• I’ll write more about my experience at the Fort later, but I leave you with a video of some bread making I did, put together by my friend Garrett. He’s filmed me at ren faires before, but I made a specific invite for him to come this weekend and see me doing something new. He and his mother came, and they had a great time!

            

  • Video editing is from before CGI. An example of early VFX.

            

  • Some of you may have guessed that I like to collect cookbooks, in addition to writing them. I have, for a very long time, been interested in historical cookbooks. In particular, I like original recipes, even if the physical book I have is a reprint. One of the cookbooks I treasure most in my collection is The Original White House Cookbook. The first edition came out in 1887, but there have been several editions since then. You can buy many of the new volumes, but it’s hard to find originals (ie printed in 1887) of that first one. I have a reprint of the original edition, printed in the early 1900s, and I love it.

    I’m preparing myself for going to the Fort again this weekend. I’m hosting a “show and tell” event over the Labor Day weekend, and I want to have some yummy recipes. As I was cooking breakfast this morning, I was thinking about what I’d like to make. My eyes strayed over to the cookbook shelf (actually a whole bookcase, but whatever), and I noticed that the White House one was on its side and out of its usual place. Likely one of the kids had it out and didn’t put it back right. When I had a moment, I went to straighten it, and then stopped, because an incredibly profound thought hit me.

    That cookbook, that original one from 1887, was written for the American people. We were, at that time, barely a hundred years old as a country. We were essentially a toddler, in the grand scheme of things. And here we were, offering our entire people the opportunity to cook like the leaders of that country.

    Our people were (and are) eating the same food, prepared in much the same way, as our leaders.

    Do you get how very insane that sounds? To have a populace who eats what the elite are eating? In 1887, Queen Victoria was munching on oranges, locally sourced salmon, and an early version of the turducken (12 Tomatoes). Kaiser Wilhelm II was eating ice cream and “Fresh goose-liver medallions that have been seared and cooled before being coated with chaud-froid sauce, garnishes, and then sealed in a layer of Port jelly. (Royal Menus)” Napoleon wasn’t eating a lot of rich foods, but only because he suffered from gastritis and insisted on plain and even bland foods. The rich of Europe were eating well, and the poor and middle class citizenry were eating simple foods, and sometimes not much of them.

    (more…)

            

  • While at the Fort, one of the visitors to come through, was from Australia.

    I wanted to break out into songs from Men At Work, but restrained myself.

    During our conversation, we were talking about the nasties that live in Australia.

    Of course, there were the spiders. We agreed that spiders were worse down under.

    We agreed that koala bears are cute to look at but nasty, vicious animals if they aren’t drugged.

    She explained that the big red kangaroos are nasty critters. They will lean back on their tails, then kick out with their legs in a way that will knock a strong man down.

    The little gray ones are not as nasty.

    Another thing I didn’t know, was that kangaroos are extremely destructive to crop land. They will eat a field bare.

    This led to a discussion about the definition of varmint. I am not a lawyer, so check the regulations where you are before you depend on some random guy on the net.

    It is my understanding that farmers are justified in removing destructive varmints. So when that cute deer is eating your crops, they are not deer, they are a varmint that can be removed. Same with several other animals.

    Which led her to talking about American’s having guns. I described the lever actions over the sofa. Bear, Deer, Raccoon and Squirrel rifles. Or in gun culture language, 45-70, 30-30, .357 Magnum, and .22LR.

    While we agreed that there were some nasty faunae in Australia, she felt that bears were worse. She wanted that 45-70, “Bear Rifle” if she was going walking in the woods of New England.

    For me, the most interesting part was getting to ask her about the gun confiscation.

    It was obvious that she had been asked this before. She started by trying to answer for the group. Not herself. I had asked her explicitly about her opinion, not the opinion of others.

    She explained that she had turned in their rifles. Not because the state knew that she had the rifle, but because she and her family were afraid that somebody would snitch on them.

    Once the guns were collected, crime started to go up. She wishes they still had guns, envoys the gun culture of America. And of course, strongly suggests that we not give up our guns.

            

  • It was a beautiful day for a visit to the Fort.

    You all would have had a chuckle if you had seen me.

    Remember the movie True Grit with John Wayne and Glen Campbell? Mattie Ross wore a black hat. That is the hat I felt I was wearing yesterday. Except mine didn’t have a tie strap. I kept waiting for it to fly away in the wind.

    This was topped with a white linen vest, about four inches too small across the belly and 2 across the chest. But it looked period.

    That was over a linen shirt. The shoulders of which were a little tight.

    Black pants finished the look.

    I had planned to do some spinning. I didn’t. I spent most of the day talking to people and learning and finding things that need to be fixed.

    My primary learning goal was to observe and ask questions about how linen is made. They didn’t have anybody in the weaving room.

    I did find a very knowledgeable lady, but she had knowledge but not skill.

    A bit later, I managed to get one of the interpreters to actual show me how it was done. It is an interesting process. There are some specialized tools that are needed for the processing. I don’t have them, I think I can make them.

    We bought a bound of flax seed from some monks a few years go. I think we might plant it this coming spring. Maybe at the fort.

    Subsequently, I ended up talking to guests. I do not have the skill to disengage when I am done. So many interactions lasted to long.

    Tomorrow’s post will be about some feedback I got from an Australian farmer who was there when they took the guns.

    My daughter spent several years working for a corporation where she didn’t feel her skills were appreciated. One of her coworkers did not interact well with her.

    When she changed positions and is in a new team, with a new chain of command, she was exposed to some people that she described as having “quiet competence”.

    Ally came to me with a sickle. Told me it needed to be sharpened. I found some sharpening stones and did so.

    I’m sitting out in the courtyard for the light on a capped well. The director took pictures.

    Seems that there is a skill to sharpening, which I have been working on, but which I didn’t have on my list.

    So I got another, “He just sharpened it, amazing.”

    All in all, I had a good time. My bad knee hurts, but that’s a good hurt. I was outside most of the day. I meet people.

    The only thing that would have enhanced it would have been if there was live fire involved.

            

  • I’m up at the Fort with Ally and my wife. They are having a show and tell.

    She picked out the garb to wear, and I have my black felt hat.

    Originally, I intended to do some wood working, but that is currently on hold until I get some raw lumber.

    The lathe needs bracing before it can be put into use. We could just use 2x4s, but that wouldn’t look very nice.

    My goal is to bring up a 4 or 5 foot length of Oak from the woods. It will be heavy.

    That will be fed through my bandsaw to make some rough blanks. The blanks will be taken up to the fort to be hand planed and turned into braces.

    So… What will I be doing up there today?

    I will be combing wool and spinning it. I have my wheel up there to use, but it is likely I’ll be using something a little older. Some 100+ years older than mine.

    I am also hoping to learn how to process flax into fibers for spinning. It is an example of something I have knowledge of but no skill.

    The next project is to make an inkle loom. My fine felt hat is too boring, even for me. I want a hat band. That requires me to make a hat band.

    To make the hat band, I will need some sort of loom. I’ve decided to use an inkle loom. I could spend dollars to buy one, instead I plan to make it.

    There will be some shortcuts used. The intent is to use the modern jointer, plainer, and lathe to make the components, but we will be starting from a log in the woods.

    The threads for the hat band? Those are what I will be spinning. My wife will be dying some of the thread, I will have to decide on colors.

    I hope that some of you make it out to the Fort this weekend.

            

  • I’ve talked about bugging in versus bugging out. I haven’t talked much about long-term bugging out, mostly because I’m not suited to it. Frankly, I don’t think most people are, despite their desires. In any case, it’s not something I could do for a long time, so there is no point in planning for it.

    Short term bugging out or having an emergency come up while I’m out of the house and have to make my way home are absolutely possible scenarios. That means I have spent considerable time contemplating how to deal with it. For me, there are many issues that come up when considering being bugged out, and it’s a very individual thing.  You’re going to have to figure out your list of pros and cons on your own.

    My first question is whether I’m temporarily bugging out, or am I on a trek to get home after being caught out? I can forsee several situations where I might temporarily bug out of the house. We back onto acres and acres of woodland, with even more nearby. It’s not going to be searched, even if FEMA comes by and investigates. I don’t have the kind of subbasement that Bill had in The Last Of Us (this scene is freakin’ marvelous, I might add – go have a watch!), so there are places we can go to hide until the feds come and go again. The bottom line is, they won’t stick around, and I will.

    And here’s the thing. I have a well stocked pantry out in plain view. I expect that to be ransacked. I have a hidden pantry that I also expect will get found and ransacked. That’s why I have caches elsewhere. There’s always more food, more seeds, more of what I need. I also try to keep up on the letter/number combos that FEMA puts onto houses when it goes through a neighborhood. I keep a variety of spray paint on hand, and once I know what color they’re using, I should be able to sneak in and mark up the house. Emergencies are wonderful things, sometimes, and allow you to make everyone think “someone else took care of it.”

    (more…)

            

  • The blog has now been moved to a temporary server. I hope that it will be more stable. I have to move the citation server. Once that is moved, GFZ and Vine Of Liberty will be free of K8S.

    I have a few other websites to move, but I am making great progress.

    In the Supreme Court of Mass acutes, we had a Second Amendment win. They found that knives are arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment. As such, it was the government’s burden to show that the current regulation, a ban on switch-blade knives, was consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulations.

    The state did not meet their burden, the law is facially unconstitutional.

    There have been a few more wins at the district court level.

    In many circuits, the district judges are applying Bruen faithfully. This led to a cascade of wins for the Second Amendment.

    It is at the circuit court level where most of the clown show exists. The Fourth, Ninth, Seventh, and Second come to mind.

    Answering the question of the fastest way from sheep to cap, socks or tunic. The answer is to knit them. It is but a short time to get from clean fleece to yarn suitable for knitting with.

    The comments are of course open.

            

  • These are people you should know about. They are often the people to put together the NPC videos of all the MSM saying the same thing of the same scripts.

    They are also the people who provide the positive vs. negative percentages for MSM.

            

  • This is mostly to test the autopost to Twitter/X