Hello to all of you, I hope you had a pleasant Thanksgiving. Our day was relaxing and enjoyable, as well it should be after the months of preparation that go into it! Plans begin in May when we plant the garden and decide which varieties of squash and pumpkins to plant, the very ones that will grace our table come the holiday season. We had
Delicata squash this year, and oh! what a delicious tasty variety it turned out to be! This is a variety that dates from the 1880's or 90's and will definitely be something that we will plant next year. The pumpkins were a variety called Connecticut Field Pumpkin, a
very old variety that dates back a few hundred years. They make the best pies, a process that begins the day before Thanksgiving when the pumpkin is quartered and baked. The cooked pulp is then scooped out, seasoned, mixed with fresh cream and baked to perfect
doneness. A
real homemade pumpkin pie beats any other kind! Whilst Katie and I were in the kitchen on Wednesday, the men and littler girls were outside butchering the Thanksgiving turkey. It was one that had been raised on our farm, outside in the fresh air and sunshine. We raise Narragansett turkeys, another old, heritage breed that is no longer commercially grown due to their slow growth. Your typical store bought turkey was a confinement raised "broad breasted white" hybrid monstrosity. They reach market weight in less than 6 months, whereas Narragansetts take a year or more. Slow is good. :-) The whole butchering business goes quickly, so quickly that I didn't get pictures and I really did mean to. The ambiance of country life, eh Ken? :-) However, I will describe how we go about it. A lot of folks have a killing cone but we don't, so we use the good, old fashioned chopping block. A piece of twine is tied loosely around the turkey's neck to keep its head stretched out so that it can be killed in one
quick chop, I abhor the thought of torturing anything.
Aleks sights the spot where he wants the ax to fall and thwack! its head is off. I've only ever seen a bird *run* after its head was cut off once, usually they just flop around which is what this one did. They also butchered 3 chickens that day and one of them flopped around so wildly that it ended up in the corn field, much to the amusement of the children. Then the bird is hung by its feet to bleed out, after that it is dunked in the cast iron cauldron of boiling water to loosen the feathers which are then pulled out. After the bird is plucked then it is gutted and immediately thereafter put in a tub of
ice water to cool down. And that's it! About 12 hours later it was in the oven to slowly bake to perfect
yumminess!
Later that evening we played tableaux
vivants. This is an old form of entertainment where people in costume, with or without props, put on a scene. They don't move (so it's unlike charades) or speak and then we guessed what it was they were. For example our first tableaux of the night featured Asa, Abigail and
Elisabethe sitting in the cast iron baby tub.
Elisabethe held a knife, Abby had a rolling pin and Asa held a pewter candle stick. Can you guess what they were? Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub, and who do you think they be? A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, throw them out, knaves all three! Other children did scenes from fairy tales, the pilgrims landing, a scene from
Of Mice and Men, a scene from
Fiddler on the Roof , and even one scene from Bugs Bunny,
lol. We had such a good time and already everybody is planning what they will do for New Years. We finished off the evening by listening to records on the phonograph player. I have a treasure trove of 78's that we play, including a lot of Bing Crosby Christmas carols. There are waltzes that we love and even some FDR speeches if the mood strikes us. The younger set like to wind the handle before placing the needle on the record and they like to discover a new favorite from the box of records that we haven't yet listened to. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day!
Fashion is a funny thing.
I love the peaceful evenings around the stove reading aloud to the children. It's the time set aside to regroup and plan for the coming year, to pore over the seed catalogs and laugh that we ever could have considered Summer to be hot. It affords the opportunity to help the children develop skills that they will need as adults. A time for every season.........
It's about this time every year, after the holidays are over, that the drive to provide for my family really kicks into overdrive. I'm engulfed by the desire to sew and spin and knit, to assure myself that my own are covered and clothed. Mrs. B is knitting a wool undershirt for her baby and I'm enthralled with the idea of handmade wool undershirts, I want to bring forth the knitting needles and knit myself into a frenzy with undershirts streaming into my lap one after the other. Of course then reality rears its ugly head to snidely remind me that I can't knit.
My inepptitude is really starting to mess with my self respect. How can I be a real woman if I can't knit wool undershirts? But seriously, I feel the weight of responsibility upon me in this area (as in so many others) because we've chosen to be responsible on a different level than a lot of other people are. If I don't sew, we go naked. If we don't keep a fire going, we freeze to death. If Katie or I doesn't cook, we starve to death. If the chickens aren't cared for or don't lay, we go without eggs. There isn't a back up readily available to fall back on. And don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have it otherwise. I love not being dependent on the outside world anymore than we are. But it does add a certain urgency to the situation. :-)
So, I'll renew myself and think and plan what needs to be sewn and what can be remade or mended. I'll vow to manage my time better and all the while I'll give thanks, really and truly tears streaming down my face thanks, that I have the family that I do and have been blessed beyond measure with the ability to care for them.
It is made of 1850's reproduction fabric and is unlined. Perfect for the miniature reenactress or history lovin' little girl! If you'd like to enter please leave a comment and mention it on your blog, if you don't have a blog but would still like to enter please drop me a line at: yankeeingenuity1860@yahoo.com
So, the dress is completed and I'm all excited to blog about it and I have to be confounded by owning the junkiest camera on the planet and being the most unphotogenic person alive. :-/ So bear with the stupid faces and lame camera. :-) 
The neckline and armscyes are piped, the next time I make a dress with this pattern I want to make actual cuffs and pipe them. There is a dress in the Victoria and Albert Museum that has sleeves like that and I really love the look. The pattern calls for a skirt width of 100" which seemed really skimpy to me so I made mine around 130", it has a nice amount of "swoosh" but doesn't seem overly wide. I debated about what closures to use and finally opted for hooks and thread loops. I've never made thread loops before but they were easy and really look nice and seem "oh so period", I'm so happy that I chose to go that route! 
I darted the bodice which I think looks better, I can't make a gathered front look well on me, it always looks like I'm wearing something way too big for me. I left the skirt fairly long for this era, but it is cosier for Winter this way and since it is an "everyday" dress that seemed best. I really need a wool flannel petticoat now or even just another regular petticoat or two, multiple petticoats were the standard for this era and I don't have enough to really make the skirt look as it should.
I think this style looks good for modern use and (to me at least) doesn't seem "costumey". I want to tear apart my gathered front gown that I could not make hang right and refashion it into another gown like this one.
Next on the list was a gown for Asa. I saw this gown in Godey's from an 1861 issue. It is a "Plain Morning Slip", what that translates as is a loose gown worn in the morning before donning the more fitted gowns that were fashionable. What it translates for me is: a loose gown that looks comfortable and that he won't easily outgrow!
The gown has 10 one inch tucks across the front and 6 one inch tucks in the back, they are eight inches long and release just above his tummy. I debated using the same style trim on his gown as I had on the girls' dresses but Mr. G liked this trim idea better. It seems so martial!
The fabric is a design from the Colonial Williamsburg Delft collection that I've had for a little while. The skirt is 60" at the hem and buttons up the back with 3 china buttons.
One last picture. He finds everything just hilarious, his smile makes him quite the Lady's Man! :-)
This week he is 9 weeks old and though I don't have a weight for him he now has a 19.5" waist and is 25" long with a head circumference of 16". His blue homespun gown and his 1870's gown still fit, along with his 3 nightgowns, but that's all that he currently has. :-/ I have several of Sarah Jane's baby gowns and I tried a precious little wool one on him for Thanksgiving. It looked so sweet on him but I couldn't hook and eye it up most of the way down the back. He needs another few gowns but so do several of the girls, so I'll have to sew what I can, when I can.
Someday I would like to live in a house with post and beam construction, whether we'll buy an old house or build one that way is still uncertain, but there's no teacher like experience! Mr. G is framing the barn using mortise and tenon construction, so although it's not "post and beam", it's a close cousin. Things are still occasionally built this way, but not very often. Because it's time intensive it has fallen out of common usage in favor of faster methods.
In other family news, we went to Zoar on Saturday to take advantage of the 70+ degree weather where we enjoyed spending some time together hiking on the towpath trail. Zoar is so beautiful, it's one place where I'd actually consider living in town. The above picture was taken on the trail of the 8 oldest: Aleks, Katie, Levi, Micah, Tabitha, Rebekah, Elisabethe, and Abigail. A certain small person, who shall remain nameless, wouldn't behave for the picture. :-) 
