Rowan Museum’s Annual Colonial Spring Frolic is Saturday, April 1, in celebration of the arrival of spring and the re-opening of the 1766 Old Stone House for the season. Activities are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday only. The cost is $5 for adults and $3 for students.

Included in the festivities are tours of the only surviving colonial house in Rowan County, with guides in period costumes. Historical interpreters will offer crafts, including dyeing Easter eggs with natural dyes, and guests may participate.

Muskets will be fired, and there will demonstrations of woodworking, weaving, spinning, candle making, open fire cooking and tastings, children’s games, colonial dancers and music.

Our new bake oven will be in use also, with fresh bread tastings. There will be animals, and there will certainly be treks to the creek and to the family cemetery down through the woods on the property.

The Wind Song Recorder Ensemble of Rowan will be playing and the Colonial Dancers of Greensboro will be dancing throughout the day. The first Regiment of the Mecklenburg Militia, Hopewell Unit will be camped out on the grounds.

Kaye Hirst, retired executive director says: “It’s a great way to herald spring in a simpler fashion, just as our ancestors did many years ago. They picked violets and used them to create a beautiful blue dye; onion skins made a yellow dye … all for coloring eggs. Pokeberries turn eggs a beautiful rose color.

“Our ancestors cleaned out the root cellar in spring and used what was left in it. We will make a soup they made called “Scrag End Soup,” using the leftover end of a hambone from the smoke house, beans that were dried and not used over the winter … potatoes and carrots from the root cellar (probably a little shriveled), and fresh dandelion greens from the yard and fields, and maybe some greens in the garden. All of this is cooked over an open fire. It’s delicious!

Guests can dance in the fresh green grass, and the kids will frolic in the yard and through the trails down through the woods. Many end up with their feet in creek. We will celebrate spring!”

The Old Stone House is located one half mile off of Highway 52 in Granite Quarry at 770 Old Stone House Road. Parking is across the road from the house.

The site is open Saturday through Sunday, April through November, 1-4 p.m.

For more information call the Museum at 704-633-5946 or email rowanmuseum@fibrant.com