Sunday, November 25, 2012

Prepping for Winter

Why is it that as the year is winding down, things are winding up?  Keeping busy--and usually forgetting the camera.

There was the fall Farm Days.  Absolutely beautiful day for it.  I got to spend the day spinning on the porch and got quite a bit of yarn made for an upcoming Christmas gift.  Not a full day's worth--I had to stop a lot and let various children try their hand at spining to get their samples.  I do cheat on that, of course--my hands are on their hands, and for some I'm doing all the spinning.  Others I can take off one hand, and then the other, and they're doing it on their own.  Either way--it's a good photo op for their parents.  But did I think to get a picture for myself?

And Thanksgiving--I got to have two of them.  We had friends over for an early Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday, and then Thursday I packed up all the goodies and we had family Thanksgiving day with my parents.  The cats were thankful for the bits and pieces of turkey that they got, and the chickens were thankful for the carcass (bones are good for them)

Bob's been putting in the winter garden--greens and cabbage and garlic and carrots. We don't get that many cold nights here, but we do get some (it got down to 31 degress last night).  He thought about building a cold frame to go over one of the beds to protect it (an experiment--to see if a covered bed fared better than an uncovered one).  I pointed out that you'd have to move it every time you wanted to weed, water, or harvest (the beds are 12 feet long by 4 feet wide so this would be awkward).  My suggestion was to go bigger--build it over two beds, tall enough to go inside.  The build was super-simple and fun--we put arches of PVC pipe over the beds, then covered them in plastic.  All duct-taped together.  It's not elegant, and we'll probably have to go retape it after any storms, but it only needs to be there for about three months.  All told, it took us about two hours to put it together.  How did people do fast builds before PVC? (The black plastic at the end is there because we ran out of clear plastic)


Monday, November 19, 2012

Rosie--The Next Generation

Sunday, November 11, was Veteran's Day.  Bob and I usually ride his jeep in the parade--and I get to be Rosie the Riveter.  It's fun on so many levels: you get to ride in a parade (and people love Rosie).  And you get to remind people that the women back home contributed so much to the WWII war effort.  Finally, and most important, it's heart-catching to see thousands and thousands of people lined up, waving flags, and showing their appreciation to those who keep this country free.

Oops--Sunday was Veteran's Day.  But Veteran's Day observed was  .  I had managed to double-book myself.  No Rosie in the parade this year  :-(

Except . . . .

I'm helping out at the Goodwood Plantation planning for an exhibition they will be doing in the spring.  Another committee member is what we here in the South call "a lovely young lady," Eliza.  Eliza and I had talked about how she likes to dress in vintage clothing, and she had once mentioned that she was Rosie the Riveter for Halloween a couple of years ago.   So I asked her if she could cover for me--and she was beyond thrilled.   So the crowds got their Rosie, and Bob had a charming companion for the parade.  What I found most touching is that she carried a picture of her grandfather in his uniform.

Maybe next year Bob will have two Rosies in his jeep . . .

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Cabinet of Curiosities

Another Halloween has come and gone.  Sigh . . .

This year, Jeff and Rob and Bob and I (with brother Mike dragged in at the last minute--I always work him on his visits) banded together to decorate the schoolhouse at the Museum as as "Dr. R. Cane's Cabinet of Curiosities."  What a blast!  The musuem loaned us display cases (which gave an air of authenticity to the whole thing).  We also had taxidermidied animals and casts of skulls of prehistoric animals,along with props that we had made,  so we had a collection of real and artificial artifacts.  We had hundreds of people come through without a single negative comment.  On the contrary--many people thought we were a real museum exhibit (some asked permission before taking photographs), or a professional travelling show.  We often got compared to "Oddities" or "Ripley's Believe it or Not".  We all acted as museum docents, and just made up stories about the "artifacts" (I wonder if anyone going through for a second or third time noticed that they got different stories.  I got the ultimate compliment--one woman was disturbed enough by my Peruvian mummy that Mike had to finally let her know that he was a fake.




and now--back to normal . . .

Thursday, November 1, 2012

October Continues

OK--so it's November.  October was busy.

But not the crazy busy of the last many years.  As much as Rob and Jeff and Bob and I absolutely loved doing the haunted trail at the Museum, we had to admit that it kicked our butts.  We tried to far more than was possible with limited time and limited money and limited people--and we succeeded.  But it took up every spare minute of September and October to plan and build (and a lot of time before that building props) and most of November to tear it down and put it away.   Last year Bob and I broke away by going to Mexico, and Rob and Jeff put up a display on the museum grounds.  But we missed working together.  So this year we offered to decorate one building as a Cabinet of Curiosities.

While we did do some prop building, we also managed to have a more relaxing October than usual.  We went to an alpaca show
 
 
 
I managed not to bring an alpaca home, and only a little bit of fleece (to supplement the pounds and pounds of alpaca I still have hanging around--but it's a lovely color).
 
We went to the Blountstown Goat Days--a small-town fair.  No pictures, but we enjoyed talking to blacksmiths and the people rendering out pork cracklins and bought homemade soap and food-on-a-stick.
 
Zack the Zombie was put up at the MacClay Gardens scarecrow display to advertise the Halloween Howl.   He made one of the park rangers uncomfortable, and she eventually tied a bandana around his face to hide his scary mouth.  I heard that she also thought about putting sunglasses on him.
 

 
 
I even got interviewed by the newspaper about our Cabinet of Curiosities.
 
And we did build props.  My major contribution was my Peruvian mummy.  He started out life as a skeleton from Walgreens, and with a lot of paper mache and paint he ended up like this.
 
 
We had to stage some pictures for the abovesaid newspaper article, and, while I didn't send it in, this was my favorite
 
Bob made a conjoined skull
 
And I did a vampire killing kit
 
Next post will talk about the Cabinet of Curiosities--which was a resounding success!