Year 5, Day 6 - Shakers gonna Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake

Sorry for yet another delay.

Yesterday, we went to a Shaker farm. A brief background on the Shakers goes something like this; In 1776, Ann Lee, a Manchester-born Catholic, moved to America as part of the Shakers. The Shakers religion was very progressive in many ways; they were the first ones to believe in feminism and their production quality and the speed at which they made things was simply unmatched by everything west of Russia. Their pacifism was notable, too, as they became the United States' first ever conscious objectors to a war, in this case the Civil War.

The name Shakers comes from their method of worship; instead of kneeling and praying in a church, they went to a meeting home (more on that in a second) and danced. This wasn't like your awkward middle school formal, either, I'm talking about a hundred people all in a big ol' room, dancing the night away like they're all in a dang Van Morrison song. They danced in huge circles, but the boys and the girls could NEVER touch. To do so would be a violation of their beliefs.

The Shakers getting their groove on.

Y'see, possibly the most incredible thing about the Sha

kers is how long they went. The Shakers banned marriage and pregnancy throughout their existence and up to today. They gained more followers by taking in orphaned children and the "world's people", their codename for people who weren't Shakers.

The Shaker faith hit it's height in the mid-1800s, with a little over 20 Shaker villages. All of these were basically the same; a sweet three-story farm, a workhouse for the men and the women, etc. As time marched on, the religion dwindled, from 20 villages to 15, to 12, to 6, to 2, to one. There's only one village left nowadays, up in Maine, and there are only 3 Shakers who are alive today.

That's a bit of a background on the Shakers for you all to absorb, so now we can get our day rollin'.

We left for the very first Shaker farm in Watervilet at around 10 on Wednesday morning. The place was basically empty, with a few employees working there. The main destination is the meeting house, the equivalent of the Vatican for the Shakers.

There's about 30 more feet behind where the picture's being taken

Note the black chairs; they were not for the Shakers, but for the world's people to come in and watch them dance. There were about two or three workers there and a little kitty cat.

Artist's rendering

 We took a walk around the Shaker farm, seeing where the women and men worked, the gardens, the farms with the aggressive turkeys, the works.

The heritage society that preserves this farm actually has a neat 3D reconstruction of the farm. I'd recommend this for anyone who's still curious about the Shakers.

LINK: http://shakerheritage.org/virtual-watervliet

Afterwards, we went to lunch. I had a BLT and Molly had nothing. We're accustomed to big breakfasts here. We went to class. Nothing much changed for my class, we're just fine tuning. Molly learned about ghosts.

Oh, yeah, good news! I cleaned up my phone and I can record a session now! I'll try to do it today.

Today we're doing a food drive thing.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"WWWWWELCOME back to Cheesesteakadelphia!"
- My fictional radio show's title and lead-in.