Monday, July 11, 2011

Laura Ingalls Wilder Week Day 7 De Smet Pageant 2011 and a Giveaway

I just returned from a weekend trip to South Dakota, where I attended the Brookings Summer Arts Festival and the 40th Anniversary Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant in De Smet with my son Tim, daughter-in-law Carrie, and two of our nine grandchildren, Madeline (almost 7) and Garrison (3). 


Each year a group of over 100 volunteers produce an outdoors play on a 30-acre tract of land between the Ingalls homestead, the big slough, and  Silver Lake.  A narrator reads from one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books .  This year the play reenacted scenes from By the Shores of Silver Lake. www. Desmetpageant.org.


Before the play we visited the Ingalls Homestead, which includes a life-size replica dugout, a claim shanty, barn, growing crops, native prairie, ponies, and covered wagons drawn by beautiful Clydesdale horses to tour the 160-acre homestead.   The highlight of the visit for my granddaughter was a short classroom session in the 1880 school, an actual school moved to the site that had been used until the late 1940s.  I actually attended a one-room country school until 4th grade, so I guess I'm "vintage!"  The highlight for Garrison was getting to "drive" the Clydesdales for a short distance (with the real driver holding the reins behind him. 

 

I made Madeline a prairie dress, pinafore and sunbonnet, and attempted to make a farmer boy outfit for Garrison using the photo on the cover of the Farmer Boy book as a guide. 

 

GIVEAWAY!

 

To celebrate the end of Laura Ingalls Wilder Week, I'm hosting a giveaway.  On Thursday, July 14, 2011, I'll be giving away three postcards of vintage photos: Carrie, Mary and Laura Ingalls as young girls, taken in De Smet; The Charles Ingalls Family in later years;  and Laura and Almanzo Wilder, purchased at the Ingalls Homestead Gift Shop. There's also an online shop: http://www.ingallshomestead.com/shop/  I'll also include my gently used copy of Wendy McClure's book, The Wilder Life. http://pasqueflowerponderings.blogspot.com/2011/07/laura-ingalls-wilder-week-on-ponderings_06.html.   How to enter?  Just leave a Comment below.  I don't have a fancy number-generator, but I'll do an old-fashioned numbers-in-a-sunbonnet drawing and post the winner

On Friday, July 15, 2011.

 

TTFN

LeAnn aka pasqueflower

http://pasqueflowerponderings.blogspot.com

http://www.etsy.com/shop/pasqueflower

5 comments:

  1. Woo hoo! I'd love a chance to win! Thanks for hosting. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love visiting historical places like that. The kids look adorable in their outfits and look like they had a really nice time!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The outfits you made for the grandkids are wonderful. Just love them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is cool--when you say you "attempted" to make the farmer boy outfit for your grandson, I'm curious to know if it turned out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is so cute! I barely sew and am always impressed by the work you fabric people do! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete