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First Place - Old Timers
The Old Timers time machine is called The Thyme Machine.
It is in the shape of a tallish, round solarium-style greenhouse terminating in a cupula directly above a sundial which is in the middle of the ground floor. This sundial is really the time/thyme machine control panel. Plants hang around all over the place (mint, caraway, 5,239 types of thyme and some other plants). With the sundial in the middle of the greenhouse thyme/time machine, on the north side of the sundial are the Thyme plants, to the east are the mint bushes, to the west are the caraway bushes. To the south is the "potions lab" with little widgets and gizmos to make the potion. All other plants are up against and along the inner wall of the greenhouse time/thyme machine or hanging from the ceiling.
Since the time/thyme machine can also be used as living quarters, these secondary plants supply fresh vegetables, potatoes etc (very French Intensive Gardening, hydroponics kind of thing) just in case the pickings are slim in the moment of time we've chosen (for all we know, we've managed to fall into a drought or a late winter and there's no vittles to be begged borrowed or traded from the natives). There is a circular stairway winding its way to the top of the time/thyme machine greenhouse for easier servicing of the hanging plants. In case of an emergencies the circular stairway collapses like a telescope and the cupula can come down to seal off the sundial, mint, caraway, thyme and prep table area. The rest of the greenhouse would be left behind once the time jump had been made. This is only in the most desperate cases.
Not only do we have to drink the gunk we prepare but at least one person has to have previously drunk the potion while placing a part of their body on the sundial at the same time as they stick a test tube with the appropriate thyme potion in the slot in the centre of the sundial.The sundial itself needs some potion for orientation. Since the sundial is an inanimate object it needs the travelers to add the energy that will pass from their body parts (normally hands, but you never know...), into the sundial, and through the potion which, acting as a liquid crystal, bounce back to connect with each of those who have drunk the potion and are touching the sundial.
To assure accuracy in thyme travel, along with a careful measure of the doses, we grow the thyme plants with soil from from different levels of freshly dug archeological or soil from different time periods that time travelers bring back with them from tripsdigs.
As for the forwards and backwards potions, we use the properties of the isomers: there are herbs and spices that are exactly the same but are isomers the one of the other. Mint and Caraway are really the same except that the molecule that gives us Minty Chewing Gum looks like your left hand and the molecule that give us German Caraway Brown Bread looks like your right hand. They are exact mirror images of each other but one rotates to the left and the other rotates to the right. So we take the varieties of thyme that have been grown in the soil from a specific time, add the Special Something to jiggle the date, THEN we add the Mint Extract to GO and the Caraway Extract to COME BACK from wherever we are.
The Potions are concocted with a great variety of thyme plants:
The thyme plants :
English thyme -- the most common
Lemon thyme -- smells of lemons
Variegated lemon thyme -- with bi-colour leaves
Orange thyme -- an unusually low-growing, ground cover thyme that smells like orange
Creeping thyme -- the lowest-growing of the widely used thyme, good for walkways
Silver thyme -- white/cream variegate
Summer thyme -- unusually strong flavour
Caribbean thyme -- Same flavor as English thyme but 10 times stronger.
Thymus vulgaris (Common Thyme or Garden Thyme) is a commonly used culinary herb. It also has medicinal uses. Common thyme is a Mediterranean perennial which is best suited to well-drained soils and enjoys full sun.
Thymus herba-barona (Caraway Thyme) is used both as a culinary herb and a groundcover, and has a very strong caraway scent due to the chemical carvone.
Thymus × citriodorus (Citrus Thyme; hybrid T. pulegioides × T. vulgaris) is also a popular culinary herb, with cultivars selected with aromas of various citrus fruit (lemon thyme, etc.)
Thymus pseudolanuginosus (Woolly Thyme) is not a culinary herb, but is grown as a ground cover.
Thymus serpyllum (Wild Thyme) is an important nectar source plant for honeybees. All thyme species are nectar sources, but wild thyme covers large areas of droughty, rocky soils in southern Europe (Greece is especially famous for wild thyme honey) and North Africa, as well as in similar landscapes in the Berkshire Mountains and Catskill Mountains of the northeastern US.
VARIETIES: T. vulgaris (Thyme); T. vulgaris Serpyllum (Lemon Thyme); T. membranaceus; T. Serpyllum (Creeping Thyme or Mother-of-Thyme) & varieties alba (white flowers), Annie Hall (flesh-pink flowers), aureus (green leaves during summer, turning bright gold in fall, remaining so throughout winter), coccineus (dark green leaves, crimson flowers), coccineus superbus; T. Serpyllum pseudolanuginosus; T. Serpyllum minus; T. citriodorus aureus; T. Serpyllum vulgaris argenteus; T. Herbabarona (Seedcake Thyme); T. pectinatus; T. hirsutus; T. nitidus; T. vulgaris; T. caespititius; T. carnosus.
Judges' Comments
I can see that a lot of work went into this one. You've done some impressive research and showed us a lot of knowledge in the complexities of your time machine. I love all the details and the creativity, that it isn't just another time machine operated by simple technology. My only nitpick is it just seems a bit too complicated in operating it, which makes me think of disasters in case of emergencies (such as needing to jump away from one period of time quickly). But impressive work, and very pretty graphic (although I wish we get to see the actual machine rather than just the potions)! - 23 TC
Too Scientific for my taste, but definately well thought out and very pretty graphic, although I too would have liked to see the actual machine, but since it wasn't stated in a way that was unambigious I won't punish them for that. - 22 TC
I love all the details that were included. Down to how various herbs are used and their effects. The graphic is really lovely, though I'd have wished to see the actual thyme machine. - 23 TC |
