No, I did not have one but I started one off the cuff like I did with the Spade & Trade Items list. There are lots and lots of possibilities, these are just the ones that pop into mind when one idly spins the old brain wheels. I began with a newish model of education that I called circuit riding teachers – instead of preachers. Or, maybe they can double as preachers and public speakers.
What they are, is specialists in one or two subjects. History, for example. Maybe Ancient History of Assyria or Renaissance Europe, or Chinese dynasties. Whatever floats their scholarly boat. They know their stuff really well and are capable of presenting their knowledge in at least threes ways: 1) Lecture; 2) Kinetic/dramatic like chemistry demonstrations, or hands-on engine repairs, or puppet shows; 3) Written material presented with old fashioned light box & lens projectors.
They put on three shows a week in one neighborhood, then travel to the next and do their act for the next group of learners. Anyone willing to pay for admission or provide then with meals or fodder for their horse, or whatever the learner community has to trade for knowledge.
Circuit teachers travel during Spring and Fall. In Summer they pitch in with canning chores and harvest work. In winter they return to their home place of training to study and learn more either in their own field or learn something new. Or a different seasonal pattern. Maybe winter travel is easier in warm climates and hot summers are used to study. Whatever works best locally.. In the Study Quarter of the year, maybe they pay a subscription to belong to a live-in library or board with friends, family, or farmers
They can make extra money by sitting in as proctors or administrators of formal examinations. For this purpose, they need letters of recommendation that attest to their integrity from several communities on their accustomed circuit, or from their own teachers.
Other occupations I came up with have a similar communal foundation and structure. For instance, bamboo farming. A network of aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws can cover a wide market if each household specializes to some extent. Large bore bamboo for high volume water pipes. small diameter pipes for field and garden irrigation; extra strong species for scaffolding, ladders, stock fencing, ultralight planes, etc. One group that collects leaky old water pipes and repurposes them as bean poles and hoop house struts. Young tender bamboo shoots are edible. Tents and yurts and stuffed poles for booms, cranes, sailyards or junkboat sail stays. You get the idea.
Coppicing and using wood shoots for tool handles, baskets, hurdles, wattle-and-daub barn and shed walls, etc. Regional area where a cash crop or fine-made furniture or silk weaving, etc. create quality trade goods as a hedge against a bad year or three in a row if spells of unpredictable weather adversely affect the subsistence crops people rely on to feed themselves and their animals.
Scientific ditch digging and water drainage surveyance of the bumps and hollows in a given field is a very useful skill to have. Dairies are another collective endeavour, as are livestock dung digestion that can produce nearly 24-7 hrs of burn: methane gas valuable for cooking, drying laundry indoors on cold wet days, barley oasts, water purification, salt distillation, ethanol distillery, barn or greenhouse heating, humanure roasting for quicker than 2-3 year processing time, pottery kiln, pizza or bread oven, and generating electricity by heating one side of a bi-metallic electric current inducer.. thus having night time light and refrigeration, or charging batteries when the sun and wind are taking a rest. Solar water heating, and steam laundries can be small group endeavours as well..
Flax, jute, hemp, and kudzu are other versatile crop options. They can provide fiber, oil-rich seed, pig food from mash left over after oil pressing, Linseed oil has many uses, and hemp oil has medicinal properties.
If one family grows a field for fiber, another for seed, and another has a kudzu team that uses goats to clear overgrown hills and hollows, digs up roots to eat or feed pigs, makes vine baskets, cans the young tender leaves like spinach for winter stews, and so forth, again, group work can develop a wole range of skills, not forgetting twining and rope making, paper making, or tar-pitched oakum to stuff down in the cracks between ship planks with plant fiber discards not good for any other purpose. Maybe even fiberboard to pave the farmyard in Mud Season, or mulch and windbreaks to protect spring seedling crops from surprise frosts.
Cobbler for shoes and inkle weaver or spool weaver to make shoelaces is a good combo for a small family.
Charcoal making will be another joint effort that pays off well in many directions, from activated charcoal to treat brown recluse bites to water filtration, to smithing carbon steel knives and more.
Horse breeding, horse-bread baking for long distance travel, mule training, center-wheel cart making and maintenance (more uses for bamboo!) Alcohol-cooled refrigeration, biodiesel fractioning, gunsmithing, gunpowder, glycerin, search and rescue teams, perimeter defense patrols, well-digging and testing, carpet weaving, bookkeeping, farm log keeping for weather and crop rotations, fish farming and fertilizer operations, pottery, gourd growing and turning; small-scale spinning jenny upkeep, felt and flannel making, pump repair...the list goes on and on.
Re: Shopping list...?
I began with a newish model of education that I called circuit riding teachers – instead of preachers. Or, maybe they can double as preachers and public speakers.
What they are, is specialists in one or two subjects. History, for example. Maybe Ancient History of Assyria or Renaissance Europe, or Chinese dynasties. Whatever floats their scholarly boat. They know their stuff really well and are capable of presenting their knowledge in at least threes ways: 1) Lecture; 2) Kinetic/dramatic like chemistry demonstrations, or hands-on engine repairs, or puppet shows; 3) Written material presented with old fashioned light box & lens projectors.
They put on three shows a week in one neighborhood, then travel to the next and do their act for the next group of learners. Anyone willing to pay for admission or provide then with meals or fodder for their horse, or whatever the learner community has to trade for knowledge.
Circuit teachers travel during Spring and Fall. In Summer they pitch in with canning chores and harvest work. In winter they return to their home place of training to study and learn more either in their own field or learn something new. Or a different seasonal pattern. Maybe winter travel is easier in warm climates and hot summers are used to study. Whatever works best locally.. In the Study Quarter of the year, maybe they pay a subscription to belong to a live-in library or board with friends, family, or farmers
They can make extra money by sitting in as proctors or administrators of formal examinations. For this purpose, they need letters of recommendation that attest to their integrity from several communities on their accustomed circuit, or from their own teachers.
Other occupations I came up with have a similar communal foundation and structure. For instance, bamboo farming. A network of aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws can cover a wide market if each household specializes to some extent. Large bore bamboo for high volume water pipes. small diameter pipes for field and garden irrigation; extra strong species for scaffolding, ladders, stock fencing, ultralight planes, etc. One group that collects leaky old water pipes and repurposes them as bean poles and hoop house struts. Young tender bamboo shoots are edible. Tents and yurts and stuffed poles for booms, cranes, sailyards or junkboat sail stays. You get the idea.
Coppicing and using wood shoots for tool handles, baskets, hurdles, wattle-and-daub barn and shed walls, etc. Regional area where a cash crop or fine-made furniture or silk weaving, etc. create quality trade goods as a hedge against a bad year or three in a row if spells of unpredictable weather adversely affect the subsistence crops people rely on to feed themselves and their animals.
Scientific ditch digging and water drainage surveyance of the bumps and hollows in a given field is a very useful skill to have. Dairies are another collective endeavour, as are livestock dung digestion that can produce nearly 24-7 hrs of burn: methane gas valuable for cooking, drying laundry indoors on cold wet days, barley oasts, water purification, salt distillation, ethanol distillery, barn or greenhouse heating, humanure roasting for quicker than 2-3 year processing time, pottery kiln, pizza or bread oven, and generating electricity by heating one side of a bi-metallic electric current inducer.. thus having night time light and refrigeration, or charging batteries when the sun and wind are taking a rest. Solar water heating, and steam laundries can be small group endeavours as well..
Flax, jute, hemp, and kudzu are other versatile crop options. They can provide fiber, oil-rich seed, pig food from mash left over after oil pressing, Linseed oil has many uses, and hemp oil has medicinal properties.
If one family grows a field for fiber, another for seed, and another has a kudzu team that uses goats to clear overgrown hills and hollows, digs up roots to eat or feed pigs, makes vine baskets, cans the young tender leaves like spinach for winter stews, and so forth, again, group work can develop a wole range of skills, not forgetting twining and rope making, paper making, or tar-pitched oakum to stuff down in the cracks between ship planks with plant fiber discards not good for any other purpose. Maybe even fiberboard to pave the farmyard in Mud Season, or mulch and windbreaks to protect spring seedling crops from surprise frosts.
Cobbler for shoes and inkle weaver or spool weaver to make shoelaces is a good combo for a small family.
Charcoal making will be another joint effort that pays off well in many directions, from activated charcoal to treat brown recluse bites to water filtration, to smithing carbon steel knives and more.
Horse breeding, horse-bread baking for long distance travel, mule training, center-wheel cart making and maintenance (more uses for bamboo!) Alcohol-cooled refrigeration, biodiesel fractioning, gunsmithing, gunpowder, glycerin, search and rescue teams, perimeter defense patrols, well-digging and testing, carpet weaving, bookkeeping, farm log keeping for weather and crop rotations, fish farming and fertilizer operations, pottery, gourd growing and turning; small-scale spinning jenny upkeep, felt and flannel making, pump repair...the list goes on and on.