First Day at Old Sturbridge Village this year!!!

Well, it was the first day of the year so far, and what a day it was!
I met several new Junior interns, and college interns, who are all so nice!
Today, I was on Games in the morning, and Freeman in the afternoon. Sooo this is how my day went.

I got up at 6:44 (A minute before my alarm went off. The sun was practicing its aim and somehow got around the blind, into my eyes) and ate some leftover maple syrup covered, sticky chocolate chip pancakes from Annie's Diner. (Yummy!) Then I called Daddy and wished him a Happy Fathers day. Had a *bit* of a hard time getting my costume on. I have issues....You would think it would not be that hard, but it is for me somehow. I put my petticoat on and tied the elastic so it would be all puffy and awesome, and then slipped the dress on over my head. Done is done right? No....Not at all. The dress is open in the back with a bunch of hook and eye closures, so you have to do those....Well before I did those, for some reason, I decided to  let go of the top, and somehow got my petticoat mixed in and out of my dress. I dont even have any clue how that happened...Memere walks in on me, spinning around, attempting to reach the back of my dress to tuck the troublesome petticoat back in, and just sighs, so I said "Can you fix my duck-tail please?". What would I do without her?? Oh..yeah...probably walk around looking like a duck-tailed idiot. 

 So anyway, I was up at the top of Bullard Tavern waiting for Sydney on one of the couches, because she was the adult I was with, (Junior interns usually have to be with an adult) and so I was sitting there going over Sindarin Verbs (I am learning Elvish this summer....) and out of he corner of my eye, I see a girl about my age sitting there in a flowered red dress looking like she did not really know what to do next. So! I introduced myself, and turns out Sophie (as was her name) is also on games that morning! And not only that, she is Homeschooled, and almost as insane as I am! It was Marvelous! Throughout the day we were making random Dr. Who quotes, talking about Shakespeare, and making Harry Potter references. It was AHMAZING!  

 Where we do the "Try your hand at fishing" is in the back of the mill pond, behind the bathroom, which, by the way, was built using the blueprints of Freeman farm!  Anywho, we were all standing around in the dappled shade under the trees, watching a squirrel sneak closer and closer, and tossing bread crusts out to the fish who snapped it up. We also tossed a few tiny pieces of gingerbread to the afore mentioned squirrel, who kept creeping closer to see what we had to offer him.  Its really fun fishing in that pond, because you can see the fish and your bait! You would think its easier to know when to pull up on the pole, but more often than not, you get so excited watching their little mouths close around the bait, that you dont wait long enough before jerking the pole up. I think with every person that came down caught at least one fish...there were about 20 or 30 kids I think that trickled down to us throughout the day. It was...interesting!  At 11:30 the three of us headed back up to the staff area Bullard Tavern for lunch. (I was glad for the break..it gave me more of a chance to continue learning Elvish!!)

Sundays at Freeman, we do a sit down dinner at 1 or 1:30, so you can see how, and what was eaten in the 1830's, which is actually pretty cool. Of course, I did not get to do the sit down meal, because I got there just as they were getting ready to sit down, so I offered to do the dishes. And OH! there were a LOT of dishes!  I like to wash when the water is scalding hot, so I could not feel my hands for a while after that...As soon as I finished up all of my dishes, they finished with Dinner, which gave me several more washbasins worth of dishes. I am gonna just sort of sum up the rest of the hings I did at freeman... (and by sum up, I just mean not write a gigantic huge paragraph on each tiny detail....)

 I did munch on a few things as I was cleaning though. I had a piece of Apple pie, and a tiny slice of the cupcake (which is sort of a pound cake....its called a cupcake because all the measurements are ascending cup measurements)  and some ham. The ham, I just kind of sucked on a piece, because the piece I grabbed was rather tough. Also, it was very salty, (because it was soaked in salt brine, then smoked, and rinsed before use to get some of the salt out....but a lot is still in it) so it was rather like sucking on a piece of tough beef jerky..But not as tough.. I also picked some Currents with a college intern and a 4-h intern, though half way through, I had to go scrub a cheese press.

When I was done with that, I rushed across the path to the barn to watch Ryan milking the cow, and got there in time to carry the bucked back to the farmhouse while she cleaned up. I found it really cool, I was watching the milk as I was walking...The sweet, frothy milk splashing around in the wooden bucket as I held the handle with my skirt, shooing chickens as I went. (Its moments like that I feel like I have been flashed back to the actual 1800's!) And ending the day, everyone picked the tiny stems out of as many currents as we could get through in half an hour...Which was no much. Maybe about 3 cups of them. They are tiny though! Okay, well my sentence structure is slowly decomposing, so I am going to go to bed now! I will probably blog tomorrow!