& the award for Best Tour goes to...

ME!!!!!

     Well probably not, but I am proud to say that I, Robin Dunn, gave my first tour of the house and I didn't completely blank out during. It was even the first tour of the day! I'm still proud of myself because I was so nervous. Luckily the couple that I gave the tour to were so nice and were also very interested in the history of the house. All in all, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

     The rest of the week was very busy. On Saturday we had three events, Hunting safety, a Master Gardener lecture and also a lemonade lecture. Since DeBary mansion use to be a hunter retreat and Mr. Fredrick DeBary was an avid hunter himself, it makes sense to have that at the site. The Master Gardener is a great lecture that talks about how to take care of your plants and he comes about four times a month. But the most anticipated lecture was for the Marcia Meara, author of "Swamp Ghost."

This is her first book that she wrote and it's on the St. Johns river. Since Debary is right next to the River, it was a perfect choice. She also has another book called "Wake- Robin Ridge."  I personally haven't read either of the books, but they are on my list of books to read. She had a great crowd show up and everyone really seemed to enjoy the lecture. Since she did have such a great turn out, we are hoping to have her back again soon when her new book " A Boy Named Rabbit" comes out.

On Tuesday it was good as well. I gave my first tour (go me!) and worked on my powerpoint presentation for my own lemonade lecture. I need to do some research on Historical sites during emergencies. I have an outline about what I want to talk about all ready, now it's just actually putting in words. Hopefully my lecture works out just like my tour and goes smoothly.

Until next time!

Rain rain go away

     On Saturday for some reason I decided to get to Debary early. What the reason behind this decision I can't tell you since I don't even know. So I got to Deabry early and decided to drive around, since I don't know much about the town. Plus this blog is called Discovery Debary, so why not. Unfortunately, I did not think to have my GPS on and got lost. I ended up on a very nice road though that the trees were over grown and had moss hanging from them. During this adventure (I guess you can call it that) my stomach awoke and demanded food. Luckily for me I remember hearing that there was a bagel place in Debary. I love bagels so this was a big plus for me.

     By the time I was done with my breakfast, it was time to go to my internship. Since it's a Saturday we usually are pretty busy. Not this Saturday though. The weather was awful and it started to rain around 1:30 pm. We only had one tour but they didn't come in till 3. Even though the weather was bad, I was able to finish up the rest of the Emergency Recovery boxes for the rest of the building on the site. Now we just need to get rid of the expired stuff and replace it. I also need to read up on how to handle emergency situations at historic sites as well so I can make my power point.

Until next time!

A storm is brewing

     It was another fun week at DeBary. On Saturday we had another Lemonade Lecture that was about how to survive in the wildness of Florida. Now, I like to walk on trails but if it's more than 4 miles, then it's not going to happen. But the lecture was very informative when it came to what you should look out for, trail markers, and even how to dress and what to put in your backpack if you are planning a long walk or hike. Around lunch time Kayce's husband and kids came to have lunch and Kayce asked if I would like to try and give my first tour. I was nervous about it but I said sure. I will say I didn't talk as much as I wanted to since I felt like I had to cater to the kids and I kew they wouldn't be interested in everything I would say. Her husband was interested though and I talked to him about the house and I even answered some questions he had. Although it wasn't exactly a full tour, it gave me a feel of it. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to have to suck up the courage and just do a tour one day, no matter how nervous or unprepared I am.

     On Tuesday Amber decided to give me another job to do and what I will be giving a powerpoint on at the end of my internship. I was to go through the emergence boxes that we have for every building on the property and categorize what's inside and what we need. Now I know I always make a comment about the weather, but living in Florida you have to take great care with it since it's always changing. Since we have hurricane season, we have to be prepared just incase the House gets hit and there are damages to it. While I'm making sure the emergences kits have all the necessary items, I will also be getting some information together to explain how to keep a historic site ready for any weather and what to do.

One of the Emergence Kits to organize

     It's going to be interesting to say the least since I know nothing on the topic, but that also means that I'm going in with a clean slate and it might be easier to learn the information. I will say I never thought about this aspect of preservation before so it's going to be a great thing to learn. We'll see how it goes.

Until next time!

An Old Discovery

     Saturday started off pretty slow. The weather has been absolutely amazing at DeBary so it's hard to stay inside and do research when it's so nice out.  Since the site is very popular with brides, we sometimes have meetings with them to discuss renting out the barn. We had three brides come in on Saturday to deal with some things for their wedding. Most of the brides have the weddings on Saturday so I will probably see one sometime during this semester.

     Around 3:30 Kayce took Dawn and I on a little field trip to the old pool. I was excited to see this since many of the other items or building from the house are not around anymore. Kayce warned me that it wasn't in the best shape and she was right. 

  The pool was first built Fredrick's time at the house.  The pool was actually spring fed with wood sides and the bottom was made from sand. The sand actually ended up filtering the water. It's not know if Fredrick did that on purpose, but this wasn't the first time that Fredrick did something that was ahead of his time.

Later on the wood sides where taken off and cement was put in. There was also a pump that got added to control house much water was in the pool at one time. There was one pool house when Fredrick was at the house, but a second one was added later one.  Seeing the pool really sparked a nerve with me. Something so old should be taken better care of. But the sources for it aren't around and it upsets me to see something just fall to disrepair.

On Tuesday was a little slow. We didn't get a tour till almost 2 in the afternoon. I worked on my tour and Amber actually suggested that I put it into powerpoint to help myself and then print it out onto notecards. It better actually because my notes have so many lines through them and I started to have a hard time knowing what to use during the tour. Around 3:30 we had one tour come in. Though it was later and Kayce told them they would get a shortened tour, they wanted to take it. Kayce asked if I wanted to come and possible do part of it, just to see how it is. I not gonna lie, I panicked, I didn't think I was ready yet! But she said that I knew more than I believed. I didn't do the whole tour but I talk about the Florida freeze during the 1894 and also about some of the rooms upstairs. It was great way to start off, but I don't think I'm ready to do a whole tour by myself yet.