Spring Has Sprung

Spring has come to Nauvoo.  The grass is so green, the trees have leaves, and the birds are singing beautifully.  The pioneers may have left Nauvoo, but the birds sure didn't.

Mark has been spending quite a bit of time in the Browning Gun Shop and home.  We thought our grandsons may enjoy seeing some of the guns.  The Browning Gun Shop was here in Nauvoo.  Then when the pioneers moved west, they moved it to Ogden, Utah.

Mark is demonstrating how they cut rifling in a barrel. 

We are both working in various historic sites.  I worked in the Pendleton Log School one day this week.  We have visitors do a little math exercise and a little spelling exercise.   



This photo shows the benches and slates from the time period.  This was never an actual school, but has been built like a school would have been then.

 Many elementary schools were called "blab schools" because they didn't have textbooks and so they mostly did recitations.  Education was very important to the early church members in Nauvoo and they had  textbooks--in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, bookkeeping, and analysis. 

The teamsters are all excited this week because they got four new horses.  Now they have a total of 20 horses to pull the wagons and carriages.  Mark is really happy with the quality of the horses. 



Mark with the new gray team.  The other new team are black percherons.  Notice the Nauvoo temple spire at the top right.

 More photos of the horses will come later.  Mark wants to wait till they've shed.

As you can see in our first post, our living room is quite large.  Our kitchen is very small.  It is almost like a hallway.  But we're not here much and I don't have much time to cook anyway so it is just fine.

The kitchen



The dining area of the kitchen.

 We had our first night in the "Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo" show.  They had two casts and expanded them to three casts and added all of the new people.  It was kind of scary.  We had been learning the songs for a long time but only had one long practice the night of the show.  It went ok, but I hope we'll get better with time.  Luckily we don't have speaking parts yet, just singing. 




This is me ready for our first show on Wednesday, April 4.

 I had my birthday.  So many friends from home and here remembered and made it so nice.  Thank you all.

I have been walking in the mornings.  It is a lovely time and I've enjoyed it so much.  Sometimes I practice my songs for the shows.  Luckily the birds drown me out.  The other morning I walked up to the women's garden.  I remember in the 70's when they built the statues honoring the various phases of a woman's life.  They are beautiful.  The tulips are so lovely right now. 

This is the final statue.  I love that she's making a quilt.