Corn Huskin'

This is how we do a Saturday when daddy is workin'. We have a corn huskin' race. Just like they would do back in the 1800's. Children would often partake in rituals like this. Next we are going to shell peas.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Expedition

Maggie has become a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and "Little House on the Prairie" TV show. She likes horses, prairie dresses, bonnets, wagons and being barefeet in warm weather. She likes calling Jimmy and I, "Pa" and "Ma". She is amazing and is turning 5 tomorrow. This weekend the whole family went to a Laura Ingalls Wilder expedition and did some fun stuff. We beat mattresses, wrote with a quill, used a washboard and saw some of Laura's stuff. Maggie got her fisrt horse dawn wagon ride with her daddy as her companion. She had fun. Daddy bought her a prairie dress and bonnet as I am still in the process of handsewing her one.

When I was watching her run and play, ride the wagon with her dad, I got teary eyed. She is living my childhood dream and it's because she likes it.

Hezzie in a coonskin cap.

Maggie washing clothes.


Waylon runing in some grass.

Joaquin in a coonskin cap.

Dexter in a coonskin cap.

Paper Chains/ Paper Garlands

These were made in the 1800's as decoration for celebratios of all kinds. We made some blue and red ones today to celebrate Memorial Day. The picture is from google images. (I really need a camera)

Pretzel Log Cabin

We made something similar to what you see at the left. We used pretzel sticks and peanut butter. :)

I am seriously thinking of using the directions on kaboose. Click on picture for those directions.

Behold our bounty

We have been studying, I promise. We have been waiting on some key items for our Lewis and Clark adventure. Oh, how nice it was after a along day to come home and the UPS guy met us with with our brown package. I haved left two items out as they are birthday presents for Maggie.

I ordered a Spencerian Copybook for me as well as the two older kids. I am hoping for a camera soon so I can update some good pictures.

Food

Today my mom took me grocery shopping. We are incorporating more of the food common on the frontier/prairie into our everyday food. It has been a great experience so far. The kids have responded well so far and so has Jimmy. Here is a short list of some of the things we purchased today.

• 4 lbs. Navy Beans


• 4 lbs. Yellow Cornmeal


• 10 lbs Sugar


• 20 lbs Flour


• 2 lbs Salt Pork


• 5 lbs Onions

I know in actuality the quantaties of the time may have been a lot smaller due to the finances not always being strong in some families.

Here are a couple of links for some recipes of the time.

19th Century American Foodways

Food from the Mormon Trail

Random Fact: Up until the 19th Century most children did not eat at the table with their parents, they waited for scraps. During this time children became welcomed at the table and were even given chairs or benches which to sit on at the table.

Common Food Prayer

Bless O Lord, this food to our use,And us to thy loving service;And make us ever mindful of the needs of others,For Jesus' sake. Amen.

Corn Meal : Corn Meal Mush

Corn meal was a staple in the homes of the families of the plains. It was even a staple of food during the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Corn meal during the 1800's was cooked in cast iron cookware.

We are experimenting with cornmeal recipes and will shae them as we find and use them. All food recipes we are currently trying out are cooked in cast iron unless otherwise stated.

CORN MEAL MUSH

2 c. corn meal

7 c. water

1 tbsp. salt
Mix the corn meal in 2 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil the remaining water and salt. Add the corn meal slurry to the boiling water. Cook slowly until thick, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve as a hot cereal with brown sugar, butter and milk.

May 13,1846

President Polk declares war on Mexico
On May 13, 1846, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk's request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.
Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico in 1836. But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted negotiations with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Treaty of Annexation. The treaty was defeated by a wide margin in the Senate because it would upset the slave state/free state balance between North and South and risked war with Mexico, which had broken off relations with the United States. But shortly before leaving office and with the support of President-elect Polk, Tyler managed to get the joint resolution passed on March 1, 1845. Texas was admitted to the union on December 29.While Mexico didn't follow through with its threat to declare war, relations between the two nations remained tense over border disputes, and in July 1845, President Polk ordered troops into disputed lands that lay between the Neuces and Rio Grande rivers. In November, Polk sent the diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to seek boundary adjustments in return for the U.S. government’s settlement of the claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico and also to make an offer to purchase California and New Mexico. After the mission failed, the U.S. army under Gen. Zachary Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the river that the state of Texas claimed as its southern boundary.
Mexico, claiming that the boundary was the Nueces River to the northeast of the Rio Grande, considered the advance of Taylor's army an act of aggression and in April 1846 sent troops across the Rio Grande. Polk, in turn, declared the Mexican advance to be an invasion of U.S. soil, and on May 11, 1846, asked Congress to declare war on Mexico, which it did two days later.
After nearly two years of fighting, peace was established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848. The Rio Grande was made the southern boundary of Texas, and California and New Mexico were ceded to the United States. In return, the United States paid Mexico the sum of $15 million and agreed to settle all claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico.

Texas Map of the Mexican War

Independant Indians and the Mexican War

Lewis and Clark head off

A party of 11 hands start to the Pacific Ocean. August 31, 1803 is when they left. They left from east side of the Mississippi across from the mouth of the Missouri river.

~Joaquin

Thomas Jefferson, then president of the United States, assigned Merriweather Lewis to to be leader of the expidetion. Lewis has choice of a partner and men. He chose as his partner William Clark. Lewis and Clark grew up together.

~Dexter

May 12, 1832

May 12, 1832
Fur trader William Sublette heads west
The fur trader William Sublette leads a pack train out of Independence, Missouri, heading west for a disastrous rendezvous at Pierre's Hole, Idaho.
William Sublette was the eldest of five brothers who were all associated with the fur trade. Sometime between 1816 and 1817, his parents moved their large family west from Kentucky to the frontier country of Missouri Territory. His father ran a tavern in present-day St. Charles, but he died in 1823 when Sublette was 24 years old. The following year, Sublette joined William Ashley's second fur-trading expedition up the Missouri River.
Sublette quickly learned that fur trading was a dangerous occupation. Arikara Indians attacked Ashley's party of traders and killed several men, wounded others, and stole many of their supplies. Luckily, Sublette managed to escape injury. The next autumn, he returned to the area under the leadership of the famous mountain man Jedediah Smith. Hoping to avoid Indian attacks by breaking away from the usual river routes, Smith led his small party overland on horseback into the northern Rocky Mountains, where they blazed important new trails and rediscovered the famous South Pass.
By 1826, Sublette was an experienced mountain man and one of the few men with intimate knowledge of the northern Rockies. He and several other mountain men purchased Ashley's fur trading company and helped perfect the "rendezvous," a system in which independent trappers gathered at a designated spot each summer to trade their furs in exchange for money and supplies. After four years, Sublette sold his interest in the business to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, but he continued to be the major source of supplies purchased by trappers at the rendezvous.
On this day in 1832, Sublette departed for a rendezvous scheduled to occur that summer at Pierre's Hole, a valley in the Grand Teton Mountains. Sublette arrived at the rendezvous point in June and he successfully traded his supplies for furs and enjoyed a reunion with his brother Milton. As the rendezvous broke up on July 17, Sublette's brother left, leading a party of trappers toward the Snake River. They had gone seven miles when they encountered a band of Gros Ventres Indians. Foolishly, one of the trappers shot a Gros Ventres chief, and a battle erupted.
Alerted by a messenger, Sublette and about 200 other trappers soon arrived and joined the battle. Recognizing that the trappers outnumbered the Gros Ventres by about seven to one, Sublette decided the mountain men should attack. The Gros Ventres, however, were well entrenched and were tenacious fighters. By nightfall, they had killed 32 of the trappers and lost 26 of their own men. Sublette was wounded, though not seriously, and during the night, he and the other surviving trappers retreated. When they returned the next day, the Gros Ventres were gone.
Sublette continued to work in the risky fur trade for a few more years, but he abandoned the mountains permanently by 1836. He moved to St. Louis and became a businessman, gentleman farmer, and eventually a minor Missouri politician. Sublette contracted tuberculosis in 1845 and died in a Pittsburgh Hotel while traveling to Cape May, New Jersey, to recuperate.

(from Today in History from History Channel. Link provided my Anita Ann Rios-Sherman)

Pinedale, Wyoming Rendevouz Pageant

Happy Birthday, Addy

What we learned about Addy was that her brother & little sister are still in slavery and her mother & father are mostly late for dinner. Most of the time the family is separated and they live in a boarding house. The mother of the owner of the boarding house lives with them. The mother is very old. She said that she was born "the day God made dirt".
~Dexter

Slate Boards

Children used slates to do their schoolwork instead of the more expensive paper. Like today’s chalkboards, they can be erased when the work is completed. Slate pencils were used to write on slates while doing school assignments. They were preferred to chalk as they were more long-lasting and could be sharpened to a finer point than chalk.

More here.
More here.
Slate pencils