Today was a good day to pretty much do nothing. Granted, I did actually get up, ate breakfast, lunch and even dinner, but there was no real effort made to do anything that would be considered 'constructive'. Though why anyone who is retired would ever worry about that anyway is beyond me. Instead I spent the morning doing my regular routine of breakfast, comics, email and the crossword puzzle before hitting the couch for a couple of hours of book reading followed by a short nap.

    After lunch, soup and a sandwich I got the bike out of the truck, pumped up the tires, filled a couple of water bottles and took off on a nice exploration of the park here where I'm camped. It is huge by any measure and it did mean doing a little highway riding in order to get to other roadways. Still it was awfully fun to be out on a gorgeous spring day. Clear blue sky, a temp around the mid 70's and hardly any humidity. It was a fun couple of hours even if I am now suffering from a bad case of saddle soreness. A couple Advil and staying off the bike for the next couple of days ought to help with that.

    Will be packing up and moving on early tomorrow. It will only be 150 +/- miles or so to Camp Seratoma, but it will take me a good 3-4 hours to get there because of all the tight roadways. The dance will start tomorrow night at 8:00 like usual, but I need to be there a bit early to see about finding a new place to park Esmerelda. A friend of mine, Cindy, emailed me a bit ago with some new information about a whole parking lot I knew nothing about last year. It would be so nice to have a place to park there close to the dance, as last year I ended up camping off site. Even though it was only a couple of miles away it still meant having to give up on most of the after dance events. Maybe this year I'll be in a position to stay and listen to some music and talk to a few more friends.

   I decided to start posting photo's again tonight as I get back into the swing of things. I am re posting the first 24 pictures in this set as it has been so long since I first posted them that adding new photo's from the same group would no longer make any sense. So here are the first batch of 24 with their original comments as well as a whole bunch of new ones. There will still be a couple more postings from this group but it may be a couple of days before those are ready to go. In the mean time enjoy these.

Henricus Historical Park near Richmond Virginia - March 2013




View from the front gate of Henricus Fort the 2nd European settlement in the 'New World'. Named after the son of King James I of England it was founded in 1611 when over 300 men and boys came up the James River nearly 80 miles from the first U.S. European settlement, Jamestown. Built on an ox-bow of the river they built the first palisade across the 'neck' of land while under attack from the native Powhatan tribe.



This would of been the main guard shed. Meant to house as many as 8-10 men it was built, (this is a re-creation, as are all of the buildings), of hand hewn wooden posts and beams with the posts set directly into the earth. The spaces between the posts was then filled in with 'wattle and daub', interwoven wood strips with an adobe like material applied to them. Add a thatched roof out of native reeds and you had a pretty cozy house. At least until the snow fell anyway.



I took this photo mostly because of the arrow quiver which I noticed was made out of native reeds set in a tube shape and bound with strips of leather. I thought it looked not only serviceable but rather elegant too.



The inside of the guard shack showing one of the bunks and the fireplace. Made out of wattle and daub also, it was interesting to note how wide and deep it was and how this size narrowed only a little bit as it rose above the floor. This had to be a real heat loser in the winter time, but maybe they were tougher back then. Note the cylindrical objects in the lower right.... these held individual charges for the men's muskets. Each would hold a bullet, cloth patch and enough powder for one charge.



A view of the other end of the cabin. With 8-10 men living here it often meant 'hot bunking', where the guys coming off duty would take the bed of the next guy going on duty. I guess it's one way to have a warm bed when you need it.

A piece of metal in the shape of one of the soldiers armoured breast plates. It shows the effects of being shot at various distances with a standard 52 cal. round ball. In no case did the ball actually pass through, but it still would of hurt like crazy. Guess it's better than being dead.

A close up view of the thatching used on many of the roofs.



One last view of the guard building.

The blacksmith shop where all things metal were either created or repaired. Another neat old post and beam constructed building.

Very 'rough' carpentry in all of the buildings, but still good enough to do what they are meant to do and still stand up to the elements reasonably well. Here we see several different mortise and tenon joints and the wooden pegs that joined them together.



On the other side of the road is the carpentry shop where today the carpenter was building a foot operated treadle lathe. It always astounds me what you can build given a few basic tools, some wood and a lot of time.



A little patch of forget-me-nots.



A reproduction of a Plantation House, this would of been typical of many homes around 1618 for most Virginians. Most of the Gentry and Yeoman would of been growing Spanish Tobacco as a cash crop. In addition there would of been large kitchen and herb gardens for each family. Herbs would of been used not only as seasonings for food but also for medicinal properties as well as a source for fragrances and dyes.

Inside the house would be the main room with the large fireplace. Today there was a pot of soup on for lunch as well as a dutch oven filled with cornbread. I found out from Melinda that one of the reasons for the large fireplace chimney was so that whole hams and other hunks of meat could be hung inside and smoked while the daily routine was accomplished.

One last look at the yeoman cottage and the 2-seater outhouse along side. Oh how I remember the one my family had until I turned 6 and moved to Denver and civilization.

One of the many barns on the place. This one was used in multiple ways including as a drying shed for tobacco leaves.

I kind of fell in love with this little handmade feeding trough. A couple roughed out boards for the sides and bottom and 4 legs from some type of oak tree with the bark shaved off of them and tenoned into the bottom 2"x bottom boards.

Inside the barn you can see some of the tobacco crop still hung on the rafters to dry over the winter. Another example of a nice post and beam constructed building.

Looking at the other end of the barn and showing some of the rafters and rafter ties and the joints binding them altogether.

Just something about this pile of stuff appealed to me. I love the handmade ladder with it's let-in rungs and thick members. I also like the little 3-legged feeding trough with legs that appears to be carved out of one large piece of a tree trunk.

Some hay storage, drying tobacco and farm implements.

Some home made water tight wooden barrels. Not having much access to metal, except for the little bit they had brought with them, they had to improvise with materials at hand. I was surprised to see the wooden lathes holding the ends of the barrels together. It evidently worked though.

Looking at the other end of the barn you can see one of the goats, Dolly, laying down in her feed trough. The other one, Grasshopper, was there too and both were very friendly.

The family pig, Buttercup. Though she looks a lot like a pot bellied pig, she is actually an old world breed like ones they would of been raising during that period in time. Not only would she have much fattier, and tastier, meat than pigs these days, she would of had a large quantity of lard which would of been useful in many things including; baking goods, soap and candle making and as a lubricant, among other things. She would of also been able to forage better than many of the breeds grown now.