Beautiful Kings Landing

I cannot believe the entire summer season has passed and I did not get in one visit to Kings Landing. Until this week! My blogger friend Pamela of Playing with my Camera and I have been trying to schedule a visit to Kings Landing together for weeks now, and between our busy schedules and the poor weather.. well, it took us until this past week!  Thursday was the day! And what a beautiful day it was - warm and sunny with a breeze off the river. We enjoyed the walking, the chatting and the beauty that is Kings Landing Historical Settlement. It is so beautiful in the fall, but the leaves do not seem to be as brilliant this year. I thought with all the rain we had this summer, and the lush foliage that has

In the Hagerman house, one of the museum houses.

resulted... well, I was expecting a spectacular fall, leaf-color-wise. Not so. There are several maples at the Landing that are always a beautiful red, but they had already dropped many of their leaves and what was left wasn't quite the rich red it usually is. Looking across the river, there didn't seem to be a lot of color either. A little disappointing... but Kings Landing certainly did not disappoint...

I never tire of visiting Kings Landing. I know the place like the back of my hand, and there is always something more to see. There actually have been some changes this year in the way things are set up. The homes are now divided into three "categories" - each one is either a museum home, a story home or a hands-on home. 










The museum homes are set up with many artifacts, info boards to explain what you are viewing and a (staff) interpreter (in period appropriate clothing, of course) to answer questions and talk about what is in the home. I was so pleased to see the addition of the info boards, I think KL should have added these a long time ago. In the "story homes", the interpreters are acting out the lives of the family of the home. We especially  enjoyed chatting with the good Doctor in the Jones house and hearing his nineteenth century views on the practice of blood-letting, and in the Perley house hearing the ongoing disagreements between Mrs. Perley and her love-sick, poetry-writing daughter Annie (below).

In the Perley House,a story home

 The hands-on homes have activities that visitors can participate in, such as cooking and/or baking on an open hearth, spinning, etc. These have been very popular with visitors this year. One home is totally dedicated to children's activities- they can dress up in period clothing and participate in a number of fun activities. Of course the trades areas continue as always- the print shop, the sash and door factory, the blacksmith shop, cooper's shop, etc.

Spinning in the Heustis house, a hands-on home

 Fields were being plowed, crops were harvested and being dried or stored... looks like preparation for winter is well in hand! We chatted with the horses, pigs, geese, chickens, sheep, turkeys and one ox. (I warned the turkeys that Thanksgiving is not far off, and they should be making themselves scarce...) Lunch, complete with live fiddle music, at the Kings Head Inn (turkey vegetable soup, brown bread and gingerbread and whipped cream...yummmm) and some great chats with staff made for a wonderful visit.

At the Joslin farm

If you haven't been to  Kings Landing this year, you still have one more week - their last day is
next Monday- Thanksgiving Day.  There are lots of special activities going on for Thanksgiving weekend, including the very popular Auction on Sunday afternoon, the Turkey Shoot, the Lumberman's Competition, the Church service and the ever popular turkey dinner at the Kings Head Inn..

And if you are local and haven't been to see Copperhead - The Movie yet, you have four more days to get yourself there! What are you waiting for? It has been held over again and plays at Empire Theatres through Thursday Oct.10.  Filmed at Kings Landing, it is an American Civil War story but there are no bloody battlescenes. It is more about the war "at home", ie how it affected the families in an upper NY state community. You can read more about it in my post here.

Pop on over to my friend Pam's blog here so you can see her photos too. 





Peace,
Linda

"If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday." ~ Pearl Buck