Old Sturbridge Village 2008 - Saturday Morning

This past weekend was spent at Old Sturbridge Village. Usually OSV does a timeline event where reenactors from all different time periods camp out for the weekend. This year they decided to hold a Revolutionary War exclusive event. Since the First New Hampshire did not go to Sturbridge last year, this was my family’s first time here.

Kris and I got out of work early on Friday, but we still arrived at Sturbridge just in the nick of time. They were not allowing anyone to enter the camp after 8:00 and because of traffic, we ended up running later then we had wanted to. But we got to the village by 7:30 and made our way into the park. By the time we got there most everyone had already left for dinner (which is no surprise considering we rarely arrive in time to make it out with them). But we had brought our own dinner anyway. The first New Hampshire was set up right on the corner of the road, our tents were set up right next to the dining fly, which was actually very nice.





After setting our tent up at the end of the row, we ate our picnic dinner, and waited for the troops to arrive back, figuring it couldn’t be much longer.

Well we waited for much longer then I thought we would because apparently in MA, even if there is a “No Left Turn” sign, but no sign specifically saying “No U Turn,” you still can’t make a U turn. A few of our members learned this the hard way. But once everyone arrived safely back, we settled in for a good night’s chat. Everyone headed to bed at about 12:30 and unfortunately it was not a good night’s rest, what with yelling sailors, gonging clocks that don’t know the right time, and roosters that were more then happy to tell us the moment the sun had risen.

But the morning was much better. Glen made us a super yummy breakfast that started with potatoes and biscuits with sausage gravy.





Most everyone dug right into this …



But I personally held out for my favorite, the second course, Eggs Benedict …





It was a thoroughly enjoyable meal and really gave us a great start to the coming day.

After breakfast, we started to prepare food for the rest of the day, because a woman’s work is never done, and we want to make sure we get our men sufficiently fed for the day. Debbie started the preparations by making a blueberry pie.



While the rest of us got orange hands from carrot duty.





Once the preparations were done, there was time for relaxing …





Bill entertained us with his bag pipe …

Laurel did her spinning …



As did the boys.





In the morning, Kitty, Glenn and myself decided to go for a little walk around the village.



It was a really nice place to visit; if you have never been there I would highly suggest it. Here are a few of the buildings and sights we saw along the way as well as some from a later walk with myself, Kris, Kolby, Jeffrey, Lori, Dan, Bruce and Debbie:

Shoe Maker:


Boys jumping rope:


Pottery kiln and potter (is that what it’s called?), all the items behind him in this picture were made on that one wheel in this building, they also sell the finished product in the gift shop:






Cheese making:


Herb drying:


Caring for livestock:








Pastures:




19th Century action figures:


Barn equipment museum:


A small building balanced on the points of large rocks (seriously amazing):


And finally (for now) the print shop:






After all our morning walks, it was time for lunch which was immediately followed by the battle. Tomorrow I will show you my pictures and videos from Saturday afternoon. To see all the pictures from Saturday morning, check out my gallery here.