‘thatch’ Category

Athena comes to Plimoth

November 10th, 2012 by Rick McKee

“Sunday, the 4th of February, was very wet and rainy; with the greatest gusts of wind that ever we had, since we came forth…And it caused much daubing of our houses to fall down.”

1621, Mourt’s Relation

 

For millions of people up and down the east coast of the US, nature has asserted itself in a very elemental way these past couple of weeks. Sandy wreaked havoc in NY/NJ and the mid-Atlantic states, and folks are still struggling with its aftermath. A few days ago, a nor’easter some are calling “Athena” blew through with sustained winds and lashing rains. While we are very fortunate to have received only minor damage locally, we think of those less fortunate than us as we place such elemental forces in an historic context.

This is what “daubing of our houses” falling down might have looked like almost 400 years ago:

Justin crawled underneath the panel for scale. "It's wicked cozy", he said.

The post on the right had rotted away to almost nothing, and the wall’s horizontal splints were loosened. While the compromised post was the biggest reason the wall fell, we think it no coincidence that this daubed panel of mortar gave way overnight during the teeth of the storm.

Athena’s northeast gales found many of our weak points:

Pale flocking to Phoenix for the winter.

Dozens of palisade pales and a few old posts met their match during the storm. We’ll stand up and re-use most of the pale but we’ll need to replace several posts in the frame.

Garden fences were not immune to Athena’s fury. Here, John Howland takes stock of an impending repair.

I'm going to need nails, posts, and spearmint gum.

Several pines lost branches in the storm, and a couple of less-healthy specimens came down altogether. Athena knew what she was doing.

Future rick of wood.

Our saw-pit became a leaf repository. Leaf-peeping tours begin at sunrise. Bring your saw.

Is this the beginning of an Andy Goldsworthy project?

Some thatch caps had “hat head” after the storm, but otherwise fared quite well. Phew.

Browbeaten.

So while Athena raged outside our doors all day Thursday…

Rage Against the...Hand tools?

Our plucky co-workers made the most of it and hunkered down…

 

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Posted in mortar, thatch | 10 Comments

august

August 22nd, 2012 by Rick McKee

Ag Hall at The Fair-every August, keeping time.

 

Summer?

Where did you go, with all your carefree, coppertoned ways? We’re already on “Isaac” in tropical storm names? They’ve weighed the giant pumpkins at The Fair? When did the aggregating male cicadas begin vibrating their thorax plates in unison?

We were in the marsh longer than we thought…

I've got a bus to thatch and it's going to downtown Frame-ville!

933 bundles later, we’re about ready to stow these brackish boys of summer away in a dry place and stand them upright to “sweat”. Sweating cattails will help to dry off most of any remaining moisture.

Last of the timber processing

Now we turn our attention back to cutting a house frame. We dust off our cut-list to see what’s been checked off…

We made the list. We're checking it twice.

…and find that we’ll need 3 more logs to hew and to saw into the last of the principal elements of The Francis Cooke House frame.

It’s the home stretch for Frankie & The Cookes and their frame:

Hew large-saw small, which is an anagram for "Gala Mars Hew Swell" & "Legal Whale Swarms"

3 logs to hew:

Hewster Brewster: Forgotten son of The Elder.

6 kerfs to saw:

Whither art thou, ayre compressore?

…and that’ll be plenty to get us started on layout and cutting joints. It’ll feel good to put that frame in the ground.

Some pieces, however, don’t make the grade:

We can always split this into pale.

Though I’m sure the carpenter ants within the pith of this red oak find their lodging quite ax-ceptable. Rive your little hearts out in there, fellas! grrrrr…

 

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And this public service reminder:

 

Whatever your ride happens to be…

Buckle up out there, kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in building materials, hewing, thatch, The Francis Cooke House | 4 Comments

Basie and Mingus (the marsh dog)

August 16th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Our paths through the marsh take many turns.

We ask for your patience, dear reader, if we occasionally follow our syncopated steps down a few by-ways…

Here’s a 1939 version of “Oh Lady Be Good” by The Count Basie Orchestra.

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Posted in thatch, video | 10 Comments

6-foot, 7-foot, 8-foot thatch!

August 11th, 2012 by Rick McKee

…high tide come and we wanna go home…

Out this way, creek rhymes with freak, not frick.

It’s a long day in the marsh. The air is as thick as tomato soup, the sun relentless, and any fickle breeze which occasionally stirs is rebuffed by a wall of 7-foot cattails. Above us, higher than the swaying inflorescence of the cattail heads, a chatty raptor has been working the marsh all week. His call, to our ears, is half-complaint, half-whine: Where are you rodentia? Who are these foreign beings invading my kingdom? We personify this hawk because it is we who are tired and our bones and backs whine and chirp at us. In our time–sampling the world with the click of a mouse in the comfort of an artificial environment–strenuous and repetitive outdoor labor has a way of bringing about musings of things greater than ourselves, of rhythms and cycles and the very tide coming in at our feet.

hello?

We consider ourselves fortunate to go to work amidst such an unspoiled environment and to harvest thatch in this traditional manner. Our experiences here along the river are themselves bundled and carried back alongside the cattail to be opened and shared with our museum guests. It’s a unique opportunity to be able to directly translate our labor and its fruits into an historical interpretation.

Mornin Sam. Mornin Ralph.

It’s liberating to be tied to seasonal and tidal pulls. These larger cycles have the knack of freeing us from our personal vicissitudes. When the cattail is ready and the tide is right, we head to the marsh; when our museum opens up for another season, we don our doublets and dialects and interpret our labors to our guests. Visitors and rivers ebb and flow and our labors follow along. No use swimming against the current.

Dingo!

 

We’ll get back to house-frame construction soon enough. We haven’t forgotten the oak which awaits us back at our site, some to hew, “some to saw, some to rive...”. For now, the 596 bundles drying at the end of Plimoth Plantation’s main parking lot would cover only about half of Francis Cooke’s new house. The cattail is ripe for the reaping and we are making thatch, as it were, while the sun shines.

 

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Salicicola

Atlantic White Cedar. Clapboards were riven from this species in 17th-century New England.

 

 

From cattails to oak, plants are at the center of our work. If you have even the slightest interest in things botanical, The Riven Word strongly suggests you check out Irina Kadis & Alexey Zinovjev’s amazing and informative site, http://www.salicicola.com/ It’s a gallery of local flora, beautifully and thoroughly illustrated with native plants and lists of invasives. Even if you are from away, Salicicola will give you a sense of the natural world which the Wampanoags inhabited at the time of English settlement. The science and observations behind Salicicola are presented in a user-friendly form, both entertaining and educational. There is even an annual plant quiz which is guaranteed to inform and delight. Simply put, this is a superlative resource which we will draw from again and again. The Riven Word expresses great thanks and sincere appreciation to Irina and Alexey for their generosity and willingness to advise and share information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.salicicola.com/

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Posted in building materials, thatch, The Francis Cooke House | 2 Comments

Ploughman’s Lunches

August 9th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Experiential Learning

We here at The Riven Word find all aspects of traditional labor to be endlessly fascinating and worthy of close examination, experimentation, and documentation. Often “the doing” is, in itself, a form of research.

Caught up in that spirit of discovery, we wondered: What is the caloric intake necessary to fuel the human body for a day of harvesting thatch? Would the manner of food eaten at lunch affect the day’s labor?

The marsh was hot and still, the sun merciless, and our sickles were sharp as we went into the marsh for another day of gathering cattails. At approximately 1:05pm, we exited the marsh for our lunchtime experiment:

 

Ploughman’s Lunches

Exhibit A:

Free Range Cauliflower: Win valuable prizes!!

This sublime fare consisted of grilled free-range chicken, lovingly cradled by a locally harvested 50/50 spring mix (organic, mais oui!) avec roasted and blanched cauliflower, and seasoned ever so delicately with parmesan cheese and garlic vinaigrette.

Exhibit B:

Yes. This IS as good as it looks.

 

This whimsical creation was a mash up of several seemingly disparate elements: A soft, gas-station-purchased Nissan hot dog roll, a careful sprinkling of ShurFine Fiesta Mix (artificially flavored to enhance the experience), and bringing all the parts together in heavenly harmony, A-1 Steak Sauce.

Conclusion:

Both caloric experiments were performed under the shade of several white pines while the subjects sat comfortably at a gently-used picnic table. Several curious ants were in attendance. The Riven Word will publish its findings more fully in a future issue of Puritan Science Monthly. For now, suffice it to say that we are confident that our experiments will withstand even the most strenuous peer review. We have concluded the following: Both lunches hit the proverbial “spot” for our laboring fellows, and contributed toward a day’s harvest of 182 bundles of thatch, for a two-day total of 394 bundles.

Cooking instructions: pre-heat parking lot to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, let dry for aprox. 2 weeks, turning several times.

 

 

Thank you roasted cauliflower, and thank you Fiesta Mix. Who knows what gustatory wonders tomorrow will bring?

 

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Posted in thatch, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

The tide is good this week…

August 7th, 2012 by Rick McKee

…and the cattail is ready.

Good things come in threes.

With visions of typha angustifolia and typha latifolia dancing in our heads, we fueled up and headed to the marsh for a few weeks of cattail harvesting for our thatched roofs.

A few tentative steps through the muck…

This is what we call in the vernacular, suck mud.

…and we’re in like Flynn.

It’s pretty simple, actually. With sharp sickles, we cut paths into the marsh, laying down the material in an orderly fashion. Later on, it’ll be easier to bundle. Grab high, cut low, shake out the dead stuff, lay it down.

Cutting by hand makes it easier to lay the cattail down just so.

After bundling, carrying follows. It’s the home stretch.

Michael getting bundles in before the tide.

Maybe carrying thatch looked like this in 1627:

Sometimes our younger guests think we literally use cat tails when we thatch.

And resting, like this:

Tom nearing REM (brandt) stage sleep. Didn't Bruegel paint this?

Disapprove if you must, Goodman, but it was a LONG day of cutting…

Looks like I'll be carrying him out too...

 

 

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Plimoth Plantation has two great new blogs:

 

So Dramatic a Blog chronicles the research and preparations for the performance and filming of the museum’s interactive theater drama, So Dreadful a Judgement, which takes places just days before the start of the King Philip’s War in 1675. This is a powerful play about a pivotal moment in history.

 

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What’s it like to be a 21st-century interpreter at a non-profit museum fleshing out the life and times of a long dead 17th-century character?  They Knew They Were Pilgrims is your VIP ticket to the behind-the-scenes workings of Plimoth Plantation’s pilgrim staff. They are as diverse, creative, and funny a group of people as you will ever meet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in building materials, thatch, The Francis Cooke House | 5 Comments

Loose Ends, addendum

July 16th, 2012 by Rick McKee

The offending, imported and chatty--albeit cute--sparrow who makes thatch withdrawals from our roofs.

John H. Verrill, Executive Director of The Early American Industries Association www.earlyamericanindustries.org, a top-shelf organization promoting and preserving historic trades, crafts, and tools on this side of the pond–and who will be holding their annual meeting at Plimoth Plantation in May, 2013–asked an excellent question on the subject of thatch and ridges:

I am curious about why the ridge would not have had boards affixed to fill the gap between the two halves of the roof since this is a natural point for failure of the thatch. The thatch could then be attached over the ridge in the same manner but with much less chance of failure (?) We don’t have any 17th century roofs to look at but has that point been researched?

All questions regarding historic thatching techniques seem to lead to John Letts and his groundbreaking work published in 1999, Smoke Blackened Thatch:

The University of Reading--ISBN# 1 85074 704 0

While there may be no existing thatched roofs from our period to survey in New England, John Letts has done what amounts to thatch-archeology on many roofs in England, from the 14th century onward. The title, Smoke Blackened Thatch–or SBT–refers to the old open English halls which had no chimneys and whose inner thatch layers have been blackened and preserved from decades–even centuries–of smoke and soot from hearths. John’s work has uncovered a ridiculous amount of historic detail–from preserved insects and thatching material (who knew one could thatch with heather, broom, and wood shavings?) to ancient thatching techniques which are little practiced by modern thatchers today. We’ve been fortunate to consult with John on thatching styles which are more appropriate for our early 17th-century site, and his discoveries have greatly influenced our work. From John’s book, here’s an example of both a spar and the blackening of an ancient roof:

And another showing lath being used as a base for the bottom coat of thatch:

The picture above tells a great story: riven (not sawn) oak lath, and pegs (not nails) attaching the lath to the rafters. The oak’s short grain is also blown out at the end of the lath beyond the peg hole. So much exquisite detail, so little time…

Back to the question of a thatched ridge and ways to keep it weatherproof. We didn’t find any direct references to boards at the ridge, but here’s one method of battening down the ridge which John discovered on an old English roof:

from Lyndon, Leics

Clay! We similarly daubed the ridge of The Howland House with a clay mortar as a direct result of this discovery by John. The mortar is daubed on top of the long rolls which run the length of the ridge. It’s held up beautifully for several years (capped over by more thatch, of course) and while we have centuries to go to catch up to the amazingly preserved Lyndon example, the practice is proving both a functional and historically appropriate method of weatherproofing the ridge.

Smoke Blackened Thatch and John Lett’s ongoing studies continue to inform us on ancient methods and materials. Here’s a link to a chock-a-block and interesting article by John Letts and Keith Quantrill on thatching with ancient varieties of wheat using medieval techniques:

http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/longstraw/longstraw.htm

The Riven Word could go in so many directions on this topic alone, but we’ll leave it for now and come back to it when we head to the marshes to cut thatch in a few weeks. No discussion of thatch is complete, however, without a nod to Plimoth Plantation’s own late, great master thatcher Peter Slevin:

His thatching expertise was exceeded only by his Irish wit and charm.

 

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ALEX TAKES THE PRETEND PLUNGE

Steady, man, steady...

Our intrepid blacksmith Alex (Robert Bartlett) was the groom at a pretend wedding this weekend at Plimoth Plantation, marrying the effervescent  Malka (Mary Warren) in a civil ceremony performed by Gov. Bradford. Alex put down his nailing hammer (is that a euphemism or what?) long enough to celebrate at a bride-ale following the wedding. Word on the street has it that Alex dances not unlike Elaine from Seinfeld  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xi4O1yi6b0 but hey, it’s the spirit that counts! Huzzah, Goodman and Goodwife!

Fun with Alex’s new hat:

I stab at thee, bachelor-hood!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carolyn, half of Plimoth's dynamic Colonial Foodways Dept, made a perfect foil to Alex's Ahab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can view Carolyn’s other creations at:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sweet-Carolyns/159245130765247

 

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Posted in books, building materials, thatch | 2 Comments

Loose Ends

July 12th, 2012 by Rick McKee

I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go…

Cattail tops about to be bent over the ridge.

Thatched roofs get holes in them. Especially at the very top of the roof at its ridge. Here’s the hole from the inside…

Leaks are poison to a house frame. Leeks are yummy with potatoes.

…and here it is from the outside:

Ridge-work, not bridge work.

The cap at the ridge of the roof has its fixings exposed to the weather. The wooden spars and sways (wooden rods) which keep the thatch will give way after a few years.

You can see the exposed spar in the middle of the X. The sways to the left are where spars failed after several years to the weather, leaving the cattail unsecured and a pawn to gravity.

What’s a spar, you ask? Here’s a video of Justin making one:

Spars–sometimes called broaches–are like wooden staples securing thatch to the roof. These particular spars are made of hazel. They are relatively easy to make and each thatched roof in our re-created village should have hundreds and hundreds of them.

They’re weakest at the bend, however. That’s where they tend to fail. And that’s why roofs need their caps replaced more often than the coursework of thatch forming the pitch of the roof. There, the fixings are covered by the thatch.

Before we twist them, we soak them in water.

Hazel is a name you just don't hear much anymore...

Once Justin has enough to keep him busy, it’s away to the roof with more cattail for the ridge.

No poses were harmed in the making of this picture.

Cattail, which we harvest in local marshes in the summer, is good for caps because it folds over quite nicely. We’ll blog about our excursions to the marsh for thatching material in the coming weeks.

King of all he surveys. So that would make him King of Bert's, and Sandy's, and Bradford's...

A couple days of work and a roof is newly capped. Until the next repair…

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow with thatch in its beak?

 

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Rick and Sarah Whitehead, friends of The Riven Word, are doing some really amazing things on a mountain in Portugal, not the least of which is building a timber-framed house using locally gathered materials and riving 7000 chestnut shakes! We encourage you to visit their blog:

http://www.portugalpermaculture.blogspot.com/

 

 

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Posted in building materials, thatch | 13 Comments

The Song of the Thatcher

April 28th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Remember those early vintage cartoons with their sublime animation and a full orchestral score?

Plimoth Plantation’s thatcher Justin K. does…

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Posted in thatch, Uncategorized, video | 2 Comments

Back To The Past: Getting our shavings together for opening day

March 9th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Tempus Fugit

Plimoth Plantation (http://www.plimoth.org/) opens up for a new season on March 17, 2012. As productive a winter as we’ve had, it’s always a bit of a scramble to get ready for “company” each spring. Here are some of the last minute, behind-the-scenes things we’ve been working on before St. Patrick’s Day arrives…

Throw the helve after the hatchet

Making shavings at Ye Edge Shoppe.

March always comes in like a lion in our Edge Shop. There are a number of edge tools to sharpen and handles to wedge or replace.  That’s a good thing, as they are being used and interpreted to our guests as part of our exhibit. But it’s a nasty environment for an edge tool in the pilgrim village–sandy, rocky, unforgiving. Many of them will take a beating over the course of a season. A little TLC goes a long way this time of year. Above, Andrew is fitting a handle for his felling ax, Scott is dressing clapboards for the new bakehouse, and Steve is tapering a wedge to secure a handle.

The Jamestown ax, reproduced.

Mark Atchison, our blacksmith, made a superb reproduction ax based on one which came out of the ground in Jamestown. (There will be more about this reproduction ax in future posts). We wanted to get a handle on it ASAP in order to take it for a spin. We had a piece of white oak, roughed out and dry, which fit the bill. The ax, Mr. Atchison, works GREAT!

Skid steer/ox

If you visit us in-season, we leveled this lot by hand, with picks and shovels. That's our story and we're sticking to it.

We needed to prepare the lot for the new Francis Cooke House we are building this year. There was a heap of clay mortar that we had salvaged from the old Cooke House ( http://blogs.plimoth.org/rivenword/?p=7 ) which needed to be moved to the rear of the lot. We’ll be recycling that mortar into the walls and chimney of the new house, and we want to keep it clean and free from construction debris like wood chips, not Dunky’s cups. We also needed to take out a garden bed in order to orient the house parallel to the street. The labor pool was a a little larger in 1627 Plimoth, so we will sometimes take a few liberties in order to ready a lot for construction. Dave Tanner, our Buildings and Grounds guru, operates the skid steer with workmanlike precision.

Clay mortar being pushed to the back of the lot. We will re-use this in the walls of the new Cooke House.

There was very little frost in the ground this winter so we’ve been able to move some earth around. We’re adding a little loam to level Cooke’s lot which is on the side of a hill.

Clean fill found.

Clapboards for a roof

It’s important for us to have our new “bake house” roofed and ready to receive two newly made cloam ovens later this spring. This is for two reasons: 1. To keep the frame out of the weather.  2. To facilitate in any way we possibly can in the production of bread. Have YOU ever had bread from a wood-fired oven? We will blog about both the bake house and the cloam ovens in future posts.

Steve and Scott showing shins while clapboarding hips.

We'll leave the east/west facing hips open at the top to help vent smoke. I can almost smell the bread...

Thatching ridges

Perhaps nothing we have accomplished this winter has been more satisfying than making ridge repairs on the top of several thatched roofs in our re-created village. There is a good feeling in buttoning up a house which has had leaks in its roof.

When Justin is atop the roof ridge, his green hat is visible from space.

Justin, above, prepares to ascend the ladder to the ridge of Allerton House with a handful of spars. Spars are like wooden staples, helping to secure thatch to the roof frame. They are twisted in the middle, pointed on their ends, and driven into layers of thatch below.

Snake-like Rolls of Cattail on a Plane--Coming soon to a ridge near thee.

Thatch–in this case cattail–is rolled into long lengths in order to build up material along the ridge. When capping a roof, these rolls give the spars a thickness in which to be driven into and hold fast. Below is a video of some of the rolls in place on one of our roofs. The ridge bears the brunt of weather, but it’s also very thick with rolls and bent over courses. This repair along the ridge should last several years.

As happy as we all our to have fixed several roofs, Justin is happier still. Thatch-tastic, Keegan!!

I can see my flat in cambRIDGE across the bRIDGE–I seem to have left ajar my fRIDGE.

 

Hitting the books

 

Last week, seasonal interpreters were welcomed back to the museum to begin training for the new year. Topics are varied, and this year have included everything from The Reformation to Wampanoag/Anglo panel discussions on Squanto and Hobomock. We try to take advantage of as much training as we can in these last couple of weeks before opening in addition to leading a few sessions ourselves.

New season, new friends

Mingus, meet Jesse. Jesse, meet Mingus.

 

To do list:

Fill ruts in roads

Fix a couple of stuck doors

Cut and carry more more firewood

Sweep chimneys

Read some primary source materials


∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

 

 

 

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Posted in thatch, The Francis Cooke House, tools, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

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