Nopony in town paid much attention to the antiquated farm wagon on runners piled high with a cargo concealed under an old tarp—but Spuds did. What could be piled so high, and yet light enough that a pair of teenage siblings could tow it?
One mystery was solved as the tarp came off at the mercantile, but that led to more questions, and presently a tour of the homestead was arranged, and Spuds learned not only how wicker is harvested, but also what kind of pony harvests the thatching for his roof and makes the broaches that hold it to the rafters . . . and also make the laundry pegs that hold his sheets and blankets on the clothes line.
An entry for the No Dialogue contest
Pre-read by AlwaysDressesInStyle
Chapters (1)
Added to Admiral Biscuit's Fleet (group)
Everyday Pony Life On Equestria (folder)
Something that seems to be a good guide for fantasy worth of work, is that in approximately 1300 in England, a thatcher earned 2 copper pennies a day, and their apprentice 1 copper penny a day. This I found to be extremely close in daily costs to the average D&D, AD&D for copper coins. Which was then related to 12 copper pennies to a silver schilling, and 240 pennies to the pound weight of silver.
Depending where the fishers and harvesters worked, they could have a side line in salt collection from deposits, otherwise theyd be needing to look for brine seeps from underground salt domes?
I still havent managed to get any hazlenuts growing from the tree on the estate here, and I dont know if the coppice whips where deliberate or accidental, but the ivy is almost at the point of killing the remaining full trunk tree.
Just don't mention the insects who make the thatch their home.
'Spuds' Terkel, chronicler of the common pone, strikes again!
Oh, this is one of my favorite stories I’ve read in a while. I adore how cosy this is, what with your command of the knowledge at hoof. Love the family, love the pacing. It’s another tale from the Biscuit goldmine.
If I've said it once, I need to say it again, Admiral Biscuit is one of the best writers on capturing that old-world feel that is great for Equestria slice of life. Other writers focus on the hero/villain, emotion, grand journey, etc. He focuses on the little people so to speak that allow those adventurers and heroes to do what they do. Where would Twilight Sparkle be without her books and lists? quills and ink? Where does AJ go to fix her farm equipment? Fluttershy to get her bird seed and animal chow? Rarity surely doesn't spin her own thread (I mean more power if she did, but 24 hours is 24 hours).
And once again we get another good Biscuit story.
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Thanks you!
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I don't know off the top of my head if that was on the high end of the pay scale or closer to a historical average--but I'm betting it was on the higher end, since it was skilled work. According to the internet, thatchers currently get paid below average annually.
Potentially, yes; they could certainly make brine pools for their own salt collection--I don't know how much you'd get with a small brine pool. Maybe scrape it off rocks that get frequently sprayed by the waves?
I'm in a constant fight with vines here. There's a couple places where I'm in favor of them, but in other places in my yard they're not cool The good news is that I got a junk car removed and as a result found the origin of one of the vines.
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Pretty soon you've got a whole ecosystem going there, 'cause spiders will move in to eat the insects . . .
I'm honestly not sure how much of a problem that is, or if it's significantly different with a well-thatched roof than an ordinary roof structure.
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He's always got his eye out for the ponies who otherwise go unnoticed
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Lots of research to get the knowledge--if you can find a copy, I do recommend The Forgotten Arts and Crafts by John Seymour, that was one of my primary research tools.
Thank you!
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And they can have them, I like cozy little slices of life.
I really should do more with textile crafts--that's its own fascinating subject, from making thread all the way to what is essentially the first computer programming, with program cards for looms. And bookmaking, that's another fascinating subject, although there are others on the site far more qualified than me to talk about it.
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Thank you!
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I could see Rarity technically knowing how to spin thread, maybe she does that on a very small level for certain commissions like if she needs a small amount of gem-dust encrusted thread or something, but to make ALL her own thread/cloth, that wouldn't be feasible without breaking time laws.
Once again, I missed the notification (my feed is too big), and discovered that you wrote 2 stories. I like this story so far, but you made an error:
You mean, … raised the question …". Begging the question is when one proceeds as though an unproven conjecture is true:
Prosecutor:
Public Defender:
Question begining is also circular reasoning.
I shall now continue reading:
This is a great story. It is a slice of the old life. It also highlights just how alien ponies are:
Narator:
The Siblings:
That does not happen much in human culture.
A wonderful slice of life story, told in a great manner.
Another one for the bookshelf.
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I feel like Rarity is one of those craftsmares who knows the whole process--she can make thread from scratch, weave, use a loom, etc. We know from canon she sometimes fetches her own gems for a project. But yeah, I doubt she does that for all her projects, or she'd spend forever just making one dress, from gathering the raw materials to making the thread to weaving the cloth.
But I could totally see her needing a particular kind of thread for embroidery and not being able to get it, so she makes her own instead, or needing a particular color of yarn that the store doesn't have so she dyes it herself.
I could also see her knowing how to make a needle, if she has to, or doing all her own maintenance on her sewing machine.
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Yes, that is technically correct, but I think that in the case of semi-colloquial writing, it can be forgiven.
Thank you!
That's true, it doesn't. Although in certain trades it still does, sometimes. We occasionally get tourists in the shop, for example.
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Thank you!
Very interesting, and nicely written to boot!
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Thank you!
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Before chimneys, the smoke from the hearth fire would rise up, mostly through a smoke hole, but up into the thatch as well, discouraging insects and mice. Even after chimneys, people would "smoke" their houses if vermin became a problem.
There are always bits of your story which make me think, but are somewhat besides the point of the story. In this case, there's the establishment that a larger family means more income, as they have more bodies able to do more work. Secondly, I found myself thinking about "mature" crafts - that is, crafts that have been around for more than 3 generations (or so), and have had the time to become an art, as generation after generation learns, all their life, more and more ways to work the craft for better and better results.
Also, I found myself reflecting once again that a "woods" is a managed forest, and then I learned that a copse of trees refers specifically to a woods that is managed for coppicing and pollarding. Note that pollarding was once the major source of wooden poles for all sorts of construction.
Manhattan Unicorns: *trying to prove them wrong with their latest inventions*
The reeds:
What a lovely piece this one was. ^^
I also learned a lot of new English terminology that I didn't know before
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Well, that's one way to do it.
I hadn't even considered the effects that woodsmoke would have on roof-vermin.
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That's long been the case with farm work, even now that a lot of it is mechanized. Only difference is that the kid's in a tractor now instead of driving horses (and the field's a lot bigger).
What's really interesting is when they've matured to the point that certain parts of the craft have been perfected; I can't remember exactly what off the top of my head, but there's a tool used in textile or leatherwork that hasn't changed material or shape in centuries, because it was already perfected.
I'll be honest, I didn't know that either until I looked it up for this story. Certainly, in common parlance "woods" and "copse" don't mean that any more.
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I once worked in a factory where I spent a shift babysitting a machine that was trying (and failing) to do a human's job. It was a fancy, expensive robotic machine and it could spit out two or three finished parts before something went wrong and it needed help.
Heck, just today I was watching a video talking about shoe production, apparently Nike tried to build a machine that could put together shoes faster and cheaper than a human.
It failed.
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Thank you!
A lot of the traditional crafts have all sorts of good terminology, some of it dating way back.
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I believe that there was the case of the bone tool, unrecognized by the archeologists, but recognized by modern leatherworkers because, indeed, it hadn't changed in thousands of years.
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Yes, I believe that's the one. I think it has a name beyond 'the bone tool' but I can't remember what it is. Or maybe it doesn't, and any leatherworker would know exactly what the bone tool is because it's been called that for literal millennia.