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

[Allen Hall]

Hi Una,
 
Great observations.  Water is absolutely a key element in any kind of situation.  We get pretty spoiled with electricity and running water.  Something we think less about, but would think about in VERY short order is that city sewage requires pumps as well, and when they don't work.....eeeewwwhhh.  Most of Artemisia lives in what is basically a desert away from the streams and rivers.  How to water gardens, etc, will be a question that will have to be answered by us modern medievalists.  Thank goodness I have gravity irrigation on the farm!
 
You named a bunch of skills that will have to be mastered, and along with them will be how to raise the fodder for the critters, how to harvest and store it for the winter to feed them.  Here's an interesting aside that most of you can relate to just a little.  Remember all the cut grass at the Uprising site?  Most of you just moved what you needed to move off to the side and set up camps.  Well, following Uprising, I called the guy to come and rake the grass back up and bale it.  He told me that he didn't have a hay rake and had no access to one......oh my.  Here was my situation.  I needed to water the site immediately.  I needed to get the cut grass off the site immediately - before I could water.  The longer I waited the longer the grass underneath the hay was damaged, as well as the rest of the grass needed water pretty badly.  So....I got all medieval on it.  Basically, I called all the local SCA help I could, and some non-SCA help.  We gathered all the grass up into piles, with pitchforks, then drove around with my little trailer, loaded the grass onto the trailer, drove over to where the corrals for the horses were at Uprising, and unloaded the hay into a pile.  It took 5 days to do this, pretty much full time.  That is part of what started me thinking about this thread.  Wow!  What a bunch of work our ancestors had to do.  And if you weren't of gentle birth, that was your entire life, including doing the work for the lord, as well as yourself.
 
We have it SO GOOD right now, and most people really don't appreciate it.
 
Your thoughts of village life being a possible solution are valid.  Exchanging skills for other skills.  The only thing would be the close proximity can spread the plague more readily.  Now following the plague, with "what's left", then the villiage life would have all the charm you described, along with greater ability for defense from attack.  That old strength in numbers thing.
 
The guy with the canned peaches and shotgun won't last long after both run out.  Unless you know edible foods in the mountains, and the vast majority of people don't, it will be a place to starve to death.  They'll come out of the hills pretty quickly...if they can.
 
Thanks for the great comments, looking forward to the thoughts from others.
 
Alan
 
> From: kimrule at cableone.net
> To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
> Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:27:42 -0600
> Subject: Re: [Artemisia] A New Discussion - SCA Skills in a Modern Plague
> 
> This is an interesting thread. Here are my thoughts as far as my home goes.
> 
> 
> 1. Gunnvald-r and I would have to move. If city water isn't working, this
> is desert, with no running water nearby. 
> 
> 2. The cars would only take us so far if there was no gas available. 
> 
> Where would I go?? Not sure. Probably find somewhere down by the Boise
> river. 
> 
> 3. I can drive a single...not that big of a stretch to drive a team. Of
> course, my team would be 36 inches tall!
> 
> 4. I think the thing that would increase the ability to survive is to be
> able to work cooperatively (as in a village) and everyone shares what they
> are best at. That's how our ancestors survived...that is ultimately how we
> would have to. No one person can raise the sheep, plant the garden, harvest
> the garden, preserve the food, butcher the hogs, till the earth, build the
> home, etc. by themselves. We have to work together. A survivalist in the
> mountains with their shotgun and 20 cases of canned peaches will last only
> so long. What happens when the peaches run out, and the ammo is gone?
> 
> Una