Domestic Arts
From artisan bread baking, to pottery, to candle or soap making this section focuses on the knowledge and skills necessary to run and produce the articles for a well kept home (the old school way). These skills were once the foundation of society all over the world– they have since been largely replaced with inexpensive articles of mass production. Learn to truly enjoy a simpler life and make more of what surrounds you on a daily basis!
Making a Spokeshave
I've always been fascinated by hand tools, lets just say I appreciate the simplicity and hearkening back to earlier times. But more than that, I also love the quietness, the slower pace at which the work proceeds, and the knowledge you need to have of wood and how...
2020 Reading List
What did you read this year? Did you read more or less than last year? Personally, my list of books I went through is significantly shorter this year then it was in 2019-- partly intentional and partly due to changing life circumstances. For example, I got a job which...
2019 Reading List
I talked about my reading and learning on the podcast a few episodes ago and said that I would post my reading list for 2019. I believe that the books (or any content for that matter) someone is reading or owns can tell you quite a bit about them. Here you'll see both...
Primitive Skills Gatherings: Learning Traditional Skills
There are a number of ways you can get started in learning traditional skills. Books for one, that's how I started, and how most of us who became interested in traditional skills more than 15 years ago had to go about learning things. In addition, there have also been...
5 reasons you should learn artisan, primitive and folk skills
Modern life, in my opinion, is lacking in many areas. I feel like it has become progressively more distant and disconnected from the natural world. Which has tremendous benefits... but they come hand-in-hand with increasing drawbacks as well. I feel like we have lost...
Sourdough Waffles
I've experimented with sourdough bread off and on for about the last six years, but only enough in the last year or so to get consistent, repeatable, results. Or enough to REALLY understand what I'm doing and why. And that bothers me. I'm a bread lover, a serious...
Easy DIY Wet-Scrape Hide Scraper
Confession time.... I've been working hides for probably the last 6 years with sub-par tools. Shocker eh? I always seem to start tanning as a last minute project without thinking about it in advance and just use whatever I have on hand. Which has led to some...
Natural Dyeing using Dyer’s Woad
It's a weekend!! Do you know what that means? That's right,project time! The last few weeks I've had something I've wanted to do and things keep getting in the way: bathroom remodel, guests over the weekend,cleaning out the garage, etc. . .Actually, I have...
Dirt Stains: Experiements in dyeing with dirt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OkIJvIv8YY Earth, clay, soil, dirt. We're always trying to remove it, clean it, wash it out. . . Not this week! I've known for years that natural earth pigments were frequently used as paints and stains in pre-modern times. But alas,...
Leaky Trees: Tapping Maples for Syrup
Last summer I read an old pioneer account of settling the region I live in and was intrigued by a brief reference to making maple syrup from the Box elder trees that grow in the area. Interesting to note, I logged that tidbit in the deep recesses of my mind and then...
