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

[Richard Samul]

Interesting side note to the water discussion - the early colonists of  
what became the United States didn't drink the water. The drank cider.  
And by cider, I mean hard cider. These people aren't that far removed  
from period.

One of the weird facts about apples is that every apple seed contains  
the ability to become any kind of apple. If you plant a red delicious  
apple seed, for example, you won't necessarily get a red delicious  
apple tree. The apples we know today are ones that were found in  
nature, and propagated by cutting and grafting, not from seed. Each  
time a seed grows into a tree, it's a dice roll on what kind of apple  
you'll get. Most of the time, they're sour apples, and very  
unappetizing to eat. They do, however, make good cider.

Johnny Appleseed did, indeed, go across the land planting apple seeds  
- because he knew that when settlers arrived in the area, they would  
want or need apples to press into cider, so they would have something  
to drink. The type of apple didn't matter, because they weren't for  
eating.

So, why didn't people drink the water? Water carried with it the  
threat of disease - all it takes is a dead animal in the river  
upstream and around the bend where you can't see it.

And don't get me started on an upstream community using the river to  
dump their waste. Most towns and cities are built along or very near  
major waterways (Boise, Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, etc), because those  
waterways were important sources of power and highways of commerce,  
and (in later times, with an understanding of sanitation and  
purification), water - in addition to be sources of food (fish).  
Without power to run modern city sanitation lifting pumps, the  
sanitation system is going to back up and overflow. And "stuff" (as  
they say) rolls downhill. Into the river. That you're getting your  
water from. Hello, E. Coli. And what about the rest of the "trash" of  
living? There won't be any garbage service...

Cider, on the other hand, is fermented, with virtually little to no  
water added. The alcohol content virtually eliminated the possibility  
of disease. They didn't know why, they just knew that it was safe to  
drink. Beer, wine and mead, too. The cider was the mainstay for the  
early colonists, though, because they had a virtually unlimited supply  
of wild apples to press.

In our modern times, we understand that bacteria are the cause of  
infection and illness, and we know that boiling the water kills the  
bacteria - but have you ever drunk boiled water? If you haven't, trust  
me, it's bad. Our modern water systems are treated with chlorine and  
other chemicals and processes to remove contaminants and bacteria.  
With a breakdown of society, these will cease, and then we'll see a  
spread of water-borne illness. It won't be as bad as the plague, but  
people do die from E. Coli. Even if you don't die, you're too sick to  
work.

What about getting water from a well? Certainly, that will be clean  
enough, but the problem becomes, how to get it? Well, you've got to  
dig for it, and who knows how far down the water table is? Assuming  
you find or have a pre-drilled well, you've got to pump the water to  
the surface, because you aren't getting a bucket down that tiny pipe.  
Have you ever tried to hand-pump water from 100 feet down? Do you even  
have a hand-pump? Do you know how to build, maintain and/or repair a  
hand-pump? What about hooking up a pump to a windmill? What about  
*building* the windmill?

Clean drinking water isn't easy to come by, folks. Distillation (as  
mention by HE Morgan in another method) is somewhat difficult, and  
when it goes wrong, it goes wrong spectacularly (exploding vessels of  
boiling liquid). Much easier to press some apples, put the juice into  
some barrels to ferment, and drink later.

-- 
Earc

On Sep 18, 2010, at 8:24 PM, Allen Hall wrote:

>
> 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