Texas Gypsies

Saturday, October 1, 2016

I can hardly believe it is October already. We are headed to a Bluegrass Festival at the Zelch Pioneer Homestead and Village.
On the way we went through the little town of Rosebud.

This little hardware/ general store had lots of beautiful mums for sale.

We actually went out to the Zelch Farm a couple of days before the Bluegrass Festival to make sure we could find it. We were able to get pictures of the Village without people around.

The wood storage shed is not finished as you can tell.

Mr. Clyde Zelch gave us a tour. He told us that he and his wife Emma, decided they wanted to live off the land like the pioneers did. They home-schooled their 5 children (I think 5) while living like this. All the buildings were moved here and reconstructed as original, except the school house.

The blacksmith shop is actually used occasionally.

The school house is only 1/3rd the size of original because this is all they could salvage.

Clyde Zelch is very active with the police, so this building is filled with his history with the police and sheriff's departments.

This is the craft room.

The saloon is obviously not used as a saloon.

An original home of a trapper.

They even have a teepee, however it is made of canvas.

Inside the general store are fresh bread, lye soaps, hand sewn dresses and embroidery items for sale. All are made by the family. I did not ask, but I'm betting all made by Emma, the wife and mother.

Church services are held here on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of every month. Below is the inside of the church.

These are a few of the baby goats. I'm not sure why they are separated from the other goats.

There were all kinds of chickens running around. This one with its special headdress caught my eye.

Every homestead must have a tree house.

Here's momma Great Pyrenees and her 5 puppies. She did not mind us petting her pups.

The Egg Factory! Hee Hee

Emma does not like pigs so they raise only one at a time.

Here's the first Bluegrass band. They we good and played several times throughout the day.

This group played while the others were on break. The banjo player is missing from this picture. We concentrated on the man on the left as he told us he is 90 years old.

There were several large pots of water on to boil. We were told it would be bath water for that evening.

This is Emma's outdoor kitchen. Emma had chili, hot dogs and skillet potatoes with hamburger for food. Emma also made several cakes and bread pudding for desserts. Oh and look at the small whole wheat rolls in the bag on the counter. Dusty got the skillet potatoes and they were delicious. Then she could not pass up the bread pudding with fresh blackberries on top. No picture. It was devoured too quickly. Yum Yum!

In the grass near where we parked was this interesting mushroom growth. Above is from the top and below is a ground view.

Dusty sitting with our new friends, Theresa (Oma), Kevin (Papa), grand-daughter Ellie (in Oma's arms), daughter Gina (sp?) and son-in-law Brian (sp?).