It is unfortunate that our annual autumnal day at the Waterloo Frontier Cabin had to be cancelled for this year due to unforeseen circumstances, but, well, the good folks at the Waterloo Historical Society have been nothing but kind to us, so I am not complaining. Over the years I've learned that when things don't go quite as you'd hoped they would, you take a different route in finding a good alternative.
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| My wife is drying herbs at our kitchen window, an idea she learned from visiting the Daggett House. Whether or not they are used is no matter - she likes the look. |
Yes, yes, another autumn-oriented posting.
But it is my favorite season. From September through early January I am more active than any other time of the year, including summer, and though December and January are technically a part of winter, it's still a joyful period, with Christmas and all.
For this posting I have combined two different events into one. It was, as the title of this posting suggests, a celebration of friends - those of us who spend/spent time at the frontier cabin in Waterloo experiencing the past in a very real way; we all had a fine time indeed.
I also included a few Pioneer Day pictures from earlier in October when we were at the Cabin for that fine event. These are photos that you have not seen yet, for they were not included in my original posting.
Spending that wonderful day at the cabin for Frontier Day was simply amazing, and because for this year we were not able to utilize the frontier cabin as sort of solo living historians, it was still a very good kind of replacement.
As for our return to the cabin----yup, we are still planning on our winter excursion...and when we do it - probably toward the end of January or early February - the year for us will be 1773.
These special 18th century cabin days are, perhaps, the highlight of my reenacting year.
Our times there as a group without the public has been some of the best of all of my reenactments! We've all been getting a much higher understanding by way of experience of our 18th century lives and applying it to our day's activities.
Again, living the research.
In doing so we can pass these experiences on as teaching moments. It also satisfies the hunger and thirst we have - this passion we have for the past. It may be sorely overlooked in history books at schools and colleges, but history is made from regular everyday people - the citizens - who survived under what we would consider harsh conditions.
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| This is what it was supposed to be about... |
We need to learn of and from those who were not unlike you and I - the majority...both men and women - who may not have gotten their names in the history books, but were, nonetheless, every bit as great and important as anyone else - (like you and I are in our modern day). Unfortunately, many folks have a tendency in our day and age to over-simplify the roles of a colonial family with the insinuation that those who lived before our own "enlightened" time were backwoods, backwards, and just not as intelligent as we are. But I heard such a great line from someone on C-Span a few years back that explains it all perfectly: "People in the past were every bit as smart as people are today. They just lived in a different time."
Yes, our 18th century ancestors were serious, but they also had fun. This all helps us somewhat understand the times in which they lived. And perhaps not be so judgmental in looking back at them from the 21st century; presentism, I believe, is what it is called. Most of those from the past do not deserve such harsh judgment.
Though it wasn't in the same manner as we usually visit, spending an autumn day at the cabin during their Pioneer Day in early October was such a fine time. And we certainly missed Larissa, who wasn't able to join us that day, but we did spend our time doing our 18th century everyday life activities; Charlotte and Jackie cooked an excellent meal on the hearth, I spent the day processing flax - flax that was hand-planted by seed and harvested right there just a few yards from the cabin! A--n--d...my wife Patty joined us and brought along her spinning wheel!
The most noticeable difference was we had hundreds of people walking through, whereas when we are there on our own it's just us. So, in a way, we did get to sort of have our 1772 autumn cabin day, it was just a bit busier than what we are used to.
Now, a few of the following photos may have similarities to those I posted before, but I can tell you not one posted here is the same.
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| The ladies prepared a wonderful stew. "Are you going to eat that?" people would ask. Of course we are! |
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| Numerous cast iron pots were strategically placed inside the hearth. |
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| Cooking the stew on the hearth. |
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| My beautiful wife, Patty, enjoyed her time spinning on her wheel. |
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| The flax you see here was planted by seed (by us!) and grown right near the cabin. In the photo below you see Larissa & I planting the flaxseed in the spring of 2021. (Yes, Charlotte and Jackie were planting as well)  |
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| Besides the flax break, I also brought my scutching board (above) and hackle (not shown). |
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| Our meal, a hearty stew, was excellent. My first hearth meal was two years ago, now I am hooked! |
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| My wife's apple pie for dessert! Fresh off the hearth! Can you smell it? |
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| All of us who portrayed folks from the 17th and 18th centuries posed for this image. |
To think this whole idea of experiencing colonial cabin life here initially came to me in a dream...it really did! And look where it's taken me...all of us...!
So our "solo" fall cabin day had to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. But never fear - we'll be back in the winter!
My first thought upon hearing that the cabin was not available to us was that I didn't want to lose a traditional fall activity such as candle dipping, so what to do...what to do...?
And that's when I came up with the idea of actually doing it, but in my own yard where I've been dipping candles for years. I mean, we were already planning to spend November 5th at the cabin, so why not a simple (and closer) change of venue. Okay, so I have no fireplace at my home, meaning we cannot cook on the hearth, but we could still try to do period things. And my back room has been transformed to look old, so, though not truly authentic, it could still work!
Anyhow, though I had hoped to dip candles with my cabin friends, we, again, due to unforeseen circumstances (ie high fifty mph winds, more recently known as the Gales of November) had to change our plans. However, my friends still came over and it turned into a feast of cabin friends gathering/celebration. We really had a lot of fun together - lots of goofing around, good food, and laughs!
Again - making lemonade out of lemons.
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| I did make the attempt to melt wax (and also tallow) for dipping, but it just wasn't going to work, unfortunately. So the fire was extinguished and it was in the house I went to join the others. |
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| My friend Theresa, who was supposed to head up the tallow dipping, made homemade bread - it was so good! And check out the design she etched in on top. |
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| The bread was cut for dinner. Now, do you see those jars there? They're filled with jam such as apple butter. Yep---Theresa made and canned that as well! Again, it was excellent! |
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| Unfortunately, there was no hearth cooking. It's kinda hard to do so without a hearth to cook on, but that doesn't mean the food wasn't good. On the contrary - so good! |
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| Theresa's bread also went very well with... |
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| ...the stew my wife made!! A feast indeed! |
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| Here I am, flanked by my good friends Larissa and Rebecca. Larissa works at Greenfield Village while Rebecca used to. |
We had a lot of fun joking around, but we also had time for a philosophical discussion as well; in this case, time.
As in...time.
You see, this night we were to turn our clocks back one hour, signifying the end of daylight saving time for this year, and that brought on the topic and a discussion of time and how accurate the clocks were back in the pre-electric age. One of the questions posed was - if this were 1880 or maybe 1772, where did one go to get the correct time? To whom or what did they set their clocks to?
Yeah...it's easy to say "the sun."
But it was more than that.
Oh, it was interesting to hear everyone's take on it. It seemed, however, that in those days before atomic clocks and cell phones, or calling "Time" on the telephones (GR2-1212---"At the tone the time will be..."), many people would use the train schedule or even the school bells signaling the start or the end of the school day to set their clocks. Folks in days of old did as best as they could, and in our discussion we seem to have concluded that exact time just wasn't important. In fact, knowing the hours just wasn't necessarily very important in general, especially for farmers, for one mainly worked from sun up to sun down, with a rough idea of when lunch time was, or they simply ate when they were hungry. And, yes, there were exceptions to this, of course. Oh, they certainly had an idea of the time of day, but not the exact time like we have today. An interesting take on the concept of telling time comes from a book I own called Outcasts of Time by author Ian Mortimer. In the following segment, one of our main characters (depicted in 1st person) had time-traveled into the future year of 1546 from his own time of 1348:
The church bell in Chagford (England) rings out nine times.
"Nine of the clock," remarks Tom.
"What is 'the clock'?" I ask.
He looks at me. "How can you not know what a clock is? It is a machine for telling the time. With weights and cogs and things like that. Surely you've heard one? They're proud of their clock in Chagford. All the folks there live by its chimes. But those from the town are constantly saying 'sorry, sorry' for their lateness - and why? Because their clock tells them so. If they didn't have a clock, they would never be late. No one would know."
I am still mystified. How do you get a machine to tell the hour? Time is reckoned by the motion of the sun around the Earth, which is down to the Will of God, so how do you make a machine that tells the Will of God?.
Yeah...good discussion for us...
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| I have a fairly large collection of 18th century hats, most of the cocked/tricorn variety. So the ladies decided to wear them. My wife, front left, wore my farming hat. |
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| Charlotte and Theresa~ Being they were wearing men's hats, they decided to release their "inner man" and arm wrestle. |
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| No mistaking these ladies for colonial men, no matter how hard they try. Even if they're attempting to replicate an 18th century tavern! This picture is in my top ten - I love it! |
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| My stacked hats. All but two were purchased at Samson's Historical. |
You know, every-so-often you need to let loose and have fun for fun's sake. With the political turmoil we've been forced to endure for quite sometime, the pandemic, and just the anger and divisiveness we've been tolerating for quite a while now, we just let loose a bit today.
And had fun.
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| A few members of Citizens of the American Colonies. Our autumn group photo. |
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| Late afternoon...my friends had left and the thick clouds were in the process of prematurely turning day into night, strong winds a-blowing. 'Twas a peaceful time for me...I lit a candle and finished my cyder and then, not too long after this shot, I changed back to modern Ken in t-shirt and jeans. But for this moment... |
Now, I can be all upset that the weather on November 5th was not conducive for having a bonfire, but I have to admit, nearly every event I did this year had wonderful weather, and I participated in a lot of events. Especially this fall when rain and wind can be commonplace. I have no right to complain, so I'm not. In fact, I thank God for the gorgeous weather for most of the year. So, yeah, it's all good.
The same goes for the cabin: when I heard that our now annual seasonal excursion to the cabin for autumn had to be cancelled for this year, I was bummed, needless to say. Not angry, mind you. Just disappointed. The times we spend there replicating life in the early 1770s have become the most special of all of my living history treks. If I've ever felt a time travel experience, it's during these jaunts to the past with my friends Larissa, Jackie, and Charlotte, for our knowledge combined is put to use and, sometimes, even to the test. Oh, and believe me when I say we get dirty, we get calluses, we get hot...and cold...but most important of all, we get the experience.
However, as stated earlier, we still were able to do a fall harvest-y type of reenacting there in October, so I will include that! All is well and good. And, in all seriousness, considering the times (nine!) that I've been able to utilize the cabin in an 18th century manner, I'm a blessed man with no right to complain. I am so lucky for those times I've been able to use it...and will continue to do so in future-past excursions.
Nope---no complaints from me!
It only means our plan to make tallow and beeswax candles will wait until the cold of winter, and the hope of making soap and possibly making beer using an 18th century recipe will need to wait until next autumn.
I am thankful.
Yes I am.
Until next time, see you in time.
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Now, how would you like to see how our past time travel living history adventures have gone here at the cabin?
To read about our 2020 autumn excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021 wintertime excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021 springtime excursion at the cabin, click HERETo read about our 2021 summertime excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2021 harvesting of the flax at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2021 autumn excursion making candles at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2022 winter excursion at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2022 spring excursion at the cabin, please click HERE
To read about our 2022 summertime excursion at the cabin, click HERE
To read about our 2022 autumn excursion for Pioneer Day at the Cabin, click HERE
To learn about historic farm tools, please click HERE
To learn about a year on a colonial farm - living by the seasons - click HERE
To learn about colonial textiles, click HERE
To learn about a colonial summer experience, please click HERE
To learn how colonials lived with candle light, click HERE
Adding everyday life to colonial living, click HERE
How my ancestors fit in time: Putting Our Ancestors in their Place and Time
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1 comment:
I really enjoy reading your historical exploits with friends! Like a lot of people these days, I'm rather poor about leaving comments, but diligently read all your updates!
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