Our Garden

This year we planted an organic garden. We planted sage, pumpkins and carrots. Unfortunately with all the rain we had during hurricane season our pumpkin vines didn't make it. We were able to see them blossom but no pumpkins grew. The sage grew great and so did our carrots. The taste of home grown carrots is so much more flavorful then the store bought organic carrots. We learned to use certain bugs as pesticides to keep our plants heathy. Next year the girls want to grow more vegetables including corn, carrots, green beans, tomatoes and squash. Kristen wants to grow cotton as we have a whole bag of cotton seeds from when we visited a cotton gin in Georgia last year when we were studying Eli Whitney. With all this planting Peter is going to have to build us some more garden boxes to hold everything!

The Pumpkin Patch

We are going to the pumpkin patch, YEA, the pumpkin patch, YEA, the pumpkin patch. We are going to the pumpkin patch so early in the morning. This was the chant of our children as I drove us to the Pumpkin Patch. It is a tradition every year for our family to visit the pumpkin patch and pick out some pumpkins to dissect and carve. This year we were very late in getting there so all the pumpkins were pretty much rotten. Despite the odds, I managed to get a great photo of the kids. I think the pumpkin patch photos are my favorite photos of the year. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Timucua Indians and Spanish Settlers

On October 31st we went on a field trip to the Old Florida Museum to learn about the Timucua Indians and the Spanish settlers. The natives of North Florida were known as the Timucua Indians and their settlement in this area was called the Village of Seloy. These Native Americans were said to be a handsome people with most achieving an average height of 6 feet or more. They were hunters, gatherers, and farmers. The women took care of the home, children, and cooking while the men provided food and protection for the family. These Indians developed a way of life that enabled them to live and prosper in the world they lived in.
Students experience pre-European life in old Florida by:
Jewelry making
Native American games
Indian tools
Corn grinding
Tattooing
Gardening
Face paint

The Spanish settled St. Augustine on September 8, 1565. It was a military outpost that included three standing fortifications by the 1740’s. They were the Castillo de San Marcos on the east, Fort Matanzas to the south and Fort Mose to the north. Word of freedom spread to the Afro-American slaves of the English colony of Carolina. The Spanish had decreed that freedom would be granted to any slave that reached the Spanish colony if they would convert to the Catholic religion. In 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano established the new town Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, also known as Fort Mose, the first free black settlement in the Americas. These new soldiers posed a fierce line of defense as they would fight to the death to protect their freedom. Students sample a soldiers life in Spanish Florida, and learn how hard it was to start a new colony. The activities the children participated in were:
Candle dipping
Rope making
Colonial games
Corn grinding
Woodworking
Washing dishes in a wooden sink
Smashing shells for tabby
Weaving
Fence building

Here are some photos of our time there.