48 replies to this topic

[Mother]

You are right Leah. The SCA people have authenticity contest and they have to document so much of what they do. I quite often go to them if I need some info.

[quiltys41]

Mother, I'll do the spirits and wine part, but it will be later today...have to go this AM for CAT scan. Will get DH to help me with it since his family have been "shiners" for generations now.

Q

[Mother]

Great goings Quilty.

For medicinal purposes of course..

[Sariah]

I am very excited to see what Mother is going to be doing with all these threads.
As far as Emergency Childbirth, been there done that, and I can tell you that if it is not your first(this was my sisters 3rd child) nature takes over, and if you have ever given birth, at the time I had 4(I have 8 now), you know basically what to do when the baby is in a hurry to greet the world.
Thankfully paramedics arrived shortly after he made his appearance. But I tied the cord, cut it, delivered the placenta, and if you have never felt an umbilical cord, it is actually pretty kewl feeling.

[Sariah]

I forgot to add.... thankfully there were no complications.
I think it would be helpful to know what to do in an emergency if there were complications.

[Stephanie]

I found this page and it's great with descriptions, thought y'all might enjoy it.

http://www.rootsweb....oe/pioneer2.htm

Here's one little snippit that I enjoyed because in this very forum I had mentioned the McGuffey Readers...

***********

Schools in the area were one room log buildings with puncheon floors. Hard long benches served as desks with no backs to them. Sometimes the school was perched upon pegs or stilts two feet or more from the ground. The studies usually consisted of three R’s, Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic, and the old blue back speller. McGuffey’s readers were full of excerpts from the classics and original stories containing a very pointed moral.

[lovinthislife]

I would like to see all the topics that were mentioned in the first post. But, I'm really interested in the root cellar and what can a person do for not having electricity. I mean, we can't afford to have solar panels or anything like that. I'm interested in what did our forefathers and mothers do to live a normal life with no electric. I'm thinking of the kitchen and cooking and keeping things cool. Thanks

[Canned Nerd]

Anything underground by several feet will be cooler than outside and will generally be somewhat constant in the temperature, thus the root cellar. In my grandmother and great grandmother's days, cooling was done by ice, delivered everyday by the iceman. The block of ice or two was put in an "ice box" which helped keep the food cool. Same as putting ice in a picnic ice chest. Another method was "evaporation cooling" which is a little more complicated and is often used in the wilderness.

My grandparents hawked their souls just about to get their first refrigerator. Had a coil on the top and stood on legs. My dog used to sleep under it. My grandmother never looked back fondly at the pre-refrigerator years.

[The Raven]

Anything underground by several feet will be cooler than outside and will generally be somewhat constant in the temperature, thus the root cellar. In my grandmother and great grandmother's days, cooling was done by ice, delivered everyday by the iceman. The block of ice or two was put in an "ice box" which helped keep the food cool. Same as putting ice in a picnic ice chest. Another method was "evaporation cooling" which is a little more complicated and is often used in the wilderness.

My grandparents hawked their souls just about to get their first refrigerator. Had a coil on the top and stood on legs. My dog used to sleep under it. My grandmother never looked back fondly at the pre-refrigerator years.

A root cellar is a great idea for storing your "root vegetables" like potatoes and such. My mother-in-law's family (W.Virginians) would bury apples several feet deep and cover them in leaves for the winter. Of course everything going into the store must be in very good condition because any rot will spread quickly in confined spaces. For apples in particular it's recommended that they be in the root cellar on a rippled wooden board, not terriby crowded. The ripples in the board hold the apples up so that the cool air can circulate about the fruit; and all stores should be turned and checked from time to time for rotting, sprouting (root veggies), etc. For our friends in Louisiana, however, (and any other place below sea level), digging root cellars or burying stores is not an option. I just learned last weekend at the LSU Rural Life Museum that they built little houses for their stores (potato house for example). Until then, I had never really thought about what folks did in areas where it wasn't practical to dig/bury their stores. Also, many people would use springs or running creeks to keep goods cool. They would tie their items off, letting the running water cool it, or sink a culvert at the spring and use the circulating water to keep their items cool.