For reservations to experience “nkwiluntàmën: I long for it; I am lonesome for it (such as the sound of a drum)” by Indigenous artist Nathan Young, please go to https://nkwiluntamen.com/
I’d like to share a fascinating video our site director, Doug, just emailed my way. Here at Pennsbury Manor, we talk a lot about life on a late 17th-century farming estate. We offer a wide variety of demonstrations and plant and harvest an authentic kitchen garden every year, but don’t have the staff or visitation to offer a full-scale agricultural recreation. Which is why I find this video series so fascinating!! Click the link to watch the first episode of this 12-episode series where historians work on a real Welsh 17th-century farm for a year: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqprv1_e1-tales-from-the-green-valley_lifestyle
Techniques may have evolved slightly by 1683 when William Penn settled at Pennsbury Manor, but not much if at all. The work recreated on this circa 1620 farm is a great way to imagine how early Pennsylvania colonists were surviving!
*No copyright infringement intended, used for purely educational purposes*
I hope everyone has enjoyed a safe and happy holiday season! I love the end of the year, it offers everyone a chance to reflect on the past 12 months and start the next year with a fresh perspective! William Penn’s dream for his new colony was all about living a fulfilled and worthwhile life, and it’s never too late to make a difference.
We have featured some amazing articles this past year on so many different issues and people, and gathered a wonderful following for the blog! I’d like to send out a big THANK-YOU to the staff and interns who have contributed articles this past year. I think we have created a very special resource for our volunteers and anyone with an interest in 17th-century history!!
But this is not meant to be a one-way street – we invite your comments, questions, and discussion! Also if there are any topics you find fascinating and would like to learn more about, please feel free to comment on this post and we’ll try to address it in the coming months!
I wish all Pennsbury’s wonderful volunteers a very happy New Year!
Continuing our series The Country Life, we feature a lovely and lesser-known herb in the Kitchen Garden. ‘Tis the season for apple cider, apple pie, apple butter… and Apple Mint!
Apple mint (Mentha suaveolens): Like other mints, apple mint was prized for its sweet scent and taste. Besides being a nice addition to any number of baked recipes and salads, it was used to flavor tea, which had a pleasing taste and also helped digestion.
We would like to offer our sincerest thanks to the army of interns that have offered their time and talents to Pennsbury over the last 8 months. Often volunteers don’t realize how much behind-the-scenes work happens at Pennsbury, and these 8 students have been invaluable in working on projects in all sorts of areas, in addition to giving tours and helping with special events! Read on to hear about their adventures.
Maggie Lee – A rising senior at the University of Delaware, Maggie spent her winter break last January working on ideas for revamping our walking tour and adding seasonal interpretive information. We look forward to using her research in our new comprehensive visitor brochure, coming this fall.
Kelly Cole – Kelly spent her spring semester internship as a graduate student from the University of the Arts working with Diane Nadler and our new exhibit. Using her museum education skills, she developed a series of teacher activities for schools to incorporate into their field trips. These activities will be featured in a teacher resource section on our newly redesigned website this fall.
Ruth Lonvick – Another student from the University of the Arts, Ruth decided to incorporate her thesis work on gardens and educational programs into her summer internship with Mike Johnson. In addition to helping with summer planting and garden maintenance, she researched and developed a wonderful interpretive signage system for the Kitchen Garden which we plan to implement this fall.
Danielle Lehr – Danielle, an undergraduate student at West Chester University, was also in the gardens helping Mike and Ruth with planting, weeding, and lots of mowing! She also assisted with Ruth’s plant research and started a new blog featurette, “The Country Life,” which can be read at this link: http://pennsburymanor.wordpress.com/category/the-country-life/
Lloyd Frisone – As our third graduate student from the University of the Arts, Lloyd wanted to use his museum communications training and assist Tabitha Dardes with Pennsbury’s public relations projects. This included putting together a schedule of daily Facebook and Twitter posts with event updates, fun history facts, and a weekly promotional lottery. He also developed a press kit for Pennsbury, worked on the 2011 brochure, developing some ideas for our new brochure design, and writing a press release for our exhibit award.
Danielle Straub – Danni spent her summer off from the undergraduate program at the University of Pittsburgh learning about the secret world of Collections Care! Her curatorial work with Todd Galle included writing acquisition recommendations, adding object photography to the files, developing exhibit scripting, and researching artifacts. Some of her work on our maps was featured in the Volunteer Blog featurette “Exploring the Artifacts” – click the link to catch up on her work: http://pennsburymanor.wordpress.com/category/exploring-the-artifacts/ .
Joshua Martin – As Hannah Howard’s summer intern, Josh (an undergraduate student from Kutztown University) was asked to research and develop some ideas for revamping and growing the Youth Volunteering Program at Pennsbury. In addition to helping with the summer camps and volunteer picnic, Josh learned about current program strengths and weaknesses, visited other sites to learn about innovative techniques, and compiled background research. His final report and recommendations offer some exciting possibilities that we will work to implement next spring and summer with Josh’s continuing involvement.
Jennifer Martin – Apparently we didn’t scare her away during her first summer at Pennsbury, because Shippensburg University student Jenn was back again this year! In addition to several small projects around the Visitor Center, Jenn once again took charge of our Summer Camps and they were a smashing success, almost double the campers from 2010. Along with a continuing word-of-mouth campaign from the happy parents, we hope to really promote our 2012 camps and give Jenn even MORE campers to wrangle!
In the third post for our new series The Country Life, we continue our look into the Kitchen Garden’s herb collection (check out our posts on Lemon Balm and Rosemary). Here is one of my favorites…
Lavender (Lavandula): Visitors will often recognize this herb’s soft, purple flowers and many will welcome the chance to smell it. Colonists also enjoyed lavender’s scent and used it as a perfume for clothing. They also recognized the value of aromatherapy. Lavender’s aroma was used to ease headaches and “giddiness.” The plant’s flowers, leaves, and seeds were also consumed to ward off fainting and joint pain.
In the second post for our new series The Country Life, we continue our look into the Kitchen Garden’s herb collections (check out our post on Lemon Balm). Here is one you’ll probably recognize…
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis): Recognizable by its needle-like leaves, rosemary had many uses in the 17th century. In the kitchen, cooks could use rosemary to flavor meats (like we do today). Medicinally, its savory aroma was used to ease a headache and to improve one’s memory. Additionally, vapors resulting from steaming the herb could be used to cure an earache and the leaves could be smoked to ease a cough.
William Penn wrote that “a country life and estate I like best for my children,” and we agree! So our new featurette The Country Life will highlight the outside gardens and grounds of Pennsbury Manor and the surrounding area. Enjoy!
Sights, Sounds, and Smells of the Kitchen Garden
Every spring and summer, visitors to Pennsbury stop by the Kitchen Garden to take in the sights and sounds of the 17th Century. They see a multitude of plants of all colors and textures. They hear the birds chirping and the bees buzzing. However, the garden also offers visitors the chance to experience smells of the 17th Century (and I’m not talking about the kind of smells they experience in the stable). The garden boasts a number of fragrant herbs that William Penn may have grown in his own garden. In Penn’s time, the fragrant herbs were not only pleasing, but also useful. Penn’s contemporaries often had several uses for one herb, including culinary and medicinal uses.
Now that school tour season is over, our fragrant herbs will have a change to recover from the rubbing, pulling, and picking. However, kids are not the only ones who are drawn to the sweet and savory smells of the Kitchen Garden. Children and adults alike enjoy the hands-on (and nose-on!) element the Kitchen Garden offers. Here at Pennsbury, we encourage all visitors to engage their senses as they stroll through the garden, including this one:
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis): A favorite of mine, lemon balm really does smell like lemon! Although it is related to other mints, lemon balm offers a citrus surprise that visitors often do not expect. In Penn’s time it was used to flavor cakes, teas, wine, and other beverages. In fact, our Summer Camp kids discovered lemon balm tea today and loved it! Medicinally, lemon balm was also used to treat a number of ailments from stomachaches to epilepsy.
So take a stroll into the lower kitchen garden and look for lemon balm, it’s near the path intersection by the cistern. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing more of our most popular and fragrant garden herbs for you to explore. Stay tuned!
