Home School Village- How to Serve Our Community

Over at the Home School Village the topic this week is: do you involve your children in local community service / outreach projects?


Homeschooling opens so many opportunities for service. Our personal favorite service is to volunteer Fridays at Pioneer Farms, a local living-history museum. We dress up in reenactment clothing and host a cabin for the day. While we are at the cabin, we clean the grounds to make it tidy and welcoming. 

When visitors arrive at the cabin, we give a tour and explain the history of the building. We also teach them about life in the 1840's and demonstrate how to do activities such as laundry, cleaning and carding cotton from the field, spinning wool into yarn, playing marbles, cooking over an outdoor hearth, etc. 

We bring a lunch of rolls, meat, cheeses, fruits, and lemon cookies so we can spend an entire day there. When there are no visitors, we embroider samplers or read aloud together from period-appropriate books such as Little House on the Prairie or Indian Summer. 


My children love playing in the woods behind the cabin, and I love the time away from telephones, computers, and doorbells. It's so peaceful on the grounds, and as an added bonus it's a great educational experience for my children. They get to learn about history in a hands-on kinetic way. 


There is more service we did that I had kept to myself in the past because the scriptures say not to boast of our service. I am only sharing it here in the hopes that it may give you ideas for your own acts of service. 


We had an elderly neighbor who lived alone. We took her a nice dinner every Sunday so she would have a nice meal at least once a week. We'd stay for an hour and help with any household task she needed to have done, since she had Multiple Sclerosis and couldn't move very well. We mopped floors, changed light bulbs, fetched Christmas decor from the attic, fetched kitchen supplies from the top cabinets, helped set up her computer and Internet, and gave her foot rubs when she was ill. It was such a wonderful experience to serve this woman. We served her for over a year, and the only Sunday dinner we missed was when we were on a family vacation.   I felt like this was true service, to seek out and serve the lonely one. Isn't that what our Savior would do? 


The Lord tells us to serve Him with our might, mind, and strength. I wondered how to use my talents in serving the Lord. I am a face painter....and it seemed difficult to find a way to use that in service. I prayed for inspiration, and the answer came. I made a sign saying that %90 of all payments I received would go to Humanitarian Services. I put this up on my booth at the largest festival of the year. It was a great way to raise a large quantity of money for a good cause. I also offered that day to paint anyone who couldn't afford to be painted, since large families often couldn't cover the expense of having all their children get a painting. After painting for 8 hours, I had over $700 to donate. This is where the money went:

Cooking on a hearth

Last weekend my sister and I learned how to do hearth-side cooking at Pioneer Farms.

The cabin we volunteer in has an outdoor kitchen, with only a stone hearth to cook on. You can see the 'kitchen' behind me, it's the roofed structure on the right. Can you imagine cooking in inclement weather?! Even the kitchen table is outside...it would be so hard to keep the food clean...imagine chopping veggies on a windy day. Yikes!

I was a bit disappointed at first, only because it seemed much easier and sophisticated to cook on the big cast iron stoves in the other cabins. Our little cabin is the only one on the farm with a hearth kitchen. This class helped me appreciate what an ideal kitchen it really is! I wouldn't mind having one in my own backyard.

 We also learned how to cook on a cast iron stove.  Cooking on the hearth is SO much easier than working with the iron stoves. I had NO IDEA that cooking on cast irons stoves was so labor-intensive. The stove requires a one hour preparation period and a one hour shut down period, and it must be waxed every time it's used, and 'blacked' every week. All for a loaf of bread? Yikes. No wonder people hired full-time cooks. Preparing a simple dinner would take at least 3-4 hours every day!

During the class the students were unanimous in thinking the hearth was much easier to cook on, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm looking forward to getting more experience with it. It's just fascinating to me to learn how our ancestors lived. It sure gives me a deep appreciation for how easy it is to cook on a 'modern' stove with gas burners. There's no need to feed the fire and tend it constantly. Just CLICK and the fire is ready. No ashes to deal with, and no cast iron utensils to lift.

After the class we explored the premises. I love the wooded path near the Tonkawa Indian camp. It's so beautiful and peaceful. This is my favorite spot in the farm.

Historical dress done!

I finished sewing my 1860's dress for the Pioneer Farm.

I had put it off for weeks. Why? There's 3 rows of tucks along the hem of the skirt. They call it fashion. I call it tedious folding and ironing and sewing. I really didn't want to do it, so the project has been sitting in my kitchen for 3 weeks. I finally drove myself back to it again just so I could put everything away and reclaim some space.  The button-hole function doesn't work on my sewing machine, so I needed to sew them all by hand.

It's really not too bad, and it was interesting to learn how to do it. Speaking of button holes, did you know that Laura Ingalls Wilder was a seamstress when she was older, and she could sew 60 buttonholes an hour? That's one a minute! Mine took me about 10 minutes per hole. When I started cutting this pattern out, I intentionally made it a size bigger, because I wanted it to be airy in the sumer heat.The first time I put it on, it wasn't even close to fitting my torso. I panicked a bit. Did I do the wrong seam allowances on the entire dress? What was I to do? After a bit of worrying, I realized my mistake. I had meticulously picked a historically accurate pattern. I had forgotten that meant I had to wear a corset to fit in it. Blast.
So much for being airy.

 I marched upstairs to put on a corset (I have one for a Jane Austen costume) and suddenly the pioneer dress fit and had lots of extra space around my body. (Just ignore the modern hairstyle and glasses....I really didn't want to redo my hair just for a quick picture. Maybe next time....)

I had purchased the fabric on clearance for a total of $20, the pattern was on sale for a dollar, and the extra interfacing and buttons totaled around $5 so there's a grand total of $26.

Fabric

Okay, I get irrationally excited over fabric. Skip this post if you don't care about it. Here are some of the fabrics I'm working with lately...

This is my favorite one. I plan to use it to make Sarah a late Colonial-era ball gown. Think of Felicity from the American Girls books....she has a similar pattern on her dress on the cover of the first book. The total cost for this ball gown will likely be $20.

These are all wool blends and suitings for waistcoats. Waistcoats look like a vest. Nathan and the boys will wear these, and these are intended to be the 'working' vests, so they have muted colors and plain patterns. In the rare occasion that we would do a ball or other special occasion, Nathan would wear a silk waistcoat, and paisley patterns were very popular during the time we reenact, so he'd likely have a bright paisley. (Isn't that weird to think about?)

This is the fabric for my own dress. It was on clearance at the fabric store, so the entire dress costs only $20. Not bad!

Sarah is always very hot and hates wearing clothing that restricts the air flow around her body. She hates pants and literally wears skirts everyday. I really liked some fabrics on sale at the store, so I bought them and made a couple play dresses for this summer. The dress is very breathable and perfect for hot Texas summers.

Historic clothing updates

After making Sarah a dress, chemise, pantaloons, apron, and bonnet; and making the boys and Nathan all shirts and pants, I'm finally starting my own 1860's dress. I started cutting the fabric today and the pattern is much more difficult than anything I've tried before. I'm feeling intimidated by it, but luckily I just discovered that one of my friends is an amazing seamstress (she made her own wedding dress! Wow!). I'm planning on calling her more than once throughout the duration of this project.

Today Nathan and I went to the fabric store and discovered that the discounted fabric was even additionally discounted. Happy luck! We went through the stacks of fabric until we found wool blends suitable for waistcoats for Nathan and the boys, and a beautiful pattern for a formal gown for Sarah (I'm thinking along the lines of late 1700's for this gown), and some homespun for a work-day pinafore for Sarah. The prices were only $1-$3 per yard! That means Sarah's ball gown would only cost $12. I'm so excited!

I'll post pictures of the progress when it becomes more interesting...piles of fabric aren't very interesting to any one except me. BUT, the fabric looks SO neat (especially Sarah's). The menfolk are looking forward to having their own waistcoats. So far we've been borrowing them from the custome shed at the farm. From what I gleaned in our history research, men would not be seen in public without a waistcoat, working men and boys included. It does a lot to make them look like gentlemen. I love it!

Pioneer Farms

I remembered to bring the camera with me into the farm this past week, so here are some images of our most recent trip to Pioneer Farms. This is the beautiful peaceful walk we go down in order to reach the homestead site where we volunteer. I love walking down this road!

Here is the view of the Kruger cabin, where we spend the rest of the afternoon. It's a one-room homesteading cabin that housed a family with 13 children!

The covered outdoor area is actually the kitchen. There is no fireplace in the cabin. The table in the yard is the kitchen table where food is prepped, then it would cook over the fire pit.  I can't imagine trying to cook in windy weather or a storm.

The children were delighted to play with marbles this week. We bought a large bag of assorted marbles for us to bring each time. They had a great time organizing them by colors and counting them. Sarah pretended she was a blind person who needed to use marbles for solving math problems. I brought needlework to work on, so I sat in an antique rocking chair and sewed while I watched them play upon the floor of the cabin. It was amazingly happy and peaceful with the cabin doors open, a cool breeze blowing over us, the birds singing right outside our door, and the children laughing on the floor. I realize life wasn't this romanticized in the 1860's (with all the hard manual labor they did each day), but I have loved these sweet little moments. 

Once again we had no water on the site, so Matthew took initiative to haul water this week. I was quite impressed with him. It's a very heavy pot and a long way to walk.

It's a long walk to the water supply, but it's a beautiful walk shaded by trees. I loved hearing the birds sing as the children skipped along the path. Daniel has such an affinity for sticks, so he promptly 'adopted' one as we walked down the road.

This is Matthew running down the lane to the water shed. I love the setting! It's so lovely! We had butterflies crossing our path several times.

On the way back, Matthew collected sticks for whittling with Nathan. They sat on the porch together whittling for some time. Matt really loved it!

Nathan started working in the blacksmith shop today. The shop is quite a walk from the homestead site, so we didn't see him the rest of the afternoon, but we delighted in hearing the hammer striking metal. The sharp 'pangs' could be heard echoing across the pasture. He learned how to make a knife today, and we're looking forward to learning more.

The children loved playing treasure hunt games, where I'd give them something to hunt for. I send them to find 5 different colors of blossoms in the forest behind the house, or 10 different types of leaves in the yard. This is them running back to the cabin from the woods. What a great backyard to play in!

 For lunch we had packed 2 dozen wheat rolls, cheese slices, meat, fruit, and lemon cookies. It worked out really well. Sarah and Matthew enjoyed eating on the front porch and chatting.

Here are some other candid moments I caught on film (when there weren't any visitors who would see our modern camera!) I didn't get many shots of the interior of the cabin, but it is pleasant and cozy inside. The children had more fun this week than they did last week. Matthew didn't want to go home when we left (we had even been there for 5 hours!). He begged us to stay, so I am content in knowing that this was a good choice for creating family memories in unique wholesome recreation.

Spinning wool

Recently a friend of mine agreed to teach us how to spin wool. We took a family field trip to the Harris home, where she gave us a tour of her massive wool collection, ranging from sources such as llama, alpaca, sheep, and even baby camel fur. She had made wooden drop spindles for us to practice on and take home. Spinning with a drop spindle is tricky, but very interesting.  Deana sent us home with a bag of wool in a couple different colors so we could practice the new skills.

Sarah loved her spindle very much and I caught her up late at night, spinning wool in bed. As soon as her alarm went off the next morning, Sarah immediately picked up the spindle and worked some more. Daniel was also surprisingly diligent in trying to spin wool, even though he didn't stand a chance at actually making useful yarn with his pudgy tiny fingers and uncoordinated muscles.

After teaching us how to spin by hand, Deana showed us her new spinning wheel. It was so delightful to learn how it worked; I've always wondered how to spin on a wheel. She very patiently taught Sarah and Matthew how to do it, and gave them each a turn on it. Matthew loved working the foot treadle. I was eager for my turn, and was abashed to discover it was much harder than I thought. I couldn't even keep the wheel going steadily in one direction; it kept turning back on itself as I focused on working with the wool in my fingers.  It was still very interesting, and we had a good laugh over my early attempts to spin.

Next she showed me her wooden table loom. It was fascinating to work on. I can't imagine being a housewife hundreds of years ago and making the fabric from raw wool. It boggles my mind to think about how many hours it takes to spin the wool and weave the fabric. It would be so hard to actually cut the roll of fabric into a pattern for clothing. Even then the work is only half done. Hand-stitching the clothing would take days to make a complete outfit. I've hand-stitched a lot of things for our reenactment costumes, and I can't imagine doing it for every article of clothing. I'm so immensley thankful for our ancestors and the toil they undertook as a matter of course.

Sarah's finished pioneer reenactment costume

I finished this weeks ago, but forgot to upload a picture. This is what Sarah wears to the historical reenactments at Pioneer Farm. The pattern closely resemble period-appropriate style. There are growth tucks along the hems on the dress and pantaloons, so she could wear the same dress until she was 12 and theoretically it would still fit, since you would just unpick a growth tuck and it would add 3 inches to the length of the dress.

I sewed pants with drawstring waistlines for the little boys out of dark brown linen, and remade a couple shirts to change the collars to period styles. It's been so much fun watching everyone dress up!

I still need to sew Nathan a waistcoat and I still need my dress to be made. I have the fabric for my dress, but I haven't had the time to sew it yet. I've been trying to get finished with a plethora of other priorities. Until then, I'm borrowing costumes from the farm. Unfortunately today the only dress that fit was a flannel one. It was much too hot by the afternoon!  I'm motivated again to bump the dress towards the top of my priority list.

Pioneer Farms

We spent this past Saturday volunteering at the Pioneer Farms in Austin. I was so excited to have this family day out in the sunshine, away from phones and computers.

The site we hosted today was a one-room homesteading cabin in a clearing of the woods. It's removed from the village and the other farms, so it's very quiet and relatively isolated.  I really enjoyed learning the history behind the structure and the details of daily life.

Unluckily, my camera was left behind in the van, so all I have from the day are mental snapshots. I tried to soak up the images and create memories of my favorite moments. Here are some of the things I took away from the day:

Sarah was very eager to show visitors how to wash clothing on a washboard in a metal tub of water using homemade soap. She did such a great job teaching the children how to do it. She'd run inside the cabin and fetch more clothing to clean whenever she spied visitors coming down the dirt road. She also fetched the cast-iron iron from the back of the cabin and showed them how to press the clothing. This is such a difference from her usually introverted personality. It was fun to watch her blossom!

Daniel observed Sarah washing the clothes and tried (very eagerly) to apply what he learned. He ran in the cabin and fetched a dirty tin plate. He excitedly rubbed it with soap and dutifully began rubbing the plate against the washboard! We all had a hearty laugh. This snapshot I hope to always remember.

Matthew really loved carding cotton. We had a basket full of cotton pods and we'd pluck out the seeds and comb the cotton. Matthew kept one of his carded sheets of cotton to add to his 'nature' collection at home.

I loved watching Matthew and Daniel play marbles on the wooden cabin floor.

I loved watching Matthew and Daniel play with wooden blocks on the cabin porch, spelling words and building walls.

Sarah loved playing with the wooden plates, tin cups, crockery jugs, and cast iron pots to make pretend food out of water, leaves, and fireplace ashes. She also  loved washing the dishes when I explained the ashes and water are caustic when they are mixed, and shouldn't be placed in wooden containers.

I enjoyed walking through the quiet woods behind the cabin with our children, listening to the birds above us and the wind in the trees. We did a hunt for different blossoms and enjoyed looking at God's beautiful creations.

Daniel loves playing with sticks, so he was very excited to find a ready supply of sticks on the ground anywhere he went. He performed enthusiastic sword fights with the support beams that held up the porch roof. He was winning until Daddy intervened and launched the wooden sword to the woodpile.

We had no running water on our homestead site, so the boys carried a large metal pot with me as we walked through the woods to the Tonkawa Indian camp, where there was running water in a supplies shed. We filled the pot and carried it back, discussing the blessing we have of sinks and showers in our real modern-day  home. It was a blessing to be reminded of the things that bless our daily lives.

Nathan gathered the children under a grove of trees and taught them how to whittle. The children all scoured the woods for perfect sticks to whittle.  I loved the image of them sitting in a circle on the grass learning something new together. I could hear them laughing and talking from my perch in the rocking chair on the porch. This was one of my favorite mental snapshots. Matthew kept his whittled stick to add to his treasures at home.

I loved watching our children run along the dirt roads, Sarah's braids dancing in the air and  the boys laughing as they raced each other.

I love period clothing, so just the image of everyone wearing old fashioned clothes made my heart sing. I think men are immeasurably more attractive when they look like a real gentleman. Nathan looked great in his costume. It was also so fun to see Sarah in a 1860's dress with pantaloons, apron, bonnet, and black boots. I loved it!

On our way out of the village, we stopped at the store and let the children have 50 cents to spend. The boys picked candy sticks and Sarah picked a collection of pretty marbles.

Next Saturday Nathan is working as an apprentice in the blacksmith shop, and we're excited about that. I am determined to remember my camera so I can capture these moments better. We are hoping to go to the farm every Saturday. We'll see how this new adventure goes.

Sarah's pantaloons and shift

 

 

Nevermind the fact that this is completely modest, Sarah was mortified when she learned that I wanted a picture of this. Just the fact that it's considered undergarments was enough to pique her modesty. I won't tell her I posted it online. I just wanted to show you what it looks like so far, and you wouldn't see these items under her dress anyway, so this is the only way for you to see what we've been creating. The pattern for the shift is so easy and so comfortable to wear. Sarah and I are planning on making some lightweight summer dresses for her using the same pattern. She never ever wears pants and this would be a perfect play dress for the heat of summer. Just imagine it in bright colorful patterns. Fun!