June 30

Sorry I did not get back to you. Last night wasn’t the best of evenings.

This is indeed a fly catcher. Put some sweet water and some meat in the bottom and the bugs are not smart enough to find their way out.

Also, the little things on the mantle were indeed fire starters.  They are pieces of newspaper twisted into a tube.  They would also light their candles with them.

We were allowed to go upstairs on our own. They had to manhandle me to keep me from jumping the barriers and touching all the pretties. It wasn’t a pretty sight, so I will spare you…….and myself the humiliation!

This is a shot of the master bedroom and in the background you can see the nursery. This doctor and his wife had 4 children, and only 2 bedrooms. I’d be kicking the kids out of the nursery and making myself a bathroom!!!

There were fireplaces in every room, but this one had a special pot beside it. It was absolutely lovely!

Beside the fireplace to the right was this. You can see the daughter and the barrier. She is holding me back….you just can’t tell at this angle.

I want this lovely dressing table….or whatever it is! Isn’t the carving just gorgeous??? I also wanted to snatch that pair of hand knitted stockings. I wonder who knitted them? was she a good knitter, did she have arthritis? did she like that color, or did she tire of it after she made the cuff?

I just have a few shots of the other bedroom.

This is a silk wedding dress circa 1849.

This desk was beside the fireplace that was at the foot of the bed. Isn’t it lovely?

The daughter wanted me to get a shot of this nightgown. So, I did.

What do you think the pot in the master bedroom was? I will tell you tomorrow.

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June 29

***sorry it is so late. WordPress was doing maintainance , so I couldn’t get on here when I wanted to.***

The next building we went into was the Doctor’s house. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my home schooling mom friends as the historian in this house. She is such a sweetie. She inspired me to have a room totally devoted to schooling.

When you go in the front door, according to the custom of the architecture of the day, you walk into the hall with a stairway and a little calling card table. There are rooms on either side of the hall.

The room to the right is the parlor.

The picture there on the wall is of the doctor’s wife that lived there. Above the settee was a picture of the doctor himself. The white cloth draped on the settee was her silk shaw. I had to manhandle the girl to keep her from jumping over the barrier and taking it for her own.

I was really interested in the tea set.

This tea set was from England. It was copied from a Chinese tea set. As you can see ther eare no handles on the tea cups, but because the tea is so hot, the English began making the saucers deep so that they could pour the tea in the saucer, let it cool, and drink from the saucer. I would be inclined to just skip the tea cup and pour it straight into the saucer. Or add handles to the cups.

On the mantle of the fire place was the doctor’s bible~~beside the candle~~and this fabulous looking clock. She told us that the picture on the clock was painted backwards. She didn’t tell us why.

Do you have any idea what is in the glass between the bible and the clock?

We then went into the dining room.

She was telling us that this box on the mantle piece was the box of tea. Tea back then cost about $6 a pound, and coffee cost about .50 a pound. So the tea was kept in that box under lock and key, and only served to important people.  I am quite sure that I would have been served….coffee.

She also told us what this interesting glass piece on the dining table was.

Do you know what it is? I will come back later tonight and tell you exactly what it is.

June 28

The first building we went into was the school house. It isn’t in the original school house.

This is the original school house, and I was very disappointed when it was sold and make into an antique type store. I don’t think they cared that I was upset.

This is the inside of the building where the school house is now. It just isn’t the same. The girl is standing up by the “recitation bench”. The historian in this building was the school “marm” and gave us a good 1/2 hour lesson similar to what it would have been like waaaaaay back then. We had to practice our writing, do a history lesson, and do math in our head. I sat way in the back with this annoying boy named Brad. He kept pulling my hair, shoving me with his knee, whacked me with his straight edge, and generally made a nuisance of himself. “I”,on the other hand, was a good girl. The teacher commended me on my hand writing, and told the boy next to me that she would separate us if he didn’t behave. He didn’t even try, and kept looking at my slate.

The building right next to this one…you can see it peeking through the window there in the school room behind the stove…

is the oldest building in Roscoe. This house~~and I use that term loosely~~was built in 1825. It was the home of a weaver named Daniel Boyd. He and his family lived in this 10×14 foot building, and the room in the back was were he put his loom. There was JUST enough room for 2 looms in the loom room.

This is his loom. It is about 200 years old. The historian in this room told us that it takes 2 ladies 2 weeks to thread this loom. All those silver thingies that are hanging…..the thread has to be threaded between the eye in each of them, then threaded between each reed~~the screen looking thing where the thread is coming out in front~~. She also said that it would take 2 days of weaving to make enough cloth to make 1 dress.  It is no wonder that people only had one to two sets of clothing.  They only had 1 weaver in town.

This is a 100 year old loom. The cloth being made in this one was stunning.

This picture does not do it justice.

Anyway, this building was small……..VERY small.

I took this picture of the girl in the doorway between the loom room and the rest of the “house” just so you could see how wide the door way was. It was about 32 inches wide. Maybe. As you can see, she is sooooo thrilled to be there. The excitement is oozing out of every pore. It was all I could do to contain the party animal!

In the living part of the house, they had a fire place, a table, a hutch, a dresser and

this bed. See the wooden thing laying on the child’s bed? That is the rope key. They would tighten the rope when it began to sag.

Have I mentioned just how much I love MY bed.

It is no wonder that these people were so small. They were so hunched up in there beds that it stunted their growth. I love, love, love my bed!!! I also wanted to call your attention to the chest at the foot of the bed. See how it is dovetailed together. Isn’t it magnificent?

We didn’t spend any more than 3 minutes in that house. I was getting claustrophobic. Visions of trying to sleep in that bed was more than I could handle.

If I had lived back then, I would have been stuck in a house this small. I just know it. Tomorrow we will look at a much nicer house. I could have lived in that house.

Could you sleep in a bed like that?

June 27

Last week, Roscoe Village had their history tour for free. I like free, so atouristing we went.

Roscoe Village was a port on the 308-mile Ohio & Erie Canal, which opened in 1832 and connected Cleveland to Portsmith. Work on the canal began in Cleveland to enable merchants to ship goods from the New York region and beyond.

The heyday of the Ohio & Erie Canal lasted only until the 1850s, when the railroads began to replace the canal in transporting goods to the eastern markets. In this short time, the canal made Ohio prosperous and, in the 1850s, the Union’s most populous state.

By 1877, much of the canal was abandoned, and the great flood of 1913 damaged such a large part of the canal that the system was abandoned. You can still see bits of the canal as you drive on SR 16, and we often go picnicking near one of the locks. I really wish that I could have lived back then to see it in all of its glory.

In the 1960s, Edward Montgomery and his wife wanted to restore Roscoe Village to its former splendor. The Montgomerys started a non-profit foundation to restore the village. The foundation purchased quite a few buildings and restored them to their nineteenth-century appearance.

If you have ever seen the mini-series Centennial, part of that movie was filmed in Roscoe.

Now that you have had your mini history lesson, lets see what I am talking about.

This is the old warehouse. It is now a restaurant. They have good food……including deep fried s’mores…. Oh my, am I am in love!

The darker house is a private home. I would really love for them to invite me in so I can see what the inside of their house looks like. Do you think they would mind if I invited myself over?

The building next to it is a book store.  It used to be a really nice one, but now it is just a tourist type book store.

Anyone in the market to move? This house is for sale.

I have no clue what this building used to be, but it is old, and it is beautiful. I like to imagine that it was a lawyer’s office, or the village butcher shop. Maybe even the sheriff’s office.

I love this building. I love the wrought iron balcony. I also love to go in these stores and hear the old floors creak and groan. I wonder who owned the store, how many people have walked in that building, and who owned them first.

This is the original school house. Sadly, do to gross mismanagement, the foundation had to sell most of the buildings to private owners. All the buildings I have shown you so far have been sold to private owners. They had to sign contracts saying that they would not change them from their original structure. My favorite store sits to the right of this building. It isn’t original to the village, but I don’t care. It is the House of G.A. Fisher…fine jewelers.

This is the chocolate chip’s favorite building. I am almost positive that it used to be an old mercantile or something….at least I like to imagine that it was.

The next few days I will be taking you on a tour of our village. It isn’t that large, maybe 3 blocks, but it is beautiful and old. I like beautiful and old.

Have you seen the mini-series Centennial ?

June 26

Let me first start off by saying, the cake was sooooo good and soooooooo moist, it made me almost like chocolate cake. I even ate my entire piece! I mean, it WAS chocolate!

I won’t bore you with many details, but we all had fun. Why?

We were eating……that is what we do best!

Every since she was little, the girl has always gnawed on bones….sucked on bones, and chewed every bit of flavor, joint and gristle off. It is so bad, dogs won’t have anything to do with the bone once she is finished with it.

All the food was delicious, and the boy was anxious to open his presents. Aren’t we all? Aren’t presents the purpose of having a birthday? If it isn’t, I refuse to have any more!

He opened all his gifties from my parents and his sister. Mine was last. I made the boy hunt for it.

When I ordered this gift, I was so excited. Then delivery day arrived. The boy had gone to work just as the UPS driver arrived. Whew! He didn’t see it. But wait, the boy was still sitting on the porch when it arrived. Crud! He saw the box. That’s ok…no…wait! KitchenAid is written on every surface of the box. He knows what he is getting.

He didn’t know what was in the box. I was wrong~~don’t faint dad~~and I have never been so happy to be wrong!!!

Yeasssss! I didn’t think his smile could get any wider.

Unless…….your Gramps is standing there with…

a .22 with a scope, cleaning kit and rounds. What more could a man ask for???

How about passing his driver’s test today.

Good times!!! Good times!!!

Dad, mom…….my birthday is in 4 months……are you saving up???

Do you have any birthday traditions?

June 25

Today, 17 years ago, I became a mom. I was so scared. I always used to look at him when he was very small and wonder what he would look like at this age. Who he would be, what he would want to do as a profession, if he would act like I do. I am very pleased with his turnout. I could not have asked for a better son! Happy Birthday, sunshine!!!

I made his birthday cake yesterday. I don’t do cakes well. I went through a period of 2 years where every birthday cake I made flopped in some way or another. One year I made a cake for the girl, and I ended up having to make it a trifle as it stuck to the pan, and disintegrated right before my eyes as I tried to ice it. It wasn’t pretty. We called it “the blob”.

So, come along with me as I make the boy’s birthday cake. Hopefully I don’t make a blob!

The ingredients are just your basic ingredients, except it calls for espresso powder. That is the only “exotic” ingredient.

Next we prepare our pans. I use something called AB’s quick lube. ~~2 c. shortening and 1 ½ c. flour, mix well~~ I use this instead of Pam or something like that for 2 reasons. 1. this doesn’t leave my pan brown and sticky even after washing, and 2. this releases so much better than a spray.

Not only do I grease it well, I put parchment in the bottom. I refuse to have another “blob” on my hands. I measure out a piece of parchment a little bit wider than my pan, fold it into 4ths, then start making it into a wedge shape…twice. I then flip my pan over, put the point of the paper in the center of the pan, and cut it at the edge of the pan.

Unfolded, it becomes a circle the size of the bottom of my pan. They make round shapes, and if I made 9″ cakes on a weekly basis, I would consider purchasing them, but since I don’t…it is much easier just to make them myself.

When you put them in the bottom of the pan, make sure that it is all adhered to the grease, and you force the edges around…..don’t want any batter seeping under the paper. That would be disaster!

Next we make the batter.

Take 2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

3/4 c. cocoa, salt, baking soda, baking powder, espresso powder, and corn starch~~no clue why it calls for corn starch~~

and whisk together. I prefer to sift the dry ingredients together, but the recipe said to do it this way.

Add 4 eggs

oil and

vanilla. I make my own vanilla. Generally I just dump some in, but since I have never made this cake before, I figured I might want to measure. Home made vanilla smells so good.

Mix till smooth.

Add water

Mixing well, and scraping down the sides.

Pour into your prepared pans, and bake for 35 ~~or so~~minutes.

Cool in pans for 15 minutes. Then comes the scary part. You have to turn them out and cool completely. Did I grease them well enough? Did it stick to the sides? Am I going to end up with another blob?

Whew! The back one was touch and go for a few minutes. Part of it didn’t want to let go of the pan….as you can see, I made it submit.

Now we need to make the filling.

Take about 12 oz of chocolate chips and 6 oz. heavy cream. Stir.

Nukerize for 1 minute, and stir. It will look clumpy…..like this. Stir. Put it back in for another minute.

After 2 minutes, stir. It will still be a bit clumpy. Continue to stir and the little bits of chocolate will melt.

See how satiny it becomes. Viola, your basic gnache.

Divide this into 3 parts.

Add whatever flavorings/liquors you would like to each. We added rum, vanilla and caramel.

Slice your layers in half. They make these little gizmo’s that will do it nice and perfectly for you, but why? an uneven layer adds character to the cake.

Put your bottom layer on your cake plate of choice, and top with first filling.

Making sure that the filling tastes good.

Add your next layer of cake and your second filling. When you spread your filling on, don’t spread it all the way to the edges. You might get overflow.

As you can see, this cake has LOTS of character. Add your last filling flavor, and spread lovingly!

Put your top layer on and pray that it doesn’t all slide off the plate.

Now we need to make our icing.

What is great about this is that the icing is almost the same as the filling….so we can reuse the same bowl…only if it hasn’t been licked. Pour it over the entire cake allowing it to dripple all down the sides.

Keep away! You don’t get any till tomorrow!!!

Now I need to make sure that the icing tastes ok.

The final product……character and all.

What is your favorite flavor of cake? Would you all not faint if I told you I don’t really care for chocolate cake???

**recipe is now in my recipe section**

June 24

A brush with greatness.

This past week, the male chocolate chip had the opportunity to go to an “Alive Fest” up in Canal Fulton, Ohio. They have all sorts of different Christian singers preforming there. The youth group went to mainly hear Jeremy Camp and David Crowder.

The boy really likes David Crowder, so when he had the chance to meet him, he was thrilled.

I was thrilled for him.

Can you not see the joy on his face? Can you not tell that he is on cloud nine?

All I can say is does the man NOT own a hair brush?

Do you have a favorite Christian singer/group?