Today was opening day of the 2008 season at Plimoth Plantation. It was sunny but a little cold, with the wind off the water. It warmed up nicely, though.

Here are a couple of pictures taken by Penny at the 1627 English Village morning meeting. This meeting lasts only a few minutes and is sort of a check-in for staff on duty each day. As you can see, some of the morning’s work is to cover the tire tracks of the trucks that deliver animal feed, etc, after hours. That’s what the broom and rake are for.

You can also see lots of beautiful knitted goods! Thanks again to all the knitters who have sent finished items. Hopefully these pictures are encouragement to those knitters still plugging away – see how happy and warm everyone looks?

Part of the opening day festivities was a parade of rare breed animals. The rare and heirloom breed goats, sheep, cattle and chickens that represent the animals brought by the first colonists spend some or all of the winter behind the scenes in our modern barn. They paraded from the Visitors’ Center to their summer homes in the Village accompanied by 4-H club volunteers, museum staff and lots of museum guests. Well, the heifers and grown-up goats paraded. Several of the kids were carried, and one tiny lamb was carried in a blanket. The chickens rode in reproduction 17th-century bird-carrying baskets. They are not so much for either parading or being carried in arms.

Opening day is another of my favorite times of the year at Plimoth. Everything is fresh and new and full of potential. Here’s to another excellent season of living history.

Thanks for the comments, Cate and Marilyn and Carolyn. I will answer some of those questions Monday.

Kris and Heather are embroidering to close out the week. Those are Kris’ hands. Heather’s working on a thistle. Thank you, Wendy, for the photos and for the title for today’s post. Yesterday we walked to the 1627 Village in the freezing cold and gathering clouds (seems it only snows around here when we’ve got a session on) to look around a bit.

One of the week-old kids (goat baby) poked his nose out of the shelter to see us, but the newer babies were kept in by the careful mamas. Rose the heifer demanded to have her chin scratched. Tom took some time out of thatching the roof of the newest 1627 house to talk about whether old embroiderers wore eyeglasses (in the 17th century he meant, and no, we don’t know) and a little about how we decide where to put the houses in the Village. Then we stopped in at the wardrobe office to look at some of the mended clothes.

Tomorrow Karin will show Heather and Kris the three samplers in the Plimoth originals collection. Yes, I’ve only talked about two before. We have another, which in my 17th century near-sightednessI didn’t “count”. It’s dated 1808 or 1809 and apparently is a pretty nice early 19th century example. When I started here in 1988 it was hanging in one of the offices of the administration building. D’you believe that?

Samples received: from Deborah P and Angel A

and the first lace sample from Devon T! Wow – that was extremely fast!

AND yesterday I mailed out 21 more kits for stockings and gloves, thank you to all the knitters who have volunteered.