You reap what you sow!

I love fall. The changing colors of the trees, the scent of the air as it gets cooler, the feel of a warm hand knit sweater that keeps away the chill and the food. Apples, squash, beans aah the list goose on. Growing up it meant our kitchen was full of yummy smells. My mom's home made spaghetti sauce and I knew the difference between hers and store bought. Jam from raspberries and blueberries. Then there was the butternut squash. In 1997 in a fit of well crazy brilliance my mother took over the large plot of garden my Grandma and Grandpa K used to tend. Grandpa decided two large plots were too much. Let my mom use the top and he used the bottom one. He showed my mother how to plant butternut squash, his main, well, crop cause face it 150 butternut squashes is a crop. Through the years that plot has grown and grown.

Onions and Garlic from my garden

Now although there are plants you harvest in the summer the largest harvest happens between September and the first frost. Historically in the U.S. schooling worked around planting and harvest seasons. It was the busiest time of year for farmers as they rush(ed) to bring in the harvest. In fact the first industry in the world was agriculture.  Happening all over the world 12,000 years ago Nomads around the world from China to Egypt to Brazil. Pinning down an exact place and time is almost impossible but among the first cultivated, wheat and Rye. (Bread)

Nomadic tribes that had followed food stayed in one place. In Mesa Verde in Colorado they lived in Cave dwellings on the sides of cliffs and planted corn on the top of the cliff around 2,000 years ago. The earliest tools were made from bones and rocks. With the creation of metal tools the task got easier. The back breaking task got even easier in the 1850s with the invention of the steam tractor.

Food in a Dutch painting of s market, 1500s

The best part about harvest season? Feasting! Today we celebrate with Thanksgiving.  A 1860 tradition to breakup the fear of Civil War, made a holiday by President Lincoln in 1863. It was inspired by the early settlers in New Plymouth, in what is today Massachusetts. A Harvest feast in October 1621 brought both Englishmen and Natives together and Lincoln used it to his advantage.  A Thanksgiving on the other hand was a day of fasting. (More of that in a later blog.)

So here is to the harvest, to a strong one, a full one and a yummy one, now someone pass the Potatoes.

Oh the place you go!

If you had asked me 5 years ago where I would be I would have said "Working in the Park Service". I did too for two years but last year after getting an email from my boss regarding my paperwork to stay I asked myself, "Do I still want to do this." See to stay in the service I had to be in school. The thing was I hated the program I was in. I just wanted to be a full time ranger but getting in through the hoops was like pulling teeth, painful. I had applied to seasonal and full time positions across the eastern coast and only heard back from 1 out of 50 with "no". In my own park I was temporary seasonal and I felt stuck. I wasn't going anywhere, wasn't sleeping, wasn't making any connections and so when I ask "do I still want to do this?" I knew I had my answer, "No." That night I slept better than I had in four months.

I already had a job interview lined up doing lord knew what. The place I applied to hadn't even had job openings, I applied hoping they would recognize I had a unique set of skills. I had applied to 20 other museums in the New England area but this was the only one that wanted an interview. So after signing the papers, saying goodbye and packing what I could in my blazer, I drove North not knowing what the future held. Now I know, I work in my field,  in a museum as an interpreter, cook, garden, sewer, and now I bake on top of that.

As I have been training for the baker job the last few weeks it has been on my mind "this isn't what I thought my future held." I am pretty sure my Grandpa and Grandma K are quiet enjoying watching their little girly girl, who made Grandpa take the fish off the hooks cause she hated that they were slimy, is now ankle deep in goat, chicken and cow dung, taking meat off of fish heads and elbow deep in bread dough. It makes me think though about all of my relatives who took those leaps.

Driving back to New England was the biggest risk I had taken in four years. I had no boyfriend,  no job, barely any money, barely a plan B. I was running on faith. My Great Grandma and Grandpa N had made those same leaps in 1911 and 1921 coming from Sweden. My Great Great Grandma B made a similar leap in the 1880s.  He husband dead from typhoid fever a new born son and she headed back to Burma to continue her mission work. In 1820 and 1620 I had relatives arrive here. Both had previously been stranded on islands, both named Stephen one from Ireland, one London, England and both like to cause trouble.  All took leaps. Risked what they knew for what was unknown. In some ways their fortune proved favorable in others fatal. Yet they risked the unknown anyways.

It is interesting.  We are asked in interviews were we see ourselves in five years. Some know,  some don't, I think I answered with, "hopefully still where I belong, New England."

Left to right my Uncle Harold, Great Grandma N, Grandma K (standing), Aunt Anna, Great Grandp N. 1927. The only one still living is Harold. 

I craft history.

There is a hash tag, or promotional phrase I have been hearing lately regarding Plimoth Plantation, #icrafthistory. What an interesting phrase,  I craft history.  I know it is strange but craft is one of my pet peeve words. In high school when I was called crafty it would get under my skin. In my head it implied, simple, anyone could do it, easy, and worse of all cheap. It was degrading.

Now I get, "you're so talented," or "you made that?". It feels good, it feels like I am on the right path. I heard for the first time the phrase Artisan last year regarding some of the talented people I worked with. It was hearing about the staff who build, talk, cook, sew and do pottery as Artisans and it felt like a word that fit with me as well. I had been told by an art teacher in high school that sewing wasn't an art. That I couldn't use embroidery for my final project.  I told her I was going to design my own pattern.  That wasn't enough. I had to have 5 different kinds of stitches, the original drawing,  the grid drawing, have it mounted and more than 12 color changes. Even then she said it was to crafty. I wanted to cry.

If only she could have seen what I see. In every stitch there is a story. It was a girl sitting on a stone wall looking at a sun rise. I go home, see that piece in my bed room and think that is my life. To her art was on paper or sculptures. For me art, and history was around me. My home was art. Every wood was connected by my father and grandfather's loving hands. It's color decided because it was the perfect shade of green. In the yard trucks and tractors in various stages of repair. Want to see art? A tractor or truck rusted to time, barely running going again looking and sounding brand new like just came off the line. Inside the smell of amazing meals, the ingredients from our own garden.

In my life today I spend seconds to hours to days crafting a variety of different items keeping my sanity in check while honoring the talent and love of the women who did this not for the art but for the necessary implementation.  If they didn't make bread there was no bread, no socks than their feet got cold, and no logs cut meant they got rained on or had no fire in their homes. So here's to those busy homemakers (crafters). I am history by what I craft and I keep those memories alive.

Those who don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it

Back in the summer of 2009 I had started working as one of five interns at Harper's Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia.  I was to work 3 days a week with Visitor Services and two with Education.  It was the start of something amazing. I remember arriving at 7:45 that morning, taking the park bus down into town after being told by a park ranger where to go and arrived at the Information Center in Lower Town were I met my supervisor, I will call him John, in honor of that year being the 150th anniversary of the John Brown raid.  I had arrived before anyone else, and training wasn't to start for another week so John and I talked. The first thing he asked me was if I had any interpretation experience. I said no I speak French very poorly and Spanish even worse. Secretly I was thinking "Oh crap, I just lost the internship". He laughed and said "No, I mean Historical Interpretation." I must have looked absolutely confused because he said, "I mean taking resources and talking about history with someone in a simpler way." My lesson and my tour guide career was born.

Items at a local museum done based on paintings, excavations, and descriptions.

I worked there for 4 summers/years, in 4 different branches, spoke to thousands of visitors and was told hundreds of times that I had helped them understand things they never had before. Now I do 1st as well as 3rd and have found it a whole new challenge.  Everyday I come home, my head swimming with information. I have found normalcy in the abnormal and am asked often not only were I learned all of this but how do we know what we know about history.

Two paintings done in the 1500s-1600s by the same Dutch artist. Note difference in clothing but both using a hand spinning wheel, the one on the left has a kniddy knoddy on the wall, the other a basket. Both are spinning flax attached to a distaff with a band of cloth.

Maybe I should begin with historians, they rely on books, both primary, written during or after by someone who was part of or witnessed the act, and secondary, written by someone who heard or read about the same act later. Next you have Archaeologists, who look at maps, choose dig sites, discover artifacts, and use it to piece together the area, events, and cultures.  Then there are Anthropologists, who look areas, artifact, and events to see how people move and cultures created. Then you have people like me Historical Interpreters who take all that information and try to give people the most accurate information we can from that mess.

Women sewing, the left done in 1600s, the right 1700s. Note the posture of the women, the clothes, furniture and accessories.  Even the baskets vary.

The problem is that dispite what people think,  history  isn't cut and dry. New discoveries are made every day that can change our interpretation.  We use primary and secondary sources, paintings/etchings, music, surviving artifacts, broken artifacts, educated guesses and so much more to tell the stories. One painting could be enough to change one belief while a book may contradict it entirely. The problem is that the job is made harder by myths.

My hardest time is being told I am wrong when I know they are stuck in a belief that was formed years ago by a historian who was making an educated guess that stuck. For example beds, Sleep tight is not referring to the fact bedsteads had ropes holding up your ticking, or mattress that occasionally needed to be "tightened" but more to tho origin of the word tight,  which meant snug or impervious, first used in the 14th century according to Mariam Webster. Tight/tighten, as to make taunt or remove slack dates to 1680, according to the same source. Also beds were not shorter because people were, but because the amount of bedding makes them look so.

The top left is 1700s while the other 3 are dutch done in the 1500s and 1600s. Showing typical life, we see food, clothing, hardship and tools.

So yes I know I am telling you that the story your elementary teacher told you is wrong but there are myths out there I just want to crush. After all those who don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it.

If you like the images, there is a link to all of them on my pintrest page Historic Stitcher. Find them on my paintings board and follow me. 

Hooked on yarn.

I sew, something all my Great Grandmas, Grandmas, aunts and my mom do/did. I knit, something most do/did. I tat, something my Great Grandma G and Grandma K did. I spin, none of them do that. What I can't do is crochet.  Oh I have tried and it only works when I have an already solid garment and adding it as a trim. Oh I have lots of crocheted items but all made by someone else.

Crochet bunny from my Great Grandma E. It has been with me during every move, though one of my dogs ate it's ear, it is still my favorite of her works.

Sometimes called the poor man's lace, crochet was developed in the early 1800s and some of the earliest sources regarding it come from Dutch and German sources. Thought to be derived from an ancient method of decorated cloth called tambour it gained in popularity by the 1880s and by 1930s was being used to make socks, sweaters, blankets, rugs and more.

Tambour example

New compared to other textile arts it is has grown in popularity since the 1800s. Some argue it works quicker then knitting and although it uses less tools, only using one hook rather than 2 or more needles, they both have their merits. Both take time, love, patience and best of all yarn.

Crochet trim on one of my knitted hats.

Now as common and versatile as knitting it is done all over the world using yarn but only one hook. I will learn it.... someday.

Crochet afghan from one of my aunts. Too small for me now, I use it as a lap blanket on cold nights.

Buzzing for bees.

As a kid I loved running barefoot through our driveway and yard. My dad would call me crazy walking on our stone driveway barefooted but I didn't care. I am not going to lie either still wish I could run barefoot more often despite the dangers. In fact the only danger that worries me is broken glass. I could care less if I cut my foot on a stone, or got a thorn in there both I have actually done. I have been stung twice while walking barefoot and although it hurt, I don't care. My fondest memories involved leaving my shoes in the house, running down to the lake barefooted,  and jumping off the dock.

Joseph Holodook

The first time I was stung, it was a bumble bee. Upon learning that bumbles die after stinging and only sting when they feel threatened I felt horrible.  I have never liked bugs, though watching me at work you wouldn't know it. I am the first to sweep them into the fire or outside.  Yet for bees, dragonflies and butterflies I just loved them. I was the kid who went perfectly still hoping that they would land on me. Well not the bees but the other two.

Images found on Google images

Now for many of my loves in life bees are important.  The first is my drinks. On a a daily basis I have a juice, usually orange in the morning, and cranberry,  or grape throughout the day. Bees feed of the pollen and nectar provided by the flowers of these plants making the berries and fruits possible. Producing from the pollen they make honey for tea, bread, and so much more. The average worker bee will make only one or two teaspoons of honey in a lifetime. 1500 flowers are needed to make one pound of honey which are then covered in beeswax til needed. The wax has been used for candles and you'll find it in almost all of my sewing baskets.

So here's to those busy bees and lets save the bees.