repaired or modified while in a historic environment. They also practiced the manual of arms and did some marching, learned some regimental history, and did whatever else needed to be done.
All in this historic setting.
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| Greg was working on his powder horn. |
Even though it was not my event, I was welcome to come out. I don't do military, so I spent much of my time in our kitchen garden, harvesting green beans and summer squash, checking on our lettuce and pumpkins and beets. Much of the lettuce has been picked, the beets aren't ready yet, and all but two of the eight pumpkins we have are orange - I sure do hope they will last into October for Pioneer Day!
Pastor Gerring came out and blessed our crop and prayed for a continuing harvest.
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| Pastor Gerring prayed for continued blessings upon our crop - our garden. This has been the best year for us yet! |
You see, as I have written in previous posts, August is actually the first month of harvest. Oh, 21st century people think of August as "the end of summer" with "back to school sales." But in actuality, in the grand scheme of things, it should be equated more with harvest time.
But times change, and so do our habits.
In days gone by it was on August 1 that many farmers in the colonies, as well as in the British Isles, celebrated Lammas Day, which marked the first major harvest celebration and the unofficial beginning of the fall season, for even though it was still summer, the month of August was also considered one of the months of harvest time. As such, Lammas Day was a Thanksgiving celebration, and so it remained for many 18th century families until a national Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed toward the end of the century. On Lammas Day, the farming family attended church, and the head of the household brought with him the first loaf of bread to be blessed from the recently harvested summer wheat. That loaf was used as the center of their Lammas Day Thanksgiving feast (click HERE to learn about Lammas Day).
So...we did celebrate Lammas Day a few weeks previous (click HERE to read about our celebration of this long-forgotten holiday), and at this time, being that it was in the middle of August on this particular day, the garden willingly gave up some of its yield that we planted in the spring (see the bottom of this post for more links).
The first I went after were the green beans: |
| Our availability for our Waterloo visits this year for garden work have been about twice a month, which was better than previous years, so we do what we are able. The volunteers and workers there at the farm have also been picking the ripe vegetables so as not to let them go to waste...or to seed. |
Research indicates the green bean originated in Peru and moved to Central America and South America with migrating Indian tribes. Spanish explorers from the New World introduced them to Europe in the 16th century and to the rest of the world through trade.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac calls green beans one of the “three sisters” grown together with corn and squash by American Indians when the English began settling in North America. The beans grew up the stalks of corn, working their way through the squash vines that covered the ground, providing a living mulch that shaded the soil, keeping it moist and cool and preventing weeds.
Although we eat green beans raw today, Clark said they would rarely have been eaten that way in the 18th century. Pickling beans was popular, and the versatile green bean could be cooked as a savory or a sweet accompaniment.
“Many foods were only consumed by a particular class in colonial times, but beans would have been eaten by everyone from poor farmers to the palace gentry,” Frank Clark, a master of Historic Foodways in Colonial Williamsburg, added.
The above from Colonial Williamsburg |
| Sometimes I like to think of my colonial ancestors while out in the garden dressed in this manner. |
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| I also like that, from our planting to weeding to harvesting, everything we've done has been while wearing our period clothing. Kinda-sorta giving it all authentication. |
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| Most of our yield here we planted as seeds, though a few have been transplanted (which was done as well). |
"Despite the idea of pastoral food plots, of self-sufficiency, of larders full of carefully tended, joyfully grown vegetables, the reality, surprisingly, was that many working-class 18th-century families did not have time to waste cultivating the land into mounds of gorgeous gardens."
(written by Katherine from In the Vintage Kitchen)
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| I used my linen wallet as a sack in which to keep what I picked. |
"Even though garden pests were much fewer in those days than they are today, gardening was still a risky endeavor in the mid-18th century. One bug or one beetle or one dry spell could wipe out an entire season or two of manual labor. Time lost during a century when almost everything was handmade and hand-touched could result in cataclysmic results not only for individuals but also for families, communities, and even the burgeoning nation.
In the centuries before Miracle-Gro and sprinkler systems and lawn mowers, before electric clippers and garden hoses, soil amendments, and genetically modified seeds that were practically guaranteed to grow, gardening was a risky business."
(written by Katherine from In the Vintage Kitchen)
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| The summer squash was planted by a young man who we are sharing our garden with. Yes, we got approval to pick that as well. |
Squash has been part of the human diet for centuries, so it’s no surprise that it is among the first plants to be domesticated in America.
It’s also no surprise that squash comes in dozens of varieties, often characterized by softer-skinned summer staples and their more rigid-shelled winter cousins.
“We don’t find many recipes for squash in Colonial-era cookbooks,” said Historic Foodways apprentice Tiffany Fisk. “Squash were often boiled and put in a pudding or mashed and served with butter and salt.” They weren’t considered a delicacy by wealthy Colonial Virginians, who fed squash to their farm animals.
(from Colonial Williamsburg)
I've been wanting to grow pumpkins, and this year I did - - - I am so proud! lol
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| "Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's gotta pick this one. He's got to." |
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| "I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy." |
Shortly after I harvested what I could, it began to rain.
It was a good soaking rain---only for about twenty minutes or so, feeding our garden to ensure continued harvesting.
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| If you look closely at this and the following few photos, you can see the rain. |
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| Looking out the cabin door---- |
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| Larissa had mentioned not too long ago that she would like to experience being in the cabin during a rainstorm at one of our excursions. Sadly, she could not make this one (she was in 1944 at the World War Two event with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League - AAGPBL - at the Lake Erie shores of Conneaut, Ohio D-Day event). |
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| The rains came good and hard. To step out even for a moment would give one a good soaking. |
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| Luckily it was not an all-day rain. But while stuck indoors, we had great opportunity to talk history, share stories of past reenactment adventures, and share knowledge. |
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| Tony fixed the buttons on a new regimental coat he had sewn. |
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| Greg worked on his powder horn. |
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| Here are the vegetables I picked before the rains came: summer squash and green beans, some of which are going to seed.
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Two weeks later, my wife, Patty, and I journeyed back to the cabin. It was the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend - August 31st - and after a week of 90+ degree temperatures, a few severe storms, and high humidity, this particular Saturday was very much a pleasant day - low 70s, low humidity, and bright sunshine.
It was the last day before the "b-r-r-r" months: September, October, November, December. And, since August proves itself to be a harvest month - and since Autumn and Harvest are pretty much one and the same - the continuation of harvesting our cabin kitchen garden continued on.
It felt like autumn, with a few leaves beginning to fall, the very slight coolness in the air, and seeing our crop ready for harvesting.
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| It's a beautiful mornin'~ God saw it fit to bless us with a fine day indeed! |
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| While I was in the cabin, this was my view... |
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| With each passing year, Patty finds herself getting more and more into gardening. It's become a major part of her solace. |
Sadly, our maize did not do very well - we believe the deer ate it down before it even had a chance to grow much. But our beans certainly did well, as did our pumpkins.
For the 18th century gardener, many hours were spent experimenting with how to extend the growing season as long as possible throughout the year. Their success was literally a matter of life and death.
Upon further research I learned that the coldest months of the year were spent sowing seeds indoors in preparation to be transplanting outside. To start seeds indoors, colonists dug up sod in the fall, stored the clods in their cellars over winter, then planted their seed in the inverted sod clumps the next spring. This worked especially well, for the entire hunk of sod was just buried in the garden in the spring.
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| Patty picked a couple buckets full of green beans while I went after the pumpkins first. I've been wanting to grow pumpkins there for a while but it just never happened. Until this year. However, next year perhaps I'll plant them a few weeks later - I'd like them to continue growing into late September and early October so we can show them off for Pioneer Day. The pumpkin I am holding here just fell off the vine as I tried to turn it a little. |
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| We did not plant the zucchini, but the person that did we have not seen, so, rather than let them go, we picked 'em! |
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| Patty picked a couple more ripe zucchini. Her plans are to make zucchini bread! Yes! |
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| I, too, picked zucchini. I also picked more summer squash!
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| You know, I have to say it again: I cannot even begin to express my appreciation to those folks who allow us to play out and sort of live out our historical bucket list. |
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| I recall the days watching the workers at the Daggett Farm and Firestone Farm doing exactly as we were on this day, and we would literally dream of having such a period opportunity, for to portray life as once lived in the 18th century is a dream of a lifetime to me. As I've called it in past posts: A Day In the Life, and Experiencing Our Research. It's about as real as it can get! |
The kitchen garden would have been like separate stores today, for it was here where the wife & mother would go to get whatever it was that she needed: vegetables (would be like shopping at Randazzo’s Fresh Market), plants for dyeing wool (similar to heading out to JoAnn Fabrics), other plants to make beer (kind of like your corner party store), and medicinal plants - akin to a CVS pharmacy. In fact, your 18th century kitchen garden was also a real, um, farmacy, for typically it could include tansy, which was used to stop bleeding and bruising, feverfew for headaches and “female complaints," wormwood was used as a purgative for stomach issues, and chamomile, which was used, same as it is today, to make a calming tea.
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| Patty and her green beans! |
Our kitchen garden at Waterloo only has vegetables, though we have grown flax there in the past (click HERE). And perhaps we will expand our garden in the future past.
Time will tell.
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| Pumpkin, zucchini, summer squash, and green beans~ This is a pretty fair yield for us - - probably the best yet! Okay, so not enough for survival, obviously, but it's getting better all the time. Yep---we are very happy with what we've grown in our Waterloo garden! |
While we took a break inside the cabin, a young family came in, and, though we were dressed in 1770s clothing, I gave the actual Victorian history of the farm & cabin (as best that I knew). I asked the couple's two daughters, who were both, I would guess, to be between the ages of 8 and 11, if they knew of Little House On the Prairie. Both were well aware of it, whether through the books or the TV show, and so I asked them if they remembered seeing the Ingalls girls sleeping in a loft. The older girl pointed to the loft in the cabin we were in and said, "Mary and Laura both would sleep up there," then, looking down at the cradle next to the bed, she then said, "and Carrie would sleep there!"
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| During our time there - which was only a few hours - we had numerous visitors come through, and we gladly presented to them, not only about the history of the farm and its buildings, but our own colonial history. Here you see Patty giving a garden tour to visitors. |
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| Our harvest on our harvest table in our own home. |
So, I suppose I can include these two cabin excursions as a part of our colonial cabin experience, for aside from not cooking on the hearth this time, it was as real as any other that I've been there. I also believe that going out there and working - actually getting dirty - accounts for something. Yes, I've had reenactors become quite surprised that we work in our period clothing, getting them stained and dirty.
That's what this experience is all about.
True living history.
Until next time, see you in time.
Now, though today's post may not be exactly like our other "official" seasonal excursions to the cabin, they're close enough and done with the same spirit, so therefore I'm going to include it based on the nature of the day.
If you are interested in our other colonial cabin excursions, please click the links below to the many posts I wrote of us time-traveling, all of which are filled with plenty of photographs:
To read about our 2020/1770 our first autumn excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021/1771 wintertime excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021/1771 springtime excursion at the cabin, click HERETo read about our 2021/1771 summertime excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021/1771 summer harvesting of the flax at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021/1771 autumn excursion making candles at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2022/1772 winter excursion at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2022/1772 spring excursion at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2022/1772 summer excursion at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2022/1772 autumn excursion at the cabin (Pioneer Day), please click HERE
To read about our 2023/1773 winter excursion at the cabin - Candlemas, please click HERE
To read about our 2023/1773 spring excursion at the cabin - Rogation Sunday, please click HERE
To read about our 2023/1773 late spring - more planting at the cabin, click HERE
To read about the 2023/1773 early summer weeding at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about the 2023/1773 mid-summer Lammas Day Celebration, please click HERE
To read about the 2023/1773 autumn Pioneer Day event we participated in, please click HERE
To read about our 2023/1773 Thanksgiving celebration in early November, please click HERE
To read about our 2024/1774 Winter experience at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2024/1774 spring excursion at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2024/1774 summer gardening with just Patty & I, click HERE
To read about our 2024/1774 Lammas Day celebration, please click HERE
~That brings us up to today's colonial cabin post.
However, there was one Autumn excursion in 2022 that was a bit different, though includes the cabin: please click HERE
And, just in case you are interested, we've also experienced 1860s time at the cabin as volunteers for Waterloo's Cabin, Blacksmith, and Soldiers Day:
2024 - click HERE
2023 - click HERE
To read about daily/monthly/seasonal life on a colonial farm, please click HERE
How about early farming practices? I mean way early - - click HERE
And here is a bit about documentaries on historic farming (click HERE)
To visit the Waterloo Farm Museum website, click HERE
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