British encampment at Guilford Courthouse Battle reenactment
I have the house to myself today while my husband goes target shooting with his friends. Ten or so years ago we would have been at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park doing the reenactment of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, one of the last battles of the American Revolution that weakened Cornwallis to the point that it led to his final defeat at Yorktown not long afterwards.
It’s going on today and tomorrow, and it’s a great show if you’re in the Greensboro area.
I enjoyed those days but I can’t say that I want to go back to them. It was a lot of exhausting work and my body doesn’t respond well to camping any more. I keep saying that the next time the GC reenactment rolls around I’ll take all my 18th century clothes and camp equipment out there to sell, but I have bursitis problems this weekend and that’s a long hike from the parking lot to the campsites with a bunch of stuff to carry. I should have done it yesterday but I wouldn’t have been able to do it because I had a major flare-up. Which leads me to this story that I posted on Facebook last night:
I have a recurring hip problem that flared up today, and that always makes me feel old, even back when it started in my 20s. So I’m walking home from work, in my tweed coat and a big knitted cap, beside the daycare playground as usual, as normally as possible.
I hear “Chase the old lady! Chase the old lady! The one in the glasses!” and three 4-5 year olds run up to their side of the fence.
There’s no one else behind me, so I say, “Am I the old lady in the glasses?”
“YES!” they shriek, “Chase the old lady!”
“I should be pretty easy to catch if I’m an old lady,” I say as they pretend to run just behind me on the other side of the fence.
“It’s okay,” the little girl assured me. “We like old ladies!”
I do believe this is the first time I’ve been called an old lady, other than hippie slang. But as long as they like me, I guess I can handle it. Probably won’t ever forget it, just as I’ll never forget the first time I was ma’amed or called “Miss Laurie” by a young adult. I hope that I do become an old lady one day.
It was a busy time workwise, but it is satisfying work.
If I don’t have any more indigo seedlings (I only have one!) by the time I get back to the office on Monday, I’m going to plant other seeds in the peat pots. Maybe next time I’ll heed the suggestion to soak the seeds before planting. At least I know what the indigo seedlings look like in case any stragglers decide to come to life after I plant the other seeds.
Thursday night I had the pleasure of listening to my grad school Slow Food mentor and friend Charlie Headington give a shelf talk about the books that have most inspired him at Scuppernong Books in downtown Greensboro. (The books were The Botany of Desire, A Pattern Language, and Introduction to Permaculture.) We had an amazing conversation afterwards in which he bolstered my spirits and boosted my ego, as usual. I have been lucky (and willing) to find the teachers that I’ve needed during the last fifteen years. Sometimes you just have to find a way to make it happen. I was extremely lucky that Charlie was nearby, bringing me to the subject of my Australian teacher and mentor…
Today I’m going to work on getting some text and photos of my farm scroll and box to India Flint before her deadline of March 19 to self publish a book of her students’ work. I’ll post it here too. It’s not quite finished, but this is a slow project for me, very personal and I may be adding to it for some time. Here’s a taste of it. It’s quite hard to photograph this piece in its entirety!
slowly she turned 