joe randel's art dump

A strange as it my sound, I’m a huge fan of historical documentaries.  I never used to be.  I used to be all about technology and anything modern.  As I got older though I found an appreciation for history.  With that being said, I recently found a show on TVOntario (or BBC) called Edwardian Farm.  It’s a historical documentary where three people lived the lives of Edwardian Farmers (1900 – 1915) in Devon Engalnd. The three people where two archeologists and one historian, so they knew what they where getting in to.  But, they did have to live the way they did back then and keep the farm going and turn a profit.  They took on the all the odd jobs too that farmers would have done to make extra money too.

Every episode showed one month in this experiment so it only ran 12 shows.  During that time there where a whole list of experts that still kept to the old ways to show them exactly how things where done or how to use the antique machines.  It was absolutely amazing to see how things where done and how hard they had to work to survive.  I often would wonder what I would have done if I was alive back then.  I’m not much of a farmer, but I think I could have been an artisan of some sort, metal or wood work of some kind.

Anyway, if you dig historical things I highly recommend you check out the show.  There are actually more to the series.  There is Victorian Farm, which I’ve yet to see, and Victorian Pharmacy.  Which was got me hooked on this whole series.  You can watch other Edwardian Farm episodes here at TVOntario.  Not sure if people outside of Canada can watch these episodes.  I hope so because they are awesome.