Preparations

The next two weekends will find me in the 19th Century. First I'm assisting one of our historic sites, the Confederate Reunion Grounds in Mexia, with their annual Civil War Living History event. I'm going to man a station on wallpaper envelopes. A colleague ordered wallpaper from Bradbury & Bradbury (not sure which one, will get photos at the event) and today I'm making the glue. Friday is the school day, which will be the majority of the envelope activity. Saturday and Sunday, if there are any left, we'll have it available for the public. I picked up little craft brushes to apply the glue and small paint bottles to put the glue. This way we can accommodate several at once. I'll take some rubber cement in case we run out of glue. The envelope blanks will already be cut out.

Since I will be gone next weekend I need to prepare some things for The War at Home event the next weekend. I'm taking on the store and post office. I plan to have some pickled eggs, anti-bilious pills, and writing supplies. As the eggs were boiling I started making the anti-bilious pills.

I found the label online. I had planned to use Mentos, but believe it or not, I couldn't find them at my grocery store. Have they stopped making them? So I used lemon drops instead. I found the paper mache boxes at Hobby Lobby.

I used white craft paper to wrap them, rubber cemented on the label, and used cotton string to tie the wrapping.

Then onto the eggs. The recipe is from Hal Simon.

I only made one jar as Hal is bringing some for the community dinner Saturday night.

 To add to the event some of the participants of the Independence Village event in Illinois have sent letters and a telegram for some of the War at Home participants.

So I purchased some writing items so that partipants can write return letters. The little bottles I bought for ink wells.

I also have postmarks from Vicki Betts. The year is left blank so that it can be used at other events.

Other things I intend to have at the store include jerky and bags I'll fill with beans, rice, flour, and corn meal. I also have some buttons a friend didn't need any more. These might go in the dress makers shop.

I still have to wash and starch petticoats, decide which dresses to take but I'll have half of Wednesday and all of Thursday of each week to pack and pick up the last little things for each event. Busy two weeks.