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

[KyneWynn/Sue]

This has been a great thread. When I started thinking about it, I realized
that I learned a lot of survival skills when I was growing up, that most
kids don't.  When I was a kid, we went on a camping trip once, "the old
fashioned way" -- my uncle's hobby was restoring wagons, and so that is what
we took.  It took us more than half a day to get to our camping place, which
normally only took an hour or so. We also cooked over a fire, and slept in
the wagon or in tents.  It was an eye opening experience for a ten-year old.
My family also has a cabin up in the hills in Idaho -- no electricity, but
it does have a mountain spring, and we spent time there in the summers.

I guess the plus side of my experiences, is that from a young age, I've been
exposed to how to do things without electricity.  I learned to trim a wick
for the kerosene lamps, how to build a fire without matches, (and how to
make a fire that is good to cook on), how to tell if a berry is poisonous or
not, what plants are edible (huckleberries, chokecherries, watercress, etc.;
how to tie knots and do lashing, how to build a shelter -- basically, lots
of survival skills. My parents were big on having food storage. We had a
room that was dedicated to it. They stored wheat (and an non-electric
grinder), rice, beans, sugar, and oil, plus lots of canned fruits and
vegetables.

We also ate what was stored -- my mom made whole-wheat bread, rolls, and
even pancakes (I rebelled at those, and convinced her to do them with half
white flour); And she ground cornmeal for corn bread.  I remember her
telling us that if we got used to eating our storage food then if there came
a time when we only the stored food, it wouldn't be hard for us to eat it,
because we would be used to it.

My mom always had a HUGE garden, and I was part of the labor force. (So many
LONG rows to weed before we could play.)  I also had to help with canning,
drying, and freezing -- all good skills to have, and skills I've used in my
own family.  For a time, she also had a root cellar where she stored
carrots, potatoes, squash, and apples. They keep in a root cellar for quite
awhile. We had a cow and chickens, so we had milk, and I learned how to make
butter, and I learned how to pull the feathers off and prepare a chicken for
cooking (I hated that, and haven't done it since.)

I've tried to keep a food storage program going on a regular basis (mine has
never been as extensive as my mother's), and there have been several times I
was so glad to have it, because it's what we lived off of when Kelly got
laid off and was out of regular full-time work.

I think the biggest challenge in a plague situation would be having enough
food, water, and fuel -- and keeping clean.  Part of my parents' food
storage plan included soap, detergent, and an old fashioned scrubbing board.
So learning to make soap would be a good skill to have. As well as learning
the healing properties of plants. I remember hearing my father talk about
the medicinal properties of comfrey, and peppermint, and using a healing
salve his mother used to make. Because I haven't always had health
insurance, I have often used "home remedies."  I always figured that if it
won't hurt, then it could help. And oftentimes it did, and a bonus was that
my kids didn't build up a resistance to antibiotics by being over
prescribed.  I had a friend who was ocd about keeping everything spotlessly
clean and sanitized, and her kids were always sick. I have had healthy
kids,  sometimes I think it's because they built up a tolerance that led to
having strong immune systems.

This is an interesting story about how some thieves survived the plague:
http://wwatsonweb.co.nz/fourthieves.htm

Another thing we have now, is the understanding of how a plague spreads --
that isn't something the medieval folks had, and lots of people got it
because they didn't know how it was spread.  Today, a community could impose
a quarantine on itself before anyone became infected, pool resources, and
wait out the run of the disease.

This is an interesting story about how some thieves survived the plague:
http://wwatsonweb.co.nz/fourthieves.htm

Interesting thread -- thanks for starting it. And, this has given me the
impetus to update my food storage. :)