Frontier Cultural Museum

(Dear reader, in case you hadn’t heard, Steven and I have left our home on Penobscot Bay for a camping trip of our own.  If you’re not interested, page down a few posts and everything will be devoted to Life in Searsport; in the meantime, we’ll be traveling for a while and wanted to keep Bob and our friends updated on our travels.)

We’ve had magnificent days of weather and horrid days of weather…today was cold, windy and rainy…I could have sat in the hotel room all day with a good book…but Steve was fired up and ready to explore.

So we drove to Staunton VA from picturesque Fredrick MD and after a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and dried cranberries (and fresh ground coffee with cream) we found the Frontier Cultural Museum.

We use Trip Adviser for many of our leads when we’re new to an area and the folks that offered an opinion said this was an attraction that shouldn’t be missed…personally I was skeptical about a museum devoted to past farming cultures but Steve was pumped…so in we went…we were the only two people in the museum other than our interpreters for the entire time of our stay…we had a VIP tour

The walking trails encompass several miles and took us through six, authentically reproduced farms with their gardens and animals as part of the experience.   The Virginia Valley was a starting point of many Europeans new life because of its relatively easy access from the port of New York and the fertile land nestled between the mountains.

As it turned out, the cold rain was the perfect backdrop for our visit because one of the missions of the museum is to help visitors understand what motivated Europeans to leave everything they knew and travel to the unknown in search of a better life.  Our first stop was an English Farm in the 1600’s.  This was a relatively wealthy family but the cold, damp, gloomy interior dissipated any fantasies I harbored about a romantic life.    Those who left England came because there was land to be had and trees for the taking…an offense punishable by death in the King’s world of 1600.

The Irish Farmhouse made things even clearer.  They burned peat to stay warm and for cooking…filling the dark, damp home with heavy smoke year ’round.  Life was hard, cold and dreary during the gloomy days.  The Irish weren’t allowed to farm sheep for wool…the king declared that they would grow flax for linen instead…well before the potato famine they were dependent on success of their crops.

But the Germans had things a bit better under control.  Even on the day we visited the farm house was bright and warm.  Their central heating system offered smokefree comfort and the relatively numerous windows provided ample light.  All of the homes were waddle and daub construction but clearly life was better if you resided withing Deutcshland.

The museum showed us how life on the American frontier was brutally challenging but the rewards equaled the demands.  As we left the old world to explore the new world, homes were larger, cooking hearths were generous and comfort was a priority for the generations that followed.    If you have the opportunity, this is a museum not to be missed regardless of age or experience.

English Farm 1600's

American Farm 1800's

Irish Farm 1700’s

German Farm1700's

Black Eyed Peas, Rosemary and Lavendar

If you’re looking for postings about Searsport Shores, please skip over these (there are three years of posts to page through if you’d like…far more applicable to your vacation planning) and the postcards that will be coming up…we’ll be home again in the beginning of January…

Dear Bob,

We made it to Gettysburg after a visit with SIL & BIL in Lee, MA…it’s cold, foggy and different here in PA…we’ll be exploring here for four days.

Miss you!
Astrig & Steve

Thanksgiving at Pike's...very reminiscent of College fare...

We hiked all day through the battlefields of Gettysburg...no crowds today

So many memorials to the Brave

The projects are done for the moment…Steven concedes that he can do the rest in the Spring…so Hatie & Joe from DownEast Fiber Farm in Winterport came to take the goats to the farm…and we’re off on the first vacation adventure we’ve taken together in 17 years…Bob’s staying at the campground to keep an eye on the dominion…exciting or what?

Thanks Hatie and Joe!

It's the December '09 Issue...on newstands now!

The phone’s been unusually busy for the last few weeks…and then we figured out why…there’s a picture of one of our campsites and a mention of us in an article about Waldo County Maine…YIPPEE!

Don’t get me wrong, we really like being part of a more hidden piece of the Maine Coast…but who doesn’t like to see their name in a National Magazine?  If you’re into electronic versions of magazines, you can buy a subscription on the Trailer Life website.

We've always known where to find Waldo...it's over by Brooks

Between you and me, I wish it would get cold and snow because I’m tired of new projects and that tiny little voice that keeps nudging me to take advantage of our unseasonably warm weather (think 50’s, not 70’s).  But alas, it’s still really nice out and this morning Steven was outside working with a crew by 7AM…this time they’re expanding the workshop space underneath Dad’s deck…’cause boys never have enough room for their endeavors

Makin' Hay When the Sun Shines

We got together this morning for pecan Cinnamon rolls and coffee…just to catch up a bit and talk about the months to come…but as always, the subject drifted to camping…and then to “what are we going to do next summer?“  And the 50’s-60’s weekend was born…just like that.

Tentatively slated for July 30-August 1, Searsport Shores Ocean Camping will pull on our poodles skirts, fire up the muscle cars and dance to Rock & Roll Legends and Surf Tunes.  Got ideas?  We need them.  Please come camping for the weekend…Bob promises it will be memorable   More to follow as we figure it out.

The Planning Committee: Steve, Amy and Bob...Golden Oldies?

not as cold as it looks

The Penobscot Bay Watch has been collecting information this fall to establish the importance of the upper Penobscot Bay fish nurseries.   Their blog is one of my “must reads” and one of the only RSS feeds I subscribe to.  Although we’re not able to stay as active as we’d like, we do manage to participate sometimes and we were happy to invite the group to use our beach for their research.

Trained by marine biologists from the University of Maine, the researchers used a 60′, 1/4″ net held on either end by wet suit clad volunteers.  They dragged at the slack tide for a maximum catch.

While they were here they also tested water quality using a marine aquarium water testing kit that used a litmus strip with 4 parameters: nitrate, nitrite, alkalinity, pH, to give approximation readings. Temperature readings of the water were also made.

In spite of the cold and foggy weather, a group from the Bay Watchers came to our shores and netted the waters at low tide and caught several species of fish (juvenile cod, hake, perch, flounder, herring and a few that remain unidentified), shrimp, seastars, crabs and sea urchins.  Click here for the complete photo gallery.

Part of the fun of doing the tree work is smelling the fresh wood chips and burning the brush at the beach…last night the stars were out, the breezes were calm, a few good friends gathered and we drank red wine while the pine branches crackled…might not be the glamor of Desperate Housewives et.al. …but it’s all good to me

Country living at its best

We’ve been enjoying unusually warm, calm days here on Penobscot Bay…so I brought my spinning to the seashore yesterday and spent several hours listening to the gulls scream, the young male loons call and watching the seals bob up and down in the Bay.  I tried to capture them in a photo for you but my very best efforts only gave me tiny black dots on the top of the water…definitely not worth posting…but my wool, that’s another story!  If you’d like to see more of this sort of picture, check out this Fiber College post.

The only thing lacking is a good cup of coffee

While I’ve been enjoying spinning, Steven has been clearing out the old apple orchard with Mike on the Northwest corner of the campground.

It seems that someone planted apple trees and dug berms to channel the run off during hard rains.  Clearly the trees were planted in rows and cared for once-upon-a-time but now many have fallen over and grown new trunks.  During the next few years we’ll prune them back to life for the pleasure of walking under the apple blossoms in the spring and having apples to feed the goats and deer during the winter.

This year wasn’t a good year for apples in anyone’s orchard so we’ll need to wait and see what kinds we have…hopefully some good, old-fashioned baking apples.

There are about 10 trees in the old orchard

Since we’ve been back from the Berkshires, Steven’s been working on the grounds as much as possible…you know you live in Maine when over the course of the week you work outside in snow, sleet and 60 degree sunshine within the time it takes to finish your chores.  I only went outside to take pictures when the sun was out…gray skies and cold rain mean I’m inside cooking soups and playing with wool.

November Men's Work