Here's an excellent collection of videos about farm life in 1620. A group of five historians spends a year living on a working farm on the Welsh border, using only the tools and techniques of the early 17th Century.
Each episode is 30 minutes, broken into two 15 minute videos. There is one episode for each month, which covers what has to be done on the farm year-'round. It's a very brief introduction to simple and primitive living.
http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/09/tales-from-green-valley-youtube-episode.html (http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/09/tales-from-green-valley-youtube-episode.html)
I just finished watching the series, six hours' worth of video. Excellent!
Here's the first video, of 24:
E1P1-2 Tales from the Green Valley (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CapsH0RQgE8#)
The video title scheme goes like this:
E1P1-2
That's Episode 1, Part 1 (of) 2. E1P2-2, E2P1-2, E2P2-2, E3P1-2, etc.
The same group then made Victorian Farm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Farm) (what a difference 250 years makes!), Edwardian Farm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian_Farm), and several mini spinoffs.
The youtube channel belonging to zodiacza1 is hosting these and others (total of 675 videos). They seem to have been uploaded quickly and recently, so they might be subject to a take-down; watch them now while you can.
Thanks, Kev. Looks interesting!
I watch the first two episodes; the hog butchering is next.
It is an interesting series.