[Artemisia] A New Discussion - SCA Skills in a Modern Plague

[Suzanne Semich]

My Grandmother Grew up with a ice House and I am now helping her to write a 
book on her memories. One story she tells is of the ice house her father 
built.
     Before they had the ice house they used a large wooden box and would 
put the food in it and cover it with wet rags or burlap and heavy blankets. 
it worked well but you had to keep the rags wet. When her dad built the ice 
house he used old railroad timbers and built it in a side hill and then 
covered it with sod. In the winter they would harvest the ice from the river 
and put it in the ice house in layers. A layer of ice and a layer of coal 
slag, etc.. then they would hang the meat and other perishables above the 
ice or around it. You only went in when necessary and kept the doors closed 
especially in the summer they had refrigeration all year around. The side 
note of it was that grandma said that it also was entertainment. She would 
climb on top of the ice house and jump into the coal slag pile. beside the 
ice house. Her mother made her help with the laundry after wards though.
Lady Annabella
P.S. They were farmers and grew lots of corn they would cut it and turn it 
into silage. When the crops were bad they would harvest the Russian thistles 
and turn them into silage for the stock also. There was always food for teh 
animals if you took the time to harvestand work it.


Actually, given the winters in Artemisia that give us much ice, it would be
possible to build icehouses & have that ice if not all year, then a very
good portion of it.

Morgan of Hawksreach