‘firewood’ Category

Picked up pieces 3.0*

January 22nd, 2013 by Rick McKee

…of The Riven Word while wondering what our beloved NE Patriots ever did to Bernard Pollard…

Run of the Mill

Lubing the wheel.

Plimoth Plantation is running a grist mill!

The Plimoth Grist Mill is a working mill reconstructed on the original 17th century site along Plymouth’s Town Brook. The mill stones have been tuned and the various moving parts have been tweaked. Join us in welcoming the wonderful, talented, and intrepid Kim Van Wormer as she manages the mill and prepares to grind organic stone-ground corn meal and grits (samp) while interpreting the history and technology of an operational grist mill. Kim will be blogging about her grist and grind and we’ll post a link to her blog once it’s up and running. There are some intriguing stories which have already come out of this venture and this promises to be a fascinating experience. The Riven Word will keep you posted. Grind on, Kim–Harry Hornblower would be proud!

Nailed it!

Our own Mark Atchison has been published in the September issue of The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association magazine. His article: “William Palmer–An English Nailmaker in New England” is richly detailed, researched, and illustrated. It’s a perfect representation of the seamless blending of traditional and experiential research we strive to achieve here. For information on how to join EAIA and read Mark’s article, visit their website: http://www.earlyamericanindustries.org/

New Guy

Mark and Matt working on a hammerhead.

And while we’re the subject of blacksmiths, The Riven Word welcomes new blacksmith apprentice Matthew “Mateo” Brault to the artisans. Matt comes to us from Bay End Farm where he’s been toiling organically for the last couple of years. Welcome aboard, Matt! We’d like to put in an order for 500 free-range, organic nails please…

The Saw Wright

This saw, sold by A.J. Wilkinson Hardware in Boston, resonated with Peter F.

Peter Follansbee brought around a special guest the other day: Matt Cianci, aka The Saw Wright. Matt is a true saw doctor who sharpens and repairs vintage saws. As Matt explained the provenance, value, and general condition the saw pictured above, Peter and I felt as though we were in an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Peter has had several of his own saws worked on by Matt. You can learn more about Matt and his great work by checking out his web site: http://www.thesawwright.com/

Thanks for making a house call, doctor!

A Dutch rick of wood?

Winter Scene at Yselmuiden by Hendrick Avercamp c.1613

Thanks to the keen observation of the fabulous Kelley Araujo, we may have found another image of a rick of firewood. Our posts on this method of storing and seasoning firewood brought us to many places, and maybe this is another log to throw on the fire. Behind the coal being unladen, after the Providence Bruins warming up on ice, there’s a circular mound between two buildings in the center of the blue circle. Could this be a wood rick? Is it associated with either of the two buildings? It looks proportionately plausible. Thanks Hendrick and Kelley!

Corrections

Back in September, we took a little stroll through some of the building history at Plimoth Plantation in Letting The Days Go By. In that post, we said that our cratchet-framed forge was the first large-scale building made in that style. We were wrong! Rob Tarule set me straight:

“…in ’84 or so we made the cowhouse behind Billington. Not only was it cratchet, but we made the roof on the ground and lifted it onto the cratchets one morning before opening with a bunch of hands. The exercise was based on an article in Vernacular Architecture by Freddie Charles, an architect who specialized in saving things like tithe barns.”

Thanks Rob. It’s always good to hear from you and we are looking forward to more collaboration with you.

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*Dan Shaughnessy, longtime sportswriter for The Boston Globe, periodically writes a column full of random sports observations called, Picked Up Pieces. It’s a series of pithy vignettes which, taken as a whole, present a larger picture of the local sports and cultural scene. The title is taken from John Updike’s 1975 book of the same name. In that spirit, The Riven Word presents its own version of random moments and events which have occupied our figurative desktops recently.

Tags: blacksmith, grist mill, hand tools, Plimoth Plantation, saw sharpening
Posted in blacksmith, firewood, Peter Follansbee, tools | 2 Comments

Picked up Pieces 2.0

October 27th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Dan Shaughnessy, longtime sportswriter for The Boston Globe, periodically writes a column full of random sports nuggets and observations called, Picked Up Pieces. It’s a series of pithy vignettes which, taken as a whole, present a larger picture of the local sports and cultural scene. In that spirit, The Riven Word presents its own version of random moments and events which have occupied our figurative desktops recently:

Yup–these are our readers…

Remember that tinder box our blacksmith Mark used in the fire-making video? It’s a ridiculously simple and practical way to keep fire-making materials like steel, flint, and char-cloth. The box is based on one of several which came up with The Mary Rose:

from Weapons of Warre: The Armaments of the Mary Rose The Archeology of the Mary Rose Volume 3 2011 edited by Alexzandra Hildred

John Wolf—friend to The Riven Word–made a great reproduction of the box and sent along a few photos. It’s made from a single piece of wood, as in the original. John used ash instead of oak, but we think it’ll be just as functional as the mid-16th century version.

Great work and happy fire-making John!

They knew they were pilgrims…

Big plug for our fellow bloggers across the lunch table. They’ve been posting some really interesting write-ups on their interpretive exploits. These are the good folks who bring life into the houses we make, and this is an opportunity for you to see just what goes into making a pilgrim in the 21st century.

See what goeth on behind coifs and brimmed hats:

http://blogs.plimoth.org/pilgrim-blog/

England, can we put that little war behind us?

image courtesy of ESPN/Boston

Local pigskin favorites The New England Patriots are playing this country’s version of football in London tomorrow. While it’s no Man-U vs Chelsea, we hope that our mutual ties and interests will compel you to root vociferously for The Pats. Click this link for a primer on NFL football rules. But the short of it is, whenever the St.Louis Rams quarterback breaks huddle on a third and long, cheer as though The Armada was just sunk!! PS: Flying Elvis is the vernacular for the Patriots helmet decal.

Thanks Irina and Alexey

Look what our friends from Salicicola dropped off yesterday:

Take that, invasives!

Two hornbeam seedlings and a handful of swamp white oak acorns to plant. It’s part of an informal naturalization project at the museum. Little gifts can mean a lot. Thanks I and A!!!

Public service announcment:

If you make a rick of wood, be sure to stack the rings either level or leaning a bit inward. Otherwise…

…you may have to pull down part of the rick and re-stack. This message brought to you by, The Woodricke Council.

Serendipitous house tour

We stopped in to see old friend Andrew at a restoration project just down the road from Plimoth. This led to a quick but fascinating tour of the original mid-17th century house.

Detail of purlin trench and score marks on oak rafter.

There’s nothing quite like a close inspection of an original frame to fire us up in building our own conjectural reproductions. Seeing tool marks and surveying frames is a direct link to the past for us, and never fails to inspire. Thanks to Elizabeth and John who welcomed us into their house for an impromptu tour yesterday. They have been here for 50 years, and John himself has done some top shelf restoration.

Nice to see you again old friend

"What are you doing over there besides looking good?" asked a guest of Justin recently.

So friend Justin is back to work after a fortnight of celebrating the birth of his son. Congrats all! Some of the crew don’t quite understand what parent-hood is all about and why Justin might come to work just a wee bit tired. Here’s the educational video we made for them to watch:

Is this a cottage which i see before me?

Framing timbers having been moved to their lot, Frank and Hester Cooke couldn’t wait to begin setting up house!

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Tags: 17th century house, English carpentry, hewing, oak, pilgrim house, Plimoth Plantation, The Francis Cooke House
Posted in building materials, firewood, hewing, oak, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame | 9 Comments

Drawing from ye Ricke of Woode

September 29th, 2012 by Rick McKee

In June, we posted about a SpongeBob Woodrick, which is a traditional way to stack and season firewood. It spawned a great discussion. Among the questions that arose from the topic were: How does one get the firewood down from the top of the rick of wood?

Well, we might have hired nuns from a convent in Estonia…

But the resourceful goodwives of New Plimoth vowed to have “nun” of that…

Cultural exchange at its finest.

Tags: firewood, Plimoth Plantation
Posted in firewood, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

BTU-tiful Ricke of Woode

June 13th, 2012 by Rick McKee

WOW!

It would seem this topic of firewood and its storage has really struck a CORD with readers of The Riven Word–thanks for your feedback!

Plucky Peter Follansbee (http://pfollansbee.wordpress.com) has rounded up some great examples of woodricks and other firewood references listed in early 17th-century English inventories.

From Margaret Cash, Ed., Devon Inventories of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Devon and Cornwall Record Society), 1966:

1628: EDWARD GOULD of Staverton, A Ricke of woode; £5

1609: RICHARD CLOTWORTHIE The wood and Timber in the ground and in the Reekes or else wheare; £6 13s 4d

1610: WILLIAM BOWRING 1 Rycke of wood & other wood £l 10s

From John S. Moore, editor, The Goods and Chattels of our Forefathers, 1537-1804, (London & Chichester, Phillimore), 1976:

1628: Joan Stambourne, widow of Winterbourne, 27 March 1628: the wood pille praised 3s

1635: inventory of Richard Farwelle, gentleman of Winterbourne: one wood pile preysed at £4

First of all, you gotta love the variant spellings of the word, “rick”. Brilliant. As regular readers of The Riven Word can attest, we also feel that grammar is entirely overrated.

From 3 shillings for a wood pille, to 5 pounds for a ricke of woode, that’s a significant range of cost and, presumably, amount of wood. It’s also interesting to note that there’s a distinction made in these few examples between ” ricks of wood” and “wood piles”. Until we learn otherwise, we’ll assume that a “rick of wood” is something built in the spongebob woodrick style (http://blogs.plimoth.org/rivenword/?p=2749). If this is true, then what exactly is a wood pile anyway? Does it imply an unformed heap, a well-ordered arrangement, or a little of both?

It’s great when a discussion thread CATCHES FIRE like this. Far be it from The Riven Word to be a wet blanket!

Our next blog post, coincidentally, will be a little video on making fire. We hope you can join us!

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EXTENDED REMIX

From the Trying to Get This Right Department: The term “rick” was at the center of our conversation this morning. Oh sure, we’d would have liked to have started out talking about Matt Cain’s no-no last night, but “ricks” are on our collective minds and talk trended in that direction. Mark A. helped us to further define its use and meaning. It’s important to note that the term “woodrick” doesn’t show up in the records but a “rick of (something)” does. “Woodrick” may have better flow, as the kids say, but there’s no historic justification for its use. (We here at The Riven Word really do try to sweat the details).

As you may know, ricks are most often associated with harvested corn (grains like wheat) hay, or straw, and they are often thatched. But whether it’s a rick of corn or wood, the implication is that a rick is something which is constructed rather than haphazardly tossed together. Rick may not necessarily mean a rounded pineapple-under-the-sea form, but more research is needed to verify this. To further muddle the issue, the term may be somewhat regional, used more often in the West Country than in East Anglia. Mark also made the point that ricks, like the one depicted in the 1675 Oxford example, are side by side “bavins” and other forms of wood. And like Plimoth Colony in its first years, Oxford’s wood may be used in a more communal or institutional way, as opposed to being stored for individual households. The amount of wood necessary to keep house and hearth at both Oxford and Plymouth, one might argue, could make rick-building a more viable and logical way to season and keep such large quantities of firewood. Had enough? But wait, there’s more: Ricks of wood (or wood and timber generally) may be sometimes stored in “hovels”. That’s a whole other topic! And finally, as if this wasn’t confusing enough, The Oxford English Dictionary cites a later US use of the term “rick” as:

…a measure of wood, rick typically refers to a rectangular stack 4 feet (approx. 1.2 metres) in height, 8 feet (approx. 2.4 metres) in length, and as wide as the length of the cut wood, but the precise dimensions vary from place to place.

Hmmmm…sounds like the rough dimensions of a cord of wood to me…This thing’s coming full circle!

Now that we’ve piled word upon word into a “rick of confusion”, we thank you for hopping along on our journey of discovery. Meanwhile, I may change my name to “Dick”.

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Keeping co-worker Eva Lipton in our thoughts and prayers:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-EVA/223963567711425

Tags: English carpentry, firewood, Peter Follansbee, Plimoth Plantation
Posted in firewood, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Woodrick Addendum

June 11th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Clearly the following letter is an example of an early Man-Cave. From a 1632 letter of Edward Howes to John Winthrop, JR of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, here’s an account of a fellow living in a woodpile in Suffolk, England:

“I will relate unto you a pretty and pleasant Jest a
fellowe in Suffolke, whoe havinge a shrewish wife made as though he were a
wearie of this like; [life] and went away from her. It was conjectured by
all, that he had made away with himselfe for he could not be found nor of in
almost a whole winter, and where thinke you this fellowe was all this while,
he had made him a howse in his woodstack and buylt it so artificially with
bavins, that it was a farre better and warmer cabin than Diogines Tubb. It
seeme he had plotted the business before hand, and had conveyed there in
provision before hand, or else he had some boy or servant of his councell
whoe conveyed provision unto him, for the waye in was at the toppe, and so
artificially archt over and hollowed under, that it was hard for either
wind, frost, snowe, or could to trouble him; Nowe if one man could make this
shift of his own invention, surely some amonge you if they have neede…”

“Bavins”: A bundle of brushwood or light underwood, such as is used in bakers’ ovens.

Diogines Tubb: Outstanding name for a bed and breakfast.

Thanks for the reference, Peter Follansbee–the form of the pile is unclear, but it was big enough to live in for most of a winter and one entered at the top!

Posted in firewood, Uncategorized | No Comments

Ye Spongebob Woodrick

June 8th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Those that live here never need want wood, for here is great store.

Emmanuel Altham, Three Visitors to Early Plymouth

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Spongebob, opening theme song

Firewood

It’s the heating oil, natural gas, propane, solar and electric of 17th-century New England.

Mourt’s Relation (http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/mourt2.html) which chronicles the very beginning of the Plimoth settlement, has over 50 references to wood in its first few dozen pages, many of those specifically about getting firewood:

The same day, so soon as we could we set ashore 15 or 16 men, well armed, with some to fetch wood for we had none left…
…there we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people…
…some kindled a fire, and others fetched wood, and there held our rendezvous that night.
Our people did make things as fitting as they could, and time would, in seeking out wood…
When we came to shore, we made us a barricade, and got firewood…
So being both weary and faint, for we had eaten nothing all that day, we fell to making our rendezvous and get firewood, which always costs us a great deal of labor…
Our greatest labor will be fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile…

The elemental importance of firewood is clear, as is the labor required to procure it. This is no small thing.

Colonial House guys taking the thwart saw for a spin.

When the intrepid folks from the PBS series Colonial House ( http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/ ) were sent on their merry way to the wilds of downeast Maine several years ago–to live in the manner of a 17th-century new world colony–one of the first questions they asked their producers was: Should we be spending this ridiculous amount of time gathering firewood? That question was a revelation for us (and The Colonial House participants!) and really brought home the absolute need and amount of labor required to get firewood in any century!

Chopping and splitting in the time before perspective had been invented. Look out for my calf!

In our recreated village, the processing, use, and storage of firewood is vital in presenting an accurate portrayal of Plimoth Colony. Crunching some numbers, with the help of some standards drawn from Rob Tarule’s book, The Artisan of Ipswich (http://www.plimoth.com/books-media/artisan-of-ipswich.html) The Riven Word has come up with some interesting extrapolations: If Plimoth Colony has 30 households in the year 1627, and each household uses a minimum of 15 cords of firewood annually, that translates to 450 cords of wood/year. At a standard cordwood measure of 4′ high and 4′ deep, that is a line of firewood 3600′ long, or roughly 2/3rds of a mile. Every year. That’s a LOT of work just getting fuel. Playing with numbers is fun for the whole family!

Storage

We go through about 10-15 cords/year in our recreated site. Not so long ago, firewood was delivered to the pilgrim village via a dumptruck in the hours before opening. With a full load, the old Dodge would labor up the hill in reverse, leaving a third of its load at the top, a third in the middle, and a third at the bottom of the hill. Pilgrims would rally to action, lugging the various pieces back to haphazard piles in and around the their houses. Sometimes, heaps of wood would end up in a pile along the street adjacent to the house. Such a delivery method was convenient, to be sure, but in the end it looked, well…delivered.

We wondered if there was something that was at once convenient, practical, AND a better historically accurate display of firewood. Thinking outside of the wood pile, as it were, our renaissance-blacksmith Mark Atchison came up with an alternative to truck deliveries. What if we kept firewood in a few large piles in the village, and what if this pile was something a little more organized than a mere heap? Are there English examples of such wood piles?

A “woodrick” was born.

Woodricks

We cut our wood to an even length and stack it in a circular ring. The biggest diameter woodrick we’ve made was about 14′, but we’ve found a 12′ stack is a bit more manageable. As we pile the wood ring upon ring, we’re careful to stack it level, or even slanted inward towards the center for stability’s sake–not unlike a dry-laid stone wall. When the rings are a couple feet high, we start to throw the knotty and gnarled pieces in the center. (Unlike cheap chocolate Easter bunnies, our woodricks are NOT hollow!) We’re careful to keep the sides even as we work our way up. The rick starts to taper towards its rounded top at about 7′. Making rings, pitching pieces in the center, rinse and repeat: It’s very therapeutic. The last pieces are laid carefully on top to form a “roof”. The pile “breathes”, as it were, and with all that exposed end grain and very few pieces in contact with the earth, it’s a great way to season your haul.

Mark found some English examples of woodricks from just a bit after our period:

If the drawing is to scale, that's a pretty good pile of wood! Good for you, Phi Sigma Kappa!

What I like about the above woodcut is the use of a woodrick in what would appear to be a limited space. If the firewood was stacked laterally in typical cordwood fashion, it would take up a greater amount of the yard–maybe even cutting into bowling on the green! Those clever Oxfordians!

Mark’s research brought him to far flung places:

…such as a convent in eastern Estonia, where the rick’s pointed tops echo Eastern orthodox architecture. Very, very cool.

http://tartumaaponderings.wordpress.com/page/5/

So, take not for granted the labor to have and to keep the humble stack of firewood. Like getting water from a spring, it’s an indispensable, if overlooked, necessity.

Chris was whistling a Jimmy Page guitar solo when this pic was taken...

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Wish I had a photo of this instead of a copy. Best. Picture. Ever.

Tags: firewood, pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation, round wood pile, wood rick
Posted in firewood, Uncategorized | 24 Comments