Shootin' with Queenie

At the Fishers Rennaisance Faire, the Queen herself came to our encampment and had a go at shooting at the running Frenchman on our target line. Here are a few shots of the event for your viewing pleasure. I guess it was a good thing I wore my good cotehardie!

Doing more with less...

The CiderHaus at the Jubilee Colonial Faire. Simple idea, simple set up.


Fellow re-enactors enjoying time at the tavern and getting ready for a skit.


The CiderHaus in full swing.

About two years ago I came across a new 18th century event being held at one of my favoritest places, the Jubilee College State Park, site of the Jubilee Olde English Fazire. Now it has another event! The Jubilee Colonial Faire! When friend Jenn and my daughter Cora went to visit the event for it's inaugural year, we discovered an event that was trying very hard to be an education/demonstation focused event rather than an event where entertainment, ceremonies, and shopping was the focus. This was my kind of event. In addition to that, it was very light on scheduled activities. No up for colors, stand around for roll call of the dead, stand around for more ceremony, be on ready for battle, go eat in 20 minutes and come back for more ceremony.... nope. Pretty loose schedule at the Jubilee Colonial Faire.

Well, I decided I wanted to do this event and last year made plans to attend with my cider press to demo how to make apple cider. Long story short, life got in the way and I was unable to attend in 2008. This year, however, I made some arrangements and despite life trying to get back in my face, I persevered and attended the faire. It was really quite fun and I have always wanted to do something that had real involvement with the other reenactors. The tavern was a natural choice and it seemed to be a good one.

Now here is the point of my posting. Ever since I have attended this event, I have been amazed at how enjoyable it was to do this event and I have given alot of thought as to why.

First and foremost, I was not packing for an entire group of people, nor was I thinking for them, or handling issues for them that should have been handled weeks, if not months before the event.

Everything I took could have fit in the back of my truck, but I took a small trailer to spread things out.

Set up was even easier. Two tents, a table, my press and some fixings and everything was done in about an hour, and without alot of struggle or people standing around wondering what needs to be done.

I could have done this entire thing by myself, but what fun is that, so with my family and friend Jenn, we entertained and educated people and enjoyed ourselves for two whole days with very little stress. Rain not withstanding, it was a very nice weekend.

I have been involved in re-enacting for well over 20 years now and still enjoy it, but of late I have been thinking about what could I do with less stuff and having to depend on fewer people. Currently, (at least with my medieval living history group) I need to have at least 15 people (of which 85% need to be older than 14 years of age) to commit to a weekend event for which we will get paid. As people and children grow older, thing get busier and event get harder to committ to. I am a victim of that myself! Also, everything seems to be far more expensive and that makes comitting to an event a real financial throwdown. So when I decide to do an event for with the medieval group, it requires not just my commitment, but the commitment of a whole bunch of other people. And over the years we have developed a show/demo that is quite good, but it also requires a ton of equipment to haul and set up. And it usually befalls on me to maintain, care for and clean the equipment.

All of this was put into perspective this last weekend when I saw that I can still do living history events without all the baggage and still get as much out of it as I do with a 1.5 ton trailer hooked to my truck and a set up that takes 4 hours or more and 8 people to do it. This coming weekend is another medieval event and the group is working with fewer numbers but with more expectation from the faire organizers.

As the winter goes along I am going to consider ways to cut baggage and how to do more, or the same, with less. I don't expect to cut out huge chunks of my re-enacting life and demonstration, but it seems that I might need to lighten my load a bit as it is becoming more and more difficult to carry on as it is.

Sing Non Nobis...

Tomorrow is St. Crispin's Day. Very few know who St. Crispin and his brother Crispinian are. Saints Crispin and Crispinian are the Christian patron saints of cobblers, tanners, and leather workers. Born to a noble Roman family in the 3rd century AD, Saints Crispin and Crispinian, twin brothers, fled persecution for their faith, winding up in Soissons, where they preached Christianity to the Gauls and made shoes by night. Their success attracted the ire of Rictus Varus, the governor of Belgic Gaul, who had them tortured and beheaded c. 286. Probably the best known reference to St. Crispin is the speech given by Henry V in Shakespeare's play of the same name.

This play was made into a movie by Ken Branagh, who both acted and directed it, and gave what is in my opinion the best rendition of this speech. And also in this same movie is the a great scene of "celebrating" the victory at the battle of Agincourt in 1415.

I present to you these speeches to you for your entertainment. First is the speech and the second is the singing of the chant, "Non Nobis."

I think I might even add future blogs with inspiring speeches. who knows...

Later!

Something new for me to look forward too!

Coming up in September and early October, there are two new(er) reenactments that I will be involved in. The first is the Colonial Trade Fair at the Jubilee State Park in Brimfield Il, just outside of Peoria. It is a new event with only two years under its belt, but it seems to be growing and as it is new and not attached to some overall unbrella organization, it can do some things that usually are not or cannot be done as more established re-enactment. It has a much more interactive and educational aspect to it than most events I have been to in the past. As a matter of fact, it was those cut and dried, set peice events that caused me to get burned out on attending Colonial period events. Waiting around for colors, rushing to do two or more battles a day, racing through the sulter areas because you are supposed to be back in time for evening colors, and getting very little time to interact or role-play with the visiting public or fellow re-enactors was not what I was calling fun. As a matter of fact, other than school demos, I have not been to a 18th Century re-enacting event in almost two years other than visiting the Colonial Trade Fair at Jubilee. This year we have been juried in as acceptable and are going to set up a tavern of sorts with fresh apple cider that we will make on site and cool water or lemonade for the particpants. The organizer wants to use our site as a focal point of the market street and use it to plan some skits or senarios for the entertainment of the public and participants. I am really getting kind of excited about this. You can check out the colonial faire website out at www.colonialtradefair.com

The other event is the first weekend of October. It is the Fishers Renaissance Fair in Fishers, Indiana. Their website is http://www.fishersrenfaire.com/ The Order of St.Sebastian will there again this year. This event too is a new one with only two years of being in operation. Last year was our first time there and we drew a very large crowd with out shows. The problem with last year was that a freak heat wave came in and made temps in the afternoon in the mid 90's!!! This year we can only hope that the weather is more October like! We are being given a larger space to perform in and hopefull will draw crowds as well as last year.

I am really looking forward to these events and I will try to post what happens at them!

Later!

Photos of the Past... Continued

Finally! A good friend of mine has posted a bunch of photos from Jubilee Olde English Fair 2008. Please go to this link to see photos from this year and last year!

http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z270/Longbow_65/Jubilee/

We had a great year and had a ton of fun! There are too many to comment on, but I think you will get the idea from the photos.

Later!

A few photos from the past.

Here are a few photos from the Jubilee Olde English Faire that was held on the 21st and 22nd of June. They are of the archers shooting on the line during one of our demonstrations and the other one is of me describing what is going on while the archers are collecting their arrows. Normally I wear the same type of garb the archers do, but on Sunday I decided to change it up by wearing my green wool cotehardie with wool felt cap. I had not worn that set since my wife and I renewed our vows at Jubilee eight years ago. It thought it was time to try it on again and it still fits! The fair was a great time. The weather was fantastic and St. Sebastian had more people attending than we have had in a long time. It was a great time to be with everyone again. The faire itself was very festive and people were really enjoying themselves this year. More photos of the faire will be posted as I get them.

Later!

Cool Recommendation for music

A recommendation for some heart pounding, foot stomping, ear splitting, and nose bleeding music that we discovered at the Jubilee Olde English Faire in Brimfield Ill.


The group is called Albannach and I have been listening to their CD "Eye of the Storm" here at work.... softly, but only reluctantly. It needs to be played LOUD!!!

Albannach is a Scottish group from, of course, Scotland and they have been touring the US and visiting Renn faires and the such and making big waves and tons of new fans... myself included.

They played at the fair, just about at the end of the St. Sebastian Archery demonstration and were at least 100 yards or more away, and I could not yell loud enough to be heard over them. Anyway, I did not mind. It was great music. And they music they make is updated traditional stuff and original stuff and it makes no bones about their love of their country and what they think of the the English all all that hubabaloo. They have the pipes, the bodhrans, and the kettle drums. Yes.. huge scottish kettle (war)drums and they beat the hell out of them.

This is great stuff! Check it out at www.albannachonline.com

I highly recommend the track "The Gael" which is a remake of certain parts of the Last of the Mohican soundtrack. Great stuff.

And to my buddy Chuck in Minnesota... I think even you would have loved this music!

Later!

Face in the paper!

Here is a link to a newpaper article about the recent Jubilee Olde English Fair held in Brimfield Il, June 21-22, 2008

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1816436224/Back-to-the-days-of-olde

on the left side of the margin are related photos. One is of me and a "volunteer" and the other is of my son and another boy in the group cleaning up after I cleaned a crane for the afternoon meal.

It was a great weekend for the fair and I will get more photos up soon!

Later