Day number 2

Greetings everyone . I am at the library in London waiting to visit with one of my seniors.So I have until 1 ish. I certainly understand the need for a summer kitchen, with the weather being so lovely and warm  the heat from the cook stove is making my kitchen balmy for sure. We will have to hook up the summer kitchen wood stove soon. Other than that things are chugging along as normal....that is if you consider candle light and the smell of wood burning normal. The house is lovely and quiet. Amazing how much noise polution our homes produce. I am happy with this weather, I will be able to hang laundry without it blowing away or getting muddy. Thank you thank you !!
Our world is kind of revolving around wood for the time being.It is so important for every day living to have a good dry supply. And plenty of small stuff to not only start the stove but to also bring the oven up to temp. If banked at night well, plus a log or 2 thrown in during the night, I have good coals to start with in the morning . Without having to get up at the "crack of holy early". I am experimenting with summer teas steeped in the sun...I will let you know how that goes. I have had it with mint and it is generally lovely. When I lived in the South they used to have steeped tea with crushed mint and a shot of bourbon...hmmm ....The gardens are exploding and everything is up and growing well. Event the potatoes are showing themselves . So hopefully it will be a good year. I put in a couple of watermelon plants and I see someone has decided they are a good salad so I will have to re seed that part of the bed and perhaps cover them with a  jar to protect them from little munchers. I had better run and will talk to you soon. Probably tomorrow as I am in London to attend my Rotary meeting in the evening . see you soon.

Last Evening before V-Day

Hi. This is the last evening before V-Day. We were over in Petrolia, Ontario and picked up a very nice wash basin and pitcher for $20. We also bought an old iron for clothes. It needs a handle and we hope to pick some more irons of various sizes. We are also looking to get lots of enamal ware, tinware and cast iron ware since these were the "plastics" and "teflon" of the day. China dinner ware we have aplenty but we only have modern cookware, buckets, pails, containers and such.

On our drive through the country side we came across some old abandoned houses, on of them had an ice house. It was built with very thick walls and a low cieling, maybe 7 feet maximum (about 2.1 m for you metric types). This is a well insulated room built back into a hill with two doors in series. Open the first door to enter and promptly close it, then open the second door and enter the ice house proper. The two door system provides isolation from the outside air in summer and a very good deterent to assorted marauding hungry animals. The only hydro used is that which powers the electric tools used to build it. After that, line it with ice and fill it with food and Bob's your uncle.

One of the major projects we have ahead of us is creating food storage spaces similar to those used in 1865. We'll need a cold pantry, an ice house (the freezer of the day) and a root cellar. All of these things are low tech, low energy solutions to food preservation. They'll work even when the hydro is off which is something modern appliances won't do. Something to keep in mind, especially with the price of hydro rising like it is.

Tomorrow we begin our journey to living in 1865, we will also celebrate our first wedding anniversary. So we have two things to enjoy, our journey in 1865 living and the second year of marriage. I love you Maggie, with all my heart.

Thanks,
Ken

Dinner in the dining room

Sitting in our dining room having our supper, we are reminded of the gentleness of candles instead of harsh electric lighting.The sounds of conversation and the satisfaction of a well cooked meal prepared for a family at the end of the day. Flavours abound in our meal, crepes stuffed with chicken, white wine, asparagus and fresh baked apple pie.

Our day was spent cleaning up in the yard, chopping wood for the stove, clearing out a shed and draining the water from it. The weather was dismal,  misty and wet, and the ground is sopping wet with standing water in places.

This is another day in a series of wet, dark days. I'm getting tired of it to be frank but there is precious little to be done about it. I just hope our gardens don't drown and we lose the plants.

But enough of the dismal tone. We have ended our day, with a fine meal, good company in the form of my sister and excellent conversation. We look forward to many more.

That's all for now, thanks.

Margaret and Ken

Only a couple of days to go...

Well it is Friday and we have 2 days to go .Then we are into the full swing of things. We are pretty much prepared . I am having some concerns over this crappy weather,, while my gardens are growing like mad I am concerned about clothes drying. I hung out a pile of sheets couple of days ago and they ended up blowing onto the ground and getting dirty again. We generally hang our clothes out on the line but this spring has proven to be testing our patience.
The gardens are growing wonderfully , I am a bit worried that things will start to drown or get root rot with all of the sitting water. But so far we have been enjoying lovely spring spinich, and asparagus.Ken hung the last of the candle holders that we have been meaning to put up and we are pretty much set to go. As of Monday you will hear from us on a whenever basis. We will most likely post once a week,unless I am at the library and will post from there..Be back soon,need to get into the gardens while the light is good. Besides if I stay in the house I will surely fall asleep...one of those tired days.

Candlelight

Hi. I'm putting up chandeliers in the kitchen, stairwell and the foyer. Also going to clear out a space for a wood nook so the cook stove has dry wood all the time (that's the theory anyway :-) ). Going to finish removing light bulbs today as well. V-Day is getting closer now, I'm going to find out just how good a Victorian I'll be.

Thanks,
Ken

Potables

Hi. We've had some questions about potables and an offer of a recipe for dandelion beer. I didn't know there was such a thing. I'd like to try making our own potables, things like dandelion wine, beer, malt beer and the like. I made beer about 15 years ago and it turned out pretty well, so based on my vast experience and knowledge I'd like to try it again. Making your own potables is something we don't normally think about. While there are places where we can "make" our own beer and wine, we don't have the intimate involvement that was once so common that it wasn't recorded.

Beer, ale, lager, wine, small ale (good during haying season) were all available to the farm for a modest investment in time and effort. The materials would be ready to hand for the most part with the possible exception of yeast. Wild yeast would be used in place of store bought yeast, and yes, sometimes the results were less than successful.

Beer needs four ingredients, barley, malt, water and yeast. Wine needs water, yeast and some sort of fruit. Both use large pots, beer will need some wood for the fire. Both potables will need bottles, crocks, casks, barrels, tuns or a similar vessel to age and ferment in. Gassing off didn't involve very much technology. Then, with the yeast doing it's thing, the only other involvement would be a periodic checking on the process to ensure a successful outcome.

Other common potables would be water, tea and coffee. We drink all of these today although the form they come in is somewhat different than in 1865. Tea might come in a brick, you would break or cut a piece off the brick and pop it in the hot water to steep. The coffe beans came in a bag and you would grind them up with a grinder, crush them with a mallet or, in extremis, just pop the whole beans in the boiling water to create your morning beverage.

Water would be a thing to be careful off, we call it "beaver fever", a bacteria known as Giardia can cause stomach discomfort, diarhea an cramping. So folks would more likely drink water in the form of tea, coffee, beer (boiled water) or wine where the boiled water has killed off the bacteria or the alcohol has done the same thing. I believe an alcohol content of 17% or better is needed to kill the bacteria but I'm working from memory so don't bet the bank on that one.

That's all for now,
Thanks.
Ken

Dandilion Beer

Vandy, I didn't know there was such a thing. Should have guessed, if there's a way to make alcohol humans have figured it out. I'd like to have that recipe please.

Thanks,
Ken

Addresses

We would like peoples mailing addresses please.
M&K

Dishes by Hand

Hi, It's official, the automatic dishwasher is gone, jury rigged pipes patched up, cut-off or otherwise dealt with. Electrical dealt with as well. Who ever put the machine in sure didn't know the electrical code very well and that's all I'm going to say. We haven't used the machine since last May on our wedding so I don't think we'll miss it.

New shelves installed in the space left by the machine, and they look pretty good. A fairly decent match for the cabinetry that's already installed. Now Margaret  will have space to put all the very large pots and this will help keep the kitchen neater.

Speaking of neater, the closer we get to being ready for V-Day, the more I notice just how much stuff we have in the house that we won't be using. It is quite likely that we will never use some of it again and I don't think we'll miss it either.

Got another load of wood today, this will be a fairly regular task, since wood will be the fuel of choice for cooking, heating water and heating the house. I intend to keep a log of wood consumption throughout the year. I think the final tally will be something of an eyebrow raiser.

I suspect that I will be much better with an axe, hammer and wedges by next spring than I am now. I pretty good now, but will be at least at a journeyman level by next spring. The same will be true of many other tasks which I can do but not well or efficiently. I suspect efficiency will be a major consideration in everything we do, espacially when it comes to heavy manual labour.

Hopefully I'll be in much better shape next spring with all the manual labour. At the very least I'll be able to document all the common aches and pains which trouble me throughout the year and what we did to mitigate them.

That's all for now, thanks.
Ken

Goodbye Q in the morning

Well, the stereo is gone from our kitchen. Hub of the house. We do not watch television at all here so our radio entertains our ears while we are cooking and or doing regular household duties. It is safe in storage along with our CD's etc.
Amazing the space these things take up. Now I have more room for books.There is an upside to everything . Ken has officially pulled out the dishwasher. We will put a sign on it at the end of the road ...hopefully someone will take it . Regardless of what happens in the next year we have not used this machine and prefer hand washing . Neither of us can remember when we used it last and we might be correct in we used it last year the day of our wedding ..But now we have a lovely space for shelves,for large pots and such...which is wonderful.  We are getting excited for this to begin.

Last Day

Hello, Margaret here. Today is the last day for our kitchen radio. No more Q, no more "Fresh Air" on the weekends, no more "Ideas" at night during the week and especially no more Stewart McLean. :-(. Didn't realize how many compact discs we had until we packed them up in boxes. That's what you get for not owning a TV. The silence is golden, but it will take a couple of days to get used to not listening to these programmes in the house.

Our parlour has a beautiful piano that we'll perhaps now utilize. Gardens are growing beautifully and I'll have lots of canning to do this year. Not that that is different from any other year but we are really focusing on self sustaining throughout the year.

That's all for now, I'll be back later.

Margaret

Wheels and Meals

Hi, its strange how the mind works. Margaret and I were on our way to get a load of wood and it occured to me that if our cars had wooden or steel wheels and rims the ride would be a lot bumpier and a great deal more noisy. Also a consideration is maximum speeds attainable and, more importantly, sustainable with wooden/steel wheels and rims as opposed to pnuematic tyres.

I don't think the steel wheels and rims are good for speeds much over 20 -30 mph (25 - 50 kpm). I'm not sure how to go about testing my theory so I'm going to give it some thought.

Vandy asked us if we were going to document our meals and what they consisted of. We hadn't thought about that but it will be part of our blog/record. Just now, we're having lunch: bread, butter, lettuce, cheese and tea. Tonight, we're having crispy fried tofu with sprouts, tahini garlic mayo,  onions and tomato. We're going to miss the tofu, it's one of our favourite meals..... and yes, you heard ME say that! I love tofu, Margaret introduced me to it a couple of years ago and I'm hooked.

The lettuce, onions, spinach, zuccini, beans, radishes, peas, corn, leaks are all up and we've already had fresh garden grown spinach for supper one night. Yay for garden veggies!!!

It's too late in the season for us to have dandilion salad since the leaves are too big and bitter for eating. We were asked about what we would eating, and a dandilion salad would have been one of the first spring meals. Something I had as a kid was lambsquarters, cut up, boiled and served in vinegar. It had a slightly tart or astringent taste but I liked it and we harvested it when ever we weeded the garden (it was one of the weeds). Often if we couldn't find my mum, we'd look in the garden and see where the lambsquarters was thrashing about. That would be Mum, weeding and tossing.

It's another grand day, really windy, partly cloudy and warm. Love it.

Thanks,
Margaret and Ken

The Preparation

Hi. It's T-6 days to go before the experiment begins. Only six days to prepare for what could be the most radical changes in our lives or just another day at the inn. We began to remove all the light bulbs today, move the computer out of the main house into the offices, pack up and store the radio and all the other electrical and electronic appliances in order to set the ambience for this experience.

We listen to CBC Radio 1 quite a bit, especially Q and Ideas, and the radio is usually on when we're bugging about in the kitchen doing things. I wonder what it will be like without the background noise to fill the air. I suppose we'll have to suffer along with purring cats, birdsong, chicken TV (those with chickens will understand this) the sound of the wind in the trees and the lilt of laughter and conversation as Margaret and I go through our day. Tough life, doncha know!

As of the 29th of May, in the year of our Lord 2011, we will be posting regularly once or twice a week. You will see posts from both Margaret and I dealing with the various aspects of our days, both from the individual point of view and our combined efforts. I will tend to deal more with heavier work and building (although Margaret swings a mean hammer!) fencing, digging, cutting, splitting and stacking wood, repairing and expanding the greenhouse and that sort of thing.

Margaret will speak for herself but I suspect she'll also take part in some of these things but will be focused more on the cooking, gardening, preserving and storing side of things.

Together, we'll be focused on social aspects of Victorian life, clothing, manners, dining, conversation and letter writing.

I'm getting excited now, and will be more so as we get closer to May 29th. We'll be celebrating our first wedding anniversary and I am humbled by the love and caring I am shown by Margaret every day.

With love and affection for Margaret, I bid you Good Day.
Ken

Only a week to go

I am anticipating the end of next week. Many things to do this week to prepare.Will need to get in small wood  for the wood stove.Makes lighting easier and brings the heat up faster. Will have to remove all of the newspaper I have been using to light the stove and gather leaves and small grass instead.(funny how many small things that will have to be changed). I light the wood stove daily but do not think about lighting it accurately to the period we are studying .Matches are well within this period...thank heavens. Although we do have a friend that is an expert at lighting with a flint and steel.I am going to ask him to teach me this weekend exactly how that is done. I had learned as a child how to start a fire by rubbing 2 sticks together ...so if need be.
Although I have heard this method is much faster ,especially if one of the sticks is a wooden match.

Evening Sky

Hi. I'm sitting here looking out the window at a splendid evening sky. Reds fading to oranges accented by dark blue cloud and backgrounded by light blue sky. A lovely end to a lovely day.

Earlier today I listed all the fruits and vegetables we have or will have and forgot one ... corn! Not a long row but corn nonetheless. Spent the day outside mostly, loading and unloading our trailer.

We use our car as a horse and the trailer as our wagon for now. We have made an offer on an old buggy, mostly for its cast iron bits. Perhaps we can copy the shapes of the wood and build our own buggy/wagon. Yet another thing to watch, do and record. Once we get the wagon/buggy built, we'll need to get horses. I would like to get a couple of Canadians. These are descendants of horses sent over from the Royal Stables of France in the 1600's. A sturdy, breed, not a large breed nor especially fast, but they are a quick horse and they also form the original breed stock of the more famous Morgan horse.

We will have to look into this further and we'll keep you posted.

Thanks, Ken.

The Sun

Hi. There seems to be a large bright object in a strangely blue coloured sky. If I remember correctly, this blue colour means no rain and the large bright object is a celestial orb called the ... dare I say it ... the sun!

I jest of course, but it remains a pure joy to see the sun and feel the heat.  We have planted more stuff in the ground, to whit: garlic and onions. This means we have planted onions (3 varieties), garlic, potatoes, radishes, spinach, zuccinni, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, brussel sprouts, cucumbers, green beans, a variety of squash, lettuce, beets, pumpkins. We also have apple, plum, cherry and pear trees,  a variety of grapes, sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, oregano, chives, garlic chives, dill, rasberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, currents.

Last night we had fresh spinach for supper. Yummmmmmm!!!

We hope for a bountiful harvest.

Almost 8 days to go

Almos 8 days to go until we start this journey. Better get ready..

The Weather

Hi. I've been watching the weather and I'm not impressed at all! Too much rain and we have the gardens about half planted. I hope the stuff that's in the ground doesn't rot. It needs to warm up as well in order for things to get growing.

Another area for experiment: The Lawn: currently we have a lawn tractor to keep the grass in check. In 1865 there were two ways to do this, grazing animals and a scythe. We don't have grazers yet (thinking about sheep and a goat) and I think Thanatos has borrowed my scythe :-) so for now, we'll use the lawn tractor to cut the grass. The up side of this is we can use the grass for bedding the chickens down. ^The down side is, I have to hand rake it, gather it up and pile it. This time last year I had raked and loaded seven trailer loads (2X4X8)  and it made for quite a large pile. I'm hoping to get a hay mau built so the grass will dry out and make better bedding. I'll let you know how that goes.

Thanks, Ken.

An Introduction

Greetings one and all. As you see from the introduction we are conducting a living experiment, specifically living in the Victorian Era circa 1865. In order to judge the success of this endeavour we need to set out the limits of the experiment and some of these follow below.

As I see it we need to divide the experiment into several areas of interest. I believe these should be as follows:


1) Sanitation: Currently we have a modern toilet, but these have been around since at least the early decades of the 1800's. to simulate the "outhouse" we will continue to use the toilet, but flushing only after a "#2". This isn't a perfect example of the Victorian solution to sanitation in rural Elgin County but without building an outhouse it's the closest we could come. There will be further investigation into this, we may in fact be able to add an outhouse to the experiment.

2) Heating and Cooking: We already have a wood cookstove in our kitchen. We also have a wood furnace firing the central heating. We are fully aware that central heating was NOT an option in rural Elgin County in 1865. However, expense and fire codes and insurance rates preclude installation of fireplaces throughout the house. Therefore we have to compromise on this matter. We are still heating and cooking with wood, which includes heating water for washing, etc.

3) Gardening and Livestock: This is the area where we come closest to the methods used in 1865. We house our chickens in a coop, they free range most days, the exceptions being winter and days when we won't be home before dark (racoons like chicken too). Where we need to research is ways to keep the chickens warm in winter without the benefit of heat lamps.

With respect to gardening, we need to eliminate garden hoses. Garden hoses need pressurized water to operate, in 1865 Elgin Cty I highly doubt the farm would have had electric pumps in wells. This means that the gardens will need to watered by hand and we'll need to rely much more on Mother Nature's good graces to have a fulsome crop. Garden tools have not changed that much in 150 years, shovels are still shovels etc. the method of manufacture has changed and sometimes the materials have as well, but the way they were and are used has not changed at all.

4) Electricity: We have already eliminated electricity usage in the house with the exception of the fridge and the freezer for now. We are looking into an ice box and also an ice house along with a cold pantry.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more posts and updates.

Wow to the new blog page

Wow.
I am very impressed with this lovely blog page my husband built while I was in town today..Only  11 more days to get ready for our interesting year ahead..keep in touch and see how we do . M