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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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You might enjoy this if you are in the neighborhood
Happens annually, and we have food security / seed sharing / sustainable business development... Usually done through WA or OR extension services.
There are other similar venues in PNW, so keep your eyes open.
No shortage of water in my location (1 hr west of Lyle, WA)... 120" of drizzle / yr. Yr round gardening possible. Wild game and fish a plenty. downside... Dept of Ecology and Property taxes... EEK No income tax = extra property tax in WA.
OREGON (5 min away at a bridge) = no sales tax.
Sustainable friendly PNW
50 mpg since 1976,,, no Dinosaurs or OPEC required,,, 3m fleet miles, no tows!
People who actually wish to live a self-sufficient life need to learn and practice skills. I believe that we need to integrate skills from a variety of technolgies and lifestyles. The homesteading fair looks like a good place for beginners. I was very pleased to see that homeschooling is on the agenda. I believe that primitive skills can provide us with additional knowledge that we can integrate with early industrial technology. Here's an example of some courses available.
It's good for people of all skill levels to meet and learn from others. There are so few of us on this forum who wish to do more than sit at a computer that we need to go to workshops and seminars to find out what other people are doing. I wish that there were more resources geared to families. I am glad to see that so many homeschoolers are teaching their children Latin as well as learning it themselves since it is basic to a liberal arts education, the forerunner of creating the competent rational thinker.
Here's another interesting website. Slinging is a great skill for both fun and fighting an enemy.
I got involved in flint knapping as part of practicing primitive archery, including learning to make bowstrings out of nettle fibers, and it's a fun thing to do and handy as you can basically make your own tool kit once you know how to do it. Flintknapping, flint knapping
Lots of obsidian in my area which works really great for knapping.
I have used a sling for years for rabbit hunting, and while not 100%, it is a viable way to get a meal and easy to make.
We have a club here that practices all things Atl-Atl including having a Mamoth Hunt each year.
When: Saturday, August 30 through September 1.
9am-5pm
Where: First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park – Visitor Center, 342 Ulm Vaughn Road, Ulm, MT 59485.
The park is 3.5 miles north of Ulm, just off of Interstate 15 at Exit 270.
The atlatl fascinates me. I've never used one, but I'd like to do so. I've played around with slings, but I'm not really very accurate. I believe I could, however, discourage a band of criminals who were in the open, particularly if I had a sheltered position. Slings could also be used, and almost certainly have been, to launch incendiaries.
Flintlocks had become quite sophisicated just before Forsyth's invention of percussion ignition. Flintknapping was once a real industry. Obsidian knives and other tools are very practical.
You need to make a trip up here to Ulm. They have demonstrations on how to throw the Atl-Atl and allow the participants to actually try them out.
One of their premier club founders lives in the same county I do, and I have talked to him several times. Fastinating individual.
One thing the club tried to do was get the state Fish and Game to legalize Atl-Atls for hunting big game during one of our seasons.
One of the most fastinating feature about the atl-atl to me is that most of the modern ones use single stick missles where the arrow shaft is all one piece.
But in the Paleolithic, some had a socket where the arrowhead and a short shaft had a socket that fit to the longer throwing shaft so that when the atl-atl struck, the head and short shaft penetrated and stuck in the animal, but the longer shaft which was harder to make as it required long straight wood, would fall out to be picked up, another head fitted, and used again and again.
Early version of the harpoon really.
Pretty sharp idea as then they only had to carry one or 2 shafts, and could carry multiple heads for far less space and weight.
I love working obsidian, but boy is that stuff dangerously sharp! It will go through a heavy leather glove like nothing so anybody playing with it really needs to be careful.
Near where I live during the week there is an old Paleo-Indian quarry where they mined Chert. Not as easy to work as obsidian, but still a valuable commodity in the days before Wal-Mart
I need to get up there next summer to try an atlatl.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTSilvertip
I love working obsidian, but boy is that stuff dangerously sharp! It will go through a heavy leather glove like nothing so anybody playing with it really needs to be careful.
Yes, I've seen the grenades; they were used on ships as well as on land. The grenade is an old weapon, but the most modern still function the same basic way as the first ones.
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