Tom and I are back at Fort Frederica National Monument for our seventh season. This one will be our shortest yet because we want to be back home at the beginning of March. We need at least a month to see our doctors and family before we head out on our next big adventure.
Fort Frederica National Monument is the only park that we have returned to repeatedly. The weather here in January, February and March is pretty nice. For instance, today, with temps in single digits in much of the north, it is going to be 60 and sunny here in Georgia. The sun is especially nice because it can be pretty gloomy in Ohio in January.
Tom and I don’t anticipate doing a lot of stuff differently here in our seventh season. We are the only living history volunteers, so I am cooking every weekend. I have also been weaving and spinning. Cooking is such hard work over a hearth that I don’t like to do it more than once a week. Tom has been blacksmithing, firing the musket, and helping me with the fire on days I cook. It takes a lot of work to keep a live oak fire burning.
Denise and Bob Verba are back for their eighth season. They started the same year we did, but they didn’t skip 2021. We love Denise and Bob. They work hard and don’t complain. Bob is like Tom – he will work every day if he doesn’t have something better to do. Even though we have only been here two weeks, we took a trip to the beach with the Verbas and ate at ZuZus. The cheeseburgers are as good as we remember.
The rangers seem really glad to have us back. Our boss, Ranger Phil, has already mentioned several times that he is sorry we have such a short stay this year. We are sorry too, but better two months than none at all. Ranger Jarret is a new hire since we were here last year and he is fitting in great. Tom is training him in blacksmithing. Ellen, the bookstore manager, leaves me lists of tasks to do while I am in the Visitors Center.
The best part of being at Fort Frederica for a seventh season is the people we meet. I love talking to people who are visiting from all over. Yesterday I talked to a couple from Vancouver, British Columbia, and several folks from Minnesota. We have another RV volunteer couple here from South Dakota. I spent a lot of time talking to a couple who retired here to the island and she is now a basket-weaving artist. We spent half an hour talking about color theory in weaving. More proof that retirement can lead to all kinds of new creative outlets.
Although Tom and I are missing our house and family, we are glad to be useful in this beautiful place. Will our seventh season be our last? The future is so hard to predict.
