Occupation Day at Old Salem

If you've been following my posts for some time now, then you are familiar with our little German Moravian village of Old Salem, nestled in the heart of Winston-Salem. Well, recently they had "Occupation Day," specifically for homeschoolers, and some good friends invited us along, to which we very much obliged!

Poor Caleb, he was the only boy in our group. At this point in his life he doesn't much really care.

It was real neat to see the kinds of jobs there were back at the turn of the Century (the 18th Century that is!)

We watched how they made rifles and muskets


And then we got to watch them demonstrate! One of Caleb's favorite parts of the day.

Isn't this a cool shot? (No pun intended)

And then of course he had to get one of his own.


Then we cruised on down the street to the Tavern for a little entertainment. This is where back in the day the trappers spent their overnight stays, playing games, having a few spirits!




As I've already mentioned before, Old Salem looks exactly the same as it did when it was first built in the 1800s, and people do still live in the homes in this little village. This little beaut is for sale if anyone is interested.

All of the housing and buildings are very much of German architecture.

Two peas in a pod!



How would you like to crank out fresh water each day? Probably wouldn't be too much fun in the wintertime, but with this warm winter day these kiddos found it most fascinating.



Caleb learns how to make furniture!


We learned how to make candles, make pewter eatery ware, make shoes, sew, preparing the sheeps wool for spinning, pottery. But by far our favorite things were pulling water from the well.



And making a split-rail fence!



Well, there you go, History 101! We finally left at 4:30 that day and we were all totally exhausted. But not before stopping by Winkler's Bakery for a little fresh sugar bread just baked over an open fire pit. It was so yummy that it just melted in your mouth!