Yorktown, VA

This is another leg of our Virginia vacation journey from last month. Let's take a look at the Camp and Gardens at the Yorktown Victory Center .

The museum is filled with great info and artifacts and outside, you will find an encampment which gives a glimpse of camp life for the Continental Army.
If chosen, you can help soldiers re-enact the firing of a cannon such as these above.
The historical interpreters, while wearing period attire, will tell you a sad tale of life in the camp with poor pay, harsh discipline and meager rations of bread, beans and meat. I found the open kitchen, where beans and bread were made, to be very interesting. The smell of burning wood was a nice scent on a cool crisp day.
This is where the supply officer called home. He was lucky as usually 6 people share such a space! He was the one you wanted to make friends with as he had all the supplies in camp. The doctor's hospital was interesting but no pictures were snapped by me. The demonstration had me in a fog. Medicine was brutal back then, OUCH.
This is where the women and children stayed. Yep, I did not know it either but some women and children accompanied spouses to war. They would wash and mend clothes. After checking out the camp, we headed to the 1780's post-Revolution Tidewater Virginia farm. Look at those garden tools! Chickens were snoozing in the warm sunshine outside the garden. I bet they wanted inside to peck for seeds. The morning glory's were shining in the warm sun. Burr, it was chilly that day.
Skipper was enjoying a meal on this beautiful morning glory bloom.
Ah, finally we get to go into the garden. Don't forget to shut the gate, we don't want the chickens to get in. Winter crops looked real healthy and yummy to the tummy as we were getting hungry about now. A tee-pee bean pole! This is the method I was going to use for my beans but my beans turned out to be bush beans instead of pole beans. Ha...It was October 22 and look at those huge beans in the Saint hands! I wanted to pick a mess of them but was a good girl and restrained myself.

This is what a middle-class family called home on a tobacco farm.

Okay, I see a slop jar so does that mean, an indoor bathroom makes one middle class?

A nice brick fireplace with mantel, table and chairs is all one needs to live simply.

The tobacco barn with tobacco hanging on the rafters to dry.

This crop was in another fenced area away from the veggie garden. We wondered why but did not ask as no one was near at the time. It looked a bit like cotton but a bit darker and different then any cotton we have ever seen here in Georgia. Could this be some type of tobacco maybe? Hummmm, anyone know if this is cotton or something else?

Now the Saint and I head to the smoke house. He just has to find a critter to pet! Hey gobbler, you better hide as Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Na, he knows he is safe as this farm butchers a hog on Thanksgiving. Tourist can partake in the festivities if visiting during Thanksgiving.

In the smoke house we find not only meats but herbs and veggies hanging out to dry. Everything you see was grown in the garden and tended by museum volunteers. If you help in the gardens, you get to enjoy in the fruits of your labor by eating the crops! See the gourds hanging in the back to dry? I asked questions on them and got conflicting information as to how they dry gourds compared to the process they use at Jamestown. But they both had the same end results. The table is full of recently picked goodies from the garden.

After our visit to the Garden, we headed back to James island. Here we visited another wonderful museum and saw items unearthed on sight. Here you can see they continue to dig for artifacts on the grounds of the James Fort.

Les, over at A Tidewater Gardener lives near this wonderful place and posted on it a few days ago. Check out his post for more info.

This wonderful park has statues of John Smith as well as Pocahontas.

Last week while telling you of Jamestown, through commenting on the posting, Garden Girl and Frances (Fairegarden) found out they are related! They both can trace their ancestry back to Pocahontas! How exciting it was for me to know my posting let Garden Girl and Frances know they are cousins! Times such as this makes blogging so much fun...

This beautiful church sits on the grounds near the river.

The Monument is in the center of the park but somehow I failed to snap a shot of it from top to bottom. Les has a wonderful picture of it so go check it out...
I found this old twisted tree to be very intriguing. I don't know what it is about the twisted but they do catch my eye.
We also spotted many deer while on this walk. Just look at that big 8-point Buck not bothered by our presence! He was a beauty.

We had a wonderful time exploring where the US was first started. If you are ever going to Williamsburg for a visit, be sure to add time for Jamestown and Yorktown as they are well worth the visit. We did a lot in 3 days but still so much more to see and do. We must get back there again some day!

Raquel at Perennial Garden Lover, also lives near the wonderful towns of Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown. Check out her posting for her view and more pictures. Amazing how Raquel, Les and I have been to the same places within a few days or weeks of one another.

Cosmo from Cosmo's Garden also lives in the area. Maybe I will meet up with Les, Raquel and Cosmo with my next Williamsburg visit!

And one more purple pretty to share with you from YORKTOWN, while In the Garden...