[Periodencampments] What are you doing?

[david friedman]

>What are you all doing to make your camps more period looking.
>Particularly, how do you hide the purely mundane.?
>
>Lady Clare
>Vatavia

For the most part, we don't have it--no Coleman lanterns, Coleman
stoves, ...  . Elizabeth and I haven't used a cooler for years,
although there have sometimes been people in the encampment who had
them. I remember someone with a cooler built into a wooden chest.

There are, however, some exceptions. They are in two categories:

1. Things that can be kept out of sight. I have a cell phone (turned
off) and a PDA at the bottom of the wooden chest at the head of my
bed, in case I need them. Modern medicines similarly.

Sekanjabin syrup is stored in 2 liter plastic soda bottles, which are
kept somewhere out of sight. We have a long chest which we use for
foodstuffs, and in it or behind it provides storage space for that
sort of thing. We then have one reasonably period looking stoppered
glass bottle full of sekanjabin syrup to actually use in mixing up a
pitcher of sekanjabin--it gets refilled as necessary somewhere out of
public view.

Matches are stored in a chest, used as discretely as possible (one of
these days I'll try to go over to flint and steel).

Liquid dishwashing soap is in a period container, corked, sitting
next to the water barrel. That makes small scale dishwashing easy. I
suppose if anyone asks I'll explain that it's soap dissolved in
water, which we find comvenient.

2. Things that can't be kept out of sight, and so are ignored. The
only example that occurs to me is eyeglasses.

One more thing worth mentioning. I have a nondescript square of heavy
cloth which has been lying around for ever that I use to cover random
mundanities. Part of its purpose is to get something that obviously
shouldn't be in sight in the encampment out of sight. Part is as an
unobtrusive signal to whoever the object belongs to that it shouldn't
be in sight. I also occaisonally use it if I am carrying something
out of my tent through the encampment that is obviously mundane, such
as the Zero Haliburton metal suitcase that I use for the slide
projector and slides for my period jewelery slide show.
--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/