Week Three of Kingsley Field School: After the Rain

What do archeologists do after the rain? They have to bail before they can dig.

Here are some scenes from the very wet Week 3 of field school at Kingsley Plantation:


The professor leads the bucket brigade:









But, water or not, there is work to be done, and it sounds like the student are taking this all in stride:

Not For the Faint of Heart

I have been entertaining myself, as well as kind of creeping myself out, by sitting up late at night, after Blaze has gone to sleep, reading ghost stories about Kingsley Plantation on the internet. The Kingsley House is the oldest plantation house still standing in Florida and it is unoccupied, so what better subject for some good old fashion ghost stories?

I was wandering around by myself after hours last weekend at dusk, and it can seem pretty eerie.  I think that's just because it's so quiet, and empty houses always seem unnatural and spooky. Also, big old twisted trees draped in spanish moss look ghostly in the fading light, especially if there is a breeze. There are many such trees, some of them dating back to the plantation era.

This particular tree has a ragged rope dangling from that lower outstretched branch. Four years ago, when we started coming here, it was still obvious that it was the remains of a rope swing. The weather has erased all signs of the swing seat over the years, though, so it would be easy to wrongly interpret why the rope is hanging from the tree.



The most common story I came across was "Old Red Eyes"
Old red eyes, the story goes, was once one of the Kingsley plantation slaves. He brutally murdered some of the female slaves (stories differ on how many. One source said two young girls, another said several women). He was found guilty of the crime and hung from a branch of the old oak tree that grew over the driveway. If you walk by that tree at night, you will supposedly see two glowing red eyes watching you.

Every "haunted" place needs to have a ghostly woman in white, and Kingsley is no exception. Anna Kingsley, dressed all in white has, supposedly, been seen on porch of the house at night.

The Kingsley House in the gloaming:



Excerpt from a Haunted Florida Book

Even a walk on the beach can have it's creepy moments, like this hand beckoning from the water.


I found this white rubber glove laying in the water, with a single finger floating above the surface. The motion of the moving water was making that finger move up and down, so it really did look like a summoning gesture.

The Creatures of Kingsley

Since Kingsley Plantation is a National Park, there are beautiful, protected, primeval looking forests all around the Plantation. It's a great place to go for walks, birding, or looking for animals.
The area right around the plantation buildings is home to several gopher tortoises. What I was learning this past weekend was that every creature who comes in contact with a person at Kingsley ends up with a name.

Meet Lawdog.



I was taking this picture when a ranger walked by and told me that his name was Lawdog, because he has a chunk taken out of his shell on the back left side, that the rangers decided he had received while "laying down the law" for some other animal.





This is Niko the crab. Blaze named him after his sister Nika because he said they were both "crabby". Blaze and I sat on the seawall in front of the Kingsley House for a long time watching the adventures of Niko the crab.



Monday afternoon, DH, Blaze, one of the rangers, and I took a walk over to where the students have been uncovering the remains of the sugar mill. The large black tarps that had been spread over the dig to keep out the rain water, had themselves filled with water.


Mostly the puddles on the tarps had just become a mosquito breeding grounds, but one of the larger puddles had a snake and several small frogs in it. They were all trapped in the puddle because the slick sides of the plastic covered hole were too steep.

As we were trying to figure out how to help the snake and frogs get out of the puddle, the ranger announced, "Her name is Penelope."



The picture is not as clear as I had hoped, but
this clever little frog was trying to climb Penelope's body as a path to freedom.



Well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, not every creature has a name. As far as I know, none of these has been named.



The Wooly Bear Caterpillar








P.S.
We just got exciting animal related news. One of DH's co-workers is giving us free tickets to Disney's Animal Kingdom for next Friday. None of us have ever been there before.

Follow the Drinking Gourd

I'm not actually the amazingly organized planner that this would imply, it's really more coincidental, that right when DH is doing his Summer Field School at Kingsley Plantation, Blaze's American history lessons have reached the point where we can discuss plantation life and the anti-slavery movement.



The Kingsley House/ The Big House


The back of the Kingsley House:


The Kitchen House/Anna Kingsley's house and well:


The backside of the barn:


The Cabins/The Quarters:


The overseer's cabin:


The cabins in 1870, post-emancipation, but still occupied:






Our book list for this week's history lessons:















For music this week, we are learning to sing the song, "Follow the Drinking Gourd".

Here is a sample of Taj Mahal singing the song. I think his deep gravely voice is perfect for this map song that gave the directions to freedom. The song instructed runaway slaves to go North by following the "drinking gourd", the Big Dipper pointing to the North Star.

http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/Music/14-TajMahal.InProgress.FollowTheDrinkingGourd.mp3


Follow the Drinking Gourd (Lyrics)

When the sun comes back,
and the first Quail calls,
Follow the drinking gourd,
For the old man is waiting
for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

Chorus:
Follow the drinking gourd,
Follow the drinking gourd,
For the old man is waiting
for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

The riverbank will make a very good road,
The dead trees show you the way.
Left foot, peg foot traveling on,
Following the drinking gourd.

The river ends between two hills,
Follow the drinking gourd,
There's another river on the other side,
Follow the drinking gourd.

When the great big river meets the little river,
Follow the drinking gourd.
For the old man is waiting
for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

Corner View: Cityscapes

This week's "Corner View" theme was cityscapes.

Gainesville, where I live, is not a very big city, so there are no impressive cityscapes here I can show you, but Gainesville is a two hour car ride to three major cities. Depending on which direction you decide to drive, you can go to Tampa, Orlando, or Jacksonville in roughly the same amount of time. I will warn you, though, the traffic is worse going into Orlando and there are toll roads.


This past weekend we were staying just North of Jacksonville, at Kingsley Plantation because my husband is one of the teaching assistants at the archeology field school that the University of Florida is conducting there.

Jacksonville is the continental United States' largest city, if you only look at land usage and not population. It is a fairly charmless, industrial, port city.



There has been a lot of rain around here lately. This sign was on Main Street in Jacksonville Saturday night:


I had originally missed the instructions that said the pictures were supposed to be taken from a high place, so this is a late addition to the post ( it was taken from an elevated highway while driving past Jacksonville, Sunday afternoon.


I think Orlando is a far prettier and more interesting city. These pictures of Orlando are my favorite recent cityscape photographs:






Enjoy some more urban travels with the other corner views from around the world:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad, caitlin, joyce, ani, couturecoucou, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, ruth, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli, amy, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina, april, rebecca b, kyndale, sunnymama, karen, kristina, angelina, sophie, dorit,goldensunfamily,Janet, mcgillicutty

mini golf

Late Saturday afternoon, we were sitting in the ranger's station at Kingsley Plantation flipping through television channels when Blaze let out a squeal of delight, "Golf!"
I can't imagine too many things on t.v. that are more boring to watch than golf, but Blaze was genuinely excited. He explained that he wanted to watch it so he could learn how to play.
So now we have another thing to add to the list of interests that Blaze is developing, that I can teach him nothing about. I know nothing about golf.

We did drive down to St. Augustine to play miniature golf, though. It was Blaze's first time going to a miniature golf course and he did really well. It was a close game the entire time and we all had fun.






The koi pond at the miniture golf course:

















Here's my big shot:

Model United Nations

The High School students at the school where I work held a model U.N. last week. A model U.N. is a simulation of the U.N. General Assembly. Each child was assigned a country to represent. They then had to make a flag to sit on the table in front of them and write a proposal for a resolution. Points were also give for people who dressed appropriately to be U.N. delegates.

Preparing to set up for the model U.N.


The delegates begin to arrive:




I am so proud of my tutoring student! As the Representative of Australia, he was also voted in as Secretary General and did a fantastic job in this leadership position.



The General Assembly in session, day one:





Students had to get up in front of the assembly and present their proposals and then the assembly would vote on whether or not to pass a resolution.



Some of the topics chosen by the students:

Improving literacy rates for women

Safe drinking water

Combatting rising food prices

Over population

Deforestation



The General Assembly reconvened for day two and there was also a meeting of the Security Council.




If you would like to learn more about how to conduct a model United Nations, the following website and video explain it very well:

model U.N.