Many of you may be familiar with @HalfPintIngalls and her experiences on the “twittergraph” — and if you’re not, you’ll want to be! Half Pint has been nominated for the Shorty Awards in humor and you can support her by adding your nomination. Be sure to fill in your reason or your nomination won’t count! Go, Half Pint!!
Announcing LauraPalooza 2010: Legacies
The Long Winter, Chapter 1: Make Hay While the Sun Shines
It’s hot. It’s probably August, though the book doesn’t explicitly say. It’s the summer after the first winter near De Smet—the winter of the Surveyors’ House and the oyster-soup New Year’s dinner—and the Ingalls family is out on the claim. Pa’s cutting prairie grass to make hay for the coming winter’s feed. (And fuel. Wait. Never mind.)
Laura’s on her way to bring Pa a jug of cool water, which he then sets down on the ground and covers with grass. (Wonder what the jug is made of?) We learn that the mowing machine has tapped Pa out financially, and he’s working in the horrific heat with no one to help him but … his daughter Laura? Once she finishes playing in the grass and freaking out a garter snake with her mountain of big skirts (one of my least favorite moments in the series, as I’m terrified of snakes), she asks Pa why she can’t help him make hay.
You know it’s 2010 when a reread of a Little House book calls to mind a line from the musical. Pa says: “You’re not very big nor strong, Half-Pint” – just as Steve Blanchard says as Pa to Kara Lindsay’s Laura. Pa gives in, as does Ma, though with some doubt. Carrie, the small-for-her-age ten-year-old, and Mary, blind but capable, offer to pick up Laura’s slack in the shanty.
Next day, Laura tramples down the hay over and over again after Pa pitches it into the wagon from his haycocks. Haycock by haycock (I love that word so much I had to look it up), Pa pitches the hay into the wagon for Laura to trample. It’s a difficult job, so painful to Laura’s muscles that she cries silently in bed that night.
When Carrie brings Pa and Laura the water jug, she’s excited with her surprise: Ma has sent ginger water! Having been through two pregnancies and, ahem, more than two hangovers, I know the power of ginger on a queasy stomach. And as Laura tells us, drinking lots of water in the heat, on an empty stomach, is a recipe for queasy. I’ve never made ginger water. Apparently, lots of others have . Barbara Walker also includes the recipe in The Little House Cookbook.
Have any of you made it? I love ginger ale—it’s my favorite carbonated beverage by far—so I’ve toyed with the idea of giving this a try, but I can’t quite get my head around the vinegar in the recipe.
Where do you think Ma got the ginger? Would she have used fresh or dried?
I love this line: “Such a treat made that ordinary day into a special day, the first day that Laura helped in the haying.”
The Long Winter is one of the only books in the Little House series with a definitive dramatic plot. Laura—or Rose—begins the book in the summer by foreshadowing for the winter to come, a literary device I’m not sure she’s used yet in the series. After the “upland” (upland?) hay is cut, Pa “puts up” slough hay—much heavier than the bluestem grass they’ve been working with. When Laura points out (she does this “one day,” the book says, implying that she helps with the haying for quite some time) that Pa has forgotten about a haycock out in the field, Pa brings Laura over to the “haycock,” which is actually a muskrat house. The walls (it feels like “coarse plaster” to Laura’s hand) are thicker than he’s ever seen them, indicating, he says, a long, hard winter to come. The muskrat house sits in a pool of slough water. The rats’ entry is through the water, where “they dived and came up through their water-door.” (Years ago this description called to mind the rats’ rosebush in Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH; it still does today.)
Here we get a taste of the “free and independent” theme, which will surface again and again the next few books. Muskrats can only make one kind of house, Pa says; men can make whatever kind they choose. It’s each man’s own “look-out” to make sure he builds a house that can withstand the wind and weather.
Laura is sober considering the implications of the muskrat house but cannot bring herself to think of cold, winter days and blowing snow. Neither can I. All I feel is heat.
***
Edited to add: Please check the sidebar to the right to see what chapter you’ve volunteered for, or which chapters are open.
Lauras and Their Picture Windows
Laura pops up in all aspects of my life, it seems. Even in other books.
Right now — that is, when I’m not reading The Long Winter, which I’ll post about in the next day or so — I’m in the middle of a biography of former First Lady Laura Bush. She’s on record as being a fan of the Little House books. She visited Rocky Ridge in one of her last trips as First Lady. In 2002 she invited board members of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, William Anderson*, John Miller* (Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder author), and noted Little House photographer Les Kelly to a “Women of the West” symposium on literature at the White House. (Melissa Gilbert was also present, as were Linda Peavey and Ursula Smith, who presented at the 2005 “Experience of the Frontier Woman” conference in De Smet.)
As I was reading about how Mrs. Bush designed her house in Crawford, Texas, I couldn’t help but linger over this passage:
Heymann told me a particularly revealing story about how the mysterious mind of Laura Bush works: “In the powder room, there is no mirror above the sink. There is a window instead. You probably wouldn’t think about that right away. You might wash your hands three, four times before you wondered why there is a window instead of a mirror. And then you might figure out that there is a window because a hundred feet away, there is a spectactular hundred-year-old tree, framed by the window. And that’s why the window is there. That was her decision.”
Guess Mama Bess wasn’t the only Laura who thought of windows as her “pictures.”
* Both of these guys will be at LauraPalooza. Don’t miss it!
Mary’s Birthday
Today is the 145th anniversary of the birth of Mary Amelia Ingalls. It’s also the 174th birthday of her father, Charles Ingalls (Pa), but as nobody threw him a party, let’s just talk about Mary.
Despite frigid temperatures and snowy roads, the turnout to Mary’s birthday party hosted by the American Printing House for the Blind Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, was tremendous. More than 150 guests sang happy birthday to Mary and had cake (from a 19th century recipe!) and lemonade in her honor — and over 500 people had to be turned away due to lack of space!! Wow!!
The event launched a new gallery to be on permanent display in the museum — a display commemorating the life of Mary Ingalls. After all, when you stop to think about it, isn’t it pretty amazing that the blind child of an impoverished 19th century family obtained a college education? What an accomplishment — and unlike other “Little House” displays that revolve primarily around Laura and her books, with brief mentions of “what happened next” to the other girls in the family, this display highlights Mary’s life, her education, her accomplishments.
The party itself held fun for guests of all ages. To kick things off, an audio presentation (so blind guests can equally participate with sighted!) of Mary’s life was aired. I was impressed at how beautifully it encapsulated the details of Mary’s life, and hav
e to say this may be the most accurate “Little House” presentation I have ever heard.
The presentation was followed by fiddle music and a singalong of some of the songs from the “Little House” books, readings of poetry written by Mary, and crafts for the kids — beadwork and button strings!
The rest of the museum was also open for viewing, featuring plenty of tactile stimulation along with information on the history of 
education of the blind, and other famous blind individuals, such as Helen Keller. (I prepared my own little Mary-lover for the big event by watching Melissa Gilbert (had to have another “Little House” tie-in!) in “The Miracle Worker” the night before.)
She especially enjoyed the Braille writer, and spent much time learning to type her name, her alphabet, and other messages in Braille.
All in all, it was a great day — topped off by the party favors sent home with each guest: a little heart-shaped cake wrapped in tissue paper, reminiscent of the ones Laura and Mary received in their Christmas stockings in Indian Territory.
If you’re ever in the Louisville area, I highly recommend a visit to the museum — this new exhibit is a fabulous addition to Laura’s (and Mary’s) legacy! Happy birthday, Mary! (And happy birthday, Pa!)
Update on “Caroline Years” Author Maria D. Wilkes
When HarperCollins decided to create a series of spin-off books featuring various extended family members of Laura Ingalls Wilder, they made each author assume a pseudonym that began Wil- so that they would appear besides Laura on bookshop shelves. Maria D. Wilkes was really Maria T. DiVencenzo. DiVencenzo is now one of a group of partners who have set up their own publishing company, Winter Lake Press. Lots of news and info on the web site.
She has released a Christmas book (unrelated to Laura).
Sarah S. Uthoff, Trundle Bed Tales
The Long Winter in January? Why Not?
One thing (among many) noticeable on Facebook is that everyone talks about the weather. As in life, I suppose. And winter, it seems, has arrived but good. Everywhere.
Recently, it snowed in Houston. Right now, it’s snowing in Florida and Georgia. There are blizzards blowing through the Dakotas and Minnesota, and where I sit right now in suburban Boston we’re between storms, but the snow is at least a foot high outside.
Lately I’ve been turning around in my head the idea of a read-along. A Little House read-along. If you’re anything like me, you’ve read the book series dozens of times. I love putting twenty-first century life behind to settle in to the familiarity of oyster soup at the Boasts, or Friday Night Literaries, or the cutter courtship of Laura and Almanzo. It never gets old.
I’ve done read-alongs before in email groups or on bulletin boards, but never in a blog. Usually, the read-alongs are done in order, starting with Little House in the Big Woods. But that 1950 Long Winter radio program (we provided the link in a post yesterday), along with the set-in of winter across the country, got me thinking. Let’s buck tradition and ignore chronology. Let’s read The Long Winter.
I’ll start. I’ll post about Chapter 1 soon-ish. Tomorrow or the next day or maybe the next. In the meantime, if you want to join in, break out that old paperback (you know you have one) and make hay while the sun shines along with us.
Volunteer for a chapter in the comments below.
Online Ordering For T-shirts Now Available!
We said we’d let you know when it was time, and it’s time: you can now order memberships and T-shirts from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association online.
It’s all explained here.
Get Out and Walk
Lots of people making a Laura trip — what we tend to call a trip to Laura’s homesite towns — for the first time, especially those who haven’t researched much beforehand, might not know what to expect. But the more you put into prepping a trip and asking questions ahead of time, the more you get out of it. Most of these towns don’t tell you everything in a one-stop-shopping format; all of them house extra little jewels if you’re willing to dig.
No matter which Laura town you visit, the best piece of advice I can give you is this: Park your car, get out, and walk. Laura didn’t experience these towns zooming by looking through her car window, and to get the best experience, neither should you. This lesson was borne into me again on a trip to De Smet, South Dakota, where I had my favorite Laura experience.
It was during a Laura conference. After the conference broke up for the day, my mother and I headed out to the Ingalls Homestead, the land southeast of town that the Ingalls family homesteaded in the 1880s. I was wearing a long dress and walked up the road from the schoolhouse back to the front gate. The sun beat down, the wind tossed the prairie grasses, kids were singing, insects were buzzing, little clouds of dust swirled up with each step and my skirts swirled around my ankles. This was the very road that Laura and her whole family must have walked a thousand times. I felt like Laura could be coming over the hill at any minute. It was really a magical experience.
Walking’s also a more practical way to get a feel for any town. I’ve walked all over De Smet. It really helps you get a feel for the town as Laura knew it, to get the relation of places to one another if you look from two feet on the ground rather than in a car. De Smet even boasts an official walking tour now. Walking there is very doable and I even met a family once who had taken an airport shuttle to town (from the “big city”) and were walking literally everywhere for the week all over De Smet. I gave them a ride back to the hotel after the pageant in the dark, but they’d walked from that home base as far as the Ingalls Homestead, the De Smet cemetery where the Ingalls graves (all but Laura’s) are, and the site of Rose’s birthplace north of town.
When I took a bus trip to Malone (documented in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of the Homesteader), the bus to take us from our lodging in the center of town out to the Wilder Homestead wasn’t leaving until 9 am. Well, I wasn’t about to waste a couple hours in Malone. So my partner in crime, Mary Kopsieker, and I started walking. Starting at the Super 8, where we were staying, we walked as far the Congregational Church locating related sights around town. By the time we returned to the bus and we drove back by, people were amazed at how many places I could point out around town.
Street signs on the corner in Pepin, Wisconsin
Pepin is another town that provides a great example of getting a feel for it by walking. When I am town for Laura Ingalls Wilder Days (which happen every September — it’s a great time, especially for kids; check it out if you’re ever in Wisconsin in the fall), I tend to park my car either by the Pepin Public Library (where there usually are presentations, including mine) or the Pepin Motel if I’m staying there, which is right next to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park where the events are held. Then I leave it there until I head over to the Wayside (the replica cabin site at Laura’s birthplace, seven miles outside of town) and the Little House Store in Lund, which is past the cabin and not affiliated with the offical Wilder museum, but still worth wandering through.
Walking gives you a real feel for the town and how close things are. In the right part of town — along the marina and uphill from there — you’ll see all kinds of unique shops that exemplify Pepin’s diverse, artistic population. Someday, just as Pa did, I’m going to walk all the way out to the Wayside. As soon as I can talk somebody into doing it with me. 
You don’t have to walk as far as that, but I encourage everyone wherever you go on your next Laura trip: Get out and walk!
Sarah S. Uthoff, Trundle Bed Tales
For Your Download Pleasure: The Long Winter Radio Show
Courtesy of Homeschool Radio Shows via Homeschool Freebie of the Day — this just in:
An audio of a radio show that dramatizes The Long Winter. It’s old-fashioned and lovely. I just finished listening to it.
Here’s what Homeschool Radio Shows has to say about it:
By popular demand, we again present this fine interpretation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” book, “The Long Winter”. This Ingalls family is quite different than the one you saw on TV, but it is a very faithful adaptation of the book, and is quite entertaining. It is the ONLY “old time radio” adaptation of any of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, and you love those stories, you’ll treasure this. This broadcast was originally aired way back in 1950 on the radio version of the Hallmark Playhouse.
Download it now. It’s only available for the week.