It appears Ligustrum is not just a Poor man’s Hazel, but a Rich mans hazel. Quick analysis I did today of the dominant basket making woods.
MOR is bending until it breaks.
MOE is how much it bends under load. So Balsa would been little then just snap. While a bendy but strong MOR wood would been alot and then maybe break.
Last year I made WotR. It was cold, but fun. Attendance was 830. For those seeking how big it is, there you go, it is a cold weather event of about 800.
After more than a year of experimenting with Ligustrum, I think I have figured it out. Ligustrum annular rings are too cemented to be split like White Oak, nor freed by pounding like Ash. Tried those and other methods, they fail, some quickly others miserably.
What I’ve found works, is treating it like hazel and making strips. Getting the strips require some skill. First, cut a straight pole, free of branches, typically the diameter of a quarter and about 1.5m (6′) tall. Ideally the pole grew in a shaded area, and it is round, not oval. Once you have this pole, you will want to take your secateurs (snips) and make a shallow cut about 2-3mm for about a 6mm wide. This cut should be made about 10cm from the thin end of the pole. The purpose of this cut will become obvious in a moment. With the cut facing away from you put your knee on the back side of the pole and slowly pull the pole with both hands pulling the pole. You should apply slowly until you hear a pop, that is the annular ring releasing from the pole at the cut you made. Knots will cause you problems and shorten weavers. Use a knife blade to lift the weaver over the knot points to salvage a weaver. Sometimes it fails, that is how it goes.
Now keep moving along the pole applying pressure to pop off more of the weaver until you are near the end. It is impossibble to bend the end enough to run the weaver to the end, so pull it smartly to get as much length as possible. Once off, trim the weaver. You can either scrape off the bark to keep it light brown or leave the bark on to make it dark brown. Typically, I scrape it off. Trim the edges of the weaver to take of the sharpness that will form when it dries.
Now thin the weaver. The outside weaver is the bark side, it will already be smooth but the inside will need smoothing. I’ve done this two ways, the easiest is to put a bit of leather say 20cmx20cm on your knee and then brace your knife in hand and don’t’ move the knife, but drag the weaver under the knife to scrape away the high ridges. This is the safe way to do it.
Note that after you pull off the primary weavers, you can get another layer of weavers off the pole, they will be rough and need more trimming and smoothing than the primaries.
Ideal weaver thickness is about 1.5-2mm thick. Ideal uprights (weft) is about 2.5-3.25mm thick. This weaver, when fresh and green, will pass the 90 degree test over a finger, and actually, you can wrap it 360 without it breaking. So it does make a good weaver. At 2.5mm, the weft will bend somewhat but can break if pushed. Thicker than 3.25mm and it becomes too unwieldy as a weaver for a basket.
To make a pack basket you will need 20 to 24 uprights. Each about 1.25m or 4′ length.
To set up the basket you will need 7 pairs by 3 pairs. The dual wefts provide the needed 2 to 1 ratio of stiffness for weaving. It also looks good.
I lay all my pairs 3×7 on the ground. Then take a thin, (squarish weaver that failed to make a weaver) weaver to begin to weave the outside. You will need 5 courses around the base, tightening each run before it begins to act like a basket.
Because of the even number, one of the corner pairs of weavers, you will need to go in and out so you have a odd number of wefts for the weave to work.
I soak my weavers overnight. A dark color forms, which maybe tannic acid. Don’t worry about it.
You will always need more weavers than you think. Keep them stored in hoops so they can re-hydrate in a small tub.
In the case of this pack basket, I’m shooting for 50cm high by 45x35cm wide and deep.
If I were to make a wild guess how many quarter sized Ligustrum rods to make this basket, I would guess 40. 10 for the uprights, and 30 for more weavers.
After I finished the weave, I thinned out the top uprights and turned them over and tucked them back in. About 1/2 to 1/3 of the fibers broke, but that means 2/3 to 1/2 are going to hold it in.
Next I cut an outside rim and inside rim then wove them together. The right weavers to use was hard to figure out, but in the end, they need to be fresh weavers that have not dried, about 2.5mm thick so almost upright quality. And they have strength, so you can pull until it squeeks. I used wire to hold the rim in place unti I was ready to weave.
Using thin shaved weavers of 1mm was too thin, they were oddly brittle. No strength, and failed at tight curves. Thick to 2.0-2.5 was better.
Also, lesson learned, use wider rims, so it will cover the top of the weaving better.
Lastly, to make the basket sit flat when placed on the ground, and to improve it life, I added sleds to the bottom. With a plywood floor.
Terje Eggestad, a proud Norwegian, died of cancer Dec 11, 2023. He was a friend of mine from college of 30 years. Circumstanced did not permit him a funeral or memorial in the US.
Thursday night we held a Viking Ship funeral for him at Pennsic. For 20 years Pennsic will invite those who have lost someone to add a shield in their honor to the viking ship. There were about 40 honored on the 2025 Viking Ship.
At Dusk on Thursday night, all those who have lost someone gathered. Then we marched the ship across the Serengeti, down into the forest and the Bog, and finally to the lake where. There were about a hundred in the procession, and the women bards sang sad songs.
Upon reaching the shore, people spoke briefly of their lost loved ones. Someone simply said “Cancer Sucks!” and there was a great verbal agreement on that.
I spoke about TJ who was Norwegian and that he would have loved this send off. Many laughed.
Quickly dusk became dark, as they prepared the ship, and it was set alight.
As the ship drifted across Coopers Lake, one by once voices called out from the darkness. They boldly cried out the name of their fallen, and then their final goodbye. It was chilling and powerful. Cathartic. TJ, I’ve given you the best sendoff I could have imagined. Rest in peace, my friend.
April 16, 2024 a meteor was witnessed, Doppler radar returns indicated a meteorite dropper. Steve Arnold found the first fragments and sent out a invite for all to join.
Took my trusty ebike out there. It was geared for high torque which was a blessing, but I really would have liked thicker tires. Still it was ridden hard and long. Ultimately abused so bad I broke 3 spokes and sheared off one of the mounting points for the rack.
The full writeup is at https://outofabluesky.com/black-silver-mine-arizona-expedition/
Headlamp wouldn’t turn on, and there is damn little info out on how to open the #$@! things. I figured it out, and to pay my karma for other projects, I documented what worked for me.
So my trusty old Petzl Tikka XP2 stopped working. The top button got loose and became a flap, then even pushing the micro button directly, it wouldn’t turn on.
The first order of business is how to open the damn thing. I began by opening up the headlamp to get access to the batteries. It hinges at the bottom, some minor side force and the headband back of the lamp will pop off cleanly.
Then came the screw problem. Once you remove the back of the headlamp, and then the batteries, you’ll see two tiny screws. Those are not Philips, they are Torx screws. Specifically they are Torx T5 screws. So I had to buy a set of Torx screwdrivers off Amazon. $12 right there, but I will use them for other project.
Unscrew those two screws. Once they are out, the electronics still won’t come out of the shell. You will have to unclip the two plastic clips at the top of the battery area near the switch. Use a small screwdriver, and very little force.
It popped out with some gentle tugging. Once the electronics was out, I examined the case. The little front diffuser door popped off, but I’ll deal with that later. To fix the red button I used superglue to seal up the red rubber button to the case so it was water tight again. Then I clicked on the PCB micro switch button to see if I could figure out what was wrong.
It turned on once but that was it. As a wild guess, I assumed a corroded contactor so I sprayed some electric contact cleaner on it typically used for scratchy potietiometers.
I clicked the button over and over and…nothing. So I kept clicking then it turned on….click, click, click, click..and off. The more I clicked, the more reliable it became. Finally each click turned it on and off. Maybe 100 clicks before the contact cleaner had kicked in.
Finally, it was working! So I reversed the steps, put in the diffuser door (not sure what worked but it got back in place) snapped the electronics back in, screwed in the T5 Torx screws, and bam! Working again.
Source: Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin (c. 1553)
(Apparently one of the first cookbooks published by a woman. )
Weltt jr gútt prattwirst machen
So nempt 4 pfúnd schweinis vnnd 4 pfúnd rinderis, das last klainhacken, nempt darnach 2 pfúnd speck darúnder vnnd hackts anainander vnnd vngeferlich 3 seidlen wasser giest daran, thiet aúch saltz, pfeffer daran, wie jrs geren est, oder wan jr geren kreúter darin megt haben/ múgt jr nemen ain wenig ain salua vnnd ain wenig maseron, so habt jr gút brattwirst/.
“If you would make good bratwurst”If you would make good bratwurst
Take four pounds of pork and four pounds of beef and chop it finely. After that mix with it two pounds of bacon and chop it together and pour approximately one quart of water on it. Also add salt and pepper thereto, however you like to eat it, or if you would like to have some good herbs, you could take some sage and some marjoram, then you have good bratwurst.”
10OCT23 – Here are my notes and addendums:
So she basically says 8 parts meat, equal pork and beef, and 2 parts fat. Which is in the traditional 20-30% fat range needed for good sausage. So that checks out. Then she adds a little water which is normal to help the bind of the sausage, so that checks. Salt, pepper, yep, that is all normal. Sage and marjoram, that checks but she doesn’t give the ratio on any of this. Going off of my experience 1.5%-2.5% is appropriate for salt content for modern taste pallets. 1.8-2.0% is more my preference. However, I suspect it was made with much higher salt content. In history, I’ve seen roman recipe as high at 10%! This is quite salty and unpalatable, but it would preserve and would likely be shelf stable and hung all year at room temp. However, it would have to be soaked to be used, or added to a large pot of stew and the salt would diffuse.
But I ran with 2% salt and no curing salt #1 (Prague powder #1/Sodium nitrate) to stay true as possible. This prevented me from smoking it due to food safety. I split it 50/50 pork and venison and added in pork fat to balance out the venison. She doesn’t mention the requirement to kneed the mince to make it tacky for a good bind, but you must do that. Kneed until it is sticky that a small ball of mince in your hand clings to your glove.
Substitute Venison for beef. Use a 25% fat ratio, 2.0% salt, 0.25% pepper, 0.25% Sage, 0.25% marjoram. Optional- You must use 0.25% Cure #1 if you are going to smoke it because of anaerobic conditions induces risk of botulism.
I’ve made 9 types of sausage, and I have to say this is a good sausage! I will recommend it. Simple – just salt, pepper, marjoram, sage. It has passed the test of time, 5 centuries!
My leather working has gotten better. I’m now attempting turnshoes, specifically the Jorvic shoe that was excavated in York. Upper is ~4oz leather, soles are ~11oz. For those who believe in proper metric it is 1.6mm upper, 4mm sole. I used VegTan for the sole, which is fine and veg tan for the upper, which is not a good choice. Upper should have a soft temper, chrome tan would be better. Soles, the softer the temper the easier the turning of the turnshoes.
Since I had no one to teach me, I found a excellent online course by Laughing Crow. I recommend it to anyone. http://villagevideo.org/turnshoe/ Which gives you the option to either buy the DVD (meh), stream it online for 4 weeks (I bought this) or stream it online and download the video ( I finally bought this too, because I need to reference it occasionally).
I made a second pair using Elk hide, which technically was nicer than my first pair. However, Elk stretches and that was a big problem, as they no longer fit and are someone dangerous to wear on sloped ground. I may convert them to sandals.
Next pair will be from Buffalo hide. Further, I may teach my a class to my local SCA folks.
Privet is phenomenally invasive here in Austin, Texas. It is in front yards, back yards, and in most of the beltways and walking trails. It is so bad, the city parks have volunteer crews who go out and girdle the larger Privet trees and pull up the new trees. But it is a losing proposition.
I’ve always liked privet wood, as it is the only tree in Central Texas that grows strait rods. I’ve used it to make bows, arrows, hiking sticks. atlatls, and darts for atlatls. I even used it to make a chair. It is a great wood, high energy density for firewood, dense, renewable. It also coppices well, which is a real problem if you want to eradicate it.
But I wanted to figure out if it was any good for basket making. So I tried to use it like willow for wickerwork, but not go, it doesn’t pass the 90 bend test, it breaks. I think because of the large brittle pith center.
But if you treat it like hazel it will make weavers! Just cut a thumb diameter sized strait rod and then cut a v-notch about a hand width from the edge of the butt end. Then bend it over your knee and the weaver will begin to pop off the rod. It will look wrinkly at first, and you may need to use your knife point to help lift it (not cut) up and then you keep bending the rod about 2 inches in front of the weaver crack and it will keep propagating.
I tested this out and used it to finish the rim of a medieval pack basket I made from trumpet vine for Gulf Wars SCA event.
I will definitely be using privet more for basket making!
Note to self- Need to test if a 3 way or 4 way Cleave will work with Privet.
A quest for the uncomputable it seems. I’ve lost 4 hours trying to solve this problem.
I am loading a stock ticker, and the object class is xts/zoo. I thought I’d model the percent rank problem like I did for a simple moving average:
VXX$VXX_30day_SMA<-zoo::rollmean(VXX$VXX.Adjusted, k=30, align="right")
But that didn’t work as there is no roll_perc_rank function. So I went to use rollapply with a function like:
VXX$VXX_vol_22day_pct_rank<-zoo::rollapply(VXX$VXX.Volume, width=22, FUN = percent_rank, align='left', fill = NA)
Which uses the dply::percent_rank function, but that didn’t work.
What finally worked was TTR::runPercentRank
https://www.rdocumentation.org/packages/TTR/versions/0.2/topics/runPercentRank
VXX$VXX_vol_220day_pct_rank<-runPercentRank(VXX$VXX.Volume, n = 220, cumulative = FALSE, exact.multiplier = 0.5)
Since the internet doesn’t have a good page to solve this issue, I wanted to post on it. Be sure to load the TTR library first!