Fort and Party

Good morning! It is almost a perfect day out. I saw one mosquito, the ground is wet and there are clouds. Other than that one mosquito, today is what I would consider to be a perfect autumn day. The only problem with that is we are still in August. Global warming? Nah—global climate change. Wake up and smell the coffee people, before it goes extinct because we insist on growing it the same place it’s always been grown according to our very small memories and record keeping abilities.

These were the German's fighting on the American side. I like their uniforms and their cannon.

British soldiers up close and personel.

In other news, the world is surely ripening in iniquity. I read an article last night that reports that in many Wisconsin schools, 3^rd graders are going to be taught about masturbation. It culminates at the 6^th grade level when students should know the difference between sex, anal sex, and oral sex. Granted, individual school districts can ‘opt out’ but the precedence is there. I’m sorry if I seem backward to some, actually, that’s a lie. I am not sorry if I seem backward to some. I do not believe that it is the school systems job to teach my children about sex. It is my job. The opinion was expressed that if parents won’t teach the students, the schools have to step in. Are you kidding me? If the parents won’t teach their children about God, are the schools going to step in and teach them? Are you kidding me? It’s my job. It is my responsibility. And if the schools here start spewing this crap, my students will be coming home in a heartbeat.

I really wonder about the red uniforms. They stick out like a sore thumb.

Smoke rings from the cannon were really cool. Sometimes there was one from a musket as well.

In other news, Joseph had a good birthday party yesterday. It being Sunday, it was our family birthday party but it was good. He got Legos, he had chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice-cream. He had pizza. I don’t know why I’ve lived my life thinking pizza crust is so hard to do. Probably because of the kits that my mother used to get; the crust mix never did seem to want to spread out as big as it was supposed to. I’ve always rolled the crust out and it is a big mess and pain. This time I did what the recipe said—used floured fingers to mush it out over a greased baking stone (well, the recipe said cookie sheet—I love baking stones). It worked. Amazingly well. And it was so easy after that to spread out the sauce and sprinkle on cheese. Seth put the pepperoni on the first pepperoni pizza. Anyway, the birthday boy was happy and his complaining about having to wait to open presents has ended.

In the stocks.

Joseph wanted to lock him in.

He was attempting to escape--the left hand was on its way out.

Saturday we went to Charlestown, New Hampshire. There is a fort called the Fort at No. 4 near Charlestown where they sometimes do a battle reenactment. The fort is actually from the French and Indian war but it is my understanding that it was in use during the Revolutionary War as well. At the time first, it was actually a part of Massachusetts. For those of you who are able, here is the link for the website: http://www.fortat4.org/index.html. I got a pattern to make the boys breeches, a shirt, and a waistcoat. I think they’ll have their Halloween costumes, I’m just sad that they won’t be able to take any kind of gun (including a wooden one) as part of it to school. Grandma, I don’t suppose you’ve been hankering to make some knicker socks for three boys? Actually, I was thinking about it but it would take me for about ever so I was then thinking that I’d probably just end up getting them long socks somewhere. At least for now.

The birthday boy!

Seth got to help make a clay pot while we were there and we walked around and looked at lots of cool stuff. Paul met some of the guys he used to do reenactments with which was fun for him. He hadn’t seen any of them since he had his accident seventeen years ago. There was a ‘surgeon’ there. Actually, there was more than one but we only spoke to one. He had a set of foreceps there. He didn’t think they were period but still, once you’ve seen one pair, they’re unmistakable. He also had some leeches (Tootsie Rolls) and mentioned some reasons for bleeding that sound plausible and were not taught in my phlebotomy class. Because the cooking was done in iron pans and water was often collected in iron pots, there was a lot of iron in the diet which could lead to iron rich blood. In such a case, a therapeutic phlebotomy would be beneficial. Also, in the case of high blood pressure, it would have been sort of beneficial. The problem, as he mentioned, is that they had no way to measure blood pressure and they didn’t really know it was a problem. He did an amputation demonstration on Seth. Very interesting. I always knew it happened but didn’t know how. They’d put a tourniquet on above the amputation site, a rope tied somewhere below (wrist, ankle) and have someone hold the person. The flesh of the limb would be cut with a knife and would then be held back with some claw-looking tools by an assistant while the bone was cut with a bone saw. Then the flesh would be pulled down and the skin sewed up and hopefully the person would live.

The birthday boy's pizza.

And that is all for today. Have a fantabulous day!