Happiness is…

… finally having enough clamps.

Lee Valley has a sale on boxes of 10 clamps, and I broke down and bought some.

I can’t believe how much easier it is to do basic tasks when you have the equipment for it. It took me less than an hour to put this crate together, from first cut to dry glue. That would have been a multi-day job with the 2 too-small bar clamps I previously owned. This is a storage box / bench seat for the Living History weekend camp coming up. I’ll cover the nailgun holes with some putty and paint, and we’re good to go.

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My wife is a history nut. Anything to do with history instantly has her attention. She’d teach nothing but history to the kids and let them figure the rest out on their own if she could, so when we saw some members of the Manitoba Living History Society at a local event, we knew we’d have to get involved.

The area around the Red River was settled by the Selkirk Settlers from Scotland and Ireland in 1812. The MLHS tries to re-enact that period in dress and trades and skills. The kids have a blast dressing in their “history clothes” and playing the games that the kids of the days would have played.

We’re only scratching the surface of the possibilities. We’re busy enough that just getting all seven of us appropriately dressed and able to attend basic day-long events has taken a few years. We’re always on the lookout at the GoodWill for shoes and clothes that could easily be modified. I’m hoping to get into some period woodworking, clothmaking on our loom and perhaps even pounding out a few nails on the blacksmith’s forge.

It’s funny, I realized that with all of my modern wage-earning skills, I wouldn’t even know how to go to the bathroom in 1812. For all of my education, I’d be useful only as a manual labourer. Picking up these skills will be a family project.

We’ll be blogging more on this as we get to various events, but for now you can go look at the pictures from last year’s weekend long “in period” campout. The absolute best roast I have ever eaten was served that night: fresh bison roast, marinated overnight in beer, cooked slowly over a campfire all day turning on a spit. Absolutely amazing.

Of course, the company, the fun, the learning, the work, it was all wonderful….

But that roast bison… Yum. If that’s what the past was like, I’m all for it.

–MrPages