Hello
interested people, and welcome to a new chapter in updating history, written by
a new writer, yours truly, so buckle up for a wild ride of literary twists and
turns. As with new beginnings we’ve had plenty in the week prior to the arrival
of the parents. Before everyone arrived we all received our new big job
assignments, for the lineup we’ve got:
Elliot
on Kitchen Wizard and Naturalist
Wayland
on Seamster and Culture Keeper: Baker/Yogurt Maker
Kenya on
Boat and Camp Manager
Angus on
HyGenie and Medic
Lotte on
Base Camp Food Manager and Wild Foods Forager or W.F.F. for short
Max on
Writer and Hide Tanner
Noah on
Trail Food Manager
Sam on
Bike Repair and “Fitness Fun-stigator” like instigator, but with fitness
related jazz
And last
but not least Kerensa on Navigator and List Master General, also called
Logistics
So far we’ve launched
into them pretty fairly, we’ve got a deer hide for tanning already going, the
route being planned for boating and biking and food is already flying in a
bustle around the kitchen, waiting to be packed. List making is already running
high into it’s prime of life, with a list for what looks like just about
everything, from personal gear to the camps we’re going to.
Aside from big jobs we
had some craft making in the days leading up to parent day with our good friend,
Chris Knapp. He joined us out from his fortress of fun in Temple, Maine to make
pack-baskets; the long sought-after project semester has been waiting to do.
This was a pretty laborious task involving a lot of foresight and careful
planning, but it was all well worth it to see our hard work turn to beautifully
woven baskets.
The
process starts with harvesting your brown ash tree, which we did in a local
swamp across the Clyde River down the road from NorthWoods. We did this all
pretty thoughtfully, thinking about which tree wasn’t doing so hot, and taking
it out to help the other healthier ones grow better. After felling it, we
bucked it up into several manageable logs, and hauled it back to base. You
spend an awful lot of time then scoring the log with knives and pounding off
the growth rings in floorboard-sized straight sections with a three-pound
hammer. It’s hard to get a good visual of this, but to sum it up, we cut the
round growth rings into roughly straight sixths around the circumference of the
log and then when you pound the log on those sections, they peel off flat. As a
whole we did this for two days, and got quite a bit of “wood splints,” as
they’re called. Once we had our desired amount we called the operation to a new
phase, which was cutting up the splints to size and width wanted, which was
pretty quick business. After the splitting of the splints, we made our
baseboards and straps for the baskets, and began weaving, which was the bulk of
the work, and where the baskets began to take shape. We wove for about a day
and a half and finished the day parents arrived, and they were beautiful for
the showing, just in time!
Nathan,
Hanah and Misha showed up on Saturday after their Canadian ski trip up north
with a school class. They brought us food and although Misha left, Nathan and
Hanah stayed to give us a communications workshop, in which we said some much
needed truths to one another. An old Kroka friend, Pasha, came to teach us
about the making of dry bags, which look like big rubbery envelopes now that
they’re done.
We
also visited Sterling College on Wednesday, down south of here in Craftsbury
Common, where we gave our presentation and were lucky enough to get two treats;
dinner made for us and a lecture hearing Sandor Katz speak, who is a
semi-famous fermentation specialist. He gave a talk about the fermentation
process of many foods, including sauerkraut, yogurt and kimchee. Sterling was a
real interesting place to see since it’s a fair jumping off point after Kroka
for some people looking to do the same things, like agriculture and natural
history.
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