Colors of Autumn

From Julie H., historical interpreter:

We are in the midst of fall here in the Shenandoah Valley! This is a great time for a drive or hike through the mountains, and see the changing colors of the leaves over the valley. We haven't peaked yet, like the northern part of the valley, but we are starting to see fierce reds, oranges, and yellows highlighting our forests down here too.

The Frontier Culture Museum is a great stop if you're hiking through the Appalachian Trail, Skyline Drive, or the Blue Ridge Parkway. The pictures from around here simply don't do the colors justice. Come visit the museum, and see for yourself!
 

Amazing colors! Let's take a walk around the museum, and see the some more. Here is one of the many beautiful trees to greet you as you enter the Old World loop:

The loveliness continues in jolly ole' England:

Between England and Ireland is a pretty little duck pond, and at the bank of one part of the pond sits a massive looming tree. I wish I had a better quality camera on my phone, because the contrast is breath-taking in person:

The Germans have a lovely little apple tree, producing some nice colors:

The Old World loop ends with a deep maroon:

There are some great colors in the New World too. This tree welcomes you in to the new American Indian site:

Settlement remains fairly green. It is surrounded by a lot of pine trees, and the others are just starting to give a slight yellow tint to the leaves, almost reminiscent of early spring! So we continue to the final farms, for some lovely scenes:

Finally, as you make your way back to the visitor center, this fantastic little tree sports some of the mightiest colors of autumn we have to offer here. This is why we all love this season. Here is the full tree from the top of this post, with the brilliant orange leaves.

Oh. And for our West African fans out there... guess who doesn't love autumn??

Poor banana trees. They are trying so hard to hold on as temperatures plummet at night to freezing.

Check out our flickr albums for more photos of fall at the Frontier Culture Museum!

Yam Day - Harvest!

From Brad, historical interpreter:

Yam Day Harvest Day!!! 

This was our big week for our yam experiment here at the museum, as we finally got to harvest our crop to see what we've got. We had mixed success, but we've also got some new ideas to improve next year!

For all of you following our blog over the past few months, place your bets now on which yam plant produced the biggest harvest!

If you bet on Yam 1, then you'll have to get a raincheck. We decided not to harvest that mound in order to save one of our healthy plants to show to visitors and school children. Apologies!  When Yam 1 dies, we will certainly harvest and let you know the results!

Yam 2:

This was our biggest vine in the initial week or two of the blog until it fell to #2 and stayed there until it began wilting from cold. Here you can see what's left before harvest:

And now we finally get to dig it up. Here I am, using my Igbo hoe, or ogu, to dig up the yams, starting with the bottom, outside edge of the mound and slowly working my way inward.

Here's an Igbo equivalent to a pick-ax, which I found easier to break up dirt. You really have to be careful not to go too fast because you can easily break the yams. I tried to remember an old Igbo proverb, but couldn't, and so I kept telling myself this: "Old men never break their yams because they move slow. Young men always break their yams because they're impatient."

Here I am, desperately digging with all the patience I can manage, but I didn't find a single yam!

 

The Twins come next. They've always been healthy, and have fought the frost better than most of the other plants. Here I am taking pride in their longevity.

And then swiftly picking up my digger and breaking open the mound.

 Could it be?

YAMS!!! Well, the beginnings of them anyway. They're not nearly the size they'd be in Africa--generally about the size of a football, these are more like golf balls--but yams nonetheless!

As far as I know, this is a sight that no one else has witnessed in the continental US, full grown or not.

 "Not bad, eh?"

Next up, the Di Ji, or Yam King. This one was the longest vine for the majority of our experiment; let's see if it really is the Yam King!

 First yam found. Rotted. Not very kingly.

 DEFINITELY not kingly.

And then...some yam sprouts off of the original seed planted. We discovered that the new yams typically grow straight down from the seed. Before I knew this, it took me 20 minutes to harvest 1 mound (remember, patience!). Now I can do it in less than 5, which would be useful considering a normal yam farmer would have hundreds if not thousands of these to harvest.

Unfortunately we only found the 3 spuds in the so-called Yam King's mound, so this plant was no match for the tag-team duo of the twins.

Although we didn't get any full-sized yams, I think that just getting yam-spuds is a success in itself, given our comparatively short growing season, low rainfall, and bad soil on the farm (look at previous posts and notice how rocky the soil is! This actually goes back to when the 1850's American farm was located on this site and our landscaping crews graded the topography to match that of the original location for that farmstead. In effect, they removed most, if not all, the topsoil in our garden). Next year, we've got a few ideas floating around to grow real, full-sized yams. We would like to start them earlier next year and decide on a method to transplant them into the mounds without disturbing their roots, because, as you can see in the photo above, they have very long, windy roots. With those good ideas, some fertilizer/compost, and a little luck, we'll be able to grow real African yams in Virginia for the first time in history! 

Chamber of Commerce

From Julie H., historical interpreter:

A week ago, we were the venue for the fantastic Augusta County Chamber of Commerce festival, "Good Times, Tastes, & Traditions." As per the event title, there were tasty foods, excellent music, and traditional craftspeople. Good times were had by all!

If you missed the event, here are some photos from around the museum. What a great day!

Most folks started out in West Africa, and were greeted by tents filled with food, traditional baskets, and these awesome ladies. They were part of an Igbo dance group out of Baltimore, Maryland, and performed traditional women's dances on site. They had some men with them too, who later did traditional men's dances.

In England, there were beer tents, English-themed food, and more vineyards than you could count!

 And of course, little Alfie was a hit!

More beer, food, wine, and crafts in Ireland:

Heading down to Germany next, dozens more tents, with delicious smells of bratwurst, and other authentic German foods. And of course, more beer, wine, and craftspeople!

Here's the scene from in front of the American Indian exhibit:

And finally, everything down in the last two American farms, filled with many more exciting things. Here's our new 1850s American Short Horn cow, Hollyhock, inspecting some of the tents in front of her, one of which had a very tempting hot tub.

Now, we are preparing for two major events this coming weekend. Homeschool Day is this Friday, when we welcome hundreds of homeschoolers to the site, and Oktoberfest is Saturday, October 6th. We can't wait! Please come out for German food, games, and music this weekend!

Cows!

From Julie H., historical interpreter:

This weekend, we are the venue for the very exciting Augusta County Chamber of Commerce festival! In addition to our regular museum farm chores, there are crafstpeople, local ethnic and American food vendors, beer, vineyards, local musicians, and all sorts of neat things set up about the site. We had well over a thousand visitors come out yesterday, and are expecting about as many today.

If you haven't come yet, let me give you another reason to stop by today:

 NEWBORN COWS!

There are two of them, down in our 1850s barn. These little guys are a whopping six days old. One is a full blooded Jersey cow, the other is mostly Jersey. They will eventually be moved across the street to our 1820s farm. So come see the little wobbly fellows, because they don't come much cuter.

Hi!

 In all my years of old timey adventures, I've never had a calf try to nurse off my apron. The other butted in shortly after this photo was taken, also ate my apron, and then tried to lick my camera a couple times too.

Come and see us soon!! They grow up so fast!

Yam Day

From Brad, Historical Interpreter:

YAM DAY!

This week we've been very busy preparing the West African site for the Good Times, Tastes, and Traditions Festival put on by the Greater Augusta Chamber of Commerce. We've been reorganizing a bit to make room for all of the local vendors that will be selling their goods this Friday and Saturday, so don't miss out this rare opportunity!

It's certainly a good thing that our yams are in the twilight of their existence here at the museum, seeing as most of our free time has been devoted to setting up, tearing down, reorganizing, and cleaning for the past few days. Each day the yam vines seem to lose a little more of their green, waxy color, giving way to brown, black, shriveled leaves and stems. We took a few pictures to show you their slow deaths, but we decided to stop the part of the experiment where we measure vine growth. All the vines are stagnant or beginning to shrink while they shrivel.

Here's on of the leaves on Yam 1. This particular plant one of the closest to death in its life cycle. Harvesting coming soon!

This next plant is our former botanical Di Ji. If you don't remember, that means "Yam King", typically awarded to the man with the biggest and fullest yam barn in the community. We've used this term to describe the biggest yam vine in our yam experiment. Oh the seasons of life! The Yam King is dead!

 These three leaves fell off in the process of taking the previous photo. You have to be very, very delicate with them when you're training the stems around the supporting stick. It's pretty tricky.

 ...And finally the twins, although you can only see one of them in this picture. Notice how the vine has begun to turn yellow at the tip and the leaves are dying off. We're getting close to harvest!!

The Celebratory First Fire

From Julie H., historical interpreter:

We're back again to Settlement! Last you saw us, we had daubed up pretty high on the chimney, but hadn't quite finished it yet. When we left off, Andy was still down low enough that I could hand him up globules of mud, while standing on our bench. One rung higher, and I wouldn't be able to reach him. When we started out this past Wednesday morning, we knew that one of us got to be on the ladder. The other would be forced into an uncomfortable and painful position.

As Andy climbs up the ladder, he considers sitting on the roof. But he would have to lean his body too far forward to reach the chimney top. So he sandwiches himself between the house and the chimney. Not comfortable. I climb up and down the ladder to hand him mud, filler sticks, and the wood. Our usual mud stomper isn't there, but another coworker literally jumps in to help.

Our new mud mixer determines that consistency of mud is key, and develops a method of mixing mud together. I won't give away all of his trade secrets, but here is FW making his batch of the "local special."

Hey, what's worse than being caught between a rock and a hard place?

And with that last photo, the chimney is finished! We briefly pause to admire our work, but can barely contain ourselves before dashing inside to celebrate with an appropriate gesture. Andy lights the fire. We've started hundreds upon hundreds of fires at the Frontier Culture Museum, but never with such anticipation, joy, fear, and satisfaction.

 As it starts to catch, a giddy anticipation hangs thick in the air. It is the desperate hope that we aren't going to freeze this winter!

The fire burns, and though it is high 70s outside, we sit around the fire, admiring man's ability to build for himself the most basic of life's necessities: shelter. In an era of modern machines and technology, of computer calculation and laser-guided precision, we can still pick up ax and froe, and use own our body strength to make a home which our ancestors' lives depended upon centuries ago in the wilderness. To us, it is a symbolic celebratory first fire; to our ancestors, it was an essential victory in the name of survival.
Despite the cracks in our daubing and the holes between the shingles of our roof, the fire still spreads a warmth across our humble cabin. (And it didn't catch on fire- a good sign!)

Now, if we can just figure out how to make that front door and keep all that heat in...

We urge you all to come visit us this fall! There are so many other exciting projects around the museum. We'll take a break from Settlement, and in the upcoming posts, we'll check out the thatching in Ireland and see how the flax is doing, see some baking in England, meet some of our animals, check up on our progress with the new American Indian exhibit, and host a grand Oktoberfest in Germany. And don't worry, there'll be plenty of yams too! Until next time.