Order Only: Candlemaking and nuts
Nov. 15th, 2008 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_mollyBoth paraffin for lamps and wax candles are getting more difficult to obtain. Fortunately, now that we have bee hives of our own, we'll have our own supply of beeswax next year--I hope--but that doesn't help solve the problem of what to do for light this winter. Of course, I know that some are breaking into abandoned muggle houses (Merlin knows that there are enough of them) looking for supplies, including candles, but many muggles used to use . . . elektr . . . elekter . . . oh, whatever that word is--and so didn't have many candles about. And anyway, Arthur and I don't like doing that. It feels like robbing the dead. Well, in many cases, it is robbing the dead.
Even tallow dips are getting increasingly expensive. Fortunately, Xeno had a rather good idea about that. He was quite poor as a child and remembered his family making tallow candles themselves when he was a boy, and he even unearthed several old candle molds in his attic that his mother used to use (that attic is unbelievable--the strange things he keeps up there!) So we got a good supply of beef fat from the butcher, and we spent a very smelly afternoon melting it down into tallow and pouring it into the molds. I think we should have enough to get by, at least until spring, and then hopefully the bee hives will be producing enough wax for us. Beeswax candles really do smell so much better than tallow dips. I've set some aside for Moddey Dhoo and will send them along to you soon, Alice, but couldn't make so many extra that Xeno would ask about it.
Xeno has a chestnut tree on his property, and when our old neighbor Avery Simmons left his house to go move in with his daughter, he told us we were welcome to any of the hazelnuts from the hazelnut trees in his garden. So the girls went with Xeno yesterday afternoon to try to beat the squirrels to the bounty and came back, red-cheeked from the cold but happy, with several bushel baskets brimming over. Summoning charms make gathering nuts so much easier. Xeno, showing his usual inexplicable logic, insisted that I not use any charms to remove the chestnut burr from around each chestnut, which I think is simply ridiculous, but if shelling chestnut burrs keeps him busy and happy for several days--and out of my hair--then he is certainly welcome to the work. Chestnuts always remind me of Christmas, which raises my spirits as the days are getting darker and colder.
I've traded some rag rugs the girls and I made for some freshly butchered ham. I wonder if I could find something to trade to get a larger ration of flour. Flour is becoming scarce again, too. I know that the harvest was good, so am not sure what that is all about. Arthur says that it's mostly the distribution channels are bolluxed up, what with labour shortages. I have thought of possibly investigating making acorn flour, but it seems like such a lot of work--gathering them, shelling and chopping them, treating them to leach out the tannins, and then I hear acorn flour tends to spoil easily, too, which makes me wonder whether all the work is worthwhile. Maisie Diggory said she was going to try making some, so I thought I would go over and help her for a day and see what's involved, and keep it in mind for a possibility next year, especially if the price of flour continues to climb.
Even tallow dips are getting increasingly expensive. Fortunately, Xeno had a rather good idea about that. He was quite poor as a child and remembered his family making tallow candles themselves when he was a boy, and he even unearthed several old candle molds in his attic that his mother used to use (that attic is unbelievable--the strange things he keeps up there!) So we got a good supply of beef fat from the butcher, and we spent a very smelly afternoon melting it down into tallow and pouring it into the molds. I think we should have enough to get by, at least until spring, and then hopefully the bee hives will be producing enough wax for us. Beeswax candles really do smell so much better than tallow dips. I've set some aside for Moddey Dhoo and will send them along to you soon, Alice, but couldn't make so many extra that Xeno would ask about it.
Xeno has a chestnut tree on his property, and when our old neighbor Avery Simmons left his house to go move in with his daughter, he told us we were welcome to any of the hazelnuts from the hazelnut trees in his garden. So the girls went with Xeno yesterday afternoon to try to beat the squirrels to the bounty and came back, red-cheeked from the cold but happy, with several bushel baskets brimming over. Summoning charms make gathering nuts so much easier. Xeno, showing his usual inexplicable logic, insisted that I not use any charms to remove the chestnut burr from around each chestnut, which I think is simply ridiculous, but if shelling chestnut burrs keeps him busy and happy for several days--and out of my hair--then he is certainly welcome to the work. Chestnuts always remind me of Christmas, which raises my spirits as the days are getting darker and colder.
I've traded some rag rugs the girls and I made for some freshly butchered ham. I wonder if I could find something to trade to get a larger ration of flour. Flour is becoming scarce again, too. I know that the harvest was good, so am not sure what that is all about. Arthur says that it's mostly the distribution channels are bolluxed up, what with labour shortages. I have thought of possibly investigating making acorn flour, but it seems like such a lot of work--gathering them, shelling and chopping them, treating them to leach out the tannins, and then I hear acorn flour tends to spoil easily, too, which makes me wonder whether all the work is worthwhile. Maisie Diggory said she was going to try making some, so I thought I would go over and help her for a day and see what's involved, and keep it in mind for a possibility next year, especially if the price of flour continues to climb.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-16 12:18 am (UTC)In any case, otherwise it will be Bellatrix Lestrange in those homse reaping the benefits, I suppose.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-16 03:50 am (UTC)Arthur told me about six months later that she had died in the camps, she and her baby both. I cried for a whole day about it, and then I went back to her house and buried the silver deep under the rose bushes in her garden. I told Arthur I'd be damned before I'd ever use such ill-gotten gains, or give it up to anyone else like Bellatrix or her ilk.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-16 02:24 pm (UTC)At the risk of being crass, that's utterly ridiculous. She gave you that silver - and what's more, it could stand you and Arthur in very good stead on things that the Order needs.
I appreciate the sentimental value and what this particular woman gave up. Believe me, I'm not trying to belittle your reaction. It's quite touching, and you've a good heart, cousin.
But all the sympathy in the world isn't going to buy food for the Muggleborn kids, or potions supplies, or even pay for Ginny and Luna to have a proper Christmas.
I don't know many Muggles who would rather think of their 'ill-gotten goods' in the hands of Bella-witch and her lot, compared to the ways those same items could provide tools to help us win them back their rights, their homes, and so on.
They're just things, Molly. Not people.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-16 07:54 pm (UTC)That might make the idea bearable . . . to use that dead child's birth right, to help another child. One more small way we're striking back against this mad regime.