Could You have Survived 18 Century Life ?

[Nyboy]

I remember reading wax candles and soap where things out of reach financially for most folks. Light and smelling good where for the wealthy .

 

[baymule]

Light and smelling good were for the wealthy.

Well we'd sure be a bunch of stinky poor folks! LOL

 

[Beekissed]

Last night I went to the country house. We had a very bad lighting storm and lost power. It was a hot humid night, i had plenty of candles. With no ac and many lite candles I started sweating badly. I lasted 2 hours before I got in car and drove back to city. Some how I don't think I would have lasted long back in the day!!!!!!!!!!! What about you?

Yep. Been there, done that and am prepared to do it again at any time. Lived off grid~not in the nice yuppy way with solar panels and ram pumps for easy utilities~for many years and did just fine. The power still goes off here frequently, so we keep our outhouse for the necessities and we keep water drawn up at all times, have kerosene lamps, etc.

Don't have TV, A/C and such anyway, so it's not much different than we live all the time anyway.

Next time, if you have any water on hand at all, soak your clothes in it, put them back on and the evaporation can give you some level of coolness.

The horrid boredom is what would do me in.
Days are terribly long, even when I garden, still a lot of dead/down time of nothingness.
We get a lot of no net/tv and it's hell. I just have nothing to do.
Nights are cold or cool, I'll sleep on the floor if need be, no issue.
It's the bugs I hate at night.

No such thing as boredom back then...you'd be so busy scrapping a livin' that you wouldn't have time to get bored! Days were filled with the activity of growing, foraging and preserving food and gathering fuel and you'd be so tired each night you'd go straight to bed. No time for getting bored.

 

[Nyboy]

On well water, power goes out no pump, no water. That is one good thing about being on city water, power failure you still have cold water.

 

[so lucky]

We are on county water so that's always worked in power outages. Also, we have a gas water heater, so we can always take a hot shower. That was wonderful a few winters ago when an ice storm cut our power for nearly a week.
@Beekissed, being hot on the outside is one thing, but I don't see how you could be totally without air conditioning if you were one of the many women who have hot flashes for 12 or more years. That's just burning up from the inside out.

 

[Beekissed]

Yeah...both Mom and I have hot flashes. We have fans and a wet wash cloth for those times. Drinking ice water helps as well.

 

[secuono]

Doing the same thing over n over is mind melting boredom. Having something physical to do doesn't mean you aren't mentally bored.

 

[Beekissed]

I guess that depends on how you look at things. Some folks would consider homesteading boring because it's not something they like to do, while others would find it holds huge variety each day where one never does the same activity in exactly the same way, or sees the same things around them as they did the day, week or season before. It's constantly changing, with new challenges to overcome that occupy both the mind and body as the weather, the crops, and the animals and people are never truly the same day after day, year after year.

Just depends on how one approaches that kind of life. Some folks use the challenges to create and invent innovative ways to do the same old things so that they are done more expeditiously. Some love the sameness and develop routines that never change because they don't like having to think about things. Survival back then depended on both change and sameness in order to survive, so those surviving best were those who used both body and mind to overcome the challenges present in that day.

 

[so lucky]

Then, as now, adaptability is the key. There's a whole branch of psychology about how being able to adapt to change, having coping skills, makes you happier and feel more in control.
But, how do you teach coping skills? Kinda hard.

 

[Beekissed]

Not hard to teach, as those are mostly learned by doing or by example, but I think one is born receptive to such things or they are not. Those that are not, back in those days, didn't last long to procreate a new generation.

I think a lot of it comes down to "have to". If you simply HAVE TO, you do. If you have other options, some prefer to not make themselves learn the coping skills for things. In the end, it's all a matter of what you WILL do and what you WILL NOT do, not can or cannot.

Like butchering animals for food. Many, many will claim they simply cannot do it...not will not..CAN not. Some will claim they pass out when they try or they just cannot make themselves do it. But, if truly hungry and all that stood between them and dying was killing that animal, I'm convinced that not only could they do it but they would rend it with their bare hands. They might even faint, but I'm betting they will get up when they come to and go back to trying to procure that next meal.