Walnut Grove: Farmer's Bootcamp

In June, I joined members of my "lost tribe" for the 2015 Annual ALHFAM (Association for Living History Farms and Museums) conference in Colonial Williamsburg. For me, the hi-light of the conference, and something I had been looking forward to for almost a year, was the Farmer's Bootcamp, a two-day workshop lead by the staff at CW's Great Hopes Plantation. Once a large parking lot, Great Hopes is now a simulated middling plantation of the late 18th century. Crops such as corn, tobacco, cotton, and wheat, are grown in the fields, as well as vegetables and herbs in the kitchen and slave gardens. There is a tobacco shed, kitchen, corn crib, and slave cabin, as well as a cistern and saw pit. It seems strangely fitting that there is no main house yet, which emphasizes that the focus of the site is on field and food labor. I first met the director of the site, Ed Shultz, at an ALHFAM conference two years ago in Akron, Ohio. We were in the "milk cow" workshop together, and though I knew he worked at Colonial Williamsburg, I had no idea he was in charge of such an extensive project as Great Hopes. Eventually, I found out that he was the "boss farmer," and I told him that I desperately wanted to learn how to drive horses and oxen. We talked about the possibility of having an in-depth workshop at an ALHFAM conference, and lo and behold, it happened!

A very sweaty me and Ed at the end of bootcamp
(with Dan the ox looking on)

Ed, or "First Sergeant Shultz," as he humorously referred to himself, directed the bootcamp with the help of his farming crew, or "Sergeants" as they were called. He split the participants into three "squads"--Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie--and designated a corporal for each squad. I was chosen corporal for squad Bravo. Obviously, though, the focus was not on rank and file but on agrarian skills. Hopefully, our society will get smart enough about agriculture that a war will never need to be fought over food. Hopefully.

During the camp, we harvested wheat, hoed tobacco, cultivated corn, split shingles, and drove oxen and horses. My grandfather says, "you don't need to go to the gym if you do your farm chores." He is certainly correct. The labor was nitty, gritty, and strenuous, and we mostly used historically accurate tools. One historic fact we chose to ignore, though, was that folks 200 years ago didn't drink much water. We, however, had a huge feeding trough of ice and spring water to keep us hydrated. It was a hard task in 100+ heat.

I took to the hoeing very well, as I get plenty of practice in my own garden and at Exchange Place. But what I really came to learn was horse and ox driving. I had gotten a little practice driving horses when I was training my horse Ruby several years ago, but I had never worked oxen before. They are a completely different ballgame than horses. While one person can generally drive a horse(s) and steer the plow, oxen typically require a driver in front and a ploughman in the back--though some really talented farmers can manage to drive and plough at the same time. After working with our two teams--Duke and Dan, and Pat and Mike--I decided that I am definitely "hip" to the oxen. An ox kind of feels like a sweet but stubborn old cat.

Here's an interesting prelude: A week before the conference, I sliced my hand open while making hickory bark lashings for a basket class I was planning to teach to my apprentices at Exchange Place. Lance rushed home to sew me up, a procedure which had to be done on my mother's kitchen floor because I passed out when Lance was cleaning out the wound. When I came to, I cried like a baby thinking that I would have to miss the bootcamp. But then I decided that no mere flesh wound would keep me from standing behind the plough! So, I rested my hand and bound it up extra tight...and to my surprise, I could do just about everything I needed to...everything except bind the wheat into sheaves. Luckily, there were plenty of others to help with that task so I wouldn't have to be a "gluten free" farmer.

My Tribe

VIEWS OF GREAT HOPES

Cotton with tobacco shed in the background

Cotton and wheat fields

Kitchen

Interior of Kitchen

Kitchen Garden

Slave Cabin with Chicken Lot
(Interesting note: there are very few field stones in Tidewater Virginia;
therefore, most log structures were built directly on the ground,
and that's why so few are still in existence)

Slave Garden with Wattle Fence
(in circular form as many West African gardens were)

Tobacco Shed

Chicken Hut

Saw Pit

Pigs! (Ossabaw Island breed)

A pig nipple--I had never seen one before. It allows the pigs to drink fresh water at all times.

THE BOOTCAMP BEGINS...

"First Sergeant" Ed Shultz laying down the ground rules

PLOUGH/CULTIVATOR LESSON:

The "hoe" plough

Using the hoe plough to cultivate Gourdseed corn.
(Ed is driving Luke, the horse, and Levi is steering the plough)

The "shovel" or "bull-tongue" plough.
(We see a lot of these in Appalachia, probably because they work well on hillsides.)

Rob Flory of Howell Living History Farm ploughing;
Lisa Carpenter, CW's oxen driver, in front driving Duke

Bar Share Plough
(model of an 18th century Pennsylvania version)

Ed demonstrating a modern Oliver plow with Pat and Mike pulling it

HORSE DRIVING:

Vet Barbara Corson giving an equine anatomy lesson
("Sergeant" Benjamin Walker, a homeschooled student, holding Pete)

Barbara talking about a horse's mouth and proper bit placement
(This horse still has some "baby" teeth)

Me driving Luke

Me and Luke in the corn field

Me and Ed cultivating corn with Luke

Curry Comb, copy of an 18th century original

OX DRIVING:

Lisa, in 18th century costume, with Pat and Mike
(Pat, the oxen closest to Lisa, is referred to as the "nigh" ox, whereas Mike is the "off" ox)

Rob with our two teams: Duke and Dan (on left) and Pat and Mike (on right)

Rob and "Sergeant" Matt putting the yoke on Duke and Dan

Me and Duke (and Lisa)
(Duke has a muzzle on to keep him from eating the corn)

WORKING TOBACCO:

"Sergeant" Cameron showing two different types of hoes:
the broad hoe (for weeding) and the hilling hoe (for hilling)

Example of hoes in the blacksmith forge

Cameron demonstrating the proper way to hoe weeds to save energy

Cameron demonstrating how to hill tobacco once it has been weeded

A tiny tobacco hornworm

WHEAT HARVESTING:

(I'll tell you one thing: There's no way that one little red hen

could have done all this work by herself!)

Farmer "Emeritus" Wayne Randolph talking about how to use the sickle

Wayne demonstrating how to cut wheat with the sickle

Wayne demonstrating how to bundle the wheat into a sheave

Wayne demonstrating how to bind the sheave
(this was the task that was too painful for me)

Matt Schofield, head farmer at Genesee Country Village in New York,
demonstrating how to cut wheat with a grain cradle

Matt demonstrating how to stack the sheaves

Taking the ox cart to collect the wheat
(That's Jim Lauderdale of Nash Farm in Texas riding in the cart)

A full cart (with me riding on the tongue)

Jim helping me drive the cart

Off to the wheat stack

Stacking the wheat
(The guy in the orange shirt is Bob Powell, a Scottish Farmer and expert wheat stacker)

Threshing the wheat

Winnowing the wheat

SHINGLE SPLITTING:

One of the CS Carpenters showing the difference between a cypress shingle and a white cedar shingle. Cypress and Atlantic white cedar are superior shingle materials because of their light weight and rot resistance. Historically, slaves would have been sent to the Dismal Swamp on the border of North Carolina and Virginia to cut trees and make shingles, which then would have been loaded onto boats for market.