Friday, October 08, 2010

Not of Colonial Cloth


This morning a bunch of us from our homeschool co-op went on a field trip to Jerusalem Mill
for the kick-off of their Colonial Craftsmen Weekend. (Pictures coming soon.) Watching all that manual labor going on under these sunny skies sure inspired me to come home and put my hand to the plow also. (Well, okay, so it was not exactly a plow. I had no horses, so I took the easy way out and grabbed a hoe.) I also made up a little song about my hoe.

"I'm just a little hoe,
Everywhere I go..."--

Never mind. They don't pay me enough to write songs that good.

The colonial mama could easily work from pre-dawn to after dusk. Not so this mama. I am not the sheep-shearing, fire-stoking, butter-churning type. But it's fun to appreciate the hard work of my forebears.

My back was aching all day, and so I thought that stretching and bending forward to eradicate my weed patch would help. Wrong. It just made me sweaty. But I am only a third of the way finished and need to clean up the mess I've made thus far because I am getting ready for Monday's Autumn Tour of Homes. Once I've done the hard work of weeding, trimming, and pruning, I will go out and treat myself to some new fall mums.

And perhaps I'll use the gold and purple petals of mums to dye some wool to make some cloth for my sofa which my man made by cutting down a tree and tanning some cowhides and nailing them together from iron he forged in the fire stoked by the eldest son who is courting a gal from a northern colony....

Or maybe I'll just darn some folded socks. Or fold some darn socks. I always get that mixed up.

8 comments:

Cindy Swanson said...

Hi Zoanna! I love your name, by the way...and you don't look at all old enough to have a 22-year-old!

I love pens too...in fact, I'm totally incapable of writing with a pencil.

Hope you'll check out my blog when you get a moment!

One More Equals Four said...

Fold some darn socks...I LOVE it! In our house, we need some darning, I usually just leave that to Hanes! :)

I knew nothing about the autumn tour of homes, I'll have to TRY to remember to come back and check yours out!

Have a great weekend!

Amy said...

oh, you make me laugh :)

Rachel Anne said...

LOL - funny girl! As much as I would like to think of myself as having pioneer grit (I'm too far west to relate to colonial times) I'm afraid I love my air conditioning and microwave too much.

And I love deodorant and toothpaste.

I'm looking forward to seeing the tour of homes...what fun!

Anonymous said...

Oh boy, am I glad to be living in this day and age. =p We were at the zoo and they had huts from some village where the goats slept in the room with you!

CindyC said...

Every so often when I think about what people had to do even a century ago just to have food and heat, I am so thankful that God let me live in an era of rotisserie chickens and grocery stores!

Thanks for the invitation to stop by! :)

Zoanna said...

Um, goats ? I don't even like my DOG sleeping in my room. I am very glad to have my modern life.

Zoanna said...

Cindy S, thanks for the kind words. I avoid pencils at all costs; they remind me of math problems.

Rachel, I too like toothpaste and deodorant and am thankful when friends and family take full advantage of them as well. :)

Cindy C, I am quite fond of rotisserie chickens myself.

Amy, I'm glad I make you laugh. Prefer that over making you cry or putting you to sleep.