Category:Chores

Fighting the Drudgery of Chores
Oh no!! That venomous word — CHORES!

Let's face it, even slave girls were creatures of labor. However, it also depended on where the slave girl's owner lived which would set the standards of not only what sort of chores she'd do, but also how much of them she'd do. For example, a slave girl of the wagon peoples would have a more laborious day of ensuring dung was collected and the bosk tended to. On the other hand, a slave who lived in a city, might have easier chores, such as domestic work around the home or running errands in the city.

The one main thing that many do not remember in a lot of homes, is that chores wasn't a slave's PRIMARY purpose. Chores often took up perhaps one (1) to three (3) hours of a slave girl's day. The remainder of the day was spent relaxing, bathing, making herself pretty and being well rested when the evening fell. That was the time of day that the slave girl was truly in the hours of her true purpose — to be exquisitely beautiful and ready for the uses of men.

While I agree that a slave performing chores in a home is important, I don't agree with homes that put chores as the top priority of importance. Slaves should always be busy in their home, but there are so many other creative ways to roleplay than simply performing chores. While chores demonstrate a slave's dedication to her online home, they should only be considered "fillers" when those times a slave has no one to roleplay with or has run out of ideas of what to do in roleplay.

General Overview of Chores

Chores should be performed realistically. That means, no scrubbing 25 commissary wagons in 15 minutes flat. No scrubbing down an entire cylinder in 5 minutes. No doing something that physically is impossible, or a woman performing chores that would be performed by a male slave. Here are a variety of the more obvious chores a slave can perform.
 * Cleaning the home of her owner (be it villa, wagon, tent);
 * Helping with the preparation of various meals. Remember! The cooks/kitchen masters, et al are responsible for COOKING the meals. In wagon camps it is the task of the free women. Slaves may be called upon to help prepare the foods prior to cooking;
 * Kitchen duties such as cleaning dishes, counters, floors, and shelves;
 * In wagon camps et al, slaves would help prepare butchered meat. However, slaves themselves would not kill the animals. Again, those are things that are the responsiblitity of the free persons;
 * Clean-up of the butchering areas;
 * Collecting bosk dung or wood;
 * Milking bosk and verr;
 * Feeding and watering the animals;
 * Collecting vulo eggs;
 * Cleaning the animal pens;
 * Grooming of the non-carnivorous animals;
 * Fireside furs and hides and rugs should be cleaned daily; furs should never be beaten, although hides and rugs are beaten (please refer to fur and hide care below);
 * Cleaning other buildings in the home where allowed;
 * Cleaning the hearths and fire pits of ash; ash is good as a deodorant and cleanser;
 * Refueling the fires in the hearths and fire pits;
 * Refueling the oil lamps;
 * In a wagon camp, greasing wagon wheels;
 * Cleaning bathing areas;
 * Making candles;
 * Laundry;
 * Basket weaving;
 * Rug making;
 * Restocking supplies in kitchens;
 * Sanding pots and kettles;
 * Sifting and raking the sands of dance pits.

Detailed Explanation of How Chores are to be Performed
Care of Animals

Caring for the animals of your home is important. Not only do they provide food and drink, but also valuable items such as their bone, hide, etc. In addition to feeding and watering, the pens are to be kept clean.

Sleen: Cared for and fed only by the free persons who are their owners. Slaves are a sleens favorite snack.

Tarns: Tarns are not cared for by a slave. Frees only will care for the tarns. Tarns love slaves for quick snacks.

Kailla: Plains kaiila do not need to feed often; once a week is generally sufficient and their owner will send the beast to hunt, as the plains kaiila are meat eaters and hunters. The desert kaiila is omnivorous. A slave can make a tasty snack to either beast. The kaiila of the Barrens is an herbivore. Even still, caution would be the key around this highly-tempered beast.

Verr: Daily watered and fed grains and fresh bales of grass (when available, winter none would be). Although domesticated, the verr is still a formidable beast in relation to a slave girl. Be wary of flaring tempers and nasty horns!

Bosk: Daily watered and fed grains and fresh bales of grass (when available, winter none would be). Bosk are ill-tempered, aggressive very large beasts. Care must be taken when working among them.

Vulo: These pigeon-sized chickens of Gor are probably one of a handful of truly safe beasts to be around.

Care of Kitchens

There are always dishes to be done and the kitchen is to be kept clean. Goblets, bowls, platters, plates, tankards, etc., should be checked for flaws before being returned to the shelves. Any broken crockery is discarded. Ice houses, cooleries, chillaries, and serveries are found on Gor, but are rare, and ice is expensive. Likely homes in cities would have cellars to keep items fairly cool, but long time storage of things such as milk and other high-spoilage would not be plausible.

Greasing Wagon Wheels

The Kassars are a nomadic migratory people. It is important that all the wagons have well-greased wheels and axles. Small barrels of grease may be found in the freight wagons. Also, under each wagon, there is a bucket of grease and a brush for greasing. The buckets can be refilled from the barrels of grease in the freight wagon.

Foods and Food Supplies

How to Make ButterHere's a quick and easy guide on how to make butter. Step 1: Collect the cream.You must first get the cream. You do this by letting the raw whole milk sit for several hours. The cream will naturally float to the top. You can skim this off the top of the milk, with the aid of a "cream ladle" which was a large spoon shaped piece of tin with holes in it — the holes being about 1/16 inch in diameter. The milk will run out the holes but the cream will not. The cream collected is is placed in a large urn, and then put into a cool place, such as a celler. Each morning, after milking the bosk, collect the cream from the previous day's milking to add to the cream already collected. It will take about a full Hand (week) to collect enough cream to make the butter.

''Step 2: Souring the cream. '' As you can imagine, the cream will be quite sour after a full Hand of gathering the cream, and the cellar which will not get any colder than 60 degrees F. In the winter, if it is too cold, the urn of cream gathered should be taken from the cellar to the kitchen to let stand overnight and allow to sour slightly. The butter will not separate easily from fresh cream if it hasn't soured.

''Step 3: Get the cream temperature right. '' The butter will not separate from the cream if it is too hot or too cold. Room temperature is best at 50-68 degrees F. It should not be even close to the melting point of butter. If your cream has been sitting out on the counter you can ignore this step.

Step 4: Churn your cream. Put the cream in a butter churn. Do not fill it over half full. The churn used in the wagon camps is the vertical plunger churn; a 4 to 5 gallon stoneware jar with a large mouth, a wooden lid and dasher. The dasher looks something like a broom handle, on one end a cross with two slates. Wrap a cloth around the dasher just above the lid to keep it from splattering; churn the butter in a steady and methodical motion; raise it all the way up and push it all the way down in one second cycles. Gradually turn the plunger as you do this. Adding small amounts of warm water will make the butter come quicker. Separating the butter from the "butter milk" is not a fast process. Depending on conditions it could take you from 1/2 Ahn to forever! When one hand gets tired, switch! A different feel is one of the indications that it is getting done. It got thicker, then shortly thereafter the butter separated out. You can also take a look inside and see what progress you are making.

Step 5: Separate the butter from the buttermilk.You can use the cream ladle or the butter paddle. The butter paddle resembles a large wooden spoon about 3 inches in diameter, only almost flat. Carefully scoop the floating butter off the top of the buttermilk and place it in a bowl.

Step 6: Remove all the remaining buttermilk from the butter. Using the butter paddle, work the butter back and fourth on the sides of the bowl. As the buttermilk comes to the surface pour it out of the bowl.

Step 7: Wash the butter.Pour a small amount of very cold water into the bowl and work the butter like you did before. As the water becomes discolored, pour it out and pour in more cold water and continue to work it. Continue this process until the water remains clear.

Note: It is important to work all the buttermilk out of the butter as it will go rancid if you don't.

Step 8: Add salt. Sprinkle in 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of butter and mix it in. Then taste it. If it is too salty, you can put in more cold water and work it through the butter as you did before. The salt will gradually migrate into the water.

Step 9: Put in molds. Butter molds have false bottoms for pushing the molded butter out of the mold. Pack the butter into the mold, being sure to get rid of any air bubbles, then push it out of the mold and wrap in rep-cloths.

The buttermilk can be saved in jars to be stored in the cellar and used for cooking. Making Cheese:  A slave might help in the preparation of cheese, depending on where you live. For example, the wagon peoples would not process their own cheese, because of the work involved, the necessity for being able to keep temperatures at a constant, and other factors. Here is a very basic method of making cheese, as well as the types of cheese which would be found on Gor.

The main ingredient used in the cheese making process is milk, be it of the bosk (which would be much like the mozzarella cheese of Earth which is made from buffalo milk), the verr (goat), and the desert kaiila (which will produce a saltier cheese) (this particular cheese would not be found in a wagon camp, only in the Tahari). Curdling Process Coagulating or curdling the milk until it turns into curds and whey is the first step taken when making cheese. The curdling process begins by warming the milk until it reaches a bacteria-free temperature. Once the milk has reached a consistent temperature, the starter culture is added and the milk begins to coagulate into one large curd.

Removing the Whey As the milk forms into a huge curd, it is stirred and cut, allowing the whey to drain off. The milk is then reheated and pressed to remove as much whey as possible.

Molding and Shaping Shen the whey removal process is finished, the warm curd is molded or shaped into a cheese by using a cheese wheel or similar mold. The warm curd is poured and pressed into the molding.

Salting Process High amounts of salt are added to cheese during or before the process of molding. Salt plays an important role in the formation of the cheeses rind or outer coating. Heavily salted cheeses will develop thick outer coatings.

Ripening StepOnce the cheese has been molded and salted, it is allowed to ripen. Some cheeses take only two weeks to mature and others can take as long as 7 years. Temperatures must remain exact during this time. It is during this period when the rind of the cheese is formed. Miscellaneous

Furs  Furs should always be kept clean. Contrary to popular misunderstandings, furs are NEVER to be beaten. Shake the furs gently, then rub pot ash into the furs. This will dry shampoo them, as well as provide deodorizing. Allow the ash to sit in the fur for a bit, then shake them clean, and brush them with a SOFT-BRISTLED brush.

HidesHides should be beaten daily to clean them. Hides do not need to be brushed.

Refilling and Lighting Oil-Lamps/Lanterns  These must be kept filled with tharlarion oil daily. The lamps are lit with fire-makers.