Reminder: many City offices and facilities closed on Friday

As a reminder, Log Cabin Village will be closed on Friday, April 2, due to City of Fort Worth budget cuts/furlough. You can find out more information about the furlough closures here...

Upcoming events...

Just a reminder...we have some great events coming up next week!

April 9, 2010
TIMBER TALES STORYTIME
10-11 a.m.
Featured story: Covered Wagon, Bumpy Trails by Verla Kay. Follow a family on their covered wagon trip west in this lyrical tale of bumpy trails! $4 fee includes a story, fun activities, and a craft, all geared towards 3-5 year olds. Please call 817-392-5881 to make your reservation (required).


April 10, 2010
ALL SOWN UP
1-4 p.m.
Join us as we undertake spring planting! Plow the field, pump and haul water, scatter some seed, and watch the garden grow. Be sure to visit with The Greater Fort Worth Herb Society while you’re here! Cost is regular Village admission plus a $2 fee to make a craft.

Legal and Illegal Food Ingredients on Los Caminos Real

Article 2 in a series about historic foodways of the Camino Real de Los Tejas by Richard G. Santos, an international research historian, linguist and educator based in San Antonio, Texas. If you have family recipes to share, please send these recipes and memories of home cooked meals to richardgsantos@yahoo.com.


2 Legal and Illegal Food Ingredients on Los Caminos Real

Cuisine and recipes of the Camino Real de Los Tejas...

Article 1 in a series about historic foodways of the Camino Real de Los Tejas by Richard G. Santos, an international research historian, linguist and educator based in San Antonio, Texas. If you have family recipes to share, please send these recipes and memories of home cooked meals to richardgsantos@yahoo.com.

As a Board Member of the State Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, Santos decided to do this series in a chronological perspective. He is about half way through, still wanting to deal with the Post Civil War, Great Depression and Mexican migration of the 20th Century.

Santos has graciously shared these articles with Log Cabin Village and other educational outlets. We will continue to bring the installments to you.

1 Cuisine and Recipes of the Camino Real de Los Tejas Wanted

There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza...

...and we know just the man to fix it! Check out this great video of the talented Dan "Five Buckets" Tatum and his coopering skills! Dan just so happens to also be a great volunteer here at the Village. Nice work, Dan!

You can see Dan in action at our upcoming May event! Here's more info:

May 15, 2010
STRIKE WHILE THE IRON’S HOT!
1-4 p.m.
Experience life before hardware and lumber stores! See the blacksmith hand-forge unique creations, take a turn working wood at the shave horse, and watch trained cooper (barrel/cask/bucket maker) Dan Tatum and members of the Woodturners of North Texas at work. This day is for do-it-yourselfers! Cost is regular Village admission plus a $2 fee to make a wooden mallet to take home.

Summer camp information--sign up today!

Hello esteemed Village People!

As the days turn warmer, we turn our thoughts to the coming months and what exciting adventures lie ahead. And we can't help but think that our June day camps are right around the corner!

All camps are back by popular demand! For our 4th-8th graders, we will again offer our cooking and woodworking single-day camps. Both provide great hands-on opportunities to hone specific "pioneer" skills. For our wee pioneers (K-6th grade) we will feature our Wagons West: Hands-on history programs. Not as intensive as cooking/woodworking, Wagons West still gives our participants a "taste" of pioneer life.

Here's more information on all three programs, plus downloadable registration forms. Classes fill fast, so don't delay!

Registration Form--Cooking and/or Woodworking

Registration Form WW

The educator takes on Aggieland...

While the other fearless Village People were holding down "the fort" here at Log Cabin Village last week, I (Rena--the educator) was afforded the privilege of traveling to Bryan-College Station for the Texas Association of Museums Annual Meeting. The Annual Meeting is a special occasion for many reasons. It is a wonderful time in which to network and reconnect with colleagues. It provides countless opportunities to learn about advancements in the museum field through thought-provoking sessions, speeches, and off-site trips. And it allows museum professionals like myself the chance to "recharge" creative batteries for a few days while gaining valuable knowledge that will be applied to improve the Village and visitor experience. This meeting was extra special because my wonderful coworkers and colleagues bestowed a very special award upon me: the Texas Association of Museum Educator's Committee Educator of the Year award. I am truly humbled and honored.

Since the Texas Association of Museums and its annual meeting is so important to Log Cabin Village, we thought y'all might like to see just a glimpse of what I experienced last week. Enjoy!

Please click on any photo within the slide show to control speed and/or make photos larger. I have provided hyperlinks with more information in some of the photo captions.

Reminder: Toolin' Around special event

Just a reminder, the Lone Star Leather Crafters will be here tomorrow (Saturday, March 13th) from 1-4 p.m. demonstrating the art of working with leather. We hope to see you here!

March 13, 2010
TOOLING AROUND...
1-4 p.m.
Grab your punches and your awls...it’s time to craft leather! Fort Worth’s own Lone Star Leather Crafters Guild will be here demonstrating their fine work and giving Village visitors the chance to stamp a little leather on their own! No reservations required. Cost is regular Village admission. Crafts for this event are generously provided by Tandy Leather Factory and Hide Crafters.

As a bonus, we'll also have some of our Tarrant County College--Trinity River Campus service learning students here showing off some of our toys and games! Won't you come out and play?

More great publicity for Log Cabin Village!

Wow! They like us...they really like us! We have been very fortunate to receive some great publicity lately. First, we were featured in the Cozy Cabins 2010 magazine produced by Country's Best Log Homes. Then yesterday, Mike Kinney, a photojournalist with CBS 11, filmed a wonderful story about our popular Pioneer School program!

And because we want to share EVERYTHING with y'all in a convenient fashion, here are both features.

Mike Kinney's Pioneer School video

Cozy Cabins Magazine Feature

Check out this great student project!

Log Cabin Village is pleased to be service learning partners with some fantastic students from Tarrant County College--Trinity River Campus. In the upcoming weeks, we'll be highlighting various projects completed by these talented individuals.

Check out this incredible video made for us by Kristina Howard as part of her TCC-Trinity River Campus service learning project! Thanks Kristina!!!

Log Cabin Village from Kristina Howard on Vimeo.

The one where we apologize for not posting more...

Hello Blog Cabin Village friends!

So sorry for the lapse between blog posts! We could come up with any number of flimsy excuses for you to explain our absence (i.e. the cabins have been restless, the cats locked us out of our computers, a terrible wave of pioneer flu). The truth is that we've just been busy! It's a good busy, however.

Here are a few of the things percolating right now at Log Cabin Village:

• School tours and walk-in visitation are back in full swing! The Village may be beautiful when it's quiet, but we eagerly anticipate the days when the pitter-pattering of feet fill our halls...
  


• We've been making new friends! We love partnering with other like-minded entities, both local AND far away. We currently have students from the Tarrant County College-Trinity River campus doing some service learning projects for us. These projects range from site and cabin maintenance to shooting video and taking photographs. We also recently hosted Kiddin Around USA, and look forward to a potential upcoming partnership with Performing Arts Fort Worth, Inc. We participated in a great survey administered by Reach Advisors.
  


• We've been enjoying our existing partnerships! The Greater Fort Worth Herb Society has started "waking" the garden up for spring. The Lone Star Leather Crafters will be here next Saturday. The Prairie Dogs (Lone Star Dutch Oven Society), Woodturners of North Texas, and cooper Dan "Five Buckets" Tatum have all signed on for May.
  


• We've been getting great press! We were recently featured in a great article in MomsOutLoud. Some of our winter photos were featured on NBC Channel 5. And we have another project "in the works." We'll fill you in on that one later. :)
  


• We've been making improvements! A new sign is about to be installed for the Howard cabin. The Parker cabin has been re-stabilized. Our tool shed has been rebuilt. And we have new items in our gift shop, including the recently released Fort Worth Parks book and the much sought-after limberjacks!
  


• We've been planning special events! We've got Timber Tales Storytime and Tooling Around next week. More information on those and other upcoming events can be found on our calendar!
  


• We've been using social media! We've been learning about making videos. We've made friends from Dallas to Ireland using Twitter. And we've been continuing great conversations with our fans on Facebook.

There's a lot more, but you probably get the idea by now.

Most importantly, we are ALWAYS striving to provide exciting and meaningful opportunities for our visitors, friends, fans, and Tweeps to "escape the present, and experience the past." We hope you'll continue to support and help us on this journey. We appreciate you!