Oooops!

It certainly has been a while since I've posted.  We were able to get more chickens and some of those chickens allowed themselves to get eaten by more racoons.  We managed to keep twelve of them alive and they are now butchered and sitting in my freezer.  They did tend to get pretty big...about the size of small turkeys.  Nice and tender! 

This summer was one of the businest ones we've had in a long time. We spent about every weekend working on the renovations, going to an SCA event or getting ready for Pennsic. 

The king and Queen of the East in a royal procession.



Erik fighting Oswin in a personal challenge match, after the Saracen vs Crusader battle.

For those of you who don't know what "Pennsic" is, picture 10800 medieval reenactors all together at a camp ground for up to two weeks, doing the following: fighting, fencing, dancing, singing, eating, shopping, camping, creating, shooting arrows, throwing weapons at targets, and socializing. It was sooo much fun, I want to do it again.

Erik finally got authorized to fight "Heavy list" (that is fight in armour with rattan weapons) at Great North Eastern War this summer.  He was the 6th youth fighter authorized, as they had just changed the rules to allow 17 year olds to fight.  This was unexpected, as previously, you had to be 18 years old to fight.  Needless to say, Erik has jumped into this sport with enthusiasm and focus.

Over the next few months, I am hoping to get some pictures up and catch up in all our happenings over the summer and early fall.

Chickens, chickens everywhere...

A racoon got into our chickens, the night before last.  What a mess!  Racoons and vicious creatures, dragging some off, taking a leg off another, ripping a head off of another...all 25 of them dead.  What a waste of time, effort and money.  Let's pray that there are some extra at the feed store with today's delivery.

   For Father's Day, we spent the afternoon at Kings Landing.  Emily is now working there for the summer and we wanted to have a visit with her, since she is staying in F'ton with my Mom and Dad for the summer and we don't get to see her as often.  We were able to spend her break with her, and toured some of the other Kings Landing houses.

  We were also able to visit with some other friends and acquaintances that we met at the Landing.  You never know who will be there!

This is the Moorehouse, the family home that she is helping to interpret this summer.  They are interpreting the year 1820, even though none of the staff in the house are dresses in 1820's fashions.  (Being a reenactor and living history interpreter myself, I am sensitive to matters of historical fashion).  In fact, I am surprised that in a village that takes such pains to be as historically correct in so many other areas, let it slide when it comes to correct dress.  There just doesn't seem to be much consistancy.   I saw a beautiful Victorian dress in obvious polycotton mix, a man dressed in a Regency/Georgian mix (kind of like a "Fashion Frankenstein"), gowns obviously lacking in enough peticoats to hold it's shape, etc... 
  My pet peeve for today: Daycaps!  ARRRRGGGGG!  They have several people throughout the village wearing DRAWSTRING MOBCAPS!!!  They are totally undocumentable, unauthentic and should be an embarassement to all but the most rank beginners (and then it is only forgiven because they just don't know any better and it is hoped that someone would gently guide them to a better choice)...and they don't even attempt to hide the drawstring with a ribbon.  The least they could do would be to provide each girl with a period satin ribbon, attached with a few stitches to the back of the cap.  They could then draw it up to the front of the cap and secure it with a bow, thus hiding the drawstring and making it appear to be more of a corect looking cap. *Sigh*
Okay, ranting aside, I still had a wonderful visit.  My daughter is becoming a good cook over the open fire (I got to sample the cake that she had baked).  She has had a few cooking mishaps, which means she takes after me.  I still remember the first time I tried to bake a pie in the woodstove for Emily's 11th Birthday...it was so burnt that it was black all the way through.  Emily's grandmother (a wonderful woman) came to the rescue with a birthday cake for Emily's birthday.  She set it on the car while we were busy greeting each other and unnoticed by the family, Nan (our Mama goat), slowly sauntered up and started to nibble on one side of the cake.  To her surprise, instead of tasty B'day cake, all she got was a mouthful of plastic wrap.  We managed to rescue the cake with one side only slightly crumbled and still had an enjoyable Birthday celebration.  It wasn't too long after that mishap that I managed to master cooking on the woodstove, and could produce the most wonderful oatmeal cookies that I have NEVER been able to reproduce in the electric oven.

Busy, busy, busy...

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It's been a couple of very busy weeks!  We got to babysit little L, big L, and little A for an evening.  While Erik and I were engaged in the childcare aspect, Bob meandered outside to play on Andrew's wheeler. 

Once they heard it start up, the kids all ran towards the window to watch it go by, and everytime Bob zoomed on by the window, the kids would jump up and down with exitement, waving and yelling, "There goes Mr. Bob...Mr Bob, come back!"

The kids had a great time playing together. 

Big L. is showing off his biggest smile.

Little L. is trying to figure out my thumb-drive.

Ooooo...toys!

The very next week, Andrew and Erik spent the afternoon tearing down an old barn for the beams and boards. At the end of the day, they had a pile of scrap wood that was no good, so Andrew decided to have a bonfire. 

We brought sausages and the musical instruments, and they brought hotdogs and all the fixings for s'mores.  Yum!

Abi came up with a great idea!  Instead of messing with chocolate squares, she bought cookies with chocolate on one side.  All we had to do was pop the melted marshmallow into the middle and voila!  One wonderful, yummy super delicious s'more.

The funny thing is that I was soooo tired and frustrated earlier that day, that I almost stayed home.  I'm so glad I didn't because we had a blast.  The fire was so hot that we had to keep moving out seats back. 

Bob caught his marshmallow on fire.

The best time was when the sun went down and we were singing in the firelight.

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Erik's Project Continued...

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We spent the night working on his project again.  Here are the updated pictures.

A bombed out factory.

A semi bird's eye view of the town.

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