Civil War Day at Historic Oak View Park in Raleigh, NC

 

In the event you didn't know I am a Civil War amateur historian! Amateur because I don't know as much as I'd like to know and historian only because I have quite a library of books that deal with the Civil War and Civil War era!  Still doesn't mean I know a lot! :-)  In May, Carol and I went to Civil War Day at Historic Oak View Park here in Raleigh.  The main house on the property has been  recorded to have been built around 1829.  Picture below:

I don't have a more recent picture of the house which has been renovated and used as executive offices and most often you don't get to go very far into the house.  However, Carol and I are very familiar with the inside of the house because Carol's sister, Donna and here family lived there from

 1983-1988.  Donna's husband, Paul was paid by the county to be caretaker of the property.  There was a summer kitchen behind the house which serves to display exhibits today.  There was a big barn which has since been torn down and the grounds overgrown with plant life has been cleaned up and additional buildings have been built for exhibits and tours.   Both nieces, Debbie and Julie have visited the main house in the past couple years and were able to share with the people at the house their experiences of their life when they lived in the house. Now onto Civil War Day...

 

The picture below is a picture of Brenda McKean who had this trivia exhibit on poster board!



Ms. McKean wrote 2 books:

 

Blood and War at my Doorstep Vol. 1

Much has been written about the military aspects of the American Civil War, but the civilian perspective is much less represented.  Ms. McKean has published years worth of research to bring us the civilian perspective from letters and diaries throughout the country in Volume 1. 

 

Blood and War at my Doorstep Vol. 2: North Carolina Civilians in the War Between the States,

Ms. McKean deals primarily with the impact of the Civil War on North Carolina civilians mostly

through the eyes of women.

 

I am so excited to have been able to buy these books from Ms. McKean and have her autograph them for me!  These are thick books with small font and supply loads of interesting information!

 

Below are some pictures I took of the "soldiers" on the grounds. You may notice that there are both Confederate and Union soldiers.  I guess they didn't have enough to play war!  Wouldn't it be nice if the world could play this way and work together instead of going to war?

 

 

And here's a little video:

 







 

 

 



Squirrels! Not my furry friends!

As has been stated in past posts, I have always enjoyed the antics of the squirrels in my backyard!  That is until now!  They are now considered tree rats from Hell, and here's why!


The storage bench below has been in my backyard for a year.  I stored bird seed and critter food in there.  I must admit I had not been in the bench for about a month and when I finally did open it the inside was FULL of sunflower seed husks!  The squirrels, as you can see, chewed a hole in the side of the bench and went through about 16 pounds of sunflower seeds which were in a hard plastic pail with a sturdy lid!

They also opened up 2 rubbermaid containers with safflower seed and thistle seed.  Most of the safflower and thistle seed was still in the containers but the lids were popped off all these containers.  The only thing they couldn't get into was a metal pail with locking lid!  Do you want to guess what was in that?  The squirrel's critter food!  I feed these varmints and this is the thanks I get?

SO.....I decided I would do what I had to do to chase them off occasionally and vent out some of my irritation with them!  I'd run out the back door shooting my soaker gun at the little bastards!  I had Carol take this picture, and Carol thought it was a hoot to make sure the picture of Jesus laughing was in the frame!  And people think I'm the nutty one! While the younger squirrels run for the hills, the older squirrels have figured out just how far they have to go up in the tree so they don't continue to get hit with water!  I've thought about using my BB pistol gun, but as a card carrying member of the Humane Society, I haven't gone that far!  YET!

BUT.....

Thanks to my mom, I got a new Squirrel Proof bird feeder that's driving the squirrels as crazy as they have driven me!  The feeder is designed so that when anything heavier than a small bird is on it the feeder closes all the feeding ports!  It's the long bird feeder hanging from the middle hook!  More detail below!

I have so enjoyed the many birds coming to the feeder, and have equally enjoyed watching the long- tailed rodents try and try and try but can't get to the seed!  The first video shows how much the birds love this new bird feeder, and the second video shows how confused a squirrel is.  I apologize that the videos are kind of hard to see!  I had taken video with my camera but couldn't find the cord to transfer the pictures to the computer.  So I took video through the window with my iPhone.  When I find the cord, I will republish these videos!

 

 

So, I hope you have enjoyed this post even if it's at my expense! :-D   Soon I will be posting pictures and talking about our Myrtle Beach trip plus our experience of Civil War Day here in Raleigh both in May!  Blessings until then, Diana