Endless Summer

I used to love summertime. That was before I moved to South Georgia, where you are in danger of having your hair catch on fire when you step outside from June-October. It was 98 degrees today - too hot to do anything but stay inside. That's the problem with really hot summers. The only thing you can do during the day is stay inside or go to the pool and wear a lot of sunscreen. Gardening and yard work are out until it gets down into the 80s in the evening, but then you have to fight the mosquitoes. I won't even mention the gnats, it's too depressing. We don't use our rocking chairs on the front porch, or our screened-in back porch over looking the lake during the summer because it's too darn hot. We're lucky to have a couple of weeks in the spring and fall to open the windows and enjoy the outdoors. Last winter was cold, too cold

for south Georgia. Now this summer is too hot. The problem may be that I'm too old for extreme weather. That's probably it.

It makes me happy to think that at the sheep are shorn in the spring, so they don't have to wear that woolen coat all summer. It makes me want to faint to think about wearing wool when it gets over 50 degrees. This fleece was from one of our (as in work) Gulf Coast Native sheep. It hadn't been shorn last year, so it was pretty nasty. I'm working on it now, but it's a learning process, and the curve is pretty steep. I have found that I don't like lopping poop balls off a fleece. Gross. But it's better than smelling them if you miss a few and they end up in the water. Rehydrated sheep poop is not a good smell.
These pictures were taken in July, for some of our new advertising. It was over 100 degrees, but these kids were troopers. I will admit that it has cooled off since then, thank goodness.

We do school workshops during the school year, some of which are held in the school house. I think I'm looking forward to seeing how it feels in January. Naturally, there's no a/c, but it does sport an historically authentic pot-belly stove that heats it up in the winter.

We've just started our workshops for the year, and while it's fun, it's pretty tiring. We've had two days with 50 5th graders, both boys and girls. The boys wear white shirts and jeans or trousers and we dress them in suspenders. The girls wear white shirts and we put a long cotton skirt and apron on them. The workshops are hands-on, and we try to replicate what children their age would have done around 1880. The boys work on the farm, in the gristmill, printshop and sawmill, etc. The girls are split up into three groups and work at one of our three homesteads. They help cook the afternoon meal (usually soup and cornbread, made with meal ground here at the village), sweep the house and yard, set the table, do the dishes, iron with a flat iron heated on the stove, make a feather bed, etc. They also do a craft of some sort. I have been working at our Traditional Farm, the oldest of three, teaching them to seed and card cotton, then to stitch up a little pincushion, filled with their cotton. We're all tired and hot by the time the workshop is over, but they seem to love it. I know I do, even if it is killing me!

So here's to the endless south Georgia summer - I can outlast you!!!