...Light, for a good conversation or reading aloud

tent evening In the Feather Down Farm Tent you will not be able to find a socket. Everything is done the old-fashioned way, as it is with lighting.

Spread throughout the entire tent you can find oil-lamps and candles. The candles can be burned in safe candle holders or in especially made candle lamps above the table which reflect back the light onto the table by means of a reflector, so that you can read in the evening (no ‘very small print ’ books, because, after all, they are candles). There are also oil-lamps.

For those who have never worked with an oil-lamp, here are some instructions.

To fill the lamp, petroleum or paraffin can be poured into the holder. For this there is a screw cap on the holder that you unscrew. Take care to not fill it too much, and do the filling outside, and not near the burning stove.
(photo: Hendrik the petroleum man in Alkmaar.)

Next to the base of the glass bell-jar, you will find a small wheel. With this you can make the wick longer or shorter, so the light becomes brighter or less bright. Make sure that the lamp does not start to give off smoke. By now it has turned out that the Feather Down Farm occupants often turn the lights up too high. The canvas then changes into a discoloured, black smoke-stain and that makes nobody happy.
(photo: Lamp factory 1876.)

When turning off the oil-lamp you should not turn back the wick. You must lift up the glass bell-jar with the little handle intended for this and blow out the lamp!

Please be well aware of this otherwise the farmer must take the lamps apart on a daily basis, in order to fish the wick out of the paraffin and fix it in the screw-system again (and we can assure you that this is not the farmer’s favourite job).

An oil-lamp or candles only light the room a little and that is not much, compared with the 100 watts that we find rather normal at home, that is why in the old days; people went to bed with the sun.

lighting lamp candle reading evening