Sleightholm Folk Art

It was several years ago now that the idea of visiting Plimouth Plantation captured my imagination. When my oldest was in elementary school, we read the books Sarah Morton’s Day and Samuel Eaton’s Day, which were about real children who lived in Plymouth and used photos taken at the living history museum.

The idea to visit during the 400th anniversary year of the Pilgrim’s arrival seemed perfect! We made reservations and plans. We were well on our way to an epic Pilgrim adventure for 2020 when…..well, you can guess how that went. The world went in a direction none of us could have ever anticipated. We most decidedly did NOT have a 2020 New England trip.

So much has changed since making those plans. I don’t think any of us are the same people we were at the start of 2020. Some of the people we love very much are not with us- and all my plans about art and travel are much different now, three years after thinking of that initial trip.

But my family and I are in a good place now. In 2020 both my children were in traditional school situations, and now we are homeschooling and going on all sorts of learning adventures. This has become a huge part of my life- and one I enjoy a lot. I am trying to get better about finding a balance between managing my home, guiding my children’s studies, and working on my own art. Thank you for your patience this past year or so, while I figure all this out!

Part of doing getting into balance is coming here to share more with you, and so….please come along with me to Plimouth Plantation! It was such a beautiful autumn day….

My heart was so full of anticipation as we walked through the woods to the seaside village. As we approached the clearing through the trees, we could hear the roar of the ocean in the background, just beyond the tree line. From the woods we walked up a little rise and there it was- a little rustic village straight out of a 17th century dream.

Against the split-rail fence grew leggy pokeberries, and the late autumn light shone on the fields and little back gardens that were just a bit past their harvest prime. A ghost of wood smoke curled up from a chimney where a bit of lunch was cooking on the hearth, and a young man was splitting wood in the distance, the little village alive with murmurs and bustling even on a weekday mid-morning.

As we rambled through the village, we were free to duck into doorways of little one roomed houses, their hearths bedecked with cooking accoutrements and drying herbs and bunches of onions tied along the mantle. The rooms were shadowy and rustic, but with little bits of beautiful furniture you could imagine has made a long journey over the sea, lovely pottery pieces, books and warm textiles. In one home a Puritan woman opened a finely carved chest and showed off some of her belongings- many of them in bright cheery colors we don’t often associate with the stern-faithed Puritans; brilliant scarlets and mossy greens, blues the color of a dove’s wing and orange the color of bittersweet.

It can be easy to think of these early settlements as a bit….dark and dour. But life in this village most definitely was not. And I was thrilled to be able to visit with my family and our good friends the Heatons (and Grandma Pat!). I loved getting to poke my head inside the little dwellings, which are so very much ‘out of a different time’, yet made to be used and loved. One of the guides in the fort told us that we were welcome to touch, sit on, examine and take part in anything we found within the houses. At first we had walked through as if in a museum, not touching anything, but with encouragement from the interpreters in the village we sat in chairs, helped prepare a meal (mashed pompion and shredded turkey meat) and chatted with a young man as he worked on building a shed (he told us our accents were funny and was curious from ‘what part of England’ we were from!)

There was a sort of rustic coziness to the whole place, and I loved how we could go all around the village- into the homes and out into the gardens- to get such a real sense of how these people lived. I must admit that I particularly loved seeing their gardens….a bit blowsy and overgrown, the edging not perfect but the whole space as a whole so charming and useful….it made me want to come home and get to work in my own garden.

This visit was, most definitely, an experience I’ll treasure for many years to come. I am so grateful that it was finally able to happen, and that we were able to go with our very good friends. Funnily enough, Patricia and I first met up in New England a decade ago that same month…I was pregnant with my son, and we visited the Tasha Tudor Museum and later Deerfield, MA. in September 2013. She’s spent the last 10 years now wandering over New England hill and dale with me, and we always have such a great time…..she’s also sweet enough to open her home to us when we travel north, and our children have gotten the chance to make so many fun memories together. I hope we get to make many more in the years to come…thank you, my friend!

And so, I hope you enjoy a few of these golden memories from Plimouth Plantation. I am home now, and gathering my paint brushes. It is time to paint. I feel that autumnal urge to cuddle in and do homey things. It was nice to travel and go on an adventure, but now it is time to settle at my own hearth.

I hope you enjoyed this little peak and come back again for more!

Until then, friends…

Take Joy!
H