Simmering Sunday stew

I love to cook. I enjoy the entire process. Cutting the vegetables, preparing the meat, contemplating flavors and side dishes. But when I do cook, I usually follow a recipe the first time I try cooking something new and then will modify it to my liking the next few times I prepare it. Eventually it gets to the point where I have a recipe memorized and it turns out a little bit different and always delicious. 

Tonight, however, I did something completely new. I just improvised a recipe on the spot. I was in the middle of trying The Pioneer Women's pot roast, when I discovered the meat had soured in the fridge. So I put my browned onions and carrots in the fridge and ran to the store with the hubby to pick up some new meat. 

What we ended up leaving with was 10 succulent looking bratwurst. I decided to try my hand at a spin off of Olive Gardens's zuppa tuscona. Having worked there for the better part of six years, I figured I could emulate the recipe fairly easily. 

So, when I got home I diced those carrots and onions, added a few sliced tomatoes and filled the Dutch oven with chicken broth. Next we sautéed the bratwurst in bacon fat, because why not? Once those had a nice sear on the them, the were sliced and added to the soup.

We flavored the soup with roasted garlic, onion powder, garlic powder, and a healthy handful of crushed red pepper. I also added a tablespoon of butter and some extra bacon fat. Hey, I didn't say I was going for healthy here. 

And the verdict is in, Frankenstein creation tastes amazing! 

"Another day gone and we are nearer to our home" - Amelia Buss, August30, 1866

In the summer of 1866, Amelia Buss left behind everything she knew. Accompanied by her husband and eight year old daughter the small family traveled westward for over two months. In her diary, Buss describes the journey as long, arduous,and often times lonely because she "is all the women there is in this big train." On her entry for September 8th, 1866 Amelia laments that she "almost feels forgotten by her friends." Buss' frankness towards her journey highlights the stark reality that many frontier women faced as the ventured miles from from friends, family, and the comforts of home. Separated from everything familiar early pioneering women had to contend with dangers of frontier life (Indian raids, thieves, disease, etc.), as well as the demands of running a household. Upon arriving at their home on September 21, 1866, Buss wrote "When I went in, such a sight it sicked me; but everything but the windows looked as I imagined it would before. And I was not in Mrs. Jones hoped happily disappointed, but here I am and now much clean and work and always be over run with bugs and dirt." Her comment on bugs and dirt expose how Buss felt the need to meet societal expectations of women, even while living in the periphery of society. As the diary progresses, it becomes more and more evident that these household chores occupied her time, as Buss' entries become more and more sporadic. Overall, Amelia Buss' diary reveals a primarily solitary life that centered around domestic duties and religion. On one particularly despondent night she wrote, "Oh if I had wings of a bird, I would this moonlight night fly away from this place and the red man." And while many entries in her diary are quite melancholy in tone, it is apparent that she took great solace in religion. Reading sermons and signing hymns at home seemed to comfort Buss, who often felt "shut away from all their religious privileges" of relatives back East.

While a photograph does not exist of Amelia, the Archive at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery does hold one picture of her husband, Captain George E. Buss, who served in the American Civil War before moving West.

A copy of Amelia Buss' diary is located the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery Archive.

New name, new post, and some old content

Hi everyone! 

Here we go into my fourth foray at blogging. I decided to migrate the content from my previous blogs over to this one that way it wouldn't feel so empty at HOUSE of CARDIGANS and my old content wouldn't feel abandoned. 

I have quite decided the direction I want to take the blog yet, but stay tuned for some post about knitting, baking, cooking, and maybe even some goodies from work. 

Till next time, y'all! 

Putting the Petroglyph Back Together

During the summer of 2013, I worked as a curatorial intern at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum. While at the museum, one of my projects was to create a mount for a broken petroglyph. The petroglyph came from a BLM site, where it had fallen off the rock-face after being accidentally bumped into by a visitor. The rock that composed the pieces of the petroglyph is fragile sandstone, which had been treated by the BLM. Below are some pictures from when I and the other intern, Tessa Moeing, pieced the petroglyph back together and mounted it into a case for display.

 

Accessioning Archival Collections

During 2009 I worked as a student and intern at Joyner Library, Department of Special Collections. Under the mentor library's ship of Dr. Jonathan permanent collections. Linked below are two finished finding aides that I helped create while at the library.

Click here to see the finding aid for the Ashby D. Elmore Papers

This finding aide was made as part of my spring course in "Archival Techniques and Management," while at East Carolina University. During the semester, my classmates and I, all learned about archival practices and procedures. Our final project at the end of the semester was to fully process a collection into the library's permanent collection.  We also, created an inventory and finding aide for the collection.

Click here to see the finding aid for the Cumberland Lodge No. 5, Knights of Pythia Papers 

While an intern at the library I spent the majority of my time accessioning incoming collections. This was the largest collection I worked over the summer. During the accession process, I created a preliminary inventory, noted documents that needed conservation, and calculated the size of the collection. 

North Carolina Museum of the Coastal Plain - Sample Portion of Timeline

The samples below are taken from a timeline that I researched, created, and fabricated while at East Carolina University. In the course titled "Field Lab: Museums and Historic Site Development," my classmates and I worked to create and install the first exhibits at the newly opened North Carolina Museum of the Coastal Plain. The museum opened in May of 2010. Our class worked to build the museum from the ground up and we did everything from painting the floors, to building walls, and creating and installing the exhibits.

My major assignment was to create and develop a timeline that spans the history of the North Carolina Coastal Plain from pre-history to the museum opening. The link provided will include some sample labels from the timeline. 

Click here for the PDF of the timeline

History Colorado - Educator's Trunks

This teacher's manual and the lesson plans included were developed and created by myself and two other classmates. Together we brainstormed and developed the three lesson plans as well as the grandmother's story in the trunk. After this we each wrote our own versions of the teacher's manual and lesson plans.

Click here for the PDF of the Educator's Manuel 

"Reservations: Southern Ute Culture Before and After the Reservation System" Exhibit Brief

Exhibit brief completed for my historical methods in museum studies class while at Colorado State University. The research in the brief builds on an early historiographical paper completed in the beginning of the semester. In addition to creating the brief, I also created a brochure to promote the exhibit.

Click here to access the PDF of the brief 

Rendezvous in the Rockies

First of all let me say, man time flies in graduate school! It has been non-stop studying and reading since August 20th. Well Tuesday offered the chance to both take a break (kind, not really... at least I got out of Fort Collins for the night) and go to Vail for the chance to interview some old-timers in the U.S. Forest Service. Overall, a great, fun, and interesting experience.

I had to opportunity to network with the Chief Historian for the Forest Service, who is one of the three Chiefs in the Forest Service. We also were paid a huge compliment by Patti Limerick, who is one of the foremost western historians in the U.S., who impressed by the work me and my fellow classmates was doing in Vail.

Things I learned from my interviewee's:

1. Vail was developed as a ski town and resort by the Forest Service (I got to interview one of the main dude's in implementing the recreational side of skiing in Colorado)

2. The Forest Service in Alaska is heavily involved with its community.

3. Ask a forester a question and they can talk for at least 30 minutes on one given question!

Below is a picture from my room, sorry for the weird glares, they are because of the case on my phone. Jon and I will have to take a trip there sometime soon that way everyone can see more of the beautiful outdoors!

"The Greatest Good"

In a little under three weeks, I will be going to Vail to conduct a series of oral histories of former Forest Service employees. It is truly a unique opportunity to hear some amazing stories from some of the people who ran a significant branch of the government.

To prepare for our interviews, my class was given copies of "The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Film," which chronicles the history of the Forest Service and a few of the controversies it's been embroiled in throughout its history. The film discusses the struggle of the Forest Service in balancing the demands of conservation and logging.

Overall, a good documentary that gives an insightful look at the history of the organization and its internal struggles to provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. If you enjoy Ken Burn's style documentaries then you should add this to your list.

Semester long, Read Along...

For those of you who might be interested in joining me in reading some of the books I've been assigned this semester. Feel free to post a comment with your opinion on a book or what you might be interested in reading. Also, should time permit with all my assignments, I want to try and post some reviews of the books. I've arranged the books in the groups that I will be reading each week.


Here they are:

Week One:
- The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hamalian
- Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America's House Museums by Patricia West
- Telling the Truth About History by Joyce Appleby, et. al.


Week Two:
- Peace Came in the Form of Women: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands by Julianna Barr
- The Gender of History by Bonnie G. Smith



Week Three:
- Second Thoughts on Colonial Historians and Native Americans by James Merrell
- Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition by James T. Kloppenberg
- Museums and the Future of Collecting by Simon Knell



Week Four:
- Silencing The Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouilliot
- Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Men and Women through American History by Mary Ryan
- Exhibitions in Museums by Michael Belcher



Week Five:
- The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
- Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives by Susan Sleeper-Smith

I think those will keep you busy for awhile, and to think that's only half the list! I still need to pick out another book to read for my American History reading seminar in week five, but it was long and a lot of the titles looked interesting.

Hope you all will join me and enjoy :)

The Couch Fiasco

So when we relocated to Raleigh we made the choice to load up the cars with as much as possible and rebuild our home when we got out here. I have been scouring craigslist for most of August trying to find the perfect couch to go into our living room.

About a week and a half ago, we went and looked at a couch at one house. After 30 minutes or so of trying to get sofa number one out of these people's house we gave up and went home empty handed. Nearly a month later, I found another couch worthy of purchase.... seriously there's a lot of ugly couches on the Craigslist out here.

Anyways, so I'm emailing the Craigslister back and forth for a week while in my orientations for graduate school. And said CL'er insisted that the couch had to be gone that week! So between my all day orientations M-F from 8am-5pm and Jon's schedule which is mostly night shifts.... the scheduling was going to be tight.  So this girl and I agree that we would pick up the couch Thur evening after Jon got home from work. We find the house, see the couch, and instantly realize that bad boy isn't going to fit in or on our car. So we talk things over with the girl and she agrees to drop the couch off at our house in the morning. We pay her in good faith and go home.

When we get home though, Jon starts measuring to see if the couch is going to fit through the door frame and through the hallway of our apartment. He makes a judgement call that the couch isn't going to fit. Problem, right? So I text back our CL friend and see if it would be possible to get our money back, i'm so sorry, this is really embarrassing, yada yada yada. No response..... We wait until the next morning and I try calling our CL friend. No response....

Then about five minutes later, I get a text from the girl saying she doens't have the money and she's already spent it and that we can try and resell the couch if we want to or she can sell it and give us our money back after it sells. And I was like, no it's fine just bring the couch over and we'll figure it out. Well then, she starts talking about bringing the couch to us next week which is when Jon got on the phone with the local PD. To make a long story short, the cops called our CL friend and told them to bring our couch as agreed upon or we could take them to civil court. Needless to say, in a short while the couch was laying outside of our apartment. After a lot of lifting, panting, flipping and contorting we got the couch into our living room without any major causalities. And here world, behold the couch that caused our First Fort Collins Fiasco:

Through Hike on the AT

I know this is a little late but I still wanted to write up a little bit about when I had the opportunity to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail (AT) while on vacation in Massachusetts. Not too far from our resort was Mount Greylock the highest peak in the state. I started my hike on the Jones Nose trail, which is a four mile hike to summit and meets up with a three mile portion of the AT.  My favorite part of the hike was the trailhead that is somewhere between a half-mile to mile long. You start by going up a beautiful field of wildflowers on the side of the mountain and then are transported into the lush greenery of the mountain. The hike itself was quite grueling and I have mad respect for anyone who can hike the entire AT. On top of the mountain is a war memorial to the dead veterans of Massachusetts and you can climb to the top of this and see a 360 degree view of the valley down below.

Lory State Park

Earlier this week, Jon and I went for our first hike in Colorado. After doing a little bit of research on the internet we traveled up to Lory State Park to hike the park's flagship trail, Arthur's Rock. The scenery out here is absolutely beautiful. It's a mixture of desert and prairie, interspersed with bits of greenery of the temperate forrest I'm used to back in North Carolina. The terrain is much more rocky, the trail a mixture of gravel and sand over flagstone, marble, and granite jutting up from the earth.

The hike was described as moderate to difficult, which for us east coaster's not used to the high altitude and the steeper slopes here. The trail started out low in the mountains and slowly winds its way up. As you move up the mountain you encounter a fair number of switchbacks that left me out of breath and wishing I was in better shape. As you get higher up the mountain there are more trees and the trail is much more shaded, which was nice after hiking a mile up the mountain in the hot sun. 

At the top of Arthur's Rock, you have to scale up path of boulders to see the view from the top. That was really cool but also really nerve racking. However, the view from the top is totally worth it. On one side you can see the town of Fort Collins below and behind on the other side of the mountain is a view out into Lory State Park and the Rockies. Climbing and hiking back down is a lot easier than going up and a fairly quick trip down. 

Notes From the Road

 

Hello everyone from Fort Collins, Colorado!

We left one week ago from Raleigh, NC and drove for three days till we reached our destination. Other than stops for food and to occasionally stop to adjust the luggage rack on top of my car or Lucy's litter box strapped to the trunk of Jon's Miata the drive went more smoothly than either of us could have hoped for.We left one week ago from Raleigh, NC and drove for three days till we reached our destination. Other than stops for food and to occasionally stop to adjust the luggage rack on top of my car or Lucy's litter box strapped to the trunk of Jon's Miata the drive went more smoothly than either of us could have hoped for.

I was amazed at the beauty of West Virginia, which was miles and miles of a windy mountain road. Now this is my personal opinion and I'm sure others will disagree with what I say next but I liked driving through these mountains better than the Blue Ridge Parkway. Whenever I've driven on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I have always been scared out of my wits that I am going to fling my vehicle off the side of the mountain. However, in WV it was more like a slow meandering while you got to take in the beautify of the mountains and trees working together.



We didn't get to see much of KY as we drove through the majority of the state in darkness. The second day took us through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. I have to say this day was the most boring in terms of scenery. Through all three states it was mainly rocky hills that looked like chiseled pancakes stacked on top of each other topped with long grass. The major cities we drove through looked interesting and tempt me into wanting to visit, especially Louisville and St. Louis. Passing the Arch was really cool but also distracting as we went by it in 12 o'clock traffic. The traffic and choosing the right exits was stressful and nerve racking. We ended the second day in Lawrence, KS and stayed with a friend for the night.

From Kansas to Colorado was a lot of rolling prairie land, which was pretty but got old after five or six hours. Towards the end of KS we decided to start cutting north so we could avoid Denver's traffic. This detour took us up through Nebraska which was also stunningly and surprisingly beautiful. High, rolling roads that left you feeling like you were on a roller coaster. Sunflowers dotted the sides of the road. However, our trip through NB was short and soon we were in the prairie lands of Colorado. About two or three hours into the state we could see the line of the Rocky Mountains and we knew we were close.  Finally around seven or eight we rolled in to good old Fo'Co and got a hotel room for the night.

In what seems to be like odd coincidence, Jon and I once again had trouble when it came to renting our apartment. We found the next morning the previous tenant had not yet even begun to move out and were told to wait till noon that day to move in. All in all, we are in our new place and settling in fairly well.

More to come on Fo'Co' and our adventures soon!


xxxo.

Butternut Squash in Chapel Hill

Things are about to really change here. I worked my last shift at the Olive Garden yesterday and we are packing up the las of our belongings and moving to Fort Collins, CO on Monday. I cannot wait for this new beginning to start!

Unfortunately, new beginnings also means saying goodbye to some old friends... at least for now. Yesterday afternoon, in between packing and work I met up with one of my oldest friends to have lunch. She suggested we go to "Butternut Squash" in Chapel Hill which serves vegetarian and vegan cuisine.

The atmosphere was nice, a mixture of modern and eclectic design in a smaller setting with an even smaller staff. Our server, Masie, who also doubled as our host and cashier, was an absolute delight! She was friendly, helpful and one of the better servers I've had in a long time.

Now the important part, the food. The food itself is not overly pricy with sandwiches starting around $9.50 and entrees from $10-14. I ordered the black bean burger pictured below and Rachel had an oversized loaded baked potato. Both our meals came with a fresh field green salad and was delicious. I tried her tofu bacon and i have to say, you'd never know it wasnt meat For the price and portions you really can't do much better for a specialty restaurant.

Mass MoCA

 I'm starting to feel very cultured this vacation, as I have now ventured to three different art museums this week alone. I will say this much for the Massachusetts/New England area you will not want for a lack of art or artistic expression.  Yesterday, I went to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in the small town of North Adams about a 30 minute drive from our resort.

The museum itself is located in an old 19th century Mill building lending to its overall character, size and scale. I do have to say that because of this the museum was a bit of a maze and I found I was frequently asking for directions. The featured/special exhibition was titled "Oh, Canada" and displayed the works of several different Canadian artists. I'm not going to lie, some of it I loved, some of it I hated, and the common complaint most of us have about modern and contemporary art, a lot of it went over my head. I loved artists who did more fiber art and stayed away from the ones that did visual/videos. To the left is another one of my favorites. It is this cool looking spaceship made out of old children's toys and trinkets. I cannot even begin to describe all the little intricate things in and around this piece.

Within the museum's permanent collection is the work Sol LeWitt, who I am assuming is from this area or once lived here because I saw another one of his installations today at the Williams College Museum of Art. LeWitt's work is composed of several large "wall" drawings and paintings which quite literally take up the entire wall. The museum breaks up his career by floor going from early work to later as you travel up the staircases. In my humble and not so critical opinion, his early work was the most impressive. In several of the installations on this floor, LeWitt left the work unfinished so you could read and see his artitstic process when executing a design. It is unbelievable of formulaic and intricate some of his designs are when the finish product looks quite simple. Some of his instructions seemed more like problems a geometry teacher would assign for homework rather than a large scale art installation.




Also, as a side note for if or when you visit. I was brave and tried lunch at the cafe located within the museum. It was surprisingly phenomenal. One of the better meals I have tried while we have been in the area. It was a simple black bean burrito with corn chips but all together delicious and full of flavor. Def. grab something to eat while your there enjoying the museum.