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Messages - Dark Art

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1
Off-topic / Re: Be ready
« on: April 12, 2024, 06:37:33 AM »
Indeed, JP_Finn, I guess if one sticks around a forum for long enough, some personal info will be known out there :) Born, raised and schooled in Ukraine, family moved to Toronto in 1996 and I've been actively living and working in both countries from late 2000s or thereabouts.

2
Off-topic / Re: Be ready
« on: April 07, 2024, 02:00:32 AM »
Another cruel and bloody year goes by and still we stand, so I might as well keep the post going. Its funny... Sometimes priorities change so dramatically that its completely unpredictable. if someone told me that my major life goal would be to visit a family cemetery and be able to pay my respects to those who went before me, I probably wouldnt conciser that person fully sane. And yet here we are... 

Learn from our mistakes good people of the world. Learn and never, ever let your guard down. Dont let yourself get complacent, this world is full of evil. Be always ready to defend your home and your loved ones. You can always buy new things, new stuff... But if you lose a relative, the only place to visit him or her would be a family cemetery. And that would be if you are lucky and your family nest wouldnt be in occupied territory.

Please be ready. Always be ready yourself and teach your kids.

3
Off-topic / Re: Be ready
« on: April 04, 2023, 05:22:06 PM »
Almost a year later.... Well...

My very sincere congratulations on getting into NATO. Well done guys. Really. I wish we had the same chance. No matter, we will get there.

4
Off-topic / Be ready
« on: April 24, 2022, 07:23:41 PM »
To all my dear friends in Finland - be ready. Rabid orc is on the loose and you guys are not part of NATO. Threats are being made again and I am sure some of you are taking them seriously, but please be ready.

Yes, we are bleeding rabid orc. Yes, Ukraine WILL stand, but there are quite a lot of them and they have been amassing weapons for last 30+ years. I know that its rather low possibility that the hordes will attack you at this moment, but its not impossible. Be ready.

To all youngsters who might think its just a "thing" and will pass, let me leave you with this wonderful song. Have a listen and make your own conclusions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmb0SeKFrHg

--
Слава Україні! Смерть ворогам!

5
I just had to go there to read up some of the old stuff - I vaguely recall that after one of my first posts Erkka almost chased me away because we misunderstood eah other about something. Too bad I couldnt find that conversation - would've been fun to see what were we arguing about :)

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General Discussion / Re: Tree sap/syrup in spring?
« on: April 11, 2021, 08:57:17 AM »
Ah! So you guys did make springsap syrup! Its only logical that people did that. Like I said, sugars werent very common and it takes very little effort to spike several trees and collect a dozen or so buckets of sap. Yields might not be super high, but hey, there is plenty of raw sap to go around, so why not? Especially if you take into the account that spring has almost no agricultural work and generally low stocks of food prepared from the harvest.

Speaking of sugars, how commonplace were apiaries, honey and mead in general?

8
General Discussion / Re: Tree sap/syrup in spring?
« on: April 09, 2021, 06:21:47 AM »
Ugh.... If maple syrup would be any sweeter, it would no longer be food, but rather an industrial glue.. I get what you saying, but seriously, it almost too sweet as it is. But thats personal opinion, what matters more is the fact that if you'd bump sugar %, then (I think) it would start condensing and eventually transform the syrup into a moist lump.

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General Discussion / Re: Tree sap/syrup in spring?
« on: April 07, 2021, 10:26:59 PM »
Interesting. Are you sure about those numbers? Like I said, I not an expert in this - never done it myself, only saw my neighbors do it. From what I recall, they used mostly birch and cherry sap since there was plenty of those trees around, but they tapped other trees in their garden like walnut and apple. 86:1 sounds extremely high ratio to be bothered with, so its either their syrup wasnt as sugary as the ones you can buy today in a store, or maybe other trees had much, much higher sugar content that birch (I kinda doubt that). Or maybe your numbers are off? In any case, its an interesting topic and I think that springsap was rather important, since the spring is usually the time when the stores are low and variety is rather bleak. So a source of fresh "mineral water" would've been quite welcome I think.

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General Discussion / Re: Tree sap/syrup in spring?
« on: April 07, 2021, 07:49:40 PM »
I think none of the conifers would do, nor something like an oak or any other tree with high tannin content in its bark, but yeah, I think quite a few would be fine to some point. In regards to practicality I honestly have no idea. I think the whole thing is rather impractical - you literally need buckets of raw sap in order to get anywhere. Dont know the exact proportions, but I think it might be something like 30:1, or even 40:1. So yeah, its impractical, but still very tasty :)

11
General Discussion / Re: Tree sap/syrup in spring?
« on: April 07, 2021, 12:06:27 AM »
Try it, its very very easy, just time and fuel consuming (takes a while and you need quite a bit of raw sap). The trick is to collect it at the right time - ideally, it must be below freezing at night and above freezing at daytime. There is no real harm to the tree, as long as you do it cleanly and once finished, close the spot with tar. As kids we've drank birch sap mostly as is, but I know for a fact that some folks did boil it down to a syrup-like state. Birch or cherry are not as aromatic as maple, but its still pretty sweet and quite tasty in a pie or even on its own.

12
General Discussion / Tree sap/syrup in spring?
« on: April 05, 2021, 07:43:54 AM »
Just wondering if you guys do this kind of thing in Finland? It used to be quite a bit deal back in the days since its possible to collect spring sap from almost any fruit bearing tree, maple, walnut or even birch and boil it down to a thick, sweet syrup that has a very good shell life. Given the fact that sugar in general was quite pricey and very scares resource, methinks that springsap gathering would be something most of people wouldnt miss if it could be helped.

13
General Discussion / Re: crashes
« on: March 07, 2021, 09:33:30 AM »
In there.

14
General Discussion / Re: crashes
« on: March 07, 2021, 01:25:12 AM »
Dude, if you really want some assistance, you might want to be as descriptive as possible - communicating in "yes" and "no" isnt gonna get you very far. I am not a dev, but as far as I recall, there were some pretty detailed logs in the game dir, so you might wanna look them up, see if there is anything amiss and post any weirdness here for devs to have a look at.

15
Suggestions / Re: Fence as drying rack
« on: February 24, 2021, 07:56:32 AM »
Well... I gotta thank you for putting me up to this. If nothing else, its been a few very interesting days, full of remembering a LOT of things and connecting with some folks I havent talked in quite some time:) All in all, I did learn the recipe and the way the meat was stored long term. Here is goes:

Beat up and roll out the strips of completely fat and any membrane free meat into 2.5-3 finger's wide strips and make them as thin as possible. Try not to rip them too much - the stuff gotta be placed as flat as possible on as wide as possible area. The best meats are those that are quite lean to begin with - chiken, beef, rabbit etc. Pork is not advisable. Perfectly doable, but you really gotta know what you are doing, otherwise it may not be safe.

So far nothing new to what I said earlier. One interesting thing that was mentioned several times is this - if grandma wasnt too sure about the weather's conditions, she used to soak a woolen mitten and place it in the morning on the rack. If it was completely dry by supper, the weather was good enough for drying meat.

The interesting part is how they stored it. Once the meat was dried (strips are completely dry, snap and crumble in your hand like a potato chips would), they'd crumble the strips into a fingernail size flakes, pack them into clay jars (something like this one - http://kod-ua.com.ua/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/%D0%93%D0%9B%D0%95%D0%A7%D0%98%D0%9A-3-%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0.jpg), leaving about two finger's space in on top of the jar. The empty space would be filled with dry hay, usually from rye, then sealed with about a finger's thick layer of tallow, covered with a cloth cap and then closed with the jar's lid. Aparently, this way the meat would sit in the earthen cellar as long as you'd like, but no one really remembered it being there for longer than about half a year. Probably would be ok longer, but everyone agreed that by mid spring, the meat that was prepared in the summer was gone, or just about gone.

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