“Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will, in the end, contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson
Living out my dream each and every visit to Waterloo Cabin.
Taking colonial living history to a whole 'nother level...
. . .
A living historian's dream come true. That's what my time spent at the Waterloo Cabin has been for me. These past four years, with all of our experiences, have put my head in a different zone, so to speak. And now, to add to our accomplishments, we have a successful colonial-era kitchen garden!
Our garden this year has had its best yield ever. In 2021, our first time gardening here, we grew (successfully, I might add) flax. The year following two years - 2022 and 2023 - everything, including a replanting of flax, faltered. But we did not venture the 90 minute drive from our home to the cabin very often for those two years, so the weeds were out-of-control and, well, the garden did not get the care needed for success.
Things were different this year. After our spring planting, Patty & I took the drive at least every two weeks to weed and care for our plants as we've not done before.
The extra effort was well worth it. And by spending more days at the cabin and caring for the garden in the way we have, the cabin has become sort of our pseudo-colonial home...a touch beyond the living history world.
A number of these extra visits were documented here in Passion for the Past (HERE, HERE, HERE), and there were even a few other times we went that I did not write about in this blog.
Our care paid off; from mid-summer onward, we'd been blessed with green beans and squash and pumpkins and zucchini,,,
So, I'd like to show you our mid-September day where my wife & I (and, this time even our good friend, Norm), harvested more from our Waterloo kitchen garden.
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| There's the cabin we often call "home." It certainly feels like it more and more. In the distance, toward the right, is our kitchen garden. |
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| To the far left you see where our kitchen garden is located in comparison to where the cabin is on the far right. |
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| Patty & I out in the kitchen garden. We have plants for food such as pumpkins, green beans, zucchini, summer squash...we did try and grow corn and cabbage, but that was eaten by the deer. Our beets didn't do very well either. Perhaps next year we'll expand our selection to include medical and a greater variety of vegetables. Maybe even some for the textile arts, such as flax (again) and other plants that can be used for dyeing purposes. |
When we travel out there for our garden excursions, we're usually the only ones there, and, aside from a car moving by every-so-often, it is quiet and peaceful. We have no furnace or air-conditioning there. No electric anything. And that reminds me of a quote from Old Sturbridge Village:
"If the only light and heat comes from candles and fireplaces because of a power outage at your house, it is frustrating and annoying - but when it comes in the form of intimate tours of a historic village, it is charming and peaceful."
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| The green beans did phenomenal! Our preacher Norm in the garden with my wife, Patty. In the spring he blessed our crop during Rogation Sunday. |
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| Driving the 90 minute journey to the cabin was worth the while. We were always excited at what we could harvest. |
I was most proud of the pumpkin patch we planted. I've always wanted to have one, but my city yard is much too small. But this place, however, gives us plenty of room.
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| I consider the pumpkin patch this year to be a trial run. Next year I'd like to grow two to three times as many! |
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| A couple of the pumpkins were falling off the vine. They were ready for picking. |
“The most popular pumpkins today are grown to be porch décor rather than pie filling,” says history professor James E. McWilliams of Texas State University and the author of Revolution in Eating. “They dominate the industry because of their durability, uniform size (about 15 pounds), orange color, wart-less texture, and oval shape.” Mass production of these poor-tasting pumpkins is a $5 billion a year industry today. McWilliams calls them “a culinary trick without the treat” and accuses them of being “food in name only.”
Edible pumpkins have not been entirely forgotten. Heirloom pumpkin seeds are available for those who want to grow the old-fashioned kind, and farmer’s markets and upscale grocery stores sometimes carry older, tasty varieties.
(from THIS site)
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| As pumpkins turned into holiday decorations instead of food, Americans largely forgot how to eat them. Save for the occasional pumpkin pie (which these days mostly comes from store-bought processed pie filling in a can), the fruit wasn’t seen much on dining tables other than as the aforementioned decoration. But recent years have seen a modest pumpkin revival. |
Pumpkin pie originated in the early 17th century, but the original pumpkin pie was not as neat and aesthetically pleasing as the modern pumpkin pie. The first pumpkin pies were hollowed-out pumpkins filled with milk, spices, and honey, and were roasted by the fire. It wasn’t until the late 18th century that the modern pumpkin pie began to take its form. In 1796, Amelia Simmons published a cookbook titled American Cookery. Simmons’ pumpkin puddings were baked in a crust thus creating an early recipe for the present-day pumpkin pie.
(from THIS site)
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| Norm with Patty. We picked most of the pumpkins. There were only a few. I was hoping they'd've lasted on the vine through Waterloo's Pioneer Day event in early October (October 6th this year), but it was not to be. Perhaps next year I'll plant them maybe a month later... |
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| Zucchini... |
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| Coming from the stream with buckets filled with water... |
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| Rather than dump the water on the plants straight from the buckets we, instead, used the watering jug. I am filling it up with the water in the bucket. |
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| The water released like a gentle rain shower. |
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A portion of our mid-September harvest.
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Sadly, our corn/maize did not do very well - we believe the deer ate it down before it even had a chance to grow much. Nor did our cabbage or beets. But nearly everything else that was planted did.
Try, try again next year! Already planning~
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| No fires in the hearth on this day - just a room-temperature late morning snack including zucchini bread my wife had made from the zucchini grown here in the kitchen garden. The cucumbers were grown at the garden at our home. |
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| From left to right: myself, my dear wife Patty, and good friend Norm. Mid-September 1774 |
What began four years ago as a sort of unique living history project/experiment that came to me initially in a dream continues on into its fifth year.
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| Preacher Gerring had his image captured in a painting. |
We continue to do our best to live and work and look and function as we would have 250 years earlier, before the colonies became states, before Independence became our focus. Even before the American Revolutionary War. We try to utilize only ancient techniques in our activities, though sometimes we falter. This whole cabin experiment and experience has been to help us to live - not reenact - the time past. I do not want to lose that, for the minute we willingly allow the 21st century to seep in, it's over...we're cheating. And if I'm going to continue on with this, there will be no cheating.
Our garden here has raised the bar for us once again - this year was a success. And, with God's blessings, next year will be even more of a success. And in these past four years I've been able to experience chores a colonial man might have done, such as processing flax and working at the shaving horse. I've also threshed wheat with a hand-flail/thresher, helped to chop down a tree with an ax, and experience numerous other period activities, now, of which, includes gardening and harvesting.
I want us who are involved in this time-travel experiment to visit and experience a lost and somewhat forgotten period in human history without help from modernisms. By putting into practice what others only read or write about, we have ventured to the very heart of history - of people's lives 250 years ago.
We are not perfect, but I believe we are on the right path.
Until next time, see you in time.
The importance of agriculture in human history cannot be over-stated, and I have written about historic farming/agriculture quite often throughout the history of this Passion for the Past blog, and the links I have listed below here are only a tiny blip on what I've written about on the subject.
More often than not, at the bottom of each post linked here there are links to other postings of the same subject matter:
Ancient Farming & Daily Life Practices from the B.C. Era Through the Early A.D. Period is a general summary of ancient farming practices & basics of daily life (lol) just like the title suggests.
The 1790 census showed that about 4 million people were employed in agriculture, which made up roughly 90 percent of the American population. Colonial farmers were typically able to produce everything they needed for their survival including food, clothing, house furnishings, and farm implements. This post gives an overview of what it was like, month by month, for our colonial-American ancestors.
From the Tudors through the 20th century, these are a wonderful collection of very well done and historically researched docu-dramas on agricultural life in the past.
Here's a post on 18th century farming:
HERE
HERE
My presentation partner, Larissa, and I have done plenty of colonial farming presentations:
and
We've also done Victorian farm presentations at Port Oneida:
click 2016 (our first time at Port Oneida!)
click 2017
2020 and 2021 were covid years, so nothing happened here.
But, we were back in 2022 - click 2022
In 2023 we did not participate, but we returned in 2024 (click HERE)
If you are interested in our other colonial cabin excursions, most of which entails the colonial farming life, please click the links below to the many posts I wrote, all of which are filled with 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 late spring gardening with just Patty & I, click HERE
To read about our 2024/1774 summer Lammas Day celebration, please click HERE
To read about our 2024/1774 two separate mid-summer garden visits, please click HERE
~And that brings us up to today's colonial cabin post.
If you are keeping count, that's 21 times (22 if we are to include today's post) we've experience colonial life in a very real way, and each time we've experienced it a little differently.
To visit the Waterloo Farm website, click HERE
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