Tuesday, May 29th
In the morning, we finally finished painting the picket fences. But my dealings with picket fences were not over, oh no they weren't...After lunch (and an enjoyable nerdy conversation between the workers) I went to a different picket fence to scrape off old, flaking paint. I didn't finish, I barely got two sides finished in around five hours. It took forever. But, I got free ice cream out of it...but also a weird behind-the-knee sunburn (yeah I don't know how that happened).
Hours: 9:00am to 6:30pm
Overall Working Hours: 9 hours 30 minutes
Wednesday, May 30th
While a fellow intern de-weeded the driveway of Henry Muhlenberg's house, I spent the entire day sorting through the right side of the carriage house, since it finally was empty of the picket fences. So, I was able to finish rebagging and reboxing the artifacts from the left side of the carriage house and even the back wall of the right side. Once we brought these new boxes to Dewee's to put in the archaeology annex in the attic, I even was able to bring out the artifacts and Walter Paine boxes that were kept along the far right wall on the right side of the carriage house. I finally made some progress in cleaning out that side of the carriage house, to say the least! Afterwards, I made a pile of the picket fences so that they were not in the way.
Hours: 9:00am to 5:00pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours
Thursday, May 31st
Today started out with a Historical Society meeting, which was interesting to observe. Afterwards, we were supposed to show one of the members some of the artifacts from the right and left side of the Henry Muhlenberg carriage house that I was unsure of, but sadly that could not happen, which kind of threw me for a little bit of a loop, because I was really hoping to have removed the carriage house of archaeological artifacts. But oh well, that will hopefully happen tomorrow. Instead, while the same intern as yesterday continued de-weeding the driveway (I'm glad he enjoys doing that, I would not be able to sit hunched over doing that monotonous work), the other intern and I laid out all of the Walter Paine artifacts so that their scope can be viewed; and boy there are a ton, even when we move the necessary artifacts to Dewee's, I still don't think we'll have enough table space for the Paine stuff. But that's something to keep in mind for another day.
Hours: 9:00am to 5:00pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours
Friday, June 1st
In the morning, I vacuumed the visitor's center while waiting for the historic society member to arrive so I can show here some of the artifacts I had questions about within the Henry Muhlenberg carriage house. When she arrived, I did just that, and showed her what exactly we had been doing. It was a bit uncomfortable, because she does have a very strong personality, but it worked out well. Afterwards, me and my boss finished rebagging/reboxing the artifacts from the carriage house, then went through the visitor's center, making sure it was ready for tomorrow's events. Once this was done, I went through some documents at Dewee's to see what was relevant to the society, and which were not. We then went to the Speaker's House to help set up for the field school that will be beginning next week as well as making it presentable again for tomorrow's events; basically, we swept all of the rooms and cleaned the tables. Today was pretty much a preparation day.
Hours: 9:00am to 6:45pm
Overall Working Hours: 9 hours 45 minutes
Saturday, June 2nd
There were a lot of events going on today: from 9-1 at the Speaker's House was the Farm Stand (they sell items, such as herbs, from the garden as well as honey from the bee hives on the property, and locally made cheese and eggs), from 1-4 also at the Speaker's House was the Garden Party (tours were given of the property), from 11-1 at Henry's was a Sit-and-Stitch get-together, and also from 1-4, at Henry's though, were tours. I pretty much went back and forth between the properties, helping were I was needed. I also followed two tours at the Speaker's House, so that way I could learn how to do it myself. While there was quite a crowd throughout the day at the Speaker's House, except for the Sit-and-Stitch, no one really came to Henry's, and while talking to a volunteer, we believe it would be beneficial for there to be signage at the Speaker's House directing people to Henry's because, with the hustle and bustle constantly going on at the Speaker's House, people are more likely to stop by to see what's going on, while Henry's is more secluded and does not have a lot of people there outside bringing people in.
Hours: 9:00am to 4:45pm
Overall Working Hours: 7 hours 45 minutes