15th Rosary Beads: One of our Sisters who is knowledgeable in 15th century customs, says that probably the rosary would have been made of carved wood. She looked it up in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and it stated that the rosary, at least part of the time in the 15th century, consisted of 50 beads, possibly as one chaplet, or with larger beads between every ten beads, for the Our Fathers. They could also have been made of ivory or filigreed metal, such as gold or silver. So you have several choices for authentic beads for your nobleman. At some museum she saw rosary beads of this era, and the carved Our Father bead opened up and had a scene inside, the Nativity. The bead was about the size of a walnut. Hope this helps.

Sister Olivia

Rosary Beads: Being a member of a Catholic family with members of the family in the religious community -- I asked them your question -- and good luck would have it -- my uncle (a Christian Brother) told me some used wood with small metal or rope chains connecting them back then -- the more wealthier parishes might have used pearl - back then it basically depends on what area of the nation. He found records in England and Scotland for that time of the 18C right?

Elizabeth Smith

Rosary Beads: to the person who was asking about rosary beads for your nobleman... check out http://rosaryworkshop.com/HISTORYjournalingBead.htm this page has a history of rosaries from 1st to 20th century. . . from knotted cord to present day beads and is divided into centuries for easy location of your time period. You should be able to find out what would be apt for your setting

Linda and Dean Brotherton

Log Cabins in Appalachia: I will be 50 years old in July and my first home was a log cabin. Not one of the modernistic types of today, but a rustic old log cabin. My mother talks of going to the creek to haul water in buckets to wash my diapers in because there was no plumbing. And, of course, there was an outhouse. We heated our house with a Warm Morning stove, using coal and wood. Baths were taken in a galvanized wash tub in the middle of the kitchen floor using water hauled from the creek and heated on the stove. I have a scar on my lip that was made when I first learned to walk and slipped on the wet kitchen floor and fell on the wash tub. We did have electricity. The house was located in a place we called Paint Creek Holler. A holler is actually a hollow which is a probably something like a valley. My guess is that the term means a hollowed out place in the mountains. We moved from the house while I was still a baby, so I don't actually remember living there. A Warm Morning, a wash tub, and an outhouse were things that a great many people in this area lived with. And here I sit now conversing with people on a computer. Who would have imagined that back 50 years ago in Paint Creek Holler?

Terry T. in WV

Prairie wagon: While they were traveling in the wagon, they ate off older china plates or tin plates. Their fine china (if they had any) was packed in the lower 1/2 of the barrel of flour. The flour cushioned the dishes & they could use flour from the top of the barrel as they traveled. They packed things in barrels, trunks, & wooden boxes. The wagons were so full that only the very, very old, the very young & the ill ones rode on the wagon. All the rest walked. Some of the men rode horses to herd the few milk cows.

Ann in AZ

Prairie wagon: As far as the interior of the wagon is concerned...most of them were sturdy farm wagons with a cover attached to keep out the weather. They would have probably had a bench attached to each side, but, as Jeri Moriarty's post so well illustrated, the wagon was probably packed with stuff. Most people did not ride in the wagons, but walked along side for most of the way west. I tried to find some interior pictures on the internet for you, and put in 'Conestoga wagons' and learned something new for myself! I thought that those were the wagons that people came across the prairies with, but it turns out that they were quite large 'freight' wagons...not the kind that a poor immigrant would be able to afford. (Nor could they afford the teams of oxen that it took to pull them.) Those were the ones called 'Prairie Schooners' because of their big, canted canvas tops.

Kaye in L.A.

Prairie wagon: Well, I've been reading more posts on coming West across the prairie, and visualizing a miniature scene with the wagon stopped, and a beautiful pipe organ, or lovely table being taken off...a huge fight, too! I can't imagine that after having carted something precious enough to me to gone to the trouble of carrying it all that way, just to be left by the side of the trail..and not doing mighty battle for it. It had to be done, of course...those mountains are high, and the canyons are deep...actually, it's really hard to imagine any wagon and any team of oxen being able to negotiate them, but they did. (I think that sometimes, in some places, they had to dismantle the wagons and carry them up or down, or float them across rivers.) I hope that you include something like a beautifully painted Danish dower chest...which is one of the things that would have had to come with a Danish immigrant family.

Kaye in L.A.

Prairie wagon: If you look closely at the covered wagons that crossed the Plaines, they sagged in the center. This was intentional so that all the items stored inside tended to fall toward the center as the schooner went over rough ground rather than fall out the front or rear of the wagon. They were also very high off the ground so as to clear rock and tree stumps.

DrBob...Delray Beach, FL.

Prairie wagon: Just remembered a PBS show I saw last year on the Oregon Trail that brought home exactly how careful the pioneers had to be about what they took along. The narrator said that old Western movies are very inaccurate because they show the larger Conestoga wagons with the family riding inside with room for their worldly goods. In reality, the prairie wagons' cargo space was exactly the size of a modern minivan with the back seats removed, so the travelers could include only what would fit into that much space, and there was room only for the driver and one passenger at a time, so most people who traveled the Oregon Trail walked the distance -- which was achievable because most wagons were hauled by slower oxen, not horses, and traveled 10 to 12 miles a day at best.

Loretta.Sniarowski

Hanging Greenhouse plants - To hang plants 'impermanently' (unpermantently?) in your glass house, you might want to try the smallest of those new hooks with the double stick tape backs. They are called COMMAND and made by 3M, http://www.3M.com/Command, the adhesive is strong, yet removable. I found mine in the hardware section of Walmart.

Alice Zinn