Brattonsville on Saturday

 After my final harrowing efforts to get a car(you don't even want to know), GPS took me through a winding series of roads to spend the afternoon at Brattonsville, SC. Brattonsville is a series of surviving and reproduction historical buildings, mostly farm buildings, but also at least three family houses(not counting the slave quarters). All in all a good picture of family living in community.

For a $6 admittance fee, one gets a self-guided walking tour around the grounds. Saturday I saw around five volunteers working about the place to get ready for a halloween ghost tour that night. Because of the evening tour, the big house was decorated for a funeral. Besides the five volunteers there were also two nonchalant sheep and two very hairy pigs. And a great many spiders.

This is the porch: the porch where Martha Bratton stood and defied the British soldier who demanded to know her patriot husband's position. This story is what peaked my interest in Brattonsville years ago.

The cellar pantry, underneath the assembly room/DANCE FLOOR!

The Brattons, being Scots-Irish Presbyterians, did pretty well in America and kept upgrading their houses.

 Crooked fence and cotton field. If I had my way my brothers would fence our yard like this, but they seem to protest the labor involved.

Outbuildings. To summarize, South Carolina has in brick buildings what Nebraska has in corn: there seems to be lots of them.

On the lawn there was a big magnolia tree with one open blossom.

After wandering quietly around Brattonsville, I left, worn out, and made my way via errant GPS home. Never trust the GPS! When I got home that evening the girls had already left for ballet and babysitting, and locked all the doors behind them. I was so tired and disgusted with myself for being locked out, that I determined to climb through a window. It worked fine, and it wasn't until two days later that I found I still had the extra door key in my bag the whole time.