Greetings, I am Margaret and I am a sculptor in limestone, and a story teller. I especially tell stories about my local New Zealand history and I also enjoy telling stories about the Orkneys. My father, David Costie was born in the little island of Westray and I am lucky enough to have visited the Orkneys 5 times over the years. My first query for the group to respond to is, I would like to know if there is a name for a teller of stories in Orkadian or Norn dialect? Margaret

The water sport mentioned would have been octopush. It's a sort of underwater hockey. It's been played in Orkney for a number of years now, and there are a lot of Orcadian players in both the mens and women's British teams going to the World Championships in New Zealand this year. http://orkneyoctopush.tripod.com/ Fiona Orkney

> In August, I brought home (to Virginia, USA) a 1.5kg bag of Bere Meal from Barony Mills in Birsay. I have yet to make bere bannocks because I don't know where to buy lard. I bought some Crisco (3 one-cup sticks). Will this work? I have a recipe that the kind man at the mill gave me. Apparently, the mill is closed in the winter as the sign was taken down and it looked deserted when I was in Birsay in December. > Peggy B. I'm not sure where you got a recipe that uses lard, but here's the recipe from Barony Mills itself (this is the recipe I use): Orkney Bere Bannocks 2 c. of Birsay beremeal 1 c. of plain flour 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. cream of tartar salt (if desired) Mix thoroughly, add milk, water or buttermilk to make a stiff but soft dough, roll out on a floured (mixture of flour and beremeal) board to form the bannocks (this will make 2 or 3), then cook on a hot, ungreased girdle 5 minutes or so each side until both sides are browned and the middle is cooked. Practice will make perfect. Consume with copious amounts of ale (plus plenty of Orkney butter and cheese.) Fiona Orkney

Netball - basketball played by women. Water sport - possibly water polo. A quick search on Google will pull up the rules for both sports. Bruce Fletcher, Scarborough, Yorkshire --- KJEMEM@aol.com wrote: > Orkney radio has given scores for a sport called > "Net Ball" or "Netball." > Could anyone enlighten me as to what this game is? > I thought perhaps it could > be another name for basketball, (like football is > soccer....) but they went on > to mention basketball as a separate entity. There > was also a water sport > mentioned on a broadcast a week or so ago that I > hadn't heard of, and actually I > can't remember the name now. Perhaps one of you > know what that was too. I > still trying to figure out how to follow a rugby > game, but I might as well learn > about a few more while I'm at it. > > Karen in Memphis > > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send > an e-mail with the word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to > orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com > ===== Regards, Bruce Fletcher, Scarborough, Yorkshire, UK http://uk.geocities.com/ricardian@btinternet.com/ http://www.caytonwitheastfield.btinternet.co.uk

Hello: When I see the way people litter, it makes me very frustrated. But in particular, in Canada, there is a stream of trash of junkfood wrappers etc. that lead from every school to the nearest convenience store. Makes me wonder what we are teaching kids in school. Certainly not anything meaningful about fundamental environmentalism. thanks.....Steve On Tuesday, January 20, 2004, at 11:46 AM, Janis Counsell wrote: > I cannot disagree with anything you say Steve, but it should be on a > global > scale surely. I find Orkney a very clean and tidy place and they do > recycle! > The worst place I have encountered for litter is our capital, London, > it is > a disgrace! > Janis > Lancashire > (avid recycler and owner of organic garden) > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "stephen davie" <stephen.davie@sympatico.ca> > To: <ORCADIA-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 6:41 PM > Subject: [<orcadia>] Orkney Environmental Protection and the Kirkwall > Dump > > >> I was wondering just how the bureaucrats in Orkney have organized >> their >> mandate to protect Orkney from the world's man-made assaults on >> nature...items such as waste disposal, re-cycling, sewage waste >> handling, and air quality protection, as well as ground water and sea >> water issues. >> >> From what I read, it seems that the population was in the order of >> 30,000 back when in the 1700's a lot of young chaps decided to chase >> beaver in Canada or kangaroos down under in Australia. So the >> population shrunk, which is a blessing for the environment, so it >> seems, initially. >> >> Then of course the Nazis decided to demolish and devour the British >> Isles, in an effort to relieve Winston Churchill of his cigars. I >> assume in Orkney there is still a lot of wartime rubbish, be they >> buildings or scrap metal or other structures, that never perhaps were >> dismantled and removed, laying and speaking forever of a Germany >> despised by every human being capable of human love. ( If WW2 scrap >> remains on Orkney, perhaps the cleanup bill should go to Germany. That >> would make as much sense as the Allies rebuilding Germany after the >> war ended. They(nazis) were never tried or fined for the damage they >> caused to the environment at sea and on land). I personally think >> abandoned military defense implants make crappy tourist attractions. >> >> I saw on a map outside Kirkwall, too close to Grimbister, a shot of >> their landfill site, or otherwise "bury and forget" dumpsite. It >> shocked me to the bone. It left me, for example, wondering if >> re-cycling exists and to what extent. How about ground water >> management >> and fresh water source management and identification? Household sewage >> is another. And where does the resultant sludge go from the sewage >> treatment plants associated with towns? Is that poison sprayed on >> farms >> for "fertilizer", or chucked onto the sea for the fish to choke on >> like in other places? >> >> Health and the environment become fascinating intrinsic topics when >> studied. Over here, people are afraid to eat beef because of Mad Cow >> Disease and the unknown impact of hormones and all he drugs jammed >> into >> bovine species , as well as the curious things the animals are fed. >> Lately, salmon are abandoned across Canada (Jan 2004) as it has been >> determined that farmed salmon are fed daily with things that render >> their flesh, as recently studied, toxic. Chickens are raised in six >> and >> a half weeks, hatched to shrink-wrapped packaging, in barns where >> they >> are deprived of sex, medicated and fed forcibly, and never see the >> light of day or walk on the ground. The packaged boneless breasts are >> transparent in their delightful point of purchase plastic dinner >> jackets unlike organic chicken which has colour. Vegetable garden >> farmers are in a chemical war worse than the trenches of world war one >> for their damage to humans.To grow an onion in the huge marshes north >> of Toronto, you start by depositing a chemical foot-rot inhibitor in >> the trench. Then you proceed chemical by chemical with daily and >> weekly >> manmade crop showers-- a variety and visual spectacle visible from >> the >> highway, featuring soaked- in chemicals selected by the "experts" who >> chuck out one "bad" chemical each year or so, and replace it with >> three >> others to protect our health, or the image of our elected folks, >> depending how one thinks, (if one thinks at all). >> >> Every Canadian family in the growth areas, has a relative or friend >> that has died or is dying of cancer. Healthy Economic Progress....... >> Big money influence, from the meat and produce in final form, back to >> the genetically altered seeds that produced them, be they flesh or be >> they plant. The cancer epidemic is downplayed as if it is as old as >> salt, with a date in the future where it will no longer exist. The >> food-chain poisoning goes on. Producers produce the flawed products, >> consumers buy them and consume them, and the government collects the >> taxes thereon at every bend in the road, from initial sales taxes on >> input items of the grower, to every piece of his equipment, land and >> buildings, through a similar process with the wholesalers and >> retailers >> and consumers. It doesn't have to be this way, but this is the route >> of >> shortcuts to profit and tax, desired by all the provider groups. The >> consumer's only flaw is trust....blind stupid trust. >> >> >> Orkney;s opportunity sprouts from the fact that all the pressures of >> growth and population expansion have escaped those wonderful islands >> for the most part. Aside from the threat of an oil spill as occurred >> in >> Spain and Alaska, there is no real imminent threat save as to normal >> localized "living" issues such a sewage, farming and water and air. >> Wind generated power seems a logical Orkney option. Bans on unfriendly >> packaging would be easy to control on islands. Farming practices could >> be more organic than perhaps they are. Sewage disposal could demand at >> the source, low flow toilets, showers and other plumbing fixtures by >> simple enforceable by-laws. >> >> In fact, Orkney could be the world example of effective intelligent >> environmental leadership and control, and good healthy living. All the >> other history and features notwithstanding, the title of world leader >> in environmental respect and with evidence of a compatible >> relationship >> with Mother Nature, would be the tourist attraction of this century. >> >> In reading this site and all the discussions from everywhere, it seems >> fascinating that the overlying impression of Orkney after words like >> friendly, quaint and fun, is that the Orkney environment is pristine, >> and that alone is unique. Nature abounds and overwhelms. >> >> I wonder if the safeguards are in place to protect that value, if the >> appreciation level is there to insure it, and the political priority >> is >> strong enough in Scotland where the politicians are, to make just >> environmental rulings on a place where so few voters live. Who would >> come first in the face of another oil discovery near those islands? >> >> Sorry folks, but where things like trees and the environment pop up, I >> often react. The Orkney National Dump I discovered near our ancient >> family Orkney farm recently, scares the hell out of me. Makes me >> wonder >> if it will be ever relocated, and what irreversible damage and >> pollution is buried alongside our long held farm, an assault to >> fundamental integrity. >> >> Why don't they take their garbage to a good planned engineered >> facility >> on some little island where nobody lives, and where proper technology >> can be applied on a long term basis. Look on a map people . Kirkwall >> throws it's trash over their shoulder in the back yard alongside some >> of the oldest architectural ruins in the world! Nice. Thanks. >> >> Therefore I hope and pray that the operators of that rude facility, >> follow the best rules available, monitoring everything they do, and >> making improvements as a priority wherever they can. >> >> I have a beautiful painting of the old farm, which I shall cherish >> forever. Now I feel I should have a painting of the Kirkwall dump, >> just >> to keep things in clear perspective. >> >> Hum Bug you say? >> >> Stephen >> >> >> ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== >> To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the >> word >> 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com >> >> > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the > word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com >

I contacted a Rae Phillips, the miller in Orkney who grinds up this grain for local consumers, it seems.He was most interesting and very helpful. Shipping being outrageous from Orkney to here, he kindly directed me to athe delightful Alison Linklater, an Orcadian lady (and proud of it) living in western Canada. I discussed with her my lard-free recipe, and she gave me one out of her prized SWRI (Scottish Woman's Rural Institute?) cookbook. Here goes..... -2 cups bere meal -1 cup flour -pinch of salt (my words, not hers) -1 1/2 tsp baking soda Mix in a bowl with buttermilk (I guess till you can handle it). Knead on a floured sheet. Bake on a hot griddle. Turn once. If we could get the Crees in Hudson's Bay to use this recipe, they 's all live ten years longer. In talking to Alison, it seemed to me she was well rooted in Orkney, and even knew Mr. Towrie and my cousin Margaret Waters. Then I commented that as one newly and enthusiastically in hot pursuit of my island heritage, it seemed to me that all people in Orkney were related. Her answer was "of course." When I asked about how her folks kept track of their kin, she said every family had a chanter (I think that was it) who was simply a family member who recanted the family history.( Maybe they should have put it to music!)

KJEMEM@aol.com wrote: > Orkney radio has given scores for a sport called "Net Ball" or "Netball." > Could anyone enlighten me as to what this game is? I thought perhaps it > could be another name for basketball, (like football is soccer....) but > they went on to mention basketball as a separate entity. There was also > a water sport mentioned on a broadcast a week or so ago that I hadn't > heard of, and actually I can't remember the name now. Perhaps one of you > know what that was too. I still trying to figure out how to follow a > rugby game, but I might as well learn about a few more while I'm at it. > > Karen in Memphis > > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com Karen, Netball is similar to basketball but played by girls/ladies/women. Don't know what the water sport mentioned might have been - was it Octopush? That is like underwater hockey! -- Mike Clouston

Maybe if we didn't call it "environmentalism" but merely "being considerate of others," "picking up after yourself" or "not leaving your ugly trash for other people to dispose of," it might have more impact. When we baby boomers were children, we readily grasped that throwing things onto the pavement or out the window made the world less attractive, but then again, we had it pointed out to us, by adults who weren't afraid of making us feel bad if we dropped a candy wrapper. My first exposure to serious litter was London in the '70s, when newspapers wrapped themselves around your legs on a windy day. Is it still like that? In theory, California and, I think, the rest of the country has laws on the books with severe fines for throwing trash from your car - unfortunately, little enforced, though you'd think it would be as good a source of revenue as speeding tickets. I'd think in a small place like Orkney, where everyone is related, it would be relatively easy for peer pressure to provide enforcement, once a critical mass grasped the concept. Peggy Stone

Thank you Mike, Bruce, & Fiona. Yes, it was certainly Octopush. They were discussing the trip to New Zealand. I thought they were saying "Aqua" something. I frequently have that problem with new words. That's why the radio program is so good to practice listening to the Orkney dialiect/accent...whatever, that's another whole discussion. I won't tell you what I thought they kept saying when I first heard a story on "birdwatching"--but I'm glad I figured it out before I asked a really silly question. I had found a description of net ball as a form of women's basketball differing quite a bit from men's rules. I wasn't sure if that was it, as I thought I heard them say that some of the girls also played basketball... Maybe they do both. The other mystery of the world I've been trying to solve today, is why is it 24º F, which I think is about -5ºC, at 10:30am in Memphis, while at 10:30 this morning in Kirkwall it was said to be 43ºF/6ºC???? Stay warm all, wherever you are. Karen

An hispanic grocer usually has Lard/Manteca. Or else a Polish Sausage Maker, too.

If you look up banncok on the internet, you will see about five hundred versions. I spent time in our north, and natives cook fish in white lard, bake their bannock with it, and, are you ready, they love to put it in tea with about five spoons of sugar. All has to do with energy and cold weather---nasty damp bonechilling inescapable cold, even in summer. I can dig out my fat free version if you are interested. On Monday, January 19, 2004, at 08:09 PM, Pbainton@aol.com wrote: > On 01/19/04 Stephen Davies wrote about a NorthAmerican source for bere > meal and discussed the use of lard... > In August, I brought home (to Virginia, USA) a 1.5kg bag of Bere > Meal from Barony Mills in Birsay. I have yet to make bere bannocks > because I don't know where to buy lard. I bought some Crisco (3 > one-cup sticks). Will this work? I have a recipe that the kind man > at the mill gave me. Apparently, the mill is closed in the winter as > the sign was taken down and it looked deserted when I was in Birsay in > December. > Peggy B. > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the > word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com >

Orkney radio has given scores for a sport called "Net Ball" or "Netball." Could anyone enlighten me as to what this game is? I thought perhaps it could be another name for basketball, (like football is soccer....) but they went on to mention basketball as a separate entity. There was also a water sport mentioned on a broadcast a week or so ago that I hadn't heard of, and actually I can't remember the name now. Perhaps one of you know what that was too. I still trying to figure out how to follow a rugby game, but I might as well learn about a few more while I'm at it. Karen in Memphis

I always found it at Safeway, where the chorizo, polenta, more exotic sausages, etc are. I think lard is better for you than hyrogenated vegetable oil products. Charlie ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Coghill" <gcog@webtv.net> To: <ORCADIA-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 10:11 PM Subject: [<orcadia>] Peggy B's Bere Bannocks > > I hate to crow about my expertise in the matter of pig fat, but if you > can't find lard in the deli section of the supermarket you can surely > get it from any Mexican grocery. > > Good luck, > > George > > > ==== ORCADIA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Orcadia mailing list, send an e-mail with the word > 'unsubscribe' in the message body to orcadia-l-request@rootsweb.com > >

On 01/19/04 Stephen Davies wrote about a NorthAmerican source for bere meal and discussed the use of lard... In August, I brought home (to Virginia, USA) a 1.5kg bag of Bere Meal from Barony Mills in Birsay. I have yet to make bere bannocks because I don't know where to buy lard. I bought some Crisco (3 one-cup sticks). Will this work? I have a recipe that the kind man at the mill gave me. Apparently, the mill is closed in the winter as the sign was taken down and it looked deserted when I was in Birsay in December. Peggy B.

I hate to crow about my expertise in the matter of pig fat, but if you can't find lard in the deli section of the supermarket you can surely get it from any Mexican grocery. Good luck, George

On 18/01/04 at 17:43 Giles Carey wrote: >I wondered whether any of you good folk could point me in the direction of >sources of information on digs taking place, in july/ august this year - >perhaps the local archaeologist / any university digs? You will have to contact Orkney Archaeological Trust. They are currently working on plans for this summer's digs. See www.orkneydigs.org.uk -- Sigurd Towrie Blackhall - Kirbister - Stromness - Orkney Heritage of Orkney: www.orkneyjar.com

After reading articles on this site relating to bannock bread, someone posted a recipe using bere and without the usual injection of grease, lard or otherwise oil we try today to avoid. Natives in Canada's north seem to prefers the sticky white lard, and lots of it. I got in touch with the miller in Orkney (very kind person) who grinds the grain, and he said the shipping rates to Canada are absurd, but he provided me with the name and number of a lady in Canada growing and milling bere. So, if and when the bere arrives, we'll give it a go. Nice to find a source here, even if it is a distance off.

Hi, I did post briefly about this earlier, but it is worth another try. I am an archaeology student at UCL. I want to do some fieldwork in the Orkneys this summer, preferably prehistoric, but I'll take anything in such a beautiful place! I wondered whether any of you good folk could point me in the direction of sources of information on digs taking place, in july/ august this year - perhaps the local archaeologist / any university digs? I'm sorry it is such a long way off, but lecturers are already cajoling.... I have been on and participated enthusiastically in two excavations, and I wil have taken an extensive 8-day training program in excavating / site drawing / planning etc. by the summer. Any help, would be very gratefully appreciated. Regards, Giles g.carey@ucl.ac.uk

Peggy. Your thoughts are beautiful. Wish more people thought as you do. I particularly enjoyed your note on Arnie Swarzenegger. I'd like him more if he would trade in his 13 Hummers, averaging 10 miles per gallon, for something representative of a future in the California environment. Perhaps a volkswagon, or a horse, or as California and the central west run out of all water, a camel may be a futuristic trendy choice. I can tell by his films he is a naturalist and a pacifist at heart. As I typed this I noticed the War and EGG in sWARzenEGGer. Seems like an internal conflict going on there, war and eggs, death and birth. Could be a theme for his first post-governorship movie. He was at least elected, as opposed to Mr. Bush who may not have been. But hey, up here in Canada, were just nicely getting into our first Civil War, French Against English you know. We move a little slower in the cold, I guess. Anyhow... Well, you know, it seems a perfectly viable thought that protecting and preserving the stony symbols of Orkney's past need not be an insurmountable task. When visitors "misbehave", rules are normally put in place, and there evolves a sort of protectionist embalming such as exists in most museums where artifacts are displayed, or in the case of architecture of the historic ilk, sensible restrictions are applied when behaviour patterns demand it, or when preservation is called into question. So we rope off George Washington's study from the tour groups, and put his pipe in the china cabinet, locked. I have faith that Orcadians, great stewards they be, will look after the rocks, cairns and structures. However, there seems to be a vulnerability in remote areas with respect to modern day threats which have wreaked havoc in more populous areas, which threats don't seem to matter in isolated areas. We see this all the time in Canada's far north as in Russia, tucked away out of the eyes of all including the media, in roadless lands where few people live or visit. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps. Trends establish in this global village, where more "stuff" is better. More stuff, more trash , more money, more stores, more cars, more gas, more pollution, more corporate rape, more exploitation, more heiferdust from presidents committed to patronage, blah blah blah. More jobs, more income, more taxes to pay more welfare. What a trip! Peggy, could it be that the appeal of Orkney, after all our historic ego-fluffing family connections, is that sense of disconnection from some of the ills of the world which you so eloquently wrote of? I'm convinced that the structures identified, are valued and their preservation is an Orcadian priority. However, when I see photos of the Orkney dump, without being too unduly critical and in my ignorance, I do wonder. Is there an impermeable base? Is it contained to the site? Is there a plume and monitoring for one? Is it as sleepy and sleezy as most north american landfill sites in remote areas? It sure as hell is front and center. Maybe it is "perfect" and all my fears are unfounded. I wonder if you can smell it from our old farm, just down the road? The location of that dump for me is a heartstabber! And the idea of sucking oil out of the Orkney ocean never really appealed to me. It turns a pristine nature into the downside loss payout of bad luck in a dangerous game of poker, where the only winners are huge faceless international corporations, students of Marshall Mac and franchise merchants in the global village monopolizing and dominating wherever they can. If sharing was a Marshall Mac concept, the modern day recruits missed that item......avoid it entirely. Corporations aren't "sharing" in south and central america and africa, they are stealing. I see from your interesting thoughts that you are a post war boomer. Me too. And as my years flip by, I get the sad feeling that we in North America are miserable repeating failures insofar as our stewardship role is concerned in keeping healthy the lands we stole from the first nations people. We are trained to think optimistically, but the reality is that in a very very short period of time we have irreversibly spoiled one of the greatest and most naturally productive land masses on planet earth. Now we're working on ruining the world's air. That war in Iraq was a nice contribution, aside from the issue of it's validity an American cause. The challenge to educate our youth of all our blazing failures is not a high priority for educators, so as we did, current youth will have to grow up and evaluate what they see and smell and hear and eat and touch and feel, through their own processes. That can take a lifetime. Who said, "We get too soon old and too late smart?" I get the warm feeling that long after my ashes are interred in some lonely place, fertilizing an acid-hungry blueberry bush or a cedar seedling, things won't be much different in Orkney, unless one of those oil rigs lets go. The dump will grow, as will the population, but the hard life that bad weather dishes out will keep the immigration and emigration at a maxamum, and two hundred years from now, one of Sig's offspring will be a university student, giving summer tours of the rocks and caves we are worrying about, and contemplating a deserved future contributing proudly in a world we can only dream of. Meanwhile, I'll be probing the dump there, and unless the glass milk bottle is returned to glory and "plastic around everything" marketing is curtailed, it will swallow up more acres, replacing dark peaty soil with all the trash that comes from being trained consumers. Hopefully these things we speak of can turn in a positive direction soon. Time nor tide stands still for no man. Hope the weather is better out west. -30 here for too long!.......Stephen P.S. An old friend of mine ( he's creeping towards eighty) bought a condo in Los Cabos on the Mexican Baja, in the early mid eighties. He bought a local 1960's VW Microbus painted in a pastoral desertscape, complete with cactus, sand, a rattler and a Tequila sunrise. It was of California origin, hippy dynasty. In this small pioneerish project, a little guy approcaed Betty, my friend's wife, and asked if she and Jack her hubby, would like to come to their barbecue party at the condo pool. Betty thought the gut was a jerk, and as well his partner. Turned out these denied hosts were Danny diVitto and Arnie! Arnie loved the V.W. It had Texas Longhorns hung above the windshield, and a horn that played Dixie. n Saturday, January 17, 2004, at 11:37 AM, Peggy Stone wrote: >

That's my Peggy! <blushes with pride> George, in Washington State too.