OHMIGAWD, I AM A HOMEOWNER!!!!

In a fit of insanity during Ducal Prize, I bid on a lot of stuff. I lost my mind and bid on a medieval pavillion. It is used and I got it for a very good price. I already have a buyer for it if I want to sell. It was supposedly formerly owned by William of Houghton and Sir Maythen. I went and searched through the West Kingdom History site to see if there were pictures of it, but I haven't found any. I will take a picture at the next camping event.

To go with this pavillion, I need furniture. I have a nice teak chair that suits, so I take that now. My tent is pretty big, so I will need lots of things. Bjorne and Bruce have been a huge help. Bruce drove all the way to my house to show me how to put a new blade on my band saw. Bjorne taught me how to make a bed and how to use power tools. I can totally use a router now. I am fabulous with the drill press.

Bruce held a class on building boxes that was really interesting. I learned a lot about mass production and how it can ease your production times. Unfortunately, the plans were changed last minute and this change threw off the plan for my box bottom. But no worries! Bjorne and I can finish the box because I have wood left over from MY NEW BED!


Bjorne built a bed for his daughter and one for he and his wife. I love Bjorne's plans. Look at the wagon/cradle when you get a chance. It is the best kid container ever! I took Bjorne up on his offer to help me learn how to make a bed. I explained that I didn't know how to use all my power tools and I wanted a bed. Bjorne was a good teacher. He is efficient, which I like in a teacher.

We decided to do this plan that he has on his website:
http://hometown.aol.com/rbull41/queenbed/queen_size_bed.htm

The plans are fairly easy to follow and it goes together fairly easily. It is a little heavy as it is a full plank bed instead of a rope bed. Essentially, three trips from the car instead of two for a rope bed, or one for my bedroll. It packs up fairly small compared to the medieval pavillion. I will take pictures of how small it packs. Right now, everything is apart for the final sanding and staining. I will use a commercial product rather that a dog poo finish. I would need a dog to get enough poo to stain a bed.

Elephant Poo Resources in St. Helena!

BAKSHEESH! Let me explain.

St. Helena is a small town right up the road from my tiny village of Rutherford. If you know wine, these two towns are very important for their contributions to the wine industry in Northern California. They are also tourist destinations. Normally, this makes me grumpy. This week I had a lovely surprise.

I work in St. Helena, so I see the shops every day. I see the $700 shoes and the $300 silk tank tops. A shop opened in town and I decided to go in. I saw a sign on the door I hadn't noticed before. "Fair Trade" Wikipedia has a very good entry on Fair Trade at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade For those of you who do not want to link, Fair Trade is a social movement in which you buy products made by people in less developed nations from shops that help these marginalized people achieve economic success. You could buy similar things at Macys, Pier One, Cost Plus and other places. In a free trade store, the person running it is a member of a federation of stores that pledge that the middleman isn't making the dough, the artisan is making a fair wage.

I wandered into Baksheesh and found many interesting products. I got a cute brown glass and bronze bead bracelet that fits! I also got a long necklace that has brown, bronze and gold tone beads. My very best find was elephant dung paper. Candi, who works at Baksheesh asked me if I was finding everything. I had found too much! I love the little onyx candle holders and plan on some for the parlor. I was standing in front of the elephant poo stationary and pointing at it. THERE IT WAS!!! POO PAPER! I was carefully picking out samples. The samples have elephants on them from behind. They had many other versions that had birds, leopards, and elephants from the front. I got a box of note paper and a card. I am sending the card off to Tama tomorrow.

Paper made from herbivore droppings is very medieval. It was done mainly in warmer climates where greening the fields was done using poultry droppings rather than the rougher herbivores like horses, camels and elephants. In those places, where poultry were economically feasible all year, the manure could be used for paper products. (Horse, camel and elephant droppings have a lot of seeds and can promote weeds, so they were used for other things more often than used for fertilizers.) The process for making paper is rather involved. It is also a big secret. I told Candi this and she knew the supplier, who I think is in Sri Lanka. Candi is going to try and hook me up with the purveyor's to learn how to make poo paper! Watch this space!

The paper is very reasonable. A very fancy poo paper box in canary yellow with cut outs of mango trees, elephant grass and a bias of a momma and a baby elephant's backsides. The paper inside is bright pink, soft pink, canary, soft yellow and natural. Comment in the blog and I will send you a sample! The hand of the paper is soft and it is very absorbent. It is as though you make construction paper with bamboo or silk. You can see what the elephant had for breakfast too! So far, everyone Candi says they don't do mail order at Baksheesh because they don't know day to day what they will be getting from the artisans. I like her selection better than that at World of Good's website.

For those of you who do visit Napa Valley or Sonoma, please stop by Baksheesh and support merchants who support the Arts and Sciences in less developed nations.

A & S

I am teaching four classes. Actually, one is a round table. I am teaching Dye Jobs: An Introduction to Dying. Then Trapunto: Whole Cloth Quilting. The third class is Weird Medieval Food, which is just fun. Finally, the round table is Profitable Event Management.

I am worried no one will show for profitable event management. I am also trying to figure out how to present my formulas. I am going to change them from economic formulas to practical math.

Pei Yi's Art of Cordial Defense

Back to cordials!!!

Safeway had a great sale on fresh raspberries. I have made raspberry cordial from both fresh and frozen berries. I can taste the difference in mine and in my friends' cordials if the fruit was frozen. I think the freezing process makes the flesh break down faster, exposing the seed to the alcohol. These leaves a slightly bitter after taste. I had tasted the difference but didn't really understand. Master Henry made an off-hand comment on bitterness and seeds when he was in charge of the brewer's guild. Then I put it together with what my taste buds had been telling me. I now had a concept for that weird aftertaste with the frozen ones.

I have been doing a lot of reading of opinions and original recipes. Vodka is pretty much right out. I obviously need a still but, I am saving up for a rock saw. (An episode on "My cousin gave me opals" is upcoming, when I get a rock saw.) Anyhow, I have been making cordials for taste rather than for period recipes. My lemon wine was kind of really great.

My recipe may not have enough fruit in it. It has more than most, but I am still not sure it is enough.

Raspberry Cordial for Yumminess
In a quart jar with a sealing lid combine:

12 ounces of raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 vanilla bean, halved and scraped in
white rum to fill the jar.

honey and simple syrup later for sweetening

Surprisingly this didn't take a lot of rum. The jar was loosely filled with raspberries, but they were really huge. I didn't find white brandy at my local store. I find white rum is a little more sweet and neutral than vodka and I am shooting for the incredible color of fresh mashed raspberries. The fruit is put in whole. It isn't mashed so the bitter seed isn't exposed to the alcohol. This helps with filtering too. On July 17th, a mere two weeks into this, I will remove the fruit and seeds. If the flavor needs more time, I can put seeded pulp in, but it is usually exhausted at that time. This yields a more flavorful cordial. If it needs more sweetening, I am going to use honey. In more period recipes, honey is used as a flavor corrector and sweetener, particularly with herbal infusions. I used to think sugar was better, but the aftertaste of honey is a powerful tool, particularly with bitter herbal mixtures.

Raspberry Cordial for Period Flavor
In a quart jar with a sealing lid combine:

12 ounces of raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
brandy to fill the jar
slice of lemon peel
1/4 nutmeg or smaller chunk
honey for sweetening

I let the sugar stand on the berries for a few hours to mascerate them. This will expose some of the seeds so the honey note will be more important. I throw out the lemon and nutmeg at the 14 day mark too. They can get really bitter very fast if you do not.

Cow Urine Cures

http://www.hkrl.com/cowurine.html

I knew that the cows were sacred to certain sects in India. I had no idea cow urine cured. Of course, this is not really applicable to my research. I have no idea what to say about it.

Mustard

I read a bunch of mustard recipes and history stuff on mustard. I read bunches of websites. I cracked open the books. For those of you who do not know about medieval mustards, just start here: http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/Mustards.html That will save you an immense amount of time.

The Recipes:

A French Mustard:

From Coquinaria:
http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/03.1histrecept.htm
Moustarde. Se vous voulez faire provision de moustarde pour garder longuement, faictes la en vendenges de moulx doulx. Et aucuns dient que le moulx soit bouly. Item, se vous voulez faire moustarde en ung village a haste, broiez du senevé en ung mortier et deffaictes de vinaigre, et coulez par l'estamine. Et se vous la voulez tantost faire parer, mectez la en ung pot devant le feu. Item, et se vous la voulez faire bonne et a loisir, mectez le senevé tremper par une nuyt en bon vinaigre, puis la faictes bien broyer au moulin, et bien petit a petit destremper de vinaigre. Et se vous avez des espices qui soient de remenant de gelee, de claré, d'ypocras ou de saulses, si soyent broyez avec et après la laisser parer.

Mustard. If you want to make a supply of mustard that will keep long, make it during the picking-season (of wine grapes) from fresh stum. Some say the stum must be boiled.
Item if you want to make mustard in a village (where there is no stum) in a hurry, grind white mustard[seeds] in a mortar, mix with vinagre, and strain through the sieve. When you want to use it immediately, put it in a pot near the fire.
Item if you want to make good [mustard] at leasure, soak the mustard seeds during one night in fine vinagre, then grind in the mill, and mix in the vinagre gradually. When you have spices left over from making jelly, claret, hypocras or sauces, grind these with [the mustard seeds] and let it mature.

Hypocras:

Pour faire ung lot de bon ypocras. Prenes une onches de cinamonde nommée longue canelle en pippe, avec unes cloche de gingembre et autant de garingal, bien estampé ensemble, et puis prenez ung livre de bon çuquere: et tout cela broyés ensamble et destrempés avec ung lot du milleur vin de Beaune que pourrés finer et le laissir tremper ungne heure ou deux. Et pus coullés parmy ung chause par plusieurs fois tant qui soit bien cler.

To make a lot (=liquid measure) fine hypocras. Take one ounce cinnamon called long cinnamon in sticks, with some pieces of ginger and as much galanga, grind well together. Have a pound of fine sugar, and grind together and mix with a lot of the best wine of Beaune you can get and let this stand for one or two hours. Then let it run through a sack several times until it is clear.

250 gram white or black mustard seeds, or some of both
4 decilitre white wine vinagre of good quality
1 teaspoon mixed spices
salt

My estimates:

1 ½ cup mustard seeds,
1 3/4 cups port wine vinegar
1 teaspoon mixed spices
dash salt

The Instructions:

Preparation in advance: Since must or stum (the freshly pressed juice of winegrapes about to ferment) is available only in wine-countries in octobre, we make the mustard with wine vinagre. Let the mustard seeds soak during the night in white wine vinagre, The vinaigre should stand about 2 centimeters above the seeds.

Preparation: The next morning the mustard seeds have absorbed the vinagre, and become soft (you can crush them between your fingers). Mash them in a blender, and add as much vinagre as is needed to obtain the desired thickness. Add salt and spices. Taste it, be sure there is enough salt in it.
Keep the mustard in a well closing container in the refrigerator during at least eight days, to let the taste mature.
To serve: In small dishes on the table.

My Interpretation:
I used the last part of the recipe, which is underlined in the above quotes from the website. I do not speak French, so I used that translation. I used the following proportions:
¼ cup mustard seeds,
1/3 cups port wine vinegar
¼ teaspoon mixed spices
dash salt

I elected to use the port vinegar because ultra sweet wines were extremely popular in period and I had a fabulous bottle of old zinfandel port wine vinegar. The original author suggested white wine vinegar. I did not see any high quality white wine vinegar at my local market. There were champagnes, ports, balsamics and then very cheap white wine vinegar. This means there will be a significant difference in appearance. I think this would be a matter of preference in the middle ages and availability. Vinegar done with skill is as finicky and artistic as wine.

I soaked the seeds in the port wine vinegar in a plastic container. I didn’t have any canning jars ready. The next day, I added the spices and use the blender to chop things up. This is the hottest mustard I have ever tasted. Ever. By the way, a blender is a reasonable replacement for a stone grinder and 10 kitchen helpers. I decided.

After I made this mustard, my son who is a sous chef 'borrowed' it for the base for a sauce he made. He added a touch of commercial brown mustard. He then served it with a pot roast that was falling apart tender. It was fabulous. He also offered some good criticisms about the redaction.

Lombard Mustard:

From the Forme of Cury:
Lombard Mustard
Take Mustard seed and waishe it & drye it in an ovene, grynde it drye, farce it through a farce, clarifie honey wt wine & vinegr & stere it wel togedr, and make it thikke ynowe, & whan thou wilt spende thereof make it thynne wt wine.
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc/FoC108small.html

This is a particularly interesting recipe and I have seen it done about 6 different redactions. None of them was remotely close to the other so I decided to do my own. Why not? The process of washing, drying in an oven and grinding dry mustard seed and forcing it through a horse hair sieve leaves you with something theoretically similar to Coleman's mustard powder, but with the color of your original seeds. I will be testing that later. In this case, mustard powder did not stand up to the port wine vinegar. The color of the mustard is a medium brown:

1/4 cup mustard powder, either processed or ground and sifted seeds
1/2 cup port wine vinegar
1/4 cup wine (for thinning)
1/4 cup of honey

I combined my mustard powder and vinegar and let it sit over night. That is pretty common with mustard making in general. This is also pungent. It is eye watering the next day. Slowly stir in the honey and thin with wine. I just put it in the mustard crock. It is tasty, but has more heat and less vinegar taste than modern commercial honey mustard. Mustard is highly competitive, so it wouldn't surprise me that people are being trained to like a higher vinegar content.

My theory is that the vinegar content wasn't as high in period. I think mustard was one of the truly hot spices. There were fewer hot spices and ginger, mustard and peppercorns stepped in to fill the fire void. In our modern spice cabinet we have various Capsicum annuum (chili powder, cajun spices, paprika, hot chili peppers, pepper flakes and sweet bell peppers.) We also have vanilla and allspice, but the important thing here is the desire for hotness. There are people who adore hot tastes. We eat salsa, spicy burritos, Thai food and Chinese foods for a reason. That hotness is great.

So far, everything was done with yellow mustard seeds which are the lowest quality according to the grandmas I know. Black or brown is the best.

Cordials, Walnuts, Syrups, Pastes and Mustard

I have been learning to work with green walnuts. I threw a note out there on the kingdom list and a few weeks later, Mistress Juana answered it with some suggestions. It reminded me on just the right day to look for green walnuts. They were on my two trees and they were about the size of a ping pong ball. I did some research on green walnuts and it started with http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/20/WIG346O0371.DTL

The article is a modern food article, but I could not help feeling that there was something medieval about it. I am still looking for information stating that any of the three recipes is medieval. Orahovac may be, as that is an area in Croatia that means 'walnut'. So far, nothing though.

I made the Orahovac and Noccino just the way they are in the article. I have the Vin de Noix waiting. 40 days! Anyhow, if anyone has information on these being known in period, please drop me a line.

What I did find that was period was a mention of pickled walnuts and green walnut paste in Perry's translation of An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th century.

Green Walnut Paste

Take a ratl of green walnuts and pierce them well with an iron skewer, then steep them in water for three days; take them out of the water and for each ratl take three of honey, cleaned of its foam, after cooking the nuts a little. Take them from the water and return them to the honey, and cook them until they take the form of a paste. Season with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, three quarters of an ûqiya for each ratl, and eat it after meals. Its benefits: it excites the appetite and digests foods, heats the kidneys, and increases urine. http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading520

The first thing I did was see that this is a basic one part to three parts recipe. A ratl is roughly a pound and an ûqiya is one twelfth of a pound.

Green Walnut Paste Redaction
1 lbs of green walnuts
3 lbs of honey, clarified
1 ounce of spice blend

Using rubber gloves to protect your hands from stains, pierce the nuts all over with a skewer. Soak the walnuts in water for 3 days. Boil the nuts in their own water for about 45 minutes. In a separate pot, bring the honey to a strong simmer and skim it. Stir the spices into the honey. Strain the walnuts and add them to honey. Simmer this until the mixture becomes reduced and gooey. I reduced it by 3/4 and took it to the soft ball stage on my candy thermometer.

An ounce of cinnamon is about 4 and a half tablespoons. Cloves have about the same weight. I decided to fool around with the spices a bit. The recipe calls for cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. This could be a pretty deadly combination if you tried something like equal parts. Cloves have an exceptionally strong flavor so I decided to take a look at spices for similar things that may not be period, but are from that area. The older the better. There was a trend to using a smaller portion of cloves to the other spices. I didn't see anything that called for equal parts of cinnamon, clove and ginger. I was also going to use fresh ginger for this. I think you can make the case for dry or fresh ginger. In my case, I had fresh ginger that needed to be use and I love fresh ginger. I used 3/4 ounce of fresh ginger, which was about a tablespoon and a half. Then I used 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of cloves.

I have no clue if I did this right. I did two variations. One, I left the walnuts whole and one I put through the food processor. I did this because of the carrot paste recipe. I also love the idea of serving someone black gunk and then calling it something that is good for increasing urine. Plus, it is green walnuts. How cool is that?? I am waiting for the whole ones to firm up but the paste ones taste pretty good.

Pickled walnuts: I used http://www.davidgregory.org/pickled_walnuts.htm to start my recipe. Most of the recipes were similar, and I like the brining of the walnuts. Those are sitting in a jar, brining themselves away.

Cordials: When it came to cordials and syrups I went nuts. I was seriously considering chopping down my lemon tree. I love my lemon tree. I decided not to chop it down just now, but I was pushing to get all the lemons off. I made 14 quarts of lemon drop and 14 of limoncella.

Syrups: Here was a place where I had fun. I made three from Perry's Andalusian translation and one of my own device.

Syrup of Simple Sikanjabîn (Oxymel)

Take a ratl of strong vinegar and mix it with two ratls of sugar, and cook all this until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink an ûqiya of this with three of hot water when fasting: it is beneficial for fevers of jaundice, and calms jaundice and cuts the thirst, since sikanjabîn syrup is beneficial in phlegmatic fevers: make it with six ûqiyas of sour vinegar for a ratl of honey and it is admirable.
...[gap: top third of this page has been cut off]...
... and a ratl of sugar; cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup. Its benefit is to relax the bowels and cut the thirst and vomiting, and it is beneficial in bilious fevers http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading497

This is a pretty simple syrup. I had some old vine zinfindel port vinegar. Old Vine Zinfindel ports are all the rage, or were about 5 years ago. I would imagine (due to the pretty shoddy labels) that someone botched a large batch of wine. The vinegar is good, but not outstanding as it should be. I have a Praeger port vinegar that is fabulous. I didn't mind devoting my very nice other brand vinegar to making this, but not my Praeger. I measured the vinegar and found I had 3 cups. I set aside one cup for my mustard project and set up two separate pots. In the first pot I put 1 cup of the vinegar and 2 cups of sugar. I did the same thing with the other pot. Then I picked about six handfuls of mint. (I pulled it up because it was crowding my daisies.) I cleaned the mint and put it in the boiling syrup for about 3-4 minutes. Then I strained the syrup into a canning jar. The minty version is rich but not overwhelmingly minty. It also does not have the slightly bitter or grassy aftertaste of overcooked mint.

I got caught up in the cookbook and decided to make the tamarind, lemon and carrot syrups. I really wanted to make violet syrup, but I have no violets. I got some today and planted them in the front yard.

Syrup of Lemon

Take lemon, after peeling its outer skin, press it and take a ratl of juice, and add as much of sugar. Cook it until it takes the form of a syrup. Its advantages are for the heat of bile; it cuts the thirst and binds the bowels.

My version:

4 cups of juice from lemon flesh only

8 cups of sugar.

Bring slowly to a boil and keep it there until it turns to a syrup. Over cooking it will turn it to jelly.

I took my lemons and peeled them with a vegetable peeler. Then I cut off the pith. I did this so I would have lemon peel for the limoncella. The pith is bitter, so it should be discarded. This recipe I interpreted literally. I pressed the juice out of the flesh and tried it in comparison to the juice of a lemon from an unpeeled half of a lemon. I think it does make a slight difference, if you are very sensitive to the taste. There is a hint of the oil in rind on juice and I don't think it was as sweet. Anton and Collect came over and tried it and they thought it was a lot like non-alcoholic Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Syrup of Carrots

Take four ratls of carrots, after removing the fibers [lit. "nerves"] that are in the centers, and cook them in water to cover until their substance comes out. Then take the clear part of it and add it to three ratls of honey, cleaned of its foam. The bag: ...[about three words missing]... an ûqiya of cubebs, two ûqiyas each of ginger and long pepper, and half an ûqiya of cinnamon and flower of cloves. Cook until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink an ûqiya of this with three of hot water: it is beneficial in the lack of urine, increases desire, and dissolves phlegm, heats the kidneys admirably, and likewise the other parts of the body, God willing.

Carrot Syrup

4lbs carrots, sliced
3lbs honey
1 tablespoons cubebs
3 tablespoons ginger
2 tablespoons long pepper
1 tablespoon cinnamon
10 cloves

I boiled the carrots in water that covered them by about an inch. I simmered it for an hour or until the carrots barely could hold their shape.

I wanted my liquid to be tinted a little, but very carrot flavored. I also used stronger flavored white and red carrots. This choice was made because even though Persian farming techniques which would have produced a sweeter carrot through irrigation, I felt that the stronger flavored carrots were necessary. The sweet, coreless carrots in grocery stores in the United States are a recent development. Coring carrots was done in the late 1970s in some recipes. Plus, I had some! I had all this stuff, well some of it.

I cut back on the spices a lot. I didn't have enough of everything. If I had, it would be 1.4 ounces of cubeb, 3 ounces of ginger, 3 ounces of long pepper, 3/4 ounce of cloves, 3/4 ounce of cinnamon. Once I saw I didn't have all the spices in that quantity, I decided to wing it. I boiled everything together, brought it to the syrup stage and then strained and bottled it. It is a milder spice, but very good.

Syrup of Tamarind:
Take a ratl of tamarind and steep in five ratls of water, throw away the dregs immediately and add the clarified water to a ratl of sugar. Cook all this until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink two ûqiyas of it in three of cold water. It is beneficial in jaundice, and takes it away easily; it cuts bilious vomit and thirst, awakens the appetite to eat, and takes the bitterness of food out of the mouth.

I had 4 ounces of tamarind. I soaked it in 20 ounces of water in the sun. Then I broke it up with my fingers. That may have been a mistake. The water became about the color of tamarind soda, so I thought it might be about time to drain it. I strained it several times and threw away the pulp. I then measured the liquid and found I had about 18 ounces of water. I added 4 ounces of sugar and simmered it until it became a syrup. The results were pretty to look at but utterly disgusting to taste. It was exceptionally bitter. Four tasters rejected it. I think I am going to adjust the liquid to the sugar ratio and cook it less time. I will also experiment with steeping time. Tamarind syrup in the Philippino store is tasty. I do not think they would intentionally make this, so the redaction must be wrong.

Next up: Mustard!

What happened to the Poo Lady??

• Computer crash including both the main computer and the server
• Break-up with long-term boyfriend and sorting things out and maybe something is going on there
• Marine World is still snubbing me
• Went to the Getty Villa in LA with the Foster Laurel and took 600 pictures
• Went to DC to the Smith to check out some tapestry stuff
• Learned to use my babyloc serger, still scared of the big one
• Sorted 80% of fabric collection
• Dug back to the other 20% until....
• Hayfever set in!
• Spring occurs, which actually means work for farmers
• Learned to spin in Caid and Foster Laurel's lovely lady Baroness Ghiselaine gave me a better drop spindle. Still practicing. Will buy wool to spin thread for embellishment.
• Was invited to write articles for Florigeum or however you spell that...still in denial.
• Found out I am one of a rare few that believe peer like qualities is a serious issue and yes, you shouldn't get a peerage if you don't have them.
• Realized I picked great laurels and a kick ass knight to guide me
• Made a cloak out of a piece of fabric I have had for like 12 years
• Made 1 blue norman dress that supports the breastages
• Made 1 real linen 10th century Norse underdress using Vigdis' layout. (Beautiful linen, a bit heavy but $2.98 per yard. I have 9 yards left.)
  
• Made up the cherry red Norse underdress in only 3 hours using Vigdis' design and 3 yards of linen. I have a good yard left over and may see if there is another yard at the shop for a cherry red apron dress.
• Made a lavendar (deep lavendar) apron dress
• Finished penguin pouch and gave it to Greywolfe. He says I can come over any time for job stuff and playing WoW.
• Made 42 and 19th levels respectively in WoW.
• Pulled weeds
• Went on job interviews
• Car shopping with grandma.
• Had a funeral for step grandfather type guy.

I was just too swamped to post! I do have loads of pictures and I will get them up as soon as I can.

Fish Trap Research

I first decided to study fish traps a few years ago. They are an integral part of the medieval cycle of fishing life. I was thrilled to see that they were on the competition schedule for Beltane. Technical Science: Mode or recreation of fishing impliments, such as fishing nets, fish spears or fish hooks. I decided traps are included.

I know about fish traps because we used them up until oh.. a year ago. I have eaten trapped fish most of my life. Crawdad traps are very much like the old fish traps I have decided to make. I know the design and I know how to bait it. If I get my fishing license, I could go do it. Hee. If. So, time for research.




These images were found at http://www.le.ac.uk/ulas/annualreports/ar99-00/hemington/hemington.html



Perhaps the most amazing discovery was a large wicker fish trap positioned at the apex. The trap was a cone-shaped basket over 2m long with two internal funnels (non-return valves), the size and arrangement suggesting that it was a silver eel trap. Fragments of another similar basket were found nearby lying on top of the weir.


They have excavated a fish weir which was a medieval structure designed to create a fishing area. It was about 75 yards long and created an artificial environment out of rocks and wattle. Medieval fisheries were a huge economic concern because of the amount of fasting days.


Wikipedia says: The Magna Carta includes a clause requiring that they be removed:

All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.^[18]

Basket weir fish traps were widely used in ancient times. They are shown in medieval illustrations and surviving examples have been found. Basket weirs are about 2 m long and comprise two wicker cones, one inside the other -- easy to get into and hard to get out.^[19]

^{That isn't really true. They aren't wicker cones. It is really a valve inside a cone. But two cones inside each other is easier for some people to grasp. Regia.org has the *best* stuff because they care about medieval things.}

It is likely that the trap was flat bottomed to allow it to lie on the river or sea bed without rolling with the current or tide. For eels it would need to be baited with a dead fish, this would attract the carnivorous eel into the funnel and once inside, they would find it difficult to escape. Single chambered traps may also have been used by the early medieval fisherman; these would have been something akin to the salmon putchers used earlier this century in Scotland and on the Severn River. The main advantage of these traps was that smaller fish could be caught, there was little danger of the fish swimming away from them as in the case with a net and they were relatively easy to maintain.

The traps themselves would be made from willow 'withies' that had been cultivated for at least three years. Today there are withy beds in the Southwest that produce willow withies in white, buff and brown. White withies are produced by stripping the bark away, the buff has been boiled with its bark on and then the bark then removed and the browns are the withies complete with bark. In the early medieval period the majority of the basket work was functional and there was no need to add extra work to the making of fish traps and baskets: brown withies would have been the most common. To weave the withies they would need to be soaked so as to make them pliable, they would need to be left to soak overnight to enable the surface water to penetrate to the pith of each withy.

Ha! My laurel taught me this withy stuff. I am also downloading the Rule of St. Benedict so that I can see if he really reflects on this stuff.

Dark Age fish-traps
The number of early medieval fish-traps known in Britain is increasing. In Essex, a series of large, timber fish-traps around the coastline were long regarded as medieval, but two have now produced mid-Saxon radiocarbon dates of the 7th–9th centuries. The traps are in the Blackwater Estuary and near Bradwell-on-Sea.

Meanwhile, up the Thames in London, a mid-Saxon ‘wharf’ originally thought to be part of King Offa’s palace at Chelsea, and given wide national publicity last year (see BA, September), has on further examination been re-interpreted – as yet another Saxon fish-trap.

Essex Archaeology, an annual round-up of archaeological news from Essex, is now available free from the county council’s archaeology section (send an A4 SAE). From British Archeology: Issue 31 in February 1998. I need to get that.

Thwarted!

Marine World hasn't returned my calls. I need to find a camel poop soon!

Camel Poo

In the course of my research, I have found camel poo may have been used for bead slip when doing lampwork. I need a bit of camel poo. I need enough to make slip of different consistencies and see if I can make a bead slip. What to do?

Marine World Six Flags has camel rides. I bet they have camel poo. Tomorrow, I call and see if I can talk to the camel trainer.