Camp

Last week was my first week of camp at OSV. It was certainly different from what I'm used to but it was good to be working with kids again. For this first week we only had two camps running, so there were only 14 kids, also, I was assigned to be a floater helping out both camps. That pretty much meant that since OSV isn't really set up as a camp it was my job to make sure supplies arrived where they needed to be for programs and were put away afterward. One day I was waiting for a group to exchange items in the general store and one of the girls asked me, "Why do you keep following us around?" I said I was making all the magic happen for camp. And then that's what I did. As soon as the kids left, I collected their trade items from the interpreter to return to the museum ed building: functioning general store open for trade one minute; historic building just for show the next! It was pretty cute/funny.
I know all the work I did as a floater was really appreciated and necessary but I'm really looking forward to getting to work with a group of campers next time. The best parts of my week were times when I got to interact with the kids, either playing with them at lunch, or just sitting to talk during snack/project time at the end of the day when my work was finished.

Mud

Back in the garden. After two days of rain, it was cold and misty out yesterday but perfect weather for weeding. It’s good to have wet soil while weeding because it keeps the crops happy through the trauma of having their roots a little disturbed. Sorta like giving a kid an ice cream cone after a scraped knee I guess. Also, it made the ground nice and soft and easy to poke around in for roots of the weeds. I weeded by hand in the morning and got covered in mud! My dress was too long and I spent the morning in fear that I would trip and land face first in the carrot bed. In the afternoon I switched to weeding with a hoe a border along the main walkway which had grown out of control. That was pretty much the whole workday. Not very exciting but it was satisfying to have gotten so much done at the end of the day. As I was leaving, the girls at the dye station called me over to join them in roasting marshmallows over their fire pit, after closing time of course. It was funny to see the mix of people in modern and 19^th century clothes eating marshmallows and hanging out. 

Help! It's dark in here!

Back in the school house and much less fun this time, I’m sad to report. It was rainy and cold and there was only one visiting school group who didn’t even make it up to the school house. I sat in the dark by myself for most of the day. In the morning I attempted to wind a tangled skein of yarn into a ball. In the afternoon I found a book to read by a window. I escaped at 3:40 when the trickle of visitors to my door had ended and went up to Freeman to help Sue feed Button her bottle. Bess rejected Button so we needed to bottle feed her sooner than usual. Sue & I figured out that I was her daughter’s camp counselor a few years ago, which was exciting. It’s pretty cool to meet a parent of one of your campers a few years later and find out how much their child had talked about you at home J

Finally Freeman!

 Finally in the Freeman Farmhouse, the part I was most excited about! We baked bread pudding which was delicious, I highly recommend it! There was a great group of women and girls there on Wednesday which made it extra fun. Sue, Victoria (both staff), Rebecca and Haley (High School Interns) are all fantastic. It was raining all day so we had an especially slow afternoon. We all sat in the parlor together, knitting and chatting and making plans for future scrapbooking parties. Altogether a delightful day!

Weeding Onions

I worked in the kitchen garden today. Laura came in on her day off to help in hopes that she will be there when Buttercup has her calf. Bess had a calf last Friday who, after a few days of hemming and hawing, has finally been named Button because she is cute as a…. We were again working without someone to shadow but at least it wasn’t Laura’s very first day. We were able to answer most of the visitors’ questions and decided the safest thing to do would be to weed and water. No thinning for us! We didn’t want to do something more complex and ruin the crop. It was a nice day out and we even had a few kids ask to help us which was pretty cute. By 3:30, we had weeded an entire onion bed and were feeling pretty hot and tired so we spent the rest of the afternoon inside knitting and getting to know the staff.

In da School House!

My first day interpreting! I started in the school house today. In the interview process I was told that I would be trained, then shadow an experienced interpreter in each area before working with visitors on my own. That didn’t happen. At morning check-in, Kim realized I was on my own for my first day! I might not have worried so much if she hadn’t seemed so concerned but I survived and actually had a lot of fun! Anne was great and walked to the school house with me before opening to help set up and give me a quick refresher. Today was our last busy day of visiting school groups. It was fun to see the little school house full of children and to get to talk to them about the ways school was different in the 1830s.

Long, Wet Week

It’s been raining this week which I think is great. I love the rain. Most everyone else, though, doesn’t seem to feel the same. It has also been a very long week, hence my lack of posts lately. Sorry! I’ve been getting home exhausted, just ready to eat some dinner, relax and get some sleep.

Here’s the rundown of my week:

Monday- Museum Education. I greeted buses in the morning and spent the afternoon working on projects to get ready for camp. It was pretty stressful because even though Kathy had tried explaining them to us last week, once we got started working we found we had a lot of questions but it was Kathy’s day off.

Tuesday- Garden Training. This is when rain started being no fun: no one else wanted to be outside in it. So garden training turned into tours of the gardens and hidden supply stashes with most of the explanations done inside. There was so much to remember, I’m glad I don’t need to! Most of the training covered the center village gardens which are mostly flowers. I’m not scheduled to work in those and the more I learned about flowers, the more I was convinced that they are generally more effort than they’re worth! Haha! I guess it’s good I’m working in a kitchen garden and it will be great to be able to explain the differences.

Wednesday- Back to Museum Ed for more of the same. We were able to talk to Kathy and get some clarification on our projects, which was great. Also, the woman who taught our garden training lent me a book about bugs and gardening which was a perfect resource for my “Good Bug, Bad Bug” project.

Thursday- School house and Knitting Training. We spent the morning learning about the school house. It was mostly reading but it was nice that Anne let us read on our own and then come back with questions. In one training, our trainer read the handouts aloud to us and I really preferred Anne’s approach. In the afternoon we practiced knitting. Of the 6 of us, only 2 had never knit before so it was nice for them to have so much attention from Anne to help them learn while the rest of us worked on our samplers. The downside was that we were working with size 0 needles! I’ve never worked on anything smaller than a 3 before so this was a challenge. I was so impressed with the girls knitting for the first time to be learning on such small needles. We need to complete samplers of at least 6 specified stitches before we can work on projects. It was slow work with such small needles but would you believe that after 4 hours, I went straight to the local yarn store to get myself supplies to learn to knit socks? I felt like I needed to knit something for me in a fun color after handling the itchy wool and doing boring squares. I’m working on a pair of rainbow socks at home. In the village, I have to use village yarn and needles and work on period appropriate projects while will become OSV property. The first project I get after my sampler is a pair of fingerless gloves.  

Today was the rainiest day. I forgot to mention that yesterday was beautiful. Today, I was lucky to have kept my rain coat and umbrella in the car because it was nice out when I left my sister’s but by time I got to OSV it was raining steadily. We greeted busses and it was one of the busiest days I’ve seen. There were probably almost 2000 students here today! All my bus driver tickets and maps got soggy, not to mention my pants! Most of the teachers and bus drivers were patient and polite though which was a huge help. Sometimes drivers can be pretty rude and it always makes my job much more pleasant when everyone’s in a good mood.

This afternoon I worked on projects and finished a few which was nice. Next week I’m interpreting in the village all week! I’m so excited!! For now though, I’m hoping for a quiet and relaxing weekend. 

Hearth Cooking!

As many of my good friends know, I LOVE food! I love trying new foods, cooking food, sharing food, eating food, and today, talking about food!

On Sunday I was trained in hearth cooking for my work as an interpreter in the village. We worked in the museum education building so that there’d be space for everyone in our large group (9 people) to cook and eat without worrying about visitors. This has probably been my best day at OSV so far.

The menu:

Pounded cheese and crackers

Hash/Minced Meat (Ham & potatoes seasoned with sage)

Boiled Dinner of Ham, vegetables (turnips, potatoes, carrots, and onions), and flour pudding

Apple Pie

Hot Slaw

Three Grain Bread

Cup Cake

The Facts:

“Dinner” was the biggest meal of the day, like today, but it was eaten around noon. People came home from school if they were close, and came in from the fields to enjoy a big meal before heading back out to work. “lunches” are smaller snacks one might carry to eat in the field between meals. “Supper” or “tea” was the evening meal which would have been smaller, probably just leftovers unless you were having a party.

Most women planned out their work over the course of a day, week, month and year. Certain tasks are done at a certain time of year (candle making in the late fall, early winter after butchering is done), others at a certain time of day etc.. Baking was usually done once a week because of the large amount of time and wood needed to heat the oven. “Dinner” at noon meant most of the hot work of cooking was finished in the morning before the hottest part of the day. Tasks which required good light like sewing were done in the afternoon when the sun was brightest.

Apple pie was eaten as part of a meal (like apple sauce). It had less sugar and spices for a stronger apple taste. It wouldn’t be uncommon to have an apple pie everyday with dinner. I guess that’s why they say, “As American as apple pie!”

The Fun:

This food was GOOD! And easier to make than I expected. I was assigned to make the apple pie and I was so proud of it! The crust came out the flakiest I’ve ever seen and it was so yummy. It was the only thing with no leftovers.

The craziest recipe was flour pudding. Here’s why: you make kind of a pancake batter, just flour milk and eggs, and you cook it in a bag in a pot of boiling water! Crazy, right?! I didn’t think it would work but it did. You actually smear butter all over the cloth, if you miss any the batter can seep out, then drape the cloth over an empty bowl so you can fill it and then tie it up with string like a tea bag to cook. It was pretty bland but went nicely with the meal. Since we made boiled dinner, the flour pudding bag cooked in the same pot as the ham and veggies.

 Because of modern food and health regulations, OSV can’t serve hearth cooked food to guests. But… if you’re in the area you can sign up for OSV’s hearth cooking programs. If not, some organizations (parks & rec) offer hearth cooking classes, and OSV has a great cook book which includes original “receipts” (1830s term for “recipes”), modern cooking instructions, and understandable hearth cooking instructions. I highly recommend trying this stuff!

More Training

It's Friday! And I have two days off. Everything's going well but it's nice to have a break especially after all the heat. I thought I was getting away from crazy heat and humidity but this past week was just as bad as what I left in Virginia. I guess I'm still better off though because the news was reporting temperature above 100 in VA! Keep cool and drink lots of water everyone!! 

Wednesday we greeted buses again. The staff are very happy to have the access road to museum education open after the tornado. In the afternoon we were trained for camp. I'm both nervous and excited. Camp at Sturbridge is going to be very different from what I'm used to so it's going to take some adjusting but I think it'll be really fun to try something new. Cheri, one of the camp leads, explained the basics of camp to us and what's going to be expected of us but I still feel like I won't really understand everything until I see it all in action. My greatest fear is that I'm just going to be sitting around playing fetch for the teachers which is a possibility I'm getting the impression of from the training. Hopefully that won't be the case though and I'm just nervous about nothing! I think I just need to remind myself that I'm the intern now and not the staff and remember what that means.

Oh and did I mention Cheri in my last post? Cheri's great! You know how some people are social butterflies? Cheri is a social humming bird, she's everywhere and talks a mile a minute! I also met Amanda who is one of the camp leads I'm assigned to assist for a week of archaeology camp. In our first conversation she forced me to eat pudding while asking all about school and my future plans, what a meanie right? :) We've been planning to make layered "dirt" (you know the dessert with chocolate pudding and Oreos etc?

) to show the different strata for the archaeology kids. See what I mean about worried for no reason?

Yesterday (Thursday), was my first day of training for interpretation. I was so excited! Oh, side story... my day started at 5 AM with Heidi telling me that Tim Tam (my cat) had fallen out of a window in the night and was missing. Luckily he hadn't gone far and it only took a few minutes to find him. In the meantime Benny (my other cat) fell out of the same window and was so scared he jumped straight back in! Needless so say, we're now keeping that window shut. Anyway... I was so excited that I couldn't fall back asleep. Stephen had the day off so he drove me to work and I was feeling very cute in my costume. Now for the bad news: I didn't need to be wearing it for training! I felt kind of silly but the good news is only one girl knew that so most of the other girls were in costume too. We spent most of the day in the staff break room/office building so it wasn't too hot for us in costume and when we did go out it was fun to have people asking to take pictures of us! I think it must have been hard to resist a such a big group of pretty girls all in different colored dresses and big crazy bonnets since the staff don't normally walk in groups. 

We learned all about the history of the Freeman farmhouse, the Freeman family and the other people who lived in the house. We learned about life on a farm and the way responsibilities were divided by gender and time of year... We learned a lot! Which brings me to a question: What do you want to read about? Do you want more of the facts and content that I'm learning or more of the type of me stuff I've been writing? So far I haven't felt like I've learned much that would be interesting for everyone to sit and read (not that I'm not earning TONS of interesting info). My current plan is to hold off on lots of history trivia until I'm learning more active kind of stuff like how they cooked etc. For example yesterday I learned about the ways people preserved food to sustain themselves year round. Did you know that root vegetables like carrots have a two year life cycle? In the first year, energy is spent to grow the root. Then the plant kind of hibernates and in the second year the energy stored in the root plus new energy is used to grow the part of the plant above soil and produce seeds. If you pick the plant before it goes into the second year of the cycle and store it in sand in a cellar it will stay crisp and fresh all winter, a heck of a lot longer than it will in a refrigerator! 

Sunday: Hearth cooking training!

Dresses & Dancing!

This morning started again with greeting buses as they arrived to the village. The museum education access road was still closed but should be open again tomorrow.

Then we observed some of the programs the village offers for visiting school groups. First we watched "Grandma's Trunk" which is about the American Revolution. The story is that the performer is going through her grandmother's old trunk in the attic and finds items dating back to the Revolution. A lot of guests come in thinking that Strubridge is a colonial village and really we're about 60 years later. Anyway... the items in the trunk make a timeline of key events before and after the signing of the Declaration like a cone of sugar to represent the Sugar Act and a painting of the men who went to sign the Treaty of Paris ending the war. The kids get to hold the items while the teacher makes a timeline with titles and pictures in the front of the class. It was a really cool way to teach because it hit on a bunch of different learning styles and had lots of repetition. This group of kids also already knew a lot. They were excited about Paul Revere's painting of the Boston Massacre because it's in their textbook.

The next program was an anti-slavery petition. Kids were told about the abolitionist movement in New England in the 1830s and given a petition asking Congress to abolish slavery in Washington D.C, to convince the museum interpretors to sign. The kids learn that slavery was a complicated issue and not just the clear cut wrong we see it as today. For example, interpretors might voice concerns about the economy if slavery is ended. They also learn a little about government at the time. 

In the afternoon we got to watch the last round of studios before learning about costuming kids for summer camp and doing a bit of camp prep-work. 

The best part of the day was joining the volunteer dance group. They practice Monday nights and preform at special events at the Village. The group seemed happy to have us and were all friendly and patient while we learned the dance steps. Tonight we learned four dances. Once you got the hang of them they aren't too bad. Some moves are similar to square dancing and all the dances had short sequences you just repeat over and over. The only tricky part is that for most of them we danced in couples down a line and once you got to the end of the line the steps change slightly and you start going the opposite direction! It was very fun though and I'm looking forward to going back.

If you're in the area I hope you'll come out and visit one day! 

Busy Day!

This morning started out pretty hectically as we were directing buses arriving to OSV. In the aftermath of the tornado the road buses usually take was blocked and part of the main parking lot was being used as a staging area for electric and gas companies to repair the damage in Sturbridge. This meant that we had to sort out directing, unloading, and parking buses in areas not designed to serve this purpose with people not used to performing these tasks. But we managed and everyone arrived in a semi-organized fashion.

Then I got fitted for my costumes!!! The women in costuming, Chris & Sue, are great. Chris picked out a blue plaid dress with a red apron for me to work in at the farm and a pink dress for the school house. I can't wait to bring them home, pictures will be posted immediately that day. :)

I spent the first part of the afternoon at the museum education building. I'm not sure what I was expecting but that certainly wasn't it. The building is big and beautiful. The interior is wood and laid out into pods or stations. around the outside there are craft and game stations, like weaving and stenciling, and in the center there are four kitchens complete with hearths! It's very cool, I'll try my best to get pictures because it's very difficult to explain and I'm not even sure photos would give a real sense of the space. The staff in museum ed were great and seemed excited to meet us, not to mention have some extra hands. After a tour of the space we had a first taste of "troubleshooting" which pretty much meant washing dishes and keeping the kitchens stocked during their sessions. It got a little crazy but the teachers were obviously understanding and worked with us. Even though I'm happy to help it would be nice to actually learn to help with the lessons instead of just cleaning up after them. I'm sure that will be the case once camp starts, here's hoping it'll be sooner but if not there's only two more weeks of school groups and I'll have a few days of interpretation training to break that up. 

By 3:00 the last school group had left and everything was cleaned up so I had two hours to wander the village. It was nice because with the schools gone there were only a few guests left in the village so I got lots of one-on-one time to chat with the staff. I took the opportunity to visit buildings I hadn't been to before and won't be working in this summer. I also made sure to stop at the pottery and get a clay mug (I'm not aloud anything modern-looking when in costume including cups or water bottles). Oh, and one of the staff complemented my handshake. Thanks Blue Ridge Virtual Governor's School & Mrs. J!

The tornado went just past the far end of the village just a few hundred yards from the buildings. It took out a few trees in the orchard but otherwise we are very lucky. You can clearly see a path of fallen/stripped trees cut across the landscape. 

It's been a crazy first week but I think this will be a fantastic summer!

Tours & Tornadoes

Day 2 was the longest day. We finished around 5 just in time to be moved to shelter from a tornado.
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/worcester-area/12004466867524/cmass-town-cleaning-up-after-apparent-tornado/
I'm feeling very lucky and grateful to be okay. Security was great about taking care of us, even bringing us food and bedding to help keep us comfortable overnight. It's very surreal to be back at my sister's watching the news and seeing the damage, some of which was just down the street from where I was. At the time, we took seriously what was happening but I don't think we were scared, I wasn't anyway. We got to shelter and huddled together cracking jokes and telling stories, which I guess helped keep people calm who were feeling scared or nervous. Tornadoes have always been something I was taught to be prepared for but never worried about because the regions I've lived in aren't prone to them. As terrible as all the destruction I've seen is I feel like it's a miracle there were only four deaths. I don't say this to devalue the lost of those four people, but it's really hard to believe there wasn't more loss of life when I see houses laid flat or even flipped upside down.
I guess I should move on to a rundown of my day but I really wanted to express my gratitude and sympathy after  last night.

Yesterday we got to tour OSV's collections not on exhibit which was pretty cool especially because we were with the museum's curator. How  many people ever get to tour a museum with the curator let alone get to wander through storage looking through drawers and shelves? My favorite part was opening a drawer not knowing what I would find inside. It was also cool to hear the curator explain the stories of the people who had owned certain items.
Then we had two hours for lunch and exploring the village. It was a nice chance to meet some of the staff and continue to get to know the other interns. I really can't wait to work at the Freeman Farm! The kitchen garden is huge and I'm excited to learn hearth cooking!
We went over costuming which only made me more excited for my fitting which I'm now assuming is postponed. We also learned all about what a typical day would've been like and how mothers would organize pretty much their whole year considering what they would eat, when they would harvest, preserve, make candles... And of course we learned about the animals! Sturbridge tries to find breeds that at least look or function the way animals would have in the 1830s. For example they raise dual purpose breeds of cows (that means they were both used for milk and beef) which look a lot different from modern cows which have been bred for either milk or beef.
In my last post I mentioned I was a little nervous about making friends since most other interns are staying in lodges in Sturbridge. Apart from the bonding experience we shared last night, I learned about a group that meets to practice historic dance on Monday nights and a group of interns who are planning to get together to knit on Tuesdays, both of which I'm excited to join.
Obviously OSV is closed today and no word yet about tomorrow but I'll keep you posted.
Best wishes to all those who lost their homes and loved ones last night.

First Day!

Yesterday was my first day at Sturbridge and so far so good! I learned all about the history of the museum which was pretty interesting. Apparently it all started with a guy who filled his 45 room mansion with a bunch of stuff he found while antiquing. There's more to it than that obviously but I'll leave the rest for Sturbridge to tell. We also covered customer service and I got to build towers out of blocks (always sit in the front of class!). The other girls are nice (I say girls because there are only 3 boys and I haven't talked to them yet but 66.6% of them are named Matt). Surprisingly I am not the farthest  one from home: two girls are from California! Also, most of the other interns are living in lodges near the museum. I feel this puts me at a disadvantage in the friends/getting to know people dept but I'm happy I'm with my sister and husband and have access to a real kitchen within 50ft. The lodges don't have kitchens apparently, so I think it'll be nice to invite people over for dinner/game night occasionally.
Well, it's time to go. More news later!

Summer at Sturbridge

I'm very excited to being interning at Old Sturbridge Village this summer. I visited the museum for the first time last summer and immediately loved it. My talks with two of the women who I'll be working under have me even more excited. So far they seem genuinely kind as well as passionate about their work. I recieved a very positive impression from both of them and from the interpretors I spoke to during my visits to the musuem. I'm really looking forward to being part of such a positively charged team.
This blog is devoted to my experiences this summer so check back in to see how its going. Orientation/training begins on 5/31 so that will probably be when I start posting.  I'll be interning in two areas: museum education and interpretation. That means on alternating weeks I'll be working with the summer day camp program. The rest of my time will be spent in the village, rotating between the kitchen gardens and school house.
First thing I'm excited about: costume fitting!!! Check back for pictures!