Tanning - Part Three

In my work, I use chemical degreasants, but you can do a good enough job by washing the skin in a strong solution of cheap washing detergent. Try to get the old fashioned, blitzes-every-stain-going kind, not the high tech wash at thirty degrees and is kind to your clothes kind. You really want something pretty tough, that will cut through the remaining skin fats and dissolve it.
If you aren`t squeamish or precious about your kitchen or washing machine, throw it into that, on a wool wash, having first put a good big cupful of washing powder into the drum.
If you don`t want to risk your washing machine (though if you use it for this, a simple empty wash afterwards on the hottest cycle cleans the machine fine ) then you`ll have to wash it by hand.
In a tub, or bath, put plenty lukewarm water, not too hot and not cold, and add double the amount of washing powder you`d need in the machine.
Dissolve it and add the skin, depending on how mucky the skin is, sets how long you`ll need to wash it.
Don`t scrub or rub the wool or hair, just swish it around in the water, gently pressing and agitating the worst stained bits. Blood especially needs a gentle hand to get out.
Leaving it in the bath, empty the water out and rinse well in more lukewarm water.
If you`ve used the automatic washing machine, the whole thing has been washed and spun for you.
If you did it in the bath, you`ll have to gently squeeze out the excess water and transfer it to another tub to carry out to where you`ll tan the skin. Wet skins bigger than dog size weigh pretty heavily when wet. Mind your back!

Once it`s washed, it`s ready to be pickled.
Pickle is an acidic solution applied to the skin, in order to prevent bacteria acting on it and slow down natural decay, and also plumps up the flesh, like opening grain in wood, to allow the tanning liquor to be more readily absorbed.
You can purchase bulk bags of citric acid for this purpose from food stores.
The general solution is one pound of salt to one gallon of water, and add citric acid by the cupful until it reaches a PH of 1.5.
To find the PH value, you can buy strips of paper from any chemist used by diabetics. Simply dip one strip in the solution for the PH value.
If you make up enough, either in the bath or a large tub (try old propcorn barrels if you live in the countryside, any farmer will give you one, or an old rainbarrel) then simply place the skin into this solution and leave for twenty four hours.

Housewives `Redundant`?

I don`t think so, somehow... ;)

From Yahoo news:
South Korean researchers said Monday they have developed a robot which can dance and get emotional when it's not tackling the chores.
Mahru can move its lips, eyebrows and even pupils freely to make faces and can emit two kinds of fragrances to match its emotions. It can move upper body parts freely while walking on its legs.
The robot was developed by a research team at the state-funded Korea Institute of Science and Technology.
"Mahru, which can dance while walking on its legs, was developed as a humanoid robot capable of working in place of a human," team leader You Bum-Jae said in a statement.
"It will open the way for the commercial use of humanoid robots doing housework."
Mahru is programmed to follow various human movements through an advanced motion capture system, he said, adding it can move its hands freely to cope with any interference or obstacles.
You said his team has also developed a variant Mahru-M robot with sensors which can differentiate faces and objects and deliver things to humans on request.
However, Mahru-M uses a tricycle wheel system to move about.

I like a great deal of technology...some of it is fun, some is valuable, but when I was a wee girl..and that was a long time ago!...they were predicting robots would be created to take the `burden` of housework from us poor downtrodden women.
Well, there have been a few prototypes over the decades but I still don`t see the `I Robot` scenario coming to pass quite just yet.
I actually like my housework! I like the feeling I get when the work is done, when I can sit down with a hot coffee and see my home gleaming and clean and cosy, comfortable and in reasonable order.
I`m not a neat freak.....if you come here you`ll see the house isn`t grand or posh, it`s a small croft house that`s seen better days..but I like to keep on top of chores, to keep it in order and know where things are, to present a welcoming house to visitors and family alike.
In the past, women have always taken great pride in housekeeping, a brief foray into medieval times shows just what an herculean task it could be, where the woman was not only housekeeper but also accountant and family doctor, tradeswoman and cook, mother and even witch (there are many protective charms all tied up with housekeeping in the past from stopping milk from curdling to protecting the family domain from evil spirits) and to be honest, I doubt any robot will ever take that away from us. I`m old enough to have seen a full circle thing happening in domesticity.
When my mum was young, housework and housekeeping was still a valued and prized thing...her generation were taught cookery and domestic skills at both their mothers side and in schools. Then feminism hit the education system and gradually, home economics was phased out, girls were suddenly `allowed` to take the boys subjects, such as welding (and didn`t that come in handy throughout my life, she says sarcastically ) and technical drawing.
Boys were invited to take the girls subjects...I seem to remember not many wishing to...Then it was dropped altogether and for a while most schools didn`t teach domestic skills at all, and women at home were encouraged to go `yuppie`, to have careers above all, to prove their worth in the competitive mans world of the economy and workplace, and thus, leave the perceived slightly shameful and worthless traditional womens skills by the wayside.
So there came a generation of girls whose mums didn`t, unless it was a love of theirs, show their daughters the simplest of cooking skills, laundry and housekeeping maintenance, etc.
I know women who can`t even boil an egg, and one sorry specimen who thought burgers came `from the supermarket` without ever seeing a cow...
There`s a tv programme that aired recently in the UK, presented by a woman called Anthea Turner and called `The Perfect Housewife` in which she attempts to teach the former kind of women how to learn the basics of running a home. Love her or hate her (I think for most Brits it`s the latter) there`s no denying the impact she had on some of these women, a few were quite seriously depressed at how their homes..and so the comfort of their families..had become.
But still, when I admitted I watched the programme and liked it, I was met with hoots of derision. And quite a few women telling me `life`s too short for housework`...fair enough...but in times past, even the warrior liked to come back to a comfortable, well appointed and welcoming home.
Even the bank manager likes to come back to a comfortable chair, some decent home cooking and a warm, clean environment.
And I have seen these same women, one of whom proudly displays a sign saying "Only dull women have clean homes", groan when they walk in their doors to be met with a mountain of laundry, a sink full of dishes and a floor their feet stick to...

I know that housekeeping isn`t for everyone, folks are different and do have different priorities, and that`s fine by me.
But I still find, that admitting I like housework and domesticity still, in the twenty first century, gets me a little scorn, all of it, from other women!

Good job I have a tough hide and don`t care what other think of me. ;)

Miscellaneous Household Tips 2

To descale a kettle... Without using harsh chemicals...
Here in Orkney the water is hard, with a lot of limescale. This furs up the inside of a kettle and things like shower heads, making them less efficient (I should mention washing machines too)
To descale a kettle, simply fill the jug three quarters full of white vinegar. Boil, empty the vinegar into a jug, rinse the kettle and if needed, repeat, though once usually always does the trick. Your kettle will be gleaming and you didn`t fork out money for a rather vicious chemical descaler. To clean drains in a sink, ditto with the vinegar. Pour half a small tub of bicarbonate of soda into the plug hole, then pour a litre of vinegar onto that. It`ll fizz for a while, leave it for about fifteen minutes, then rinse with hot water and wipe round. It cleans drains and helps clear blockages.
If your showerhead is likewise affected by limescale due to hard water, remove it and boil for ten minutes in a pot of vinegar to descale.

Some people are allergic to concentrated fabric softeners.
There are two eco and skin friendly ways to make your clothes soft ....one is to line dry, works every time and doesn`t cost a bean. The other is to put a tablespoon of white vinegar into the final rinse. It won`t scent the clothes but does soften them and actually makes towels more absorbent...commercial fabric conditioner coats clothes and towels and so reduces their absorbency.
(please note, nope, I don`t work in a vinegar factory, but it does have a lot of uses...)

Miscellaneous Household Tips

To get rid of fruit flies and midges....half fill a glass with cola or other fizzy drink, cover the top of the glass with cling film and poke holes with a pen in the top.Leave on a table or windowsill, the flies get into the drink but cannot get out of the glass again. No chemicals!

How to light an open fire...(just in case!)
Clean out the grate and surrounding fireplace area. Taking newspaper sheets, roll, scrunch and coil into fist sized pieces and place in grate.
Chop kindling to fit the fireplace (this, apparently, needs saying after I watched one person bring in tree trunk sized pieces one morning! )and place on top of rolled newspaper.
Place the smallest pieces of coal or peat on top of the kindling, leaving enough paper poking through at the front.Using matches, lighter or taper, set fire to the paper, if your hearth has a damper at the front of the grate leave this open until the kindling catches fire, after which it should be closed.Sometimes the fire struggles to catch, the reasons for this can be damp kindling or paper, or not enough `draw`, ie wind in the chimney. This can be overcome by placing the shovel for the coal upright in front of the fire opening, and holding a double sheet of newspaper over the front of it so that it covers the fire.
Needless to say, take care with this because often the paper catches fire, if it does so simply roll quickly up and put into the fire. But with a little care the paper creates a suction/draw in the chimney and helps the fire to catch.
Note....using a few squirts of lighter fuel to `help` things along is simply stupid. Trust me. I know the fella with no eyebrows who tried this.

When my son was still at school, his class researched toothpaste. No matter how `kind` they say it is to teeth, pretty much all mainstream toothpastes contain sugar, colouring and acids which erode teeth, and mouthwashes are little better.
A natural alternative to toothpaste is bicarbonate of soda. Simply dampen your brush and dip into the powder and brush teeth as normal. It is slightly abrasive...as is toothpaste...but contains no artificial ingredients nor sugar so won`t erode the tooth enamal.
Powdered sage can also be used, and is especially good for dental hygeine when mixed with powdered myrrh, which strengthens gums.
For toothache, if you can`t get to a dentist immediately, place oil of cloves on a little ball of cotton wool and hold against the affected tooth. It is lightly antibiotic and anaesthetic. However, use sparingly as prolonged use damages gums, and do not swallow oil of cloves, it is toxic and overdosing leads to convulsions and even death.

For cat owners...If your cat widdles on the carpet, as soon as possible use a cloth to lift the wet stuff but do not rub it in or it`ll stain.Instead, sprinkle heavily dry bicarbonate of soda on it and leave overnight. Bicarb is a deoderant (it can also be place on a small dish in your fridge to absorb odours, throw it away after about a week and replace) and cleanser.
In the morning, remove the bulk of it and gently using a damp cloth lift out as much as you can. Leave further to fully dry then go over it with the vacuum.
This gets rid of pet smells and sanitises the offended piddly bit of the carpet.

Air fresheners....The best air freshener is fresh air itself. But some folks live in cities where it isn`t advisable to open windows wide. Commercial air fresheners can aggravate conditions like asthma, and contain a wide cocktail of chemicals.
If you really like the artificial air freshener smell, try placing a little clothes conditioning liquid in a small pan of water on the stove top as you do the housework, this scents the air with a fresh laundry smell. Incenses are nice too but again, can irritate asthmatics. Dried herbs can also be heated gently in pans of water to provide similar scents without the smoke of incense
.One of my own favourite smells isn`t, strictly, an air freshener, but I do like to put a pot of coffee on the stove top...love the smell of fresh hot coffee.

Jul/Christmas Traditions

I have two trees, a fake one I`ve had for years and am too sentimental to get rid of, and a real one on order (oh for the days of my youth when I could go out and dig one up, and run away from the English landowner, getting healthy exercise at the same time, sigh...)
Still waiting for my real one to come but it will and I`ll bully..erm...politely coerce, my loved ones into helping to decorate it.
I`m an oddity, I always put decorations up really early, the first day of December, only this year they went up the middle of November because my lovely man is staying here with me, and was due to return to Flanders before Jul, so I put the decorations up early for him.

He changed his mind though and is staying on for Jul, yay...

My family`s traditions include this, putting up the decorations for the whole month of December. This takes in the Solstice, you see, and they are taken down the last day of the year, for a fresh start in the New Year.
On the night of the Solstice, a dish of milk, honey or flavoured porridge is put outdoors for the wights of this place, and a small dish of the same set beside the hearth for the house brownie, a type of sprite that attaches itself to a household and brings luck.
When I was fairly small I watched my mum putting outdoors the dish of milk for the wights, then watched one of our cats lick it clean. In anger I went to her and said, "You`ve been lying to me, the wights don`t take it, the cat did!"She made me be responsible, for a while, for leaving out the milk, for it`s also left out at other times too.
Still angry at her, I didn`t bother to do it.
Whether or not you think it`s coincidence I`ll leave to you to decide, but soon afterwards little things started to go wrong...animals getting ill or injured, garden crops failing, and a general malaise and discontent in our household.She exlained to me, yes, the cat got it, though it could also have gone to a hedgehog, wildcat or pine marten. The point she made was, through these beasts, the wights do get the offering.
I laid out the bowl and gradually, things got back to normal.
So Solstice night the offering goes out, and it`s a tradition if weather permits to light a bonfire outside too and skywatch for a while.
Presents are also exchanged on this night, and all the time when I was a small girl growing up, me and my sister had a stocking, a large one knitted by my granny, and in the morning would be a satsuma, an exotic thing to us, in the toe of it, some chocolate coins, a hand knitted teddy and various other wee toys.
In Scotland, I always decorated the house with swags and wreaths of real greenery, and above all I really miss that here in Orkney...the only real thing I can get is the tree and that is shipped in from mainland.
Fairy lights are strung over the tree with glass baubles and tinsel, and lights are also strung around the house, a small defiance against the darkest days of winter.
Being heathen, christmas day itself is a public holiday to me without any religious meaning but I do respect those who keep it as a holy day.
When people wish me `Merry Christmas`, I don`t get on my high horse and tut, saying `I`m heathen!`, I simply wish them a Merry Christmas back. It creates a smile to do so and costs me nothing in effort.
Another tradition in my family was to make the plum pudding, putting small coins in the mix for folks to find as they ate. Yes, I know..not a good idea for kids but the adults love it.
Mistletoe, that symbol of fertility, is strung over strategic places to kiss under though this year it`ll be fake. Rowan twigs would be placed in the barns for the darkest day of the year, to ward off evil wights and greedy spirits who would harm the livestock, throughout the dark days of winter when the beasts are interred indoors. I make a small sunwheel to welcome the return of the sun after the Solstice. This is simply made from a round of twigs or wood, bound about with straw and any dried herbage you can find. It`s set afire and either rolled downhill or put onto a chain and folks take turns at swinging it around their heads, making wishes for each round. Special biscuits are made, in the shape of stars and Jul trees, and decorated with coloured icing.

The Winter Home

I don`t know what it`s like where everyone else lives..I suspect most of you live in a more modern home than I do (the older I get, the more I crave central heating, which I`ve never had...)

Here in Orkney and Scotland, the weather is described as `temporate`. In reality, this means we get howling gales for nine months of the year, the rest of it we get lashing rain, strong winds and did I mention the rain?

And it`s cold....

Last night the temperature got down below zero, not the first time in the past month that has happened. Today it`s set to hover around two or three degrees.
Coupled with strong winds, the wind chill can push it down to minus twenty often. That wind pierces your clothing, no matter how many tucked in layers you wear, and gets right into your bones.
Och, yes, I`m sounding like my granny now! But it`s true! (hey, you`ll all get here one day, then you`ll be saying "Oh yes, now I know what that auld woman was talking about..." )
I often wear fur. The real thing, not the fashion fake stuff. Fur coats, fur scarves, fur lined boots. It`s the most effecient material I have found for keeping warm.

And fur has its uses around the home too.On places like Ebay, old fur coats can be bought fairly cheaply. Most of them are rabbit fur, which is quite thin and can be fragile, but is still warm. Occasionally you can buy perfectly good mink or fox furs.
Surprisingly, in this PC oriented culture, wolf fur or any kind of exotic fur always gets bought for very high prices. If you buy just two or three of these old coats, you can cut and piece them together to make a throw for your couch, chair or the top of the bed.(to clean fur, heat bran or oatmeal gently in a warm oven, sprinkle over the fur, gently rub in, leave for an hour, then shake excess off and brush with a soft brush...dry shampoo)

I have no damp proof coursing in this house, but live on an island only twelve miles by six at the widest. It gets damp here! I use a dehumidifier, but for small spaces like open shelves, closed cupboards etc, put a bowl of table salt there and when it has soaked up moisture (and it will!) throw it away and replace it with fresh dry salt.
I have a closed in stove..an old Doric...to heat the livingroom. This serves a double function because it is also cooked on and in. Coal here is expensive but there is plenty driftwood free on the beaches....good exercise collecting it, and doesn`t cost anything.
Stack wood in a dry, sheltered area, damp wood only spits and hisses in the fire and doesn`t give off any heat.
Change your curtains/drapes for thick, heavy ones. These can be horrendously expensive to buy, so unusual or pretty blankets can be hauled into service as curtains, and you can line them with plain sheets, doubling the insulation...a lot of heat is lost through windows if you don`t have double glazing.

If you live in the country, mud is a constant...

I make folks take off their outdoor shoes before they come in, and a coir or hessian doormat is a good idea placed just outside or inside the front door. For folks who care about aesthetics, decor can be easily changed to suit winter tastes by swapping cushion covers for richer, deeper coloured ones, and throwing a few throws in warm colours over the chairs.(apologies for sounding like an interior design mag! I`m not really, this is just what I do... )
If you live in a remote area at all..(here, we often have times when the ferries and plane don`t run due to gales and storms) it pays to lay in food stores, as much as you can afford. One or two extra items, bought in your weekly shop and put away somewhere safe, will always come in handy, either during lean financial times or if you become housebound for any reason.
Check your plumbing at this time of year! With cold and frosts, burst water pipes are common. Make sure yours are lagged and check your hot water tank too. If your pipes become frozen, use a hair dryer to gently thaw them out, after having turned off the water at the mains. In an emergency, old woollen jumpers, or even newspaper, can serve as lagging.
Before the weather gets too bad, have a quick look at your roof, make sure all tiles are there and not loose, and look for any cracks or missing pointing in brick or stone work, and get it seen to before rainwater gets in, corrodes the stone or brick, and makes for a serious problem down the line.

Tanning - Part Two

Once the skin is thawed/rehydrated, you start to process it.

For something the size of a sheepskin, the following is needed if you don`t use industrial tools...a tree trunk or solid table on which to work.
A dull edged blade..the proper tool is a scraper, which is slightly curved and has two blades, both dulled, with handles on either side, but any blade can be used so long as it isn`t too sharp.That`s it.

You position the skin, flesh side up, over the trunk, trapping the end of it with your body, leaning into the trunk and skin. It has to be held fairly firm or the blade will slide all over the place and you may hole the skin.Wear rubber gloves.Each and every skin has a membrane on the flesh side of it called a `vel`.
This must be removed or the tanning liquor won`t penetrate the flesh.In a rabbit skin it can be seen more easily...it`s thin, see through and kind of slimy, but if you snag a bit of it and lift it up, and pull, it comes away easily.That doesn`t happen in any larger mammal, which is why you have to scrape it off.
Using firm, easy motions, push the scraper down the skin....you should see edges of the vel roll up and be pushed away from you.

You can help this along using your fingers from time to time, pulling on the rough edges of any bits of vel you see.
Be careful not to hole the skin, but if you do don`t panic, it can be patched and sanded after the tanning process.How much work you put into it is up to you..the more vel you remove the easier the hide tans and the less work you have to do at the sanding/working stage.

Remove any lumps of fat or meat with a good sharp knife, sliding the blade under an edge of the lump then turning it flat, away from you and sliding the meat or fat off. I use a sharp bladed fish filletting knife for this, it`s the best I`ve found (Victorinox) and never lets me down.

For any butchering I do, I have a hooked skinning knife. Removing the vel is a labour intensive job, especially on a big hide, but keep going at it, it`s an important stage and the better you do it, the better the end result will be.
Once the vel is removed, you`re ready to degrease the skin.