Just Call Me the Dairy Queen

So, I located a source of fresh raw cow's milk that seems clean and hygienic (the cow is a 4-H cow). Making cheese has been almost as aggravating as making ale and mead. When it's all working correctly, it is fantastic. When it goes awry, it is bad. Curds are very touchy, just like yeast. If you disturb them while they are forming, things do not go as planned. One of the ways to try to eliminate some of the frustration is to use raw milk. The homogenization and pasteurization process breaks down some of the proteins and makes it much more difficult for curds to form.

The best option would be to own your own dairy animal. That is not a good option for us, although dairy goats would do a great job of weed control around here, as well. But we take too many weekend or longer trips, and dairy animals have to be milked twice a day, so we didn't pursue that option. (IMO, the perfect thing for us would be bees, because we make mead and bees are awesome and necessary for pollination. But Miach is allergic to bee stings, and he won't let me put any hives anywhere on our property, even if it's an acre away from him. But I digress......)

Purchasng the milk was not simple. It called for a lovely detour from the Farmer's Market up to Nevada City, to purchase 1/2 gallon canning jars to put the milk in, then another detour to the home of the cow, which was off of a road that probably would have been best traversed by the Durango and not the Matrix. But we survived the adventure, and discovered a wonderful new hardware store in Nevada City!

Amazingly, raw milk smells exactly like pasteurized/homogenized milk. Of course, there is a thick layer of cream on top, which I poured off into other clean and sterilized jars of various sizes. There was about 2 quarts of cream, with enough cream still in the milk that it was probably about 2% strength. You can make cheese with both buttermilk and yogurt as starters to acidify and culture the milk. Yogurt likes it a little warmer and buttermilk likes room temperature. You can also make MORE buttermilk and yogurt. So I ended up with about a gallon of yogurt, a quart of buttermilk, a pint of clotted cream, a pint of sour cream, a cup of butter, a half-gallon of pasteurized milk for Miach to cook with and use on cereal, about 2 cups of ricotta cheese (which may have turned too sour during the draining process 'cause I completely forgot it was draining in the utility room for 2 days), and about 2 pounds of compacted curds that I hope will turn into a hard cheese. The process took an entire weekend, at the end of which I have never had such clean arms from so much cleaning and rinsing, nor such smooth and soft hands from all that butterfat. The yogurt didn't firm up much, but it seems much firmer now than a week ago. The buttermilk had the usual tart taste, but was also much sweeter than store buttermilk (late edit: it's now much less sweet and refreshingly tart and thick). I haven't used the cream or sour cream yet, and Miach hasn't touched the milk I "cooked" for him. All the products can last a long time except the milk.

Now we're down to sugar, flour, rice, coffee and tea being the staples we need to purchase at the mainstream grocery. While in the Flour Garden in Auburn, I noted a poster on their wall about locally-grown grains being used in their products, so it's possible I could even get flour at some point locally!

The Chickens Came First

I gave up fast food about 2 months ago, not for the first time but hopefully for the last. The stuff was killing me. My metabolism is not fast food friendly, or maybe it's too fast food friendly. In my job, I spend a great deal of time in my car. It's my office, my waiting room, my supply room. It is often my coffee shop. Fast food fits right in with my work life, and thanks to my poor choices I am very much overweight and out of shape.

About 2 months ago, I tweaked my knee (also not for the first time) and was once again reminded of just how much weight my poor knees are moving around. My doctor said there was nothing much to be done about it, and it would just take time to heal.

So I decided to resume the joint supplements and fish oil, and I also purchased a small ultrasound device which finally got my knee to being functional again. And I decided that I have got to lose weight. Weight-loss diets don't usually work well for me, because the key to losing weight is that you change your lifestyle, as most of us know. And I kind of like my lifestyle in some respects. I brew ale. I make cheese. Sourdough starter lives in my 'fridge. Cooking and food fascinate me, and they are a hobby that I share with my dear Miach. The problem isn't the food we cook at home, it's the food that I eat in the car and the crappy snack stuff.

The chickens are what started me trying to be more mindful of the ecology of eating. Chickens are fascinating and amazing. They will eat just about everything, including your leftovers, and give you an egg in return. Egg white is perfect protein. Our chickens produce way more eggs than we can eat. We give eggs to our friends, and some of our friends have been very happy to have them because their budgets are tight. There is a big difference between fresh eggs from free range chickens who are living the high life, and eggs from a production farm that houses hundreds of hens in cages where they can barely stand up and get no fresh grass or bugs.

The same is true of tomatoes. Everyone knows that store-bought tomatoes taste pretty much like cardboard. They're pretty, and they add color to a salad, and a scientist will tell you that they have all the same nutrients, but they do not come close to tasting as good as a home grown tomato.

So, pondering eggs and tomatoes, and being obsessed with food and how it's made, one naturally begins to want to control not only how the food is prepared, but how it's grown. A lot of the reason that agribusiness must use chemical fertilizers and pesticides is because large-scale plant production is just like large-scale egg production. It isn't natural. It's economical and efficient.

Not that many years ago, we didn't eat the way we do now. My grandparents slaughtered a hog every fall, made their own ketchup, canned their own vegetables, raised chickens for eggs and meat. One grandmother made the best damn pickles I have ever tasted, both "bread and butter" and "lime" (both were made with cucumbers). The other grandmother made award-winning egg noodles and rhubarb pie. Both grandmothers canned their own food. My mother, a modern woman, froze the vegetables that my father grew in our sizable garden in the suburbs. We had corn, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, turnips, carrots, peas, and green beans.

I learned all this as a kid, and here I am living in one of the best climates in the world for growing vegetables year 'round, and instead of growing vegetables I've been obediently making myself fat on food that is quick and cheap. When we cook meals our parents and grandparents cooked, many times the food does not taste like we remember it, and we blame our aging taste buds or in moments of clarity we acknowledge that mass-produced food is just not as tasty but far be it from us to grow our own. We don't have the time for that.

Out here in the country, even when you think you're all urbanized, life is just different. People you know butcher their own meat, they hunt, they fish. You are gifted game meat frequently.

Last year there was a small roadside stand along Highway 49 that sprung up for a brief period in the summer/fall, obviously when the garden on the property began producing more than expected. It was a thing of beauty, driving by that lush garden. So sometime during the mild winter months, I decided to make raised beds and Miach made three of them, with hardware cloth on the bottom 'cause we have ground squirrels. And we got a barrel composter, and faithfully put all the peels and tea bags and egg shells and stuff that we used to throw away in there. And the chickens ate all the stale bread, and leftover rice and spaghetti. So, we are throwing very little away now. The chickens have straw bedding and use wood shavings in their nesting boxes, and when we clean the coop what we have is a perfect mix of chicken poop (green waste, nitrogen) and fibrous material (brown waste, carbon). In fact, the floor of the chicken run is much improved soil. The chickens scratch in it, turn the compost, and it becomes dirt. But throwing the old straw from the coop onto the chicken run would just be too much, so we haul the coop bedding out to the front pasture and mound it up, and it magically turns into composted soil. I went out there this winter to turn the pile, 'cause that's what you're supposed to do. I've tried in the past to compost yard waste, and it has never worked out. But chicken poop and straw, now there's evidently the magical mixture. That pile was steaming, and underneath when I turned the pile, there were huge fat earthworms. In the spring, after at least 4 months of composting, I went down and hauled most of it back up as black soil, but it was just a fraction of what we needed to fill the raised beds, so we ordered a truckload of topsoil and managed to get 2 beds filled and planted before it got too hot. I planted tomatoes, peppers and eggplant in one and acorn squash and melons in the other. The melon seedlings fainted in the heat and died, but they were the only loss. The squash is now a huge bushy thing with leaves the size of platters. I remembered after it flowered profusely that we used to eat fried squash blossoms when I was a kid, and realized that all those flowers just couldn't make fruit and that our mothers probably realized that and culled it down and treated us. The tomato plants grew outrageously and we have been getting 2 to 6 tomatoes daily for the last couple weeks. The hot banana peppers are fruiting, but so far the green sweet and red sweet aren't. The eggplant is fruiting, and I'm just not sure when it's best to pick it. It is only about cucumber sized now. I planted some bush beans, to dry and make soups out of this winter. We might try sweet potatoes this weekend, in the third bed, we have some that have sprouted. This winter, I'll get a handle on this gardening bit and grow my own seedlings to plant in the spring. I have a whole collection of heirloom seeds from Seed Savers .

So, here is the current hierarchy of food:

• Try to grow it ourselves.
• If we don't grow it, buy it at the local Farmer's Market in Auburn. This includes fruits, vegetables that we aren't growing, and meat.
• If we want to eat it and it isn't at the Farmer's Market, buy California-grown organic.
• If we absolutely must have something that isn't in season in California, at least buy organic.

This can be a real aggravation at times. And I know that it can be argued quite reasonably that it makes no difference nutritionally. But it makes a big difference in taste, and it makes a big difference spiritually. It's important for me to feel that we can feed ourselves and even help feed others from the fruits of our own labor (and the chickens labor, I suppose). It's my goal to can and freeze any surplus of our garden, and it occurred to me after the last of the cherries at the Farmer's Market were gone that it would have been smart to have bought enough of them to can or to have made into pie filling or preserves. I'm keeping my eye on the blackberries at the Market and hope not to miss the boat when the big harvest comes on them! I suspect that I'll know much more about what to get in bulk and when, by next year.

Has this made a difference in my health? Subjectively, I feel more energetic. Lately my skin has developed a pinkish undertone that seems very nice. I don't have as many issues with my digestion. My weight is not changing, which is kind of a shock, since I mostly eat fruit and eggs and yogurt and tomato juice for lunch now instead of huge fast food meals with fries and colas. I'm sure that people who think it doesn't matter where your calories come from, you just need to count them, would feel justifiably smug about that. Just as I felt smug about the Chinese pet food crisis ('cause we cook our dogs food ourselves for the most part), and I now feel smug about outbreaks of salmonella. Life is a gamble, and there are no guarantees, so my philosophy is to do that which makes you feel that you have some control and that you are walking as gently and respectfully as you can on Mother Earth.

Catching Up

This blog tends to veer wildly off the road. I was amazed that I hadn't updated it since my brother died. And so very much has happened since then!

Housing: We bought a house. Much like romance and relationships, the house we bought turned out entirely differently than I had planned. We now own a pre-fab modular home on 2 acres of rural land. We have a septic system, but public utility water. We have a wood stove that we use to heat with in winter, although we do have regular PG&E as well -- it's just damn expensive, so we don't use it. We have chickens, and probably more to follow on that subject. We are growing some of our own vegetables, and plan to grow more. Crazy, I know. I still love Streng Bros. homes, and modern house design. We just couldn't find that in the area we were determined to live in. Plus, Miach was never crazy about the modern homes and he's a lot happier here. And it's weird, but we KNEW this was the place the minute we laid eyes on it. It wasn't a flawless sale. Other buyers put money down on it first. But it turned out they didn't buy it, and eventually things worked out. The big problem here is that there is no garage. We built a little barn/shelter, and there is a workshop. Since we threw so much willy-nilly into the workshop when we moved, it needs to be re-organized and then it will probably actually be functional. And we just need to move a bunch of stuff down to the storage area of the barn and get it out of our spare bedroom.

Gaming: At first, our internet up here was so unreliable we gave up online computer gaming. Miach likes console games, anyway. He and his Knight, Gunther, have a semi-weekly gaming night on Thursdays where they play first person shooters into the wee hours.

Eventually, though, we ironed out some of the more aggravating internet connectivity issues, and we've been able to resume playing Lord of the Rings Online. I'm not really "into" it, although sometimes it can be fun. I tried Eve Online again, and frankly it's not much fun to play without Miach and he has no interest in it. What I like about Eve is the player-based economy and skill tree, which is very complicated and fascinating and individual. But it's lonely out there in the huge expanses of intergalactic space.

Social: So, Miach has gotten really good at this whole SCA heavy combat thing. He's been on numerous Court guards and was the Lord Defender of Cynagua. I've been on 3 Courts, and learned a lot. I'm now the Cynagua Chirurgeon, too. We've discussed all the political and social aspects of the whole SCA experience ad infinitum and ad nauseum, and we're feeling pretty darned responsible and reliable when it comes to holding The Dream matrix together for the enjoyment of everyone. Miach came very close to winning the Coronet in May. We were both feeling that it was almost fated to happen for several reasons, and while it would be rude and arrogant to not feign shock and surprise, I actually was neither. Since accepting the loss in Finals, Miach has had trouble getting back into the groove due to ear infections and now a really severe bone bruise and possible muscle tear to his left elbow. We'll just have to see how it goes. But if he recovers and regains his momentum, and he has every intention of doing so, we feel well prepared should he win Coronet in the future. We actually have A Plan on how to manage it financially. Socially, we're really quite prepared: Neither one of us is a Drama Queen, both of us have worked professionally with all types and levels of mundane society, and we're both rather good at diplomacy. We both truly like other people most of the time, know what people to stay away from or to be very cautious around, and have a fairly well-honed sense of propriety.

In the long view, it IS shocking and surprising, because when we first joined the SCA we had no intention of ever getting to this level. But Miach discovered he really likes fighting; who knew?

Every time I say "the blog is going to head this way" it heads in a different direction. And since it's mostly a journal, and very few people have ever read it, that doesn't matter so much. But if I was to hazard a guess, I'd say that I'm going to be writing a lot now about trying to live a simpler life, chickens, vegetable gardening, etc. and SCA issues on a more Principality level, vs. a Shire level. And if I had to hazard a guess as to which topic would possibly get some actual traffic, I'd say "chickens". 'Cause they're fascinating, and more and more people are beginning to raise them.

The Last Link

My brother, Jody, died on the evening of March 3rd, 2010, at around 7pm Pacific time. The facility had tried to reach me about 30 minutes before, to report a change of condition. By the time they made the call, the nurse was already on her way to tell them he was gone. I was napping, and didn't answer the phone, which doesn't bother me because I couldn't have talked with him anyway. I got the news from the funeral home calling me around 7:30pm.
Whenever you get news like this, it's always unsettling even when you're expecting it. We've been expecting it since last July. My intention was to make a return trip to see Jody again later this Spring, but it was always a gamble with time.
I haven't cried.
That bothers me to some extent, and I know it bothers my family. I've gotten "misty", as my mom used to say, but I haven't actually cried. Danni, my youngest daughter, has been calling my brother almost weekly. She sent him a Valentine's Day card. She spoke to him on Monday, and reported to me that he couldn't talk long because he was very tired. When I told her she burst into tears and wailed. The next day, I went to her place after work and we discussed the situation. She expressed extreme regret that she did not get to go back and see Jody, but she also clarified some of my own ambivilence about spending money and taking time off to do the socially-mandated funeral trip back to a place that is no longer home for any of us.
She talked about the need for she and her siblings, and myself, to make the trip "someday - when things aren't so crazy and we all have a little more money and time". Truthfully, if I were half the woman girthwise that I am now, I'd go ahead and fly back. But flying back costs me twice as much as it would cost that imaginary normal-sized woman, and this has been a Winter of financial hardship for Danni and one of $1000 PG&E bills for me, and we also just went into escrow on a house. I prefer to put what money I am able to spend towards keeping Danni in her apartment and keeping her car and insurance, and getting us into our own place with a woodstove.
I know this is one of those decisions that will haunt me for the rest of my life, but I also know that Jody doesn't care at this point if I'm at his funeral or not. My regret is that I did not have a chance to see him again, and that Danni did not have that chance, either. For 30 years, the staff and residents of his residential care facility have been his family and that family will have a chance to attend his services. They have been good to him, and they have been good to me. My gratitude is enormous.
In other times and places, my brother's life could have been a nightmare. It has not been so in the time and place that he lived. He was well cared for, and his final months have been lived exactly the way he wished to live them: eating ice cream, watching videos and coloring.
I made a snapshot-book of family photos on the train trip back to Illinois last July. I put in photos of us when we were kids, and photos of his nieces and nephews as kids, then as adults, and with their own spouses and kids. I labeled them all, so the facility could tell who was who and what relationship they were to Jody. I drew a picture of the family tree, with our parents as the trunk, our grandparents as roots, and he and I as the two main branches. My branch curled over his, and my kids hung above him reaching for the future. His branch came out straight and strong from the trunk, just above the roots. The facility staff told my daughter on one of her frequent calls that he spent a lot of time looking at the book, which makes me both sad and happy.
Once when we were kids, we went to visit one of our mother's friends who lived in the city and we were playing out in the backyard and I was supposed to be watching Jody -- but I wasn't paying attention. When I looked up, he was nowhere to be found. Finally, I ran to the back alley, and saw him, a tiny figure walking determinedly with his sway-hipped gait into the distance.
And that's how I see him now.
Good-bye, Little Joe from Kokomo, Wiggle-butt, Mangey Polecat. I'll see you when I see you. Tell the folks we think of them often, and I hope you get all those questions you had answered.
I bet Freckles was happy to see you, and he didn't growl and he was feeling frisky.
And now I'm crying. Of course.

Disheartened and Tired

Remember this post? Well, all I can say is that I'm deeply disappointed. I can't say things would have gone any better with Hillary as my choice, and I'm pretty sure they've gone better than they would have gone if McCain/Palin had won. But nothing, absolutely nothing, that I was hoping for has come anywhere close to fruition. The biggest and most sickening FAIL has been "healthcare reform", which as far as I can tell is only going to force people to buy insurance from the same corporations that have so very thoroughly screwed us on healthcare for generations.
And as for the TARP, well. It was better than another Great Depression, but then again we aren't even close to being out of the woods on that one, yet. Plus, I don't believe any corporate entity is "too big to fail". I'm of the "if it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist" school. So far as I can tell, what we've done is to give the biggest banks and financial players a huge interest-free loan which they then turned around and made huge amounts of money on, and then paid themselves MORE huge bonuses, while not stopping their aggregious behavior.
And while I understand that unemployment woes are more the fault of the last decade than the last year, I also believed myself to voting for a lot more intervention in the form of public works programs and green programs instead of saving AIG and Goldman-Sachs.

In short, I feel that I've been used. I feel that what the working class (aka "middle class") wants is unimportant to the Democratic Party, but what the corporations want is vitally important to them. I don't believe that a handful of Democratic Party US Senators and Lieberman are holding us all hostage for the sake of the people who voted for them. I think they're doing it for the sake of the insurance industry, and somewhat for their own egos. Even if they WERE doing it for the people in their home states, that would be unacceptable, since the total population of Nebraska is probably less than the city of San Francisco, but be that as it may our Constitution having given equal power to all US Senators there isn't much we can do about it. As does everything else that humans are involved in, the original goal for this has been twisted beyond the doubtless noble goal that allowing it was meant to serve. I expected a fight on healthcare. Instead, the Left signalled from the very beginning that they would accept compromise, and that guaranteed that they would get NOTHING. Hell, the filabuster is just a convention, not a law. They could have gone around the Blue Dogs with Reconciliation. And Lieberman? We all knew he didn't deserve to keep his Chairmanship, but remember how we had to let him keep it because otherwise he'd not vote for healthcare reform? That really worked out well for the Democrats, didn't it?

When the pundits and talking heads mention Democratic Party apathy, I could be their poster child, except I'm not a registered Democrat. Haven't been for years. I quit the party when they couldn't find their spine in 2004. I'm not seeing any evidence that they have found it even now that they hold Congress and the Presidency.

I don't agree with the Tea Party movement's rhetoric. I don't even think it's an actual grassroots movement. But I will give them this: they have scared the bejesus out of the Republican Party.

There needs to be something similar happening on the Left.

PG&E Must Be On Crack

This is our power bill. Last month's was $500.74, which was still outrageous, and we immediately implemented reduction measures: turning off lights, turning down thermostat. So, I was looking forward to seeing what it was this month and imagine my shock -- it's hard to tell from the picture, but our bill this month (December) is $987.77.

We live in a one-story, 3 bed/2 bath. We have no pool, no hot tub. We wash 2 to 4 loads of laundry per week. Our dishwasher has never worked (rental house) and we wash dishes by hand. We do have an old-fashioned big screeen projection TV, which we've had for nearly 10 years, and which we have on nearly constantly and have had on nearly constantly for the 4 years we've lived in El Dorado Co. and been customers of PG&E. We have Energy Star fridge, washer and dryer. We also have a fridge in the garage, which we've had out there for about 6 months. We have 2 computers which are also on all the time, and have been on constantly for years. My point here is that we didn't suddenly start leaving our stuff on constantly, we've been doing it for years and yes, we know that is BAD and that we would save money if we stopped it, but somehow I doubt that it has suddenly made our power bill jump up.

Of course we are suspicious that neighbors have tapped into our power, especially since the vacant house next door was purchased in late summer. But I see no evidence of that, unless they've somehow managed to tunnel under the fence up the hill and hook into some main line -- which doesn't seem at all likely, and which I doubt is even possible.

This is a rental house, it has double-paned windows and fairly modern air conditioning unit that is about 1/6th the physical size and probably easily 20 years newer than the huge dinosaur we had down in El Dorado Hills, and our power bill in EDH was NEVER this high in either winter or summer. We thought we were going to be saving on our bill, because that house had bad ducts, regular windows and a badly outdated AC/Heat unit as well as an outside water heater that was on it's last legs and used to cough out gritty mineral deposits into our water.

Of course I called PG&E and the peon who answered asked all the questions: space heaters? nope. Hot tub? nope. Well with pump? nope. Lots of Christmas lights? nope. Big family, lots of guests? nope, just 2 adults.
Absolutely nothing has changed except it is now winter, and the heater is running instead of the air conditioner. I don't think having our CFL lights on longer would cause the bill to triple. (And it was high at baseline, but I figured that was the price we paid for our wasteful ways.)
There is no way on God's green Earth that this is acceptable. I know PG&E is expensive, and I've heard recently that it is about 40% more expensive than SMUD. I like living in El Dorado Co. and we have great friends up here. But I don't see how we can afford to live here at these rates, and I have no hope at all that PG&E will assist us in figuring out why our bill is so huge, unlike SMUD, which will send out someone to inspect and give you advice on what might be wrong.
Yes, I know I can protest the bill and I intend to. I am currently waiting "7 to 10 days" for someone to contact me, and I'm going to mail a copy to the California Public Utilities Commission. And I doubt any of it will help me at all; can you tell how much faith I have in the system? I have no illusions. I am just a regular gal, no political or socially powerful connections. I make a good living, and I will not qualify for any kind of assistance -- THANK GOD. Because in the long haul, I have some resources and I can move, which I'm seriously working on, and we're now reconsidering moving BACK to Sacramento County. If I were truly financially challenged, I'd be screwed even more than I am now, so again, I'm glad I won't qualify for a reduced-rate program.

Merry Christmas, from PG&E. At least they've shaken me out of my inertia and I am now going to make haste at getting the hell out of this rental house.

Report from Great Western War 2009

We just got back from our "vacation", which started with October Crown/West Kingdom the weekend of October 2-4, and concluded yesterday at Great Western War/Caid on October 11th. What a great life!
Crown was fun. I'm getting out to the Eric parties more now, and Miach is working up his renown. He entered his short Mead, and it won the Kingdom award. His Strawberry Cordial drew Royalty into our encampment, and we decided to go ahead and make corned beef and cabbage stew for the Eric buffet tables, and people LIKED it because it was chilly that night.
I sat with Juliana and Gunther in Sigurgata's sunshade, and got observe Uther and Jade very closely as well as the pretty remarkable Sigurgata gear. They all do red/black, and the sunwheel S, but they each do it individually in their own patterns. Uther and Miles have painted helms. Uther has a shield that has a Knight, Lady and Death on it -- the Knight looks like he's wearing the same armour as Uther.
Gunther fought a 15 minute epic battle with a pikeman, which unfortunately wore out his shield arm and he was unable to prevail against the next Knight (although he did beat the pikeman). Uther also fought a long fight with Gunther, and Juliana and Kara stood arm in arm closely together watching them, which was really very touching to see. Uther prevailed. He had told Miach that he has been training for this Crown for six months, and at this point in his chivalric career if Uther is actually trying to win something he is going to win it.
Miach made it to the third round, and he did well. He chose Mari Alexander for his first fight, and he has a hard time fighting women. He holds back, and he overthinks things. She prevailed.
Shortly after Crown, and probably actually at Crown but unbeknownst to us, Mari was offered knighthood.
We were running late, as usual, at packing up camp and had to be assisted by the autocrat and staff. This is typical. Miach has begun thinking about ways he can reduce the amount of things he feels he must take camping, which is very close to facing the reality that he brings too much stuff and takes too long to tear down camp. I feel for him, because he really feels compelled to do it all: fight, cook, compete in cooking/brewing, be a member of Court, AND set up/tear down camp. He doesn't want me to do it, because he feels I will not organize it well. It's really a control issue, but it's something he's going to have to work out on his own.
Monty nosed open the tent flaps and joined us on the Eric listening to Fergus tell a story on Saturday night. He never nips at people when he gets loose, only when he's on the leash or in his pen.
Volker rode down with us, and we made arrangements to caravan with E'taine to GWW.

Home we went for Sunday late evening and Monday, which we spent shopping for GWW. We left the trailer parked on the side street hitched to the truck, and cleaned our garb basically. E'taine and I told Miach that we were leaving at 5 am hoping that he'd be on the road by 7 am, which worked perfectly. We began our caravan to Caid on Tuesday morning and arrived in the dry harsh lands at 2 pm. E'taine and Berta camped in the West Kingdom encampment, and Miach and I found the An Tellach Mor encampment on the far edge of the world at the end of Great Western Road. We were directly across from the lake, and a beautiful view, but a terribly lengthy walk to the main merchant/teaching area and Point, and battlefield. It was even further from the Royal encampment. Miach walked that route several times daily, assisting the Queen and going to battle. I walked it three times, and each time I was totally exhausted with aching feet afterwards. On Tuesday, we just chilled in camp. On Wednesday, Miach went to battle and we got crossbow lessons afterwards from Lord Edgar the Archer who was staying in his RV in the lot near to us. This totally convinced us to go to Merchant's Row and buy a crossbow, and we identified HQ and Point and introduced ourselves to Blase, the Kingdom of Caid Chirurgeon. On Thursday I went back to Point and worked with Blase on and off the battlefield for 4 hours, and promised to come back on Saturday due to expectations of increased drunkeness due to the grief over the death of Duchess Kolfinna from H1N1 and the memorial service for her. We had a fire on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and on Wednesday night Achmed from the West came by on his constabulary rounds and had some dinner and chatted with us. On Thursday, Miach set up the Royal Pavilion and in the evening he escorted Queen eilis, and the dogs and I made a fire and sat enjoying it until bedtime. We met our neighbors across the road, Albrick and Leanna, who were lovely people and nicely garbed late period. We shared our brewed meads with one another. Leanna made a great one with Red Zinger as an ingredient. The seafarers were camped just beyond them, the Black Rose, and they had drumming and dancing nightly with much cheering and joy. I love drumming, and find it very conducive to sleep.

On Friday, I showered in mid-camp and then went to the Artisan's Enclave. I got instruction on inkle weaving, and took a class in the history of dye making. I wanted to learn to make my own gillies, but didn't have the cash on hand to pay for it. I took a course in telling a "No ____, there I was" story and met Seanachie, who was Queen of Caid 15 years ago and another lovely charming person. There was a small theatre set up with hay bales and sunshade, called the Open Arms Bardic Hall, just off Artisan's Enclave. I purchased a Kumikiro cording set, natural period powdered colored paints for illumination, oak gall ink balls for calligraphy, some leather cording, and two pairs of trewes and a tunic because I left my "Volker" tunic and pants in the dirty laundry mistakenly on Monday. I then wandered over to the battleground, where my lovely idyllic Medieval mellow was about to be harshed severely.

This is where Rex comes in. He is a prospective household member that we had not met, and he showed up in mundanes on the battlefield looking for Miach. He was hot, tired and frustrated and had left a humongous smoker in the vicinity of our camp. Miach directed me to accompany him back to camp and he went back to battle. In camp, Morgan and Siobhann had arrived and were setting up, but Rex was in fine fettle at this point and demanding that we locate the land agent and explain that his smoker HAD to be placed right where it was (in someone else's reserved space). He wasn't hearing our explanations of how well that would go over. We finally moved our kitchen tent across the campsite from the sunshade, and he managed to fit the smoker into that area and then get his tent up. By that time, Morgan was pissed and I was aggravated. Somewhere in there, another household member that I hadn't met, Sean, arrived with his wife Rosa and daughters and father (who was wheelchair bound). They set up two tents, and there was also a small travel trailer in the RV parking just beside us. Then Tegan showed up, with her "friend" Mary Beth and daughter Phoenix. Then Findon/Floyd showed up with Seamus. Miach arrived back in camp at some point, and began cooking his curried beef with Roti. Just when things began to settle down, and after three nights of way too much solitude in our camp when we would have been thrilled with visitors, West Kingdom chose Friday night to arrive in force. Prince Alfar of the Mists, Princess Annora of Cynagua, Lady E'taine and Lady Berta, N'ara from Silver Desert, court members and squires Bucket and Miles and guard Sauron from Oertha all paraded in. Introductions were made, drinks were passed, food was given out to those that were hungry, much hugging exchanged. We had expected this, but when we realized how far away our camp was from the West and we spent three nights in comparative solitude, I figured that it wouldn't happen so of course I told Morgan and Siobhann not to expect a visit after all. Morgan and Siobhann were actually being inducted as Chieftains in the Barbarian Freehold Alliance, and Siobhann came back to this madhouse in total amazement. Morgan stayed and drank with the Barbarians, and by the time he got back everyone had moved on and I'm not sure he fully comprehended the number of people that had swarmed the camp. I wish it had happened on Wednesday or Thursday when we were bored to death, but even in the midst of the smoker and arrivals/set ups, it was great to be loved by the West! In the evening after the camp calmed down and while I was fire-sitting and waiting for it to burn out, Tegan sat and told me about how she had brought nearly all the new people into the household in the time since Ferghus and Valeda left: Sean and his family, Rex and now Mary Beth. She also told me that she used to date Rex and didn't seem to like him all that much, she was angry at Sean due to a situation with her ex, Carl, and didn't seem to like him much either.

On Saturday, Michaell and Miriam arrived and we all went shopping. I found Calontir Trim and bought the Bayeaux tapestry trim that Volker has on his tunic, only in a different color. I also got a Birch Beer in a pretty blue bottle, and Pheonix was following us and I bought her an apple cider. We all ended up at the battlefield, where Michaell took video of the battles. They had a ballista going this time, which was really a blast. Miach was fighting like a fiend.
We all went back to camp in the heat of the day, and kind of lazed around. Before dinner, we had the induction ceremony for Miriam and Micheall, and it was very nice. We then ate and I chopped veggies for lamb stew which Miach started as soon as the ceremony was finished. Lord James of Caid and Lady Esmeralda showed up and sang and played guitar. Miriam and Micheall were day-tripping and they made their reluctant good-byes. We were expecting the Western Rolling Keg Party to arrive at any minute, but the evening wore on and eventually Tegan and I went off to Constable and Chirurgeon respectively -- I asked Tegan to call for a golf cart because after a full day of shopping and battlefield watching, my feet and ankles were thrashed. I had a quiet shift until midnight, then got a ride back to camp and only Tegan's friend Mary Beth was still up, with a new gentleman friend. Mary Beth had obviously been drinking, but was polite and quiet and introduced me to her friend, Donal. Donal asked if I knew who he was, which I did not and the question amused me, but he was quiet serious about it. I informed him I was from the West and had no clue who he had been squired to or who he was, and that seemed to mollify him. (Turns out, he's a Caidin Knight. They are a bit tightly wrapped in Caid.)
Monty again nosed open the tent flap and lurked over to the fire, and at that point I said my good nights and walked the doggies, then retired for the evening. Miach came in briefly at 1:30 to wake me up and brag about his new medal for second place overall/first place wine category with his Cabernet that he entered into the Taste of GWW brewing contest, and told me he was going to escort the Queen home from wherever she was and then ask the rolling party not to come our way as most of us were in bed. And that's the last I heard of anything until I woke up on Sunday to the sound of the walkie talkie going off, and I couldn't figure out why it was in our tent. Miach was sleeping soundly, and he had not awakened me when he came in.
I got up, and the dogs were totally not interested in coming with me, so I left them in the tent and went out to comb my hair, brush my teeth and have some hot tea. Mary Beth came out of her tent and seemed a bit ditzy, but my limited impression of her was that she was normally a bit ditzy. I was somewhat surprised that she got up so early, given the fact she was up drinking so late. She braided my hair, borrowed some shampoo and went off to the showers.
Then things began getting strange.

Tegan came out demanding to know when Miach had gotten to bed, which I found puzzling and thought at the time was none of her concern. She informed me she knew for a fact he didn't get to bed until close to 4 am. I was somewhat surprised by this, and again I was thinking it was kind of rude of her to be concerned with Miach's comings and goings. About then, Miach got up, which he hardly ever does unless he hears a Herald and knows what's going on -- and the Heralds hadn't come close to giving morning shout yet. It was probably about 7 am. And Miach then takes me aside and informs me that All Hell Broke Loose in our camp while I was asleep, that Mary Beth got absolutely smashed, she cried all over him, she was taken to Point and became belligerent and was screaming at Tegan and that she obviously didn't remember any of it. Miach felt compelled to sit up until 4 am to ensure that she did not come out of the tent and hurt herself or fall in the lake, a chore that he later confessed to me he was livid with Tegan about since it was her friend and her responsibility, but she refused to deal with it. Sometime before Mary Beth returned from her shower and Morgan and Siobhann arose, Sir Donal came by to be sure that she was ok. He seemed worried and embarassed. I told him Mary Beth seemed to be doing better than any of the rest of us, and that she was currently having a shower. The rest of the day is a blur of angry Tegan and passive-aggresive Mary Beth carping at one another, some light conversation with Rex and Eva (came with Rex), a visit with Achmed and Floyd/Findon discussing Fringies and the Silk Road campaign that Achmed has and Floyd's experience with hierarchical organizations, and more discussions with Seamus about MMORPG's. Seamus's main conversational bent is MMORPG's and disaster scenarios, and the traffic laws of France.
Morgan and Siobhann packed up and left after Morgan picked up an inkle loom they'd bought, then Sean and Rosa, then Rex and Eva (who left their wood with us) and FINALLY Tegan, Mary Beth and Phoenix. Phoenix fought Miach with wooden swords and was really very sweet and obviously thought Miach was great, which I'd been picking up on from Saturday. We said our good-byes to our neighbors and to Lord Edgar, and discovered that one of the logs that Rex left was actually burning, so we put it out. We couldn't fit the wood into the trailer, so I hauled it over to the Black Rose and they were very pleased to take it and offered an exchange of vodka, which I declined.
The ground was like rock, and Miach struggled to remove the stakes from the Roundhouse and the Sunshade. We borrowed a maul, Fido, from Black Rose and finally got them out. By the time we were fully loaded, gray water dumped, camp cleaned and pulling out it was 8:30pm.
We spent the journey home discussing the aggravations of Saturday/Sunday and Miach's chivalric path, ways to proceed with household and Kingdom paths, etc. We arrived back at 2:30am and the truck/trailer is still parked in front of the house currently.
It has been an epic week.