Wagon Train, Part 2

 It is taking too long to get these pictures up.  I'm starting to gear up for spring and summer and keep finding things I want to blog about, so I'm determined to finish up posting about our wagon train adventure last summer.

Every person on the wagon train had daily chores that were posted on the chuck wagon the night before.  Here, Mr. Blueberry  Eyes and his new found friend are helping with lunch duty.

Lunch always consisted of a sandwich line with thickly sliced bread, lunch meat or spread of some kind, carrot and celery sticks and fruit of some kind.  There was also plenty of clean water and lemon aid.

There was a wooden table that folded out from the back of the chuck wagon to lay the food out on.

Mr. Blueberry Eyes and The Wood Artist wait for the picket crew.

 Then there was the picket line.  If you were on picket crew for the day, you had to report immediately to set up the picket line at noon and at the evening's rest spot.  Only the trail horses were tied to the picket line.  The draft horses that pulled the wagons stayed with their particular wagon.

 Several times a rambunctious horse would toss his head a bit too hard and pull the line out.

 Breakfast and dinner were hot meals prepared over the fire.

 This coffee was the real cowboy deal, complete with a few grounds in your cup.

 This is how you make scrambled eggs for a hungry crowd on the trail.

 And then there was the Biffy.  This was just one of the things that made our adventure more pleasant than the real settlers would have experienced.  The Biffy was a little wooden house with four stalls that got pulled behind a pick-up truck.

There was a Biffy stop mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and woe to you if you had to go before the stop! (There aren't trees in North Dakota!)

Anyone on Biffy duty for the day had to be available at these stops. Everyone would line up for the pit stop and then, when everyone was done, the truck would pull ahead and the Biffy crew would go to work with shovels to bury...things.

The lunch and night stops had properly dug holes.

 Here are a few shots of the preparations that went into making our costumes.  The guys made these snazzy little buttons out of dear antlers and I sewed them onto the shirts that I made for them.

 All cowboy hats had to have ties to prevent them flying off in a wind and scaring the horses.  The guys' hats didn't come with ties, so we made our own out of leather.

Then we attached them with the tips of the antlers that were left over from button-making.

 I made these prairie shirts out of an old sheet for The Wood Artist and Mr. Blueberry Eyes.

 I wasn't thrilled with our skirt pattern, so I made the waistband wider and did a double-button closure. It was more comfortable and I felt made a better look.

 I'm afraid I'm a lot like Laura Ingalls.  I didn't enjoy having a bonnet on my head, so it stayed on my back a lot.  But I soon learned the virtue of bonnets.  One gets a sun burnt nose pretty quickly without one.

Finding a few peaceful moments in the wagon before the circle breaks for a day of travel....ahhhh!!!!