it's tough

I'm sorry about the lack of posts lately. It's just been a lot harder to post for the past couple of months for some reason. It's not that we're not doing things, because we have been. It's just that I'm not very motivated lately, I guess. I get home from work and just don't feel like writing and editing pictures and stuff. I have been doing this for almost 2 1/2 years, so I guess I just need a little break. I'm sure I'll keep posting, I just can't promise how often it will be for a little while. I'll try to do it at least once every week or so, and hopefully I'll get back into it at some point, but maybe not. We'll see.

Onward! We had a few open house events last week, 2 for hospitality and tourism employees and 1 for the general public. They were pretty successful, especially the general public one - we had almost 300 people despite rain and the road being closed right next to our entrance because of construction. After a couple of the events a few other employees and I helped finish some of the leftover alcohol. Because we didn't want it to go bad, you know. It was fun. A good way to end a few really long days. Here are some pictures! One of our employees came and took pictures for us, so we've got a whole bunch now, which is good. This first one just cracks me up, the woman is the wife of one of our blacksmiths, she's not even one of our employees but came to hang out one night for some reason. The Indian about to attack is one of our guides. The point of the spear he's holding is from a swordfish bill. I was playing with it the night before, spinning it around, he said something about how I was going to drop it and break it, I said "no I won't!" and spun it around again, and promptly dropped it and broke the end of the tip off. Hurray for super glue!

This one shows me in action, I'm showing them how to make a canoe. The real reason I posted this is because you can see the frame of the barn in the background. It's the last building that needs to be completed in the museum. It's freaking huge. Initially it was supposed to be done spring 2009, then by this past April 1, the new estimated date is the end of September, and reality is probably next March. We'll see.

This is the new blacksmith area, it's sort of in the middle of our fort. That little girl (who is the daughter of one of our former employees and is featured on a bunch of our advertising) is helping to work the bellows to keep the fire going.

This is my boss and some dude in the main entrance of the fort. When you enter the museum (at least for the general public, not the school groups) you go through this area first. At the left of the picture you can see the very beginning of the blacksmith area from the last picture. It's a neat little area. It's more fun to climb up onto the gun deck above this, but there's no ladder kept there because, you know, we don't want kids climbing up there and falling off or something. It's ok if the employees do, though.

Here's another one of our blacksmiths (not blacksmithing at the time, he was decked out in his Spanish finery instead) guarding Carlos, the ear of corn growing in the Spanish yard. Poor Carlos, all alone. The garden in the Indian section has at least 8 or 10 ears developing, but those were at least planted there by kids doing the school programs. Carlos started his life in a corn grinding bowl on the table that used to be in this spot, apparently he was one of the lucky kernels that fell off, got some of the oyster shell dirt kicked over him, and grew like crazy. All these damn corn plants at work look about 1000 times better than the corn in my garden. So unfair.

Ok, one more that amuses me: costumed employees hitting up the Weinie Wagon at the end of our shift! The trailer belongs to one of the owners, it's not at the museum full time but certainly came in handy on these evenings. The guy on the left is yet another blacksmith, he's also a bit of a racist. He told me I was being disloyal to my race the other day because I had music by black artists on my mp3 player. The girl in the trailer had a baby about 7 weeks ago. She looks fantastic. Her middle name and her daughter's middle name are both Jean. And her birthday is the day after mine. Obviously we get along well.
Ok, hopefully this post makes up for the past 2 weeks, at least a little!