Posted elsewhere and forgot to post here. The Bergental Novice Schola event was rescheduled from its original February date owing to the entire state of Massachusetts being shut down for snowstorm Nemo. It is now scheduled for March 16.

Well, that was an interesting exercise.... been looking for photos of Bergental's early days and did find some -- found some pre-barony pics even. But if I didn't have some of Jolanna's photos here, I wouldn't have even one from Bergental's first investiture. One of one of the coronets on its cushion, one of Etienne, one of Dmitri walking with his banner being carried, but that's it.

If anyone has pictures from any of Bergental's investitures, would you mind sending me a copy? Looking for: Etienne & Elwynne, Barry & Sonja, Tommaltach & Fiona, Kai & Michalene, Lyle and Elwynne.

Thanks!

Elwynne

As announced at the business meeting last night and now on the Bergental discussion list, pending finding our successors Lyle and I will be stepping down as Baron and Baroness of Bergental.

Candidates may submit their letter of intent to Bergental's seneschal, Lady Emma MacMinn, until November 1, 2011. Entire process, assuming all goes smoothly*, expected to take about a year.

*Smoothly depends on things like if we get our mailing labels the first time we request them, not the second or third time..... also on when investiture can be scheduled. Last time was at Pennsic, despite our effort to schedule months ahead of time. We don't want an away-investiture again -- a lot of our folks can't make it to Pennsic or other faraway places, and having an after-party just isn't the same.



****
No, this is not related to the new curia ruling. We've had a good run and are ready to take a break and let someone else do this.

Going through some of the wardrobe and seeing about maybe giving a few medieval items away to some folks... and realizing that if I make anything new for SCA wear for this winter, it won't be late period.

All the stuff I like for later period is fitted, and I'm changing size too fast for that to be worth the effort. So, the patterns I got from RH will have to wait until next year :( And, probably any really serious efforts at Victorian clothing too... at least until January.

So, going back to Norman for a while. I like Norman, and it was fun trying on my dress from 5 years ago and having it be a bit loose around the middle.

Fitzw is batting around the idea of a color court for Yule -- thinking Green and White/Silver. Wouldn't have to be both, or lots of it, if you already have something else planned, but an accent would be nice :) I'll need a new dress for that though, as I don't have a lot of green in the winter wardrobe (or white/silver either). He does have a green Norman, so that's one less thing to make. Hm.... maybe a silver undertunic though? Hm.... or he can go green and green too, as he has that. Well, we'll see.

Silk and/or wool would be nice....


***
In the meantime, I'm changing one thing that's relatively safe to do -- socks! Picked up some heavy and light weight socks. They're more expensive than cotton, but they last longer and also wool wicks sweat and dampness away, and if you get your boots or shoes sopping in cold weather, your feet will still be much warmer than they would be in cotton or acrylic.

We need to make a trip to Noho, to Acme Surplus. They've been carrying wool socks the past few years, and we could pick up some plain ones there for a decent price.

Friday:

- We got the merchant booth set up at the Community Hall and the cash box to Nancy for Saturday.

- Re-vamped sleeves of red linen dress to have buttons instead of lacing -- a kluge for the 14th c. outfit, as blue stripey dress is still under construction (have to do a re-fit for my arms, esp. since my exercise levels have changed with the surgery, etc.)

- L made a spear

Saturday:

- All packed for the event, and I may even have managed to get gifts for everyone.
- Leaving soon!

***
New stuff made in a week's time:

- Decoupaged and adorned 3 trays, 1 vase, 6 boxes
- 35 cards (print, fold, cut, stuff)
- 4 magnets

(rest of re-stock was complete last month)

Cold but sunny out, today. Been enjoying reading about the signs of spring in other folks' posts. No buds here, but the sap was running this week (and once the Maples bud, sugaring season is definitely over!). Various little birds create quite the racket in the morning, and in the evening on Wednesday, L heard a great horned owl. Sometime earlier this week we went up on the hill to take some photos for the sugarhouse website (which I still have to tweak and send), and heard one of the local hawks too. Chipmunks are coming out of hibernation, and a couple of days ago I saw a bird with nesting material -- he'd landed briefly on the roof outside the east-facing kitchen window.

***
Over 100 gallons of syrup, so far. We are still producing Light. Marian is happy, as that's what she needs for making candy, cream, and powdered sugar. We'll need around 40 gallons of that just for Ashfield Fall Festival! Some of the fresh syrup has been getting shipped out too -- it's that time of year :)

***
Today is more cleaning, more moving stuff, just like all week. We took a big pile of ours and the parents' stuff to the transfer point for re-using/recycling/trash yesterday. I cut out a green tabard this week, which I still have to hem -- hopefully today. Need to check supplies/materials for Sunday too. This evening we'll be delivering some eggs, mailing stuff to Canada, and returning some things to friends at Needleworkers.

***
Got email from my brother Kent this morning (he'd lost my phone #), that our mom is in ICU. She went in last night, complaining of chest pains. She'll be under observation at least until Saturday. He's going to call her again sometime today to see how she's doing. I expect they're running some tests too, to see what's up, and what treatment may be needed. I was going to work on scheduling for the end-of-May trip, buying tickets, but will wait until after Saturday now.

***
Saturday is more cleaning and prep. Some friends will be coming over at some point in the day to help with moving a few things, and helping with cleaning. Yay!

***
Sunday is Alban Eiler/Eostre/Easter/Vernal Equinox. We'll be celebrating down at the Sunwheel in Amherst, MA, at 10 a.m. Visitors are welcome!

***
We were so busy yesterday we didn't sacrifice a peep, so that will happen today. Must not forget to do the peep sacrifice.... yes, it's silly, but the one year we didn't....

Saturday L got lots of work done on one of the front upstairs rooms -- wallpaper and paint are all gone, and most of the plaster patching and mudding done. I packed up some more stuff here and there, tossed a few things, recycled a few things, put other stuff where it belonged. Also did some weaving here and there.

We finished the last HP book at about 4 a.m., Sunday morning. During that time I completed scarf #5 of 5, second set.

We slept in late of course, but had to get up to go to the farm. L did lots of stuff all over the place. I played some cribbage with M, a game of Rummy Cube when L and W came in for a break. Then I followed them out to help in the middle barn. They were going to work on making a new wall, to extend the space for the chickens, because W is getting some more chickens in soon. But there was still stuff that needed to be cleared out of the construction space, so I helped with that. Shoulder held up pretty well, and I got out a bunch of old chaff on the floor, some old boxes and insulation (no good for re-use, trust me), and re-stacked some things.

The barn is huge and used for a lot of different things, and storage is one of them. Farm stuff, various family members' stuff, things that work, things that don't work but have parts that can be used for things that work, supplies for roof repairs, etc.

The room we were working in is below the hay storage floors and loading platform floor. Chaff has a way of working its way through any opening, and the barn is by no means airtight -- that would be a bad thing, I think, since there's no AC or heating in the barn, so the building needs to be able to breathe. I suppose one of the things I'll be doing, once we're up in Ashfield full-time, is to do a bit of cleaning from time to time, just to keep things manageable.

So, not much wall construction got done, but there's more than enough space for the building to happen, as a lot of the cleaning I did was past the construction area.

***
Monday

Starting to weave the last bit of the current warp; should be able to get enough for a bag/purse.

Need to make a few more Bergental baldrics, to try to make sure we have enough for the fencers, archers, CA, siege, water bearers/first aiders.

Read/study.

Good event overall.

( Activities of the Day )

( Court )

There was a brief meeting of the Herbal Guild after court, then some of us went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Greenfield, before fitzw took me home for the night. We'd been planning on staying over Saturday night as well, but the heat had gotten to me despite my efforts at staying hydrated, etc. -- I wasn't doing well. Prickly sensations on the upper legs and forearms, and an interesting gripping sensation around the wrists, plus it was making my arm hurt more. feh.

GINGER
Anyway, the interesting part is that at the restaurant they had a dish that claimed to help with regulating body heat and circulation, so I ordered it (why not?) It was a chicken dish with some big pieces of a meaty type of mushroom, and huge slices of fresh-cooked ginger. They were a little strong at times but I persevered, and by the end of dinner the tingling was gone. Just a tiny bit of a headache, although that could also have been from standing and/or walking for more than half the day... a definite improvement. Now, I knew ginger was good for stomach upset, stomach flus, and for general balancing of the systems, but I didn't know it would be specifically good for dealing with excess heat, just by itself.

So, I guess it's time to start making ginger water again! Ginger water has water, apple cider vinegar, sweetener, and ginger. I'll try to post the recipe later, but variations on this go back at hundreds of years. The people at Sturbridge Village call it Switchel. You can find variants that go back to India or possibly points in the Mideast (sort of like a type of sekanjebin), but I'd have to do the research on that again. L and I have a theory that it may have come over to the U.S. with the East India Company traders. At Sturbridge they use honey for the sweetener, while L's dad uses maple syrup (closer to hand, seeing as we make it).

***
Was feeling better Sunday, so we went back up to the event site to have breakfast and more chatting. Had a couple of opportunities to talk with islenskr about sundry things - always enjoyable, and hopefully we'll get together again soon! L took down the tent and packed everything up, then took down the shade pavillions. I helped out with collecting the caution tape and the plastic bottles. A few of the gallon bottles are safe to re-use (#1 bottles aren't, because the plastic gets into the water if the bottles get warm/hot), so I plan on washing them and using them for storing some emergency water in the basement. Most of the caution tape will get tossed as the pieces are too short, but there were a couple of long pieces we can re-use for future tourneys (or around the house -- L used some a few weeks ago to keep people from going across the newly turned garden).

Visited the folks at the farm for a short bit, then home again. We sorted some books upstairs so I know which ones to pack up for the year. Had a good talk on the phone with mom.

***
Today, still doing all right. Have a book order to fill, things to mail, barrel to buy, and shower gift too. Should be able to do it all in one trip. The barrel is because we still need an overflow for the rainbarrel. The 1 to 1-1/2 inches we got over the weekend filled the rainbarrel to overflowing. Sunday I re-filled all the buckets I had available, taking off 7-8 gallons, but it rained again last night and will be rainy for the next couple of days.

EDIT:
fitzw received a lovely 12th Night gift from loosecanon - Rug Weaving by Peter Collingwood! And msmemory brought the Babees book for me to borrow to help me in putting my feast ware class together. Many Thanks!

Also, Saturday was fitzw and my 12th wedding anniversary :)

***
Busy day, long day. Got home very late (or early, as in around 1 a.m.).

Picked up Eli in Amherst, then back to the house, where ellid and Barbara got in. Then we picked up Una on the way, and off to the event. Managed to avoid traffic congestion from an accident on I-91 S. Checked in - ick - not a good system, everyone had to get into line twice. As everyone seeks to find ways to track things more completely, different systems are being tried. This was not one of the better ones. It was similar to Pennsic, only slow. On the plus side I got to chat with some folks while in line, which I didn't have much chance to do later on.

Delivered the court doc, and some medallions for Ygraine of K. Schedules were fluid at the event. Delivered the vigil book fitzw made to ladypeyton. Made it to part of the Laurel meeting, then went up to see what was up with judging. A number of us had done so, so we just started reading documentation and stuff until our team all came together and started judging. If there was a general meeting for the judges we skipped it, as time was passing and we had to get done by 3pm. Most of it went pretty well, although there were a couple of rough spots, and we had to split up our team and really fly to complete our list. A number of entrants were by their tables, which was helpful in the end when we ran out of time to write comments. We'd just verbally give them some feedback and suggestions while hiding the scores we were writing down. Oy. Worked out pretty well, esp. as Roxane was able to do a visual demo of how to do a leatherworking technique for one entrant, to help her with making her next pair of shoes. Overall I would say the teams worked pretty well, as we pooled our artistic and cultural knowledge and learned things from each other about the various items. Made me glad I'm into so many different things though. Whew!

Next time, I think I'll keep my shoes with their nice orthotics on. Someone suggested bringing a chair around to the tables, but sometimes there wasn't room for a chair and then we were running too fast for there to be much point in it. It was like being in the town battle this past summer, only with sorer feet. There was a lot of good work out there yesterday, and I hope we encouraged a lot of people to keep making things.

I didn't have time for shopping really, altho' I looked quickly for a particular type of knife (sold out), and wanted to spend more time at freya46's. fitzw had been eyeing some lightweight wool there, I think it might have been the cashmeres.

Somewhere in the afternoon I managed to get back to the vigil room and sign the book, but didn't have time to actually go in and see Gavan :( fitzw did, as did ellid and Pagan, so that was good. I did see the vigil spread and nibbled on a few things because I knew I was supposed to eat (we judged food, so I got something there as well). Very tasty and visually it was very appealing and beautiful to behold. The 'bee skep' that zaduzbina made was amazing. Mistress Eleanore MacCarthaigh wondered if we could give her a second Laurel :D

Did get to chat for a little bit with herveus and see his amazing tabletweaving masterwork-in-progress. Also got to chat very briefly with freya46, but only got to say 'hey' to nazrynn. Concentus sang for the kitchen while ellid and I were judging. We got to sing all together after court, and for HRM and sundry folks in the royalty room, also after court.

Court was very good, lots of good people getting recognized. Gavan MacBane was made a Master of the Laurel - yay! Master Padraig was made a Pelican. It was pretty funny, watching Lucan fetch him from the back of the hall (chatting with others), and then chasing Balfar around through the multiple sets of doors, again at the back of the hall, to fetch him and a number of other fellow 'miscreants' up to the front.

And local boy Odbald Leofa was made a Companion of the Manche. People liked the scroll I did for him -- a "plate" in 16th century styles of Italian ceramics, primary influence from Deruta, Italy. I'll try to put up pics later, but it was too large to scan so they're only photos. I'm glad it was well received, and especially by Odbald himself. He's a real sweetheart and a very funny fellow indeed. We'll be getting together this month, as we both need to paint some plates for Birka. It'll be my first time having ceramic stuff out for sale, but his second year at Birka, so we want to make sure we have enough things to keep people happy.

We had dinner with a bunch of other folks at a Thai restaurant in East Haven, then back up to Holyoke to drop off Una and so the ladies could get their cars and then we took Eli back to Amherst, and then home again, jiggity jig. Our new person, Barbara, had a wonderful day, and Una and others were good about keeping track of her, answering questions, etc.

This a.m. we managed to get up and meet up with folks in Sunderland and go for a walk on the farm. Good walk, good company. Had calzones back in Sunderland and then back home, where we did a few things online (I needed to order packaging supplies), and then crashed for several hours.

So, up for a few hours and then back to bed, I think!

Or December 24th and 25th, for those who don't celebrate Christmas.

( Great Cloisters and Met Trip )

We didn't go to the party last night, as fitzw wasn't feeling well all day, and as I could be a carrier we couldn't risk giving it to others, especially Una's brother, who is more susceptible to catching things. Had a nice chat with my mom, since when I call on Christmas Day she likes for me to spend that time talking with my brothers and niece. She's still doing well, and working on exercising and stretching again.

Read zaduzbina's post this morning. Overall a happy time I think, but sad/mad about their restaurant experience. Having experience with prejudicial behavior myself, I contributed a thought or two, mostly general not specific. Many others also posted. It's good to have supportive friends and family, for which I am myself thankful, today and every day.

fitzw's doing better today. My tummy's a bit unsettled, but managing all right so far. We may or may not go to the movies today. General plan for the first part of the day is to spend time in the studiolo on the looms. Yay!