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

[Allen Hall]

Kyne Wynn,
 
Great reply, and it sounds like you had a great childhood!  I've hoe'ed by share of gardens and fields.  Makes a person want to get an education and NEVER have to do that again!  LoL!
 
I got to feed chickes and milk cows by hand as well.  Squirting the cats was always fun.  Cow kicking over the bucket was less fun, and a swat in the face with the cows tail even less fun.  Educational, but not especially fun.
 
Our medieval ancestors were very much into food storage.  It was the difference between life and deal...every year.  Us moderns have forgotten that with the supermarket just around the corner.  Remember when every little town had it's own store?
 
Soap making is an important skill...ok folks, how do you make soap.
 
I'm seeing LOTS of classes for Uprising next year!
 
Who all can make flint and steel fires?  How about bow drill fires, or other methods?  Has anyone heard of a "fire piston"?
 
GREAT reply!
 
So let's continue to fill in the blanks with what us modern medieval folks can extract from the past, to make this "plague" a survivable thing.  Combining modern skills along with medieval skills is within the scope of what we can discuss.
 
Thanks all!  
 
Alan
 
> Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:28:30 -0600
> From: kynewynn at gmail.com
> To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
> Subject: Re: [Artemisia] A New Discussion - SCA Skills in a Modern Plague
> 
> 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. :)
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