Check back for updates....
No lesson with quills & ink is complete without a good home-made set of writing tools. Thanks to the turkey hunters and friends with turkey visitors in my life (thanks Gary and Daryl!) I have lots of wing feathers, which are the best to use, and tail feathers, which can also be used and are often better for drawing-specific quill work rather than writing/penmanship. Most colonial documents will tell you goose quills were preferred, but since I haven't a ready supply of those-- nor do I want to pluck them from a live goose they way they did then! -- turkey works well. But you need ink.
Ink is expensive; kids spill it, it stains everything, and it doesn't last long. Our yard has a huge black walnut tree that this year is LOADED with nuts. I collected two giant bucketfulls already, and this morning covered them with water in a giant old enamelware pot, threw in a few rusty bolts (the iron is a mordant to make the ink stick to the paper) and set it to boil on the propane burner.
