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Friday, July 31, 2015

What Was Good To Eat In Camelot

https://en.wikipedia.org/

You would be astonished at all you could eat in the Dark Ages.  They knew how to cook over an open flame and in their own ovens better than most of us do today.

They had bake houses that were not in each house but in a separate building.  It was low to the ground the floor was of clay, mostly.  Some flint was used and the thickness was about 15 inches.  They used it mostly to bake breads, but on occasion they would roast or bake other things such as cuts of meat and the like.

The meats that they had were fresh because it was what they could catch that day.  Dried meats and fish were common to the inland parts of the country while they caught fresh seafood on the coastal parts.  Some peasants had chicken and pigs and would use the eggs and eat the chickens and the pigs.  It took lots of land, but some did this.  They would also sell their wares and their foods for other things.  It was a bartering society back then and worked well for them.


Wild Boar, Deer, Rabbit, Pheasants, Sheep, Goats, fish were mostly what they hunted and ate.  So that is the reason peasants would raise pigs as their meat.  They did hint for food and gathered berries and other food during the the year. The lords would have feasts, which fed the people but it was also a political move in that it would show the peasants and other territories or villages the power that they had.  You had to be very careful not to hunt or fish on the Lord's land because if you were caught “stealing” from them your hands would be cut off.


There were many fruits and nuts that they gathered from the land.  Apples, chestnuts, blueberries, capers, turnips, kale and cabbage were standard fare.  The grains that were mostly used in their baked goods were wheat, barley and rye.  Some of them had enough land to grow their own grains, but it was a rare commodity in those days.  Reading about all this I found that they used almonds a lot.  They used them as thickeners for soups and stews and they even used almond milk to drink because not many could afford a dairy cow.  I find it funny that this is all the rage today when in the medieval times it was considered standard whereas today dairy milk is the standard.  They used many types of nuts in their recipes.  

https://en.wikipedia.org

Ale was the drink of choice because there was no refrigeration and whatever they drank fresh, from fruits would ferment pretty quickly. They were fine connoisseurs of wine making.  Many fruits and grains were made into Ale, Beers, Wine and the like

How would you like to make things like:

  • Caudell, an ale or frothey wine tyoe drink
  • Roast Pork With Oranges and Onions
  • Hedgehogs Small meat pudding/pies covered with almonds
  • Yalanei Dolmes Rice in Grape leaves

For these and many other recipes that were made in the 5th century and later you can go to the best recipe database there is on the net: Original Medieval Recipes  Have fun trying to cook the way they did back in medieval times.  All the recipes are written with the original game and vegetables they would have used.  You will not find modern day bovine or any of the kind of meat there that we have today. Some have been translated from the language of that time period to modern day for you.  Have fun there!


How They Trained for Battle In The Land Of Camelot

Le Livre de la Chasse: 
Slaying the Boar

(Morgan Library, c. 1407)

In today world they send many young men off to what are called boot camps.  These boot camps train you in how to use a weapon, how to obey your superiors and other warfare tactics in staying alive and doing as you should if you come up to the enemy.  In medieval times in the Land of Camelot they did things way different that we do them today. 

Young men trained dogs.  


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound
They had three different types of dogs.  One was for short distance running, Those would include the Greyhound that we call today.  They were called Deerhound or sighthounds.  Whippets, Afghan Hounds, Borzoi, Irish Wolfhound, Scottish Deer Hound, Slauki and Sloughi would also fit into this category.  They were known for their keen sight and their speed. They could run up to 40 mph and very good at distance running as well.  Imagine keeping up with this dog.




http://dogs.wikia.com/wiki/Labrador_Retriever

Another one that they trained and used were Labrador Retrievers which would flush out the prey and hold until the owner coud get to it.  So these young men would start out training the dogs that would be used for the hunt.  The took breeds with good hunting andskills and rasie them from pups and train them for agility, speed and holding of the prey.  In actuality they were really being train to hunt both for food and for warfare.



Weaponry

http://gallery4share.com/

They also had training in weaponry.  This was elaborate in itself.  They had more weapons and other things they used to bring down the animal they were hunting. They did all the cutting up in the field before they brought it home to cook and eat.

They also made their own weapons they were using so they had to be very good if not almost perfect.  You did not want to go out and try to catch a wild boar and your sword broke.  Wild boars are a ferocious animal and you had to be swift with the kill else they turn back on you and kill you or others.

These same weapons were later used in their battles and wars.  This is how they trained their young men to become soldiers.  It was hard work taking down the huge beast, like wild boar, deer, large fowl and other beasts they found roaming around in the forest outside of the Castle.
They had to have the stamina and the knowledge and wisdom to take these beasts down without getting killed yourself.

They always brought back their kill for the family and villages they lived in.  That was whats for dinner.


They also had ways to get under the fortress walls of the people they were fighting against.  They dug tunnels under them.  They had a whole arsenal of attacking and winning against the opposition.  They learned all this while learning how to hunt for food.




Friday, July 3, 2015

Mostly Ghostly - Its All Relative

My Personal Spiritual Experience With My Grandmother

Emma Mabel (Spiker) Lewis This is my Father's Mother. 
Picture was taken in June 1964.
Some background:
My grandmother and I didn't really have much contact in life due to Family situations beyond my control or comprehension (call it a Family Feud that goes on to this day). Well she passed away when I was 16 and I went to see her while she was in the hospital a week before she died. It took 7 heart attacks in one week until she passed on. We went to her funeral and all that and I didn't have anything to say about it--because I didn't know her all that well--only what I was told and that wasn't a whole heck of a lot. I didn't know that I when I was being watched by her when I was a small baby, somehow I was found in the middle of the street in front of her house. So to the main story...........
Three days after the funeral--I had an experience with her-- it wasn't a dream. She came to me and took me to a street lined with the most beautiful trees that covered the street like a canopy. The trees had yellow flowers all over them (and here is the color yellow again). We talked forever --it seemed like hours.

She told me that she wanted to really get to know me before going away but wasn't able to in this life. I heard that she also came to her youngest son------but when I asked him about these years later he denied it. He is a devout Welsh Baptist and I think they told him he was just dreaming and he just forgot about it. So this was just not my experience but someone else's too that was in the family.
Oh, we didn't have bodies like we do in the life stage here on the Earth----it was more like telepathy. It was also like she was never old like here on Earth. Where we go after the Physical body is no longer useful to us -there is no getting old--we are all the same age.............and I have heard that it is like the age of 35 ---but then the question comes up--how did we get to that age? It also comes to me that when our bodies become unusable we don't just cease to exist.....there are other things we do without a body-and it is awareness and consciousness and thought and movement and life --not death like we never do anything or wait until the next body and there is nothingness----we are continuous.............just maybe that is what we talked about for hours and hours.

It was a wonderful experience that I will never forget. I hold it special to my heart and this is how I remember her--even if others do not. I know that she loved me and even if I don't remember her in this life I will always love her too.



An Encounter With My Husband's Mother


Actually this was two encounters.  She passed away while we were at a Knight's Of Columbus event in Canaan Valley in West Virginia.  At the time she was living in an Assisted living facility with her husband in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.  

She became very ill just days before the first encounter and was told that it would be OK to go ahead and make our trip and not to worry.  When all the festivities ended for the day, my husband went off to be with the guys and talk and do whatever it is the guys do after spending their whole day at the grand meeting.  I decided that I just wanted to go to our hotel room and relax.  It was about 10:30 pm anyway.  So I got into my night shirt and laid on my bed and turned on the TV.  I was just laying there watching the TV and then I looked over at the sink and vanity area and saw my husband's mother standing there in from of the bathroom door.  She never said a word to me or even through telepathy.  She just stood there for about 2 minutes.

When my husband finally came back I had told him this.  He must have asked me three times if she had said anything to me.  She had not.  She just stood there looking at me.

The second time that I had an encounter with her was at her funeral.  When you walked into the funeral room where she was laid in her casket the picture of her was on the right and there were only a few chairs against that wall.  On the right were two sets of rows of chairs for the people to sit and converse with. Between them and the other set of chairs there was an isle.  On the other wall in back there was a room.  I saw a man standing in the isle.  I never saw him before and I kept asking everyone who he was.  Nobody else saw him.  I explained to them that he had fuzzy hair and it was parted in the middle.  Nobody knew who this man was.  He was standing there looking at my husband's mother.  It was so odd that nobody knew who or what I was talking about or seeing. He was as real as you and I and everyone else that was in the room.

A few days later when we had come home I found lots of pictures of my husband's family.  I saw the picture of the man that I saw at the funeral. I have that picture but it is so fragile that I do not even venture to scan it and post it here.  I asked my husband who the man was.  He told me that it was his mother's father.  I never knew him and he passed away many years before I ever met my husband.  I had to call my husband's older sister and tell her who it was that I saw.  Her father was there waiting to take her home.  

When it was my turn to go to her casket, I told her that I loved her and that I just wish that we had more time to get to know each other.  I do believe that we never really perish and stop living.  I do believe that we have soul groups and soul families here and on the other plane and maybe our next incarnations it will be a time that we both are in the same one and learn about each other then.



How Long Did You Wait

After my divorce and swearing off of men for seven years I was told to get out of the house...by a psychic no less.  It was near Valentines Day and I was at my wit's end.  I had a very ad experience and then a good encounter as I think that I had somewhat of a nervous breakdown and that story is:

Anyway I was told to get out of the house, even it it was going to the grocery store, but I had to get out of the house or something bad was going to happen.  That kind of got me looking for places to go.  I knew nobody here.  I was in school and I had a full time job at the same time.  My daughter was living with me at the time too.  So where was I going to find the time to go out and socialize?!  Anyway I felt that I was being guided.  I always feel that I am guided.  This time I just so happened to look in the newspaper and there was a Valentine's Dance being held for the singles crowd.  I called the phone number and got all the details of where and were and all that.  I have never done anything like that.  Anyway, on the night of the dance I did get dressed up and my daughter was proud of me and encouraging me.  

I get there and meet the DJ.  Things progressed with him and then I found out he was married....grrr off of men I thought again.  Anyway he did encourage me to come back and he hooked me up with another guy at the dance.  *Just a note...the DJ's last name was Alan.  The guy that I danced with and met and gave my phone number too and dated for a while...his last name was also Allen.  My previous married name was Anderson.  Get the drift with the "A"?  After the first dance and I gave him my phone number.  I didn't think that he would really call me back. The next dance he told me that he did not have a job but that he was in college getting trained for a new kind of career.  He had moved here for another job, but that failed a few months later too and so he was in college to learn something new.  I said, OK.  I don't know what I was thinking or doing.  I think that I saw his determination an d not giving up.  A few months later I asked him, "How Long Did You Wait for Me?"  It was as if I had already knew him and that we would go through some learning experiences together.  Our paths never crossed though and I did not understand this feeling that I was having, but, but we are still together after 17 years.  Oh we have gone through some really rough times and counseling and all that, but I still think we are to be together as I know that we were waiting on each other.  Strange, but true.


More to come...................

Mostly Ghostly - Laced With History

Time Shifts



Time Shift Number 1:
The woods along the ravine 2014
At the time that this happened I was living in the house that I live in now.  Though things were settling down from being remodeled and my desk was a door that was sitting on top of two small filing cabinets that faced the northwest window.  Out this window I also saw some other things through my mind's eye.  For now though this is yet another strange experience that I had.  While I was typing on the computer I started seeing these comet-like silver balls moving through the air in front of me.  I thought that I was at the computer too long and wiped my eyes, closed them for a few minutes and opened them back up again.  Those things were still there and still moving.  I was not on any drugs or had taken anything and I certainly do not drink any alcohol, but this was really weird. 
After watching them for a few minutes the room began to move and I had to hold onto the desk for a few minutes until the room stopped moving.  It was not spinning, it was more like moving on a bus or more like a train.  Then it just stopped as if nothing happened.  I don't know what was up with that either.

Time Shift Number 2:
Another time shift was when I was looking out of my front porch.  Then I began to feel slightly dizzy and I had to hold onto the banister of the deck.  Things were moving around.  I mean the trees of this forest were moving and then the next thing that I saw was a completely different forest.  The trees were very tall and there were not bottom branches and the forest floor was clean of any underbrush.  The ground was black and smooth.  The trees were spaced out about 10 feet from each other, but not in a straight line like rows of vegetables.  This lasted about 10 minutes and then I blinked and everything was the same as it was before.  Strange and spooky too.

The Indian Massacre I Witnessed


I "saw" part of an Indian Massacre

While sitting at my computer, looking out my window, I saw two small children playing outside in the woods. They looked to be about 3 and 5 years old. The oldest one was a boy and the youngest a girl. I thought they were real and went out to ask them who they were and to find out where they lived. When I got to that side of my house there was nothing there. So I went back inside to continue doing my work.

The next day I saw them again. They were running around and playing like children do. This happened for a few days and I started to just shrug it off. I wondered why they were still here and where there parents were.

I have seen apparitions and ghosts many times while living in this house.  There is so much Civil War history here and so much division and sadness that came along with the war.  This story was before the Civil War though. It was during the French and Indian War around the 1800's.  I began to wonder who these small children were and started to do some research about my area.

Some days I would sit at my computer and I would get light-headed and had to hold on to my desk top because it felt as if I was going to fall on the floor. They were like I told you in the Time Shifts experiences. After the light-headedness faded, I would see them playing again.  The woods didn't look like they did before the episode. There were less trees then the present. I was transported to their time but was only as an observer of the things that were happening.

While the children were running in the forest I saw Indians all around. Those Indians were killing all the adults and these two children didn't have a clue as to what was going on. That is why there were playing alone and running and chasing each other and having fun like children do.

As I watched even longer I saw the most horrific thing I have ever seen. As the children were playing and running an Indian on horseback rode up behind them and cut off their heads from behind. It was so quick and the Indian was so precise with his blow that those children didn't know and so they just kept running around playing their games they were playing.

Using telepathy I was finally able to speak to them. I told them that they had died and that their parent's were waiting for them.  I told them they would see a bright light and to go towards it. At first they didn't know what I was trying to tell them. It took about three times before they realized what had happened to them. They finally left and went towards the bright light and reunited with their parents.


When my husband's family came to visit us one weekend, they decided that they wanted to stay at the Bed and Breakfast that was in Gerrardstown. We live up over the mountain, but it is still considered Gerrardstown. It had a history of Indian Raids. They didn't like the White Man from taking over their hunting areas. In one of the earlier massacre which happened in the early 1800's the Indians did come to the area and killed all the women and children and they scalped the men.  So my "viewing" was founded on truth.  There were a total of 7 Indian Tribes that congregated in this area and Mills Gap was known as the gateway to the west. Some of the tribes that used the valley as hunting grounds and fought the white man from colonizing the area were the Shawnee, Iroquois, Occoneechee, Monocans and Piscataways.

Mostly Ghostly Strange and Weird

Two Girls In A Black Dress

While we were living down in Florida We saw lots of ghosts and weird things. This is another one that both my daughters and I saw only they saw one girl and I saw the other. That will be explained later.

During daylight hours in about a 3 month span of time I would be sitting in the living room or the dining room. The rooms were a great room and the dining room was near the large front window and the front door. They faced the street and the window was large enough that you could see the driveway and the neighbor’s house on the opposite corner of the road though we weren't the corner house. Along the front of the house was a cement porch and you could see the whole length from the window too.

One day I saw a girl with long black hair and a long dress with long sleeves walk across our porch. When she came to the door I opened it and there was no one there. I thought some neighbor kids were playing jokes on me. That wasn't out of the ordinary. So I just ignored it.

The very next day I saw the same girl again walk across the front porch and this time I didn't go to the door. I wanted them to knock a few times first. Well she got to the door and no knocking. I didn't see her leave either.

A few days later when my daughters were with me they saw her too and just asked me who she was. I didn't have a clue as to who she was. I assumed they saw the same girl.

Another day goes by and she comes to the door again and nothing. Now we know she is a ghost and not a real person. After a few weeks we didn't see her again. We just thought that she had gotten killed in an accident and was on her way home. It was then when we had discussed what we had seen that my daughter's saw a girl with short black hair and the long dress had short sleeves and she looked the same as the girl that I saw.

So they were twins who got killed in an accident or something on the way from home. The apparently didn't realize that they were killed and their spirits were still on the way home like they did probably a thousand times before. We don't know why they never made it through the front door though.
We can't piece the events or people to the story since we really didn't know anything about the area or who might have lived in the house that we were renting at the time.

There is another strange thing that happened in that house and it is really weird.

"Seeing" My Husband Come Home


Yeah this doesn't sound strange by the title but you will agree with me when I tell you it is creepy. We lived in Deltona, Florida and my husband worked in Orlando, Florida at the time.
My husband worked about an hour from home and he would come home at about the same time every day.  Nothing was out of the ordinary with that.

Only this day it was out of the ordinary.  It was about 2 hours before my husband would get home and I was thinking of something to cook for dinner.  The girls were in their rooms doing homework.  I was just gazing out of the window that looks out onto the front yard and into the street, which was named Kimberly Drive.  Looking to the left I saw our car in the driveway. I was thinking that something was wrong because he is never home at that time of the day.  I got up and started to walk to the window in the kitchen that also looked out at the same area but was closer to the driveway.  By then he was already out of the car and walking up the driveway and I watched him step up on the porch.  I kept taking double-takes and he looked as real as can be.  I have had some other ghostly encounters there as well and they were a bit unnerving to say the least.  He wasn't translucent like some ghosts are.  So I hurried up to get dinner started.  I pulled out the items to cook and then was waiting for him to open the front door.  Well I looked around and he wasn't there and neither was the car in the driveway. Sometimes I will get visions of things and then I will get strange feelings and so to be on the safe side and know went to start preparing dinner, I called his work and found that he hadn't even left work yet.  Talk about weird and creepy.  

To this day I have no idea what that was.


Strange Creatures Come To Visit My Daughter


When my daughter was about 9 years old and we lived in Deltona, Florida I was seeing some really strange things.  It all started when her attitude was changing into a very nice and lovely girl to one of defiance and a bit of showing off her body.  She was not like that before.  She would also lie many times.  I understand that when they hit their teen years that the do go through a stage of independence, but she was not even 12 years old at the time.  So that was not it at all.  

During the night, after the girls would be in bed and sound asleep, I would sit in my living room and see these creatures going from my back yard and passing through the walls into the girls bedroom.  They would go straight to my daughter.  These creatures looked like to be half wolf and half human.  The top would be the wolf and the bottom half the human.It was a bit weird and at first I thought that I was just having an active imagination until my neighbor across the street mentioned these things that she has also seen.  So I started to pay attention to these creatures more and more.  

While I we were living in Florida I had found that the whole are was filled with ghosts from the past and other strange things.  Lake Helen was only about 15 minutes from where we lived in Deltona.  The biggest thing was that Cassadaga was also within 1/2 hour of our house.  Cassadaga was established in 1894.  It is the Spiritualist capital of the world.  More than 24 psychics, mediums and other spiritual people live and work there. So having these paranormal experiences was not a new thing, just new to me.  That was back in the 1980's and it have changed since then with New Agers and even some Religious groups living in the area. 

I was told how to get rid of them, but I do not, to this day think that I really got rid of them totally.  I was told to imagine a fire and using the fire to cleanse her room and all the the yard around our house and even into the house itself.  I did do this a few times and thought hat it was a done deal.  Years later after her father and I divorced she became a very angry girl.  She would be very manipulative and if I said anything to help her out I was and am still being lied about and to.  She is an adult now and some things still do not make sense as to her thoughts and actions towards me and I think it has spilled over to her sister as well.

Past Life Regression

I did have a past life regression and still have it on cassette tape somewhere.  I remember a good part of it.  At first when I was being taken down to the state where I was to see things but not have any emotional parts of them I felt that it was all fake.  I am still not sure if it was completely me or something else like the power of suggestion.  I do understand about that POWER of suggestion.  I call it planting seeds though and you just let the suggestion go and whatever the person that you plant the seed is up to them.  I have had some good results from this and also some backfires.  That is why you just give them the gift and let it go.

The first think that I remember fro my past life regression was being a Viking and on a big ship and crossing the ocean.  I was a female in this one and have been a female in all of the three that I remember.  I was in a high office or position in that life.  That was all that I can remember of that one.

The next one was I was in the UK, most likely Wales,  I was also a princess in this life.  I was also sexually assaulted in that life.  I remember running through meadows full of white and yellow flowers and I was about 12 years old at that time.  

The last one was that I was a young adult.  I was a very poor person and I lived on the streets.  I remember wearing gloves that had no finger tips on them.  I also remember that I would go to peoples homes in their back doors where they would give me food to eat.  I also remember how cold it was.  I don't remember anymore of these.


Light of Awareness


It is kind of hard for me to explain these events or happenings.  Every once in a while I would see a light, about the size of a small flashlight, up in the corner of the room and out of the corner of my eye.  If I look straight at it I will not see it.  These seem to happen before something that I am to become more aware of or am going to go through.  They never come when something easy or good is to happen.  They seem to show up just before I am to go through some kind of learning process.  I still get these off and one and it matters not where I live.  

There is another anomaly that has happen too while I lived in Florida and only at that time for some odd reason.  I would see something like a starfish but the ends of the points would be rotating in different colors.  Those would be good tings that are to come.  

I also saw a black starfish type shape and it only came around twice and both times I told it to go away.  After the second time it never came back.  

A Voice


I have heard a voice call my name a few times.  This voice was not of anyone that was around me.  Each time that I hear or have heard it, within six months I would make a move to someplace else.  The last time that I heard this was when I was married to my first husband.  It was early morning around dusk and everyone in the house was sound asleep.  Even the dogs and cats were still sleeping.  Well I heard this voice call my name.  The voice wasn't male nor was it female.  It was just a voice and it only said "Debbie".  I looked around and I was the only one that was awake.  I think it said my name three times and I think it was to make sure that I wasn't hearing it come from anyone in my house at the time.  As the time before, we did move within 6 months that I heard the voice.  Now these moves are not what you would call a smooth move because there was much change then just moving to a new house. They tend to spook me these things.  I have not hear them for a very long time now and that is fine with me.

The first time that I remember was like a knowing.  I was told that I would be married and not in the traditional way.  I fought that, but it came true anyway.  That story is on one of my other blogs here: My First Soul Contract, They Could Not Wait

The second time was when we were living in an apartment and I was told that we would live in a house.  We could barley afford to live in the apartment, much less a house at the time.  We had two babies and I babysit 5 other children.  My last pregnancy was hell.  I mean hell!  Morning sickness was constant throughout my whole pregnancy, I was on Bendictine and had to quit babysitting and was on complete bed rest.  

Low and behold six months later we were living in a house.  It was rent to own and was very large.  We were there for a couple of years and then a disaster happened and we had to move out, but we had bought a new house and we were building it ourselves....in another state.  I did not get that voice then, but when we were going to be moving to Florida, I did get that voice.  

That move was not the best move and there were lots of complications surrounding it.  That was the last time that I have heard the Voice call my name.  My husband got a transfer and he went down there to get a house, which was a rental.  His company even paid for the movers.  We had to give away most of our pets and animals.  I loved the house and we had just got a garden going good.  We get down there and all moved in and my husband's company laid him off.  So we both took temp jobs cleaning up debris from building sites.  We eventually got settled and the kids in school and my husband did get a great job.  We ended up getting a divorce down there and well that is another story and no real paranormal with that one, until I met my current husband.  I will put that story in my other blog: