We had a lot of fun watching TV in London. We always like to watch TV in other countries, especially though when we were in Japan. Now that was different. We had no idea what people were saying, but it didn't matter. Japanese TV provided countless hours of entertainment despite the language barrier. Shows in London weren't too much different from the states, and actually, a lot of the shows were the same. We noticed endless re-runs of Friends and The
Simpsons as we'd scroll through the guide. We did really like a few British shows, though, and one favorite was
Victorian Farm.
I can't tell you how much I love this show! It's sort of like the PBS show
Colonial House only much, much better. Unlike Colonial House where ordinary people are set back in time to live as people lived in 1628, in Victorian Farm we get to see how life was lived through the eyes of historians and
archaeologists. It is simply three individuals exploring what it was actually like to live on, or rather create, a Victorian farm. They don't act as a family or interact with other period families. There's none of bickering, whining, or quarrels that inevitably surface on the more reality show like Colonial House. In Victorian Farm they use techniques and tools of the mid-nineteenth century and use
The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens as a guide to daily life on the farm.
The Book of the Farm appears to have been
the must have book for a Victorian farmer, so I imagine it's a pretty accurate representation of farm life at the time.
(Above is Princess the pig--because of her, I want a pig for Christmas! I love Princess! Oink, oink! A shout out to my girl.)
I love so many things about the show, but especially domestic historian
Ruth Goodman and her enthusiasm for and knowledge of everything regarding the tasks of the woman of the house--laundry, cooking, and sewing just to name a few--all so much more effortful than we can imagine these days (laundry alone was a week-long, back breaking task). What I take away after every show is not only how hard it must have been just to survive, but also how rewarding it must have felt to literally build your life. We pick up a pile of clothes at H&M and head to Whole Foods to get our wine and cheese and inevitably often take those modern conveniences (among so many others) for granted. In
Victorian Farm we see that if you didn't sew, you probably didn't have many clothes (not that they had many anyway); if you didn't learn how to sow seeds properly, you couldn't feed the animals and wouldn't have food to eat; if you didn't learn basic DIY methods for household materials like hand salve, your hands would just crack and bleed. Ruth Goodman
teaches courses in the UK. I wish I had known of them sooner than our last week there.
Unfortunately we can't get
Victorian Farm in the states (BBC online won't let you download it unless you're in the UK). And now you're probably thinking, so why have you gone on and on about this?!! Well, it is
a book now too, and I'm hoping it will show up on Netflix one day soon, and it's just so darn good that I wanted to tell you. And if you have a trip planned to the UK anytime soon and are interested in history of the domestic sort, you would probably love Ruth Goodman's
courses and lectures.
It's back to this farm for me now. Time to make dinner. Glad I don't have to kill any animals to do it.
My mom opened her own little shop on etsy. She's just added a few things so far, but I'm so excited that she opened her own shop that I wanted to go ahead and mention it. She'll be adding more later this week. Believe me, her garage is filled with treasures just waiting for a great home, like these items pictured here--good stuff, don't you think? (Every time I go home I want to go shopping in her garage!)
She had her first sale today! Congratulations, mom!! You can check out her shop here.
Last night we celebrated our anniversary. Six years! Seems like yesterday. We didn't have plans to go out, but when Lisa offered to sit with Lois so we could, we decided to take her up on it. We had a leisurely dinner at Incanto. Here's a picture of our desserts taken with my phone. Yes two desserts! And the waiter put candles in them. We had a wonderful time. Thanks, Lisa!
Pumpkin picking is all about the stem isn't it? Or maybe the shape? Or maybe the color? No, for me, it's the stem. Even if the color is a nice, saturated deep orange, and the shape round as a basketball; even if it's one of those funky blue-gray pumpkins or a striped orange-white one, if the stem isn't good (or worse, no stem at all!), I'll move on to the next pumpkin. It's definitely the stem that determines the pumpkin for me.
The real star of pumpkin picking today, though, was Lois. What a cutie in the pumpkin patch! Today we went to Clancy's Pumpkin Patch. We wanted Lois to pick out her very first pumpkin. Actually last year, when she was just about two weeks old, we took her to a pumpkin patch (our first big day out with baby), but she was way too itty bitty to pick one.
She didn't care much about picking one out today either, but she had fun poking the pumpkins and trying to eat them.
Do you like her little gray shawl? I made it from an old cashmere sweater of mine. I've had the sweater for about 10 years now, but it's a little too snug for me.
Every year, for the past few years, I try it on hoping it will fit again. But it's always too tight. I could wear it standing, but sitting my tire's ready to hit the road. A tight cashmere tummy tire. Um, no thanks.
It was time to become something else, or go to someone else. I thought a shawl for Lois would be sweet, especially since I loved it so much and had it so long. I snipped off the arms, eyeballed a shawl sort of shape, pinned it and sewed the little shawl. And with some of the scraps I made a flower with a wooden button in the center.
We found our favorite pumpkin.
Fall is my favorite season, and I love fall colors, so it's always really fun for me to make a little table display for the season. I bought some little pumpkins and squash and put them in this pedestal bowl, but they lacked something, so I added some chestnuts and pomegranates and now I think it looks simple and pretty. I'm looking forward to making pomanders (clove oranges), like this, but with different designs like stripes and dots rather than covering the entire orange. They smell so good! I like to make about 5 of them and put a candle in the center. A very pretty display for Thanksgiving. How do you display fall at your house?
We had a lot of fun watching TV in London. We always like to watch TV in other countries, especially though when we were in Japan. Now that was different. We had no idea what people were saying, but it didn't matter. Japanese TV provided countless hours of entertainment despite the language barrier. Shows in London weren't too much different from the states, and actually, a lot of the shows were the same. We noticed endless re-runs of Friends and The Simpsons as we'd scroll through the guide. We did really like a few British shows, though, and one favorite was Victorian Farm.
I can't tell you how much I love this show! It's sort of like the PBS show Colonial House only much, much better. Unlike Colonial House where ordinary people are set back in time to live as people lived in 1628, in Victorian Farm we get to see how life was lived through the eyes of historians and archaeologists. It is simply three individuals exploring what it was actually like to live on, or rather create, a Victorian farm. They don't act as a family or interact with other period families. There's none of bickering, whining, or quarrels that inevitably surface on the more reality show like Colonial House. In Victorian Farm they use techniques and tools of the mid-nineteenth century and use The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens as a guide to daily life on the farm. The Book of the Farm appears to have been the must have book for a Victorian farmer, so I imagine it's a pretty accurate representation of farm life at the time.
(Above is Princess the pig--because of her, I want a pig for Christmas! I love Princess! Oink, oink! A shout out to my girl.)
I love so many things about the show, but especially domestic historian Ruth Goodman and her enthusiasm for and knowledge of everything regarding the tasks of the woman of the house--laundry, cooking, and sewing just to name a few--all so much more effortful than we can imagine these days (laundry alone was a week-long, back breaking task). What I take away after every show is not only how hard it must have been just to survive, but also how rewarding it must have felt to literally build your life. We pick up a pile of clothes at H&M and head to Whole Foods to get our wine and cheese and inevitably often take those modern conveniences (among so many others) for granted. In Victorian Farm we see that if you didn't sew, you probably didn't have many clothes (not that they had many anyway); if you didn't learn how to sow seeds properly, you couldn't feed the animals and wouldn't have food to eat; if you didn't learn basic DIY methods for household materials like hand salve, your hands would just crack and bleed. Ruth Goodman teaches courses in the UK. I wish I had known of them sooner than our last week there.
