Other Camp Related Items

Now that we had our clothing and our tent, we needed to get all the other everyday stuff that was needed for in camp. We needed stuff for inside the tent (which luckily didn't have to be period as long as the tent was closed during the day) and stuff that we could use outside the tent (which did have to be period or as close as we could get). The first thing I started with was stuff to eat with.

Bowls and Plates
First off we needed something to eat off of. I asked around for a bit about what would be the best thing to use and it was suggested that plain metal bowls and plates would be fine. They would have used pewter ones I believe (I think I will research this more), but the pewter bowls were pretty expensive so I just went with plain stainless steel. I ordered the bowls at Townsend, but I decided to hold off on the plates. They weren't too too expensive, but I really just didn't want to spend the money at that point. We were fine with the bowls, the only time I had wished we could have had a plate was when we had corn on the cob, other than that the bowls worked great.

Utensils
I did a little research on utensils of the time, and it seemed that the general consensus is that they would have used a spoon made out of horn and a knife. Again I didn't want to invest a lot of money here, so after some suggestions from another member, I headed down to Wal-Mart and just picked up the plainest stainless steel spoons and forks I could find. They have no design on them at all. Although they could have had a small design, I went with plain because I couldn't find any others without roses or something. I could not find plain knives so we went without for a while until I bought a kitchen knife from a Sutler at one of the events.

Cups
We ended up buying 3 mugs at Fort 4. They are earthenware mugs with a white glaze and a blue design on them. They are the perfect size to have around. I haven't done a lot of research into what they would have used at the time, but I figure these are good enough for now.

Seating
Another big thing we needed was seating. This was a little bit harder to acquire. I was looking for plain colored canvas seats at Wal-Mart to use, but they only had small ones. We did get one of those for Kolby, but they were way too small for Kris and I to use. We tried to buy seats at a few events, but the Sutlers always seemed to be out by the time we got there. I was able to find a plain box that we kept under the dining fly, it held all of our stuff for the day, which was really nice to keep everything under control and the even better part was that it could double as seating. I was finally able to find a chair at one of the Sutlers, so I bought one for myself. So Kolby has his canvas seat, I have a wooden chair and Kris can use the box since he is in the camp the least.

Inside the Tent
We obviously needed to be able to sleep inside of our tent. Most people do not make the inside of the tent period by any means. Some do, and I think I would like to someday, but for now it was easier to just use what we had already. We did buy a tarp to go under everything so we wouldn't get wet if it rained. Then we used an air mattress that we already had around from when we went camping in the past. We just brought our regular pillows and blankets to sleep on the mattress with. For Kolby we have a mat that rolls out and he sleeps on that with his regular pillows and blankets as well. We also have a rubbermaid chest that we use to keep all of our clothing in. That's pretty much all we keep in our tent. We actually always forgot to bring our flashlight, but that would have been a good thing to have too.

Believe me yours faithfully,
Rachel