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

[Xplex]

For what it's worth, my great-granny (b.1894) wrote of a similar 
evaporative-cooler type contraption from her youth in Austin, TX, prior 
to having an actual icebox with delivered ice:

"...seems we had sort of a stand, wrapped a white cloth all around it 
with some sort of contraption sitting atop filled with water that slowly 
leaked out and kept the cloth wet all the time. It sat on the porch 
where the wind blowing on it cooled it."

Satya Amnesiac
PAF

artemisia-request at lists.gallowglass.org wrote:
> Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 09:11:23 -0600
> From: "Suzanne Semich" <magpie at wyoming.com>
> Subject: Re: [Artemisia] A New Discussion - SCA Skills in a Modern
>     Plague
>
> 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
>