During the month of July, the Smith Farm and Wood Cabin will be activated with additional activities for families visiting during the Summer.
These will be hands on crafts and activates based on historic practices from the 1860s. These include cooking, ink making, candle dipping, wool carding, clay pottery, and woodworking.
This event is included with the cost of admission to Atlanta History Center.
Activities
Education facilitators will help guests make their own candles. Candles are one of the other uses for animal fat and would be made leading into winter and shorter days. Guests will be able to dip their own candle to take home.
An education facilitator will demonstrate how wool is carded and prepared for spinning into yarn. The wool from the sheep would have been a useful commodity and helped the farm owners make their own clothes and textiles. Guests can use the carding brushes themselves to see how the wool is turned into bundles for spinning.
Guests will see several historical cooking methods and ways of preserving food. Summer would have been a busy time on the farm as the harvest comes in. Fresh fruits and vegetables would have been used in everyday meals; what they could not eat would be preserved through a variety of means. Canning and pickling were common for vegetables, fruits could be turned into jams, ciders, or wines. Guests can help grind corn for hoe cakes, along with fermenting vinegar for pickles.
Guests can see how a variety of hand tools would have been used to fashion wooden products, the draw knife can shave down lumber to a usable size and the item can then be finished with chisels and rasps.
Here guests can see how the Smiths would have preserved the meat they harvested from their hogs. This station shows off already cured hams and details the preservation process with salting and wrapping the pork.
Guests will learn how native cultures made pottery using the coil method and then decorated their pieces using stamps. Guests can try to make their own piece of pottery using airdry clay and then decorate it using the tools provided.