When the Past Knocks…
November 11, 2008|Comments (24)
This was my favorite house at Westville Village (where we spent Saturday afternoon). I could move in tomorrow if they promised to insulate the walls. Seriously — that would be the one request. Oh, and also a little thing called “internet.” The Harris Farmhouse spoke to my soul from the moment we rounded the corner and recognized the scent of sugar cane syrup cooking. There in the dappled light stood a dog-trot log home with an open breezeway linking the main house to the kitchen
On the back porch, dishes were set to soak in a slightly cracked earthenware kettle beside a folded dishcloth and a lye soap cake overlooking a garden and paddock with sheep. My heart began to sing. I confess to sitting on the steps and simply soaking it all in. Aside from internet, I truly believe that I was born in the wrong generation. As I sat on the splintered stairs, I watched Josh explore the chicken coop and offer reassuring pats to the sheep — I was overwhelmed by a sense of belonging.
Are we generationally displaced? Throwbacks to a forgotten time? As we wandered from house to house on narrow clay streets dotted with mule droppings and scarred with wagon wheel tracks, I can’t help but wonder why our civilization believes that we have progressed in comparison. In the pre-industrial age, there was no global warming or home owners associations to measure the length of your grass. People lived in communities and knew that each member of the town provided an important craft be it shoemaking or basket weaving. Those traditional skills linked the early settlers into more than just a subdivision — they were a family. Can our society really say that we have improved since then?
Of course, medical sciences and other advances have certainly impacted society for the better since those of us outside of the third world do not have to worry about contracting Yellow Fever or Tuberculosis. But the sense of community? Lost. How about truly closeknit families? Rare.
As Josh and I reflect on our time at Westville Village, we keep returning to the same phrase: “Let’s not let our children wander around such a town and mourn the lack of a closeknit family. Let’s make sure that they wander through such a place with confidence — knowing how to churn butter, make soap, weave, build tables and chairs, spin, quilt, garden, cook over a fire, and also knowing that they didn’t spend their childhood parked in front of a television but making memories.”
What are your favorite childhood memories? What memory do you think your children will recant to their children as a best-loved tale? Are you generationally displaced, too?
Read more about our trip to Westville Village in A Quiltin’ Man and check out homesteaders cattle in Irish Dexters: 4 Door Sedan Bovine. What’s up with all this homesteading talk? We’re wannabes. Plain and simple: wannabes.
A Quiltin’ Man
November 11, 2008|Comments (13)
That’s right, folks, Josh tried his calloused working man’s hands at quilting. I was so proud. Contrary to popular belief, sewing is not just a woman’s job. Knowing how to sew in a survival situation could save your life. Don’t believe me? Just ask Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild.
Westville Village in Lumpkin, Georgia is a blast! Josh’s Aunt Julie came to visit on Saturday and so we packed our lunches and took off to explore Westville. Having grown up in Virginia, I was used to visiting Williamsburg and Jamestown which give the illusion that early settlers were all living in large towns. Not so. Westville is frozen in time as an 1850’s Southern American country village. Volunteers from the area arrive in plain clothes to show everything from making cane syrup to handcrafts like spinning yarn.
We kept waiting to feel that we had awoken on a different planet as many people around us appeared to feel but Julie, Josh, and I felt completely at home around all of the traditional furnishing and crafts. More than anything, we felt like asking if we could just pack up our chickens and move in. Particularly alluring was this sweet baby:
All of my life, I have dreamed of having a loom. I used to wrap yarn around chair legs and pretend that I was weaving rag rugs or even fine linen. Eventually, I made a simple cardboard weaving frame and went to town but there are many ways to make them. Perhaps my fascination with weaving was an early indicator that I would lean toward the simple and sustainable living.
What craft first caught your fancy?
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