Sweet ! It's going well, and tomorrow is the day I'm least concerned with, since I'm used to running on minimal calories for 'Hungry Highday'! My scale isn't digitally accurate, but I've probably lost a bit of weight (and I was already at my lowest weight in several years when the Ration Challenge ...

(If we're not limiting our definition of 'haversack' to something to carry foodstuffs, I have two items that I use for carrying my gear (my various hygiene, fire, sewing, cordage &c. bags) as well as my leather foodbag. The first is a cotton canvas 'New Invented Haversack' made from the pattern ...

Excellent idea for a conversation, Elleth! Of course, we might want to first summarize the age-old 'what's a haversack?' question. Based on what I've picked up by hanging around 18th c. debates on the subject, it seems a haversack originates from a Euro military background and is meant to carry one'...

Ohh yeah, you know I'm getting in on this! I've been fasting during traveling hours each Highday since January '13, in part to get my body used to running on limited calories. Plus this semester, I've been adding a 3-mile 'urban hike' (with hills!) once a week, in addition to my usual hill-climbing ...

This is awesome, but I suspect there is nothing pressing for which I could use it before it went rancid, unfortunately. Ahh, but that's the beauty of it. As a hunk of fat fresh out of the cow, sure, it'll go bad pretty quick. But once it's rendered, purified, and put in an appropriate container (li...

Howdy all, My family recently butchered a cow, and from her I was able to procure about fifteen pounds of suet. Rendered and purified tallow is handy for all sorts of stuff--lubricating tools, preventing rust, making pemmican, soap, or just giving leather a good honest patina. Now, fifteen pounds is...

Hmm, I have a recipe for what's meant to be a shelf-stable ~2000kcal DIY homemade 'survival ration bar'...some combination of oats, powdered milk, sugar, honey, and jello. Supposedly they don't taste too bad, but I'm pretty sure orange Jello isn't a Tolkien-approved flavour.

I'm with you, Greg, I'd like to maintain the surprise. But won't each person have to give the person who got their name their address? I'm trying to figure out how it could still work. Which brings up my question of how will recipients/givers be picked? Names from a hat? Maybe we all submit our addr...

Sorry for the necropost, but I got my hands on a copy of Hammond and Scull's JRRT: Artist and Illustrator (interlibrary loan FTW!) and found a cool reference on the subject of the karma helmet and had to share: "Some of his doodles, he decided, were not doodles but drawings of artefacts. Among ...

Ohh, I'm definitely in. Let's see... Persona: Aistan, a common Northman member of the Beorning chiefdom. I live with my family on our homestead on the banks of the Great River, west of Mirkwood. Throughout the year I forage and grow food, tan hides, gather and craft with natural materials, and teach...

Huh, I'm just realizing how many 'unofficial self-published geek cookbooks' there are. My only experience with a fiction-based cookbook is the Redwall Cookbook, which is 'canon' in that talking-rodentverse. I'm pretty okay with her recipes, clearly she has had to make some departures from Tolkien's ...

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I've finally got my braintan method down pat (the trick apparently is to dress them, wait a year (dried), and then soften & smoke!), but bark tanning is on my shortlist of Things To Learn. Goat is so thin (this week I'm converting a whole goat rawhide into lashings for an Otzi-type adze) I'd be ...

Last night I came across this passage in The Hobbit (Chapter 8 ), and it has me stumped. While traveling through Mirkwood, Thorin's Company come across the Enchanted Stream: “"Come here Fili, and see if you can see the boat Mr. Baggins is talking about." Fili thought he could; so when he...

I think the right tattoo, in the right place can be complimentary to the wearer. I have a Celtic knot, I designed that goes over and around my left shoulder. My family is from Ireland... See, that I can get behind. Your own design, expresses your heritage, that's fine. If someone wanted a Tolkien t...