Man at Arms

Miach left on Tuesday night for the usual Mountain's Gate fighter practice, and came back a Man at Arms.
From what he told me, Viscount Gunther gathered his squires and presented Miach the opportunity due to a conviction that someone else would snatch Miach up soon. I kinda suspect that was a distinct possibility.

He's pretty stoked about it, and he went back up to Three Moons again tonight to work on his shield, because he will need it on Thursday when he goes with the squires to the BART practice.

Gunther was the best choice and it's an honor that he actually asked Miach, and honestly it was probably the only way Miach was going to make a choice. I do kind of grieve for the uncertainty and tension of the process, though. It added a lot of drama and intrigue to life, especially when the Misty Knights and Uther joined in.

See, I was right. The end of the beginning and the beginning of something much bigger.

Renown, sort of

A very weird thing happened to me yesterday, and that's saying a lot in my case. Miach and I attended a Tribe Rot Mahne fighting practice held out at Viscountess Juliana and Vicount Gunther's place, 3 Moons Farm (or possibly Ranch) in Cool. Sigurgata, the fighting household of Duke Uther, attended also. The weird thing was that a woman introduced herself to me by announcing, "I know who you are, Sciatha."
No one usually knows who I am. Even if they've seen me before, and at times even if they've spoken at length with me before. I've often puzzled over that, because I'm not a shy type and I don't normally go places and sit in the corner. My girth is also hard to overlook. But the SCA is an odd place full of odd people, many of them very self-conscious to the point that they actually are not conscious of anyone other than themselves. The NORM is for people not to know me.

So, we had a very pleasant day. I chatted with Duchess Eliana, who bestowed my AoA several reigns ago, and learned a bit about pattern knitting which she seems to have picked up very quickly in the last 4 months. I chatted with Lady Isolde, the Princiapality Chirurgeon, about period plastic surgery. I chatted with Viscountess Bronwyn and another Lady about Feminine Mysteries. At the gloaming, we all moved outside and there was a huge potluck feast and we ate until we were bursting and some folk drank until they were falling over -- but Miach and I had a couple and then switched to tea, because we were driving home. And on the way home, we discussed the Byzantine politics of household and knightly alliances, and how best to maintain good relationships while meeting Miach's need for advancement in his martial arts skills. And it occured to me that we are finding ourselves much more comfortably than I would ever have imagined in the company of Royal Peers, without our being Peers ourselves. This has caused changes in the way we are playing the game. Because once you start seeing things from the perspective of that level in the SCA, it makes it more difficult to be content with hanging out in your local group exclusively.

Just a few short months ago, I was in love with our Shire, collectively. And I still love the folks here. But I am finding myself frustrated with them more frequently, also.
Most of our Shire prefers to spend time in the Shire, and view their SCA involvement as local: they put on local demos for the Scouts, or for the local college, or add "color" to local events such as the Christmas Parade or Ladie's Night Out. They put on events hoping to draw people up the hill to the Shire, such as the Emeritus Feast or the Viking Tourney. They are absolutely wonderful at doing these things, and they pull together well as a group to do them.

The problem is, there is a huge SCA world out there. And it is a world in which one of the stated goals of the Shire was to gain renown. And there just isn't much Shire presence in that greater world, aside from Miach and myself and the two local Knights and Viscountess Juliana. The Shire is very well represented amongst the local mundane community, and very scantily attends any SCA events. Including events held in nearby locations, such as Golden Rivers and Danegeld Tor.
Lord Geoffry and Lord Eoin are finding themselves unable to attend these things, and Baron Wylowen is often physically unable to attend. Unless one, or all, of these good gentles attend -- no one else aside from our household (which includes Michaell and Miriam) or the Knight's households will show up.

We have gained so much and gotten so much joy from our time in the Shire, but we never intended that we would give up our membership in the West. And especially after being on Viscount Daniel and Viscountess Aeschine's court, for me at least, by necessity new bonds were formed with folk around the Principality. Miach has even larger circles, of bonds to fighters all over the West and to the Court of Titus and Eiles, and to the members of his fighting household as well as to Gunther and Richard personally and their squires. From an improbable beginning nearly 3 years ago, Miach has emerged as the only unbelted fighter in the Shire to consistently show up at not only Mountain's Gate's official practice, but the Golden Rivers gather and he is now probably going to start going with Gunther to the practice in the Mists that Uther runs. He has also attended, and gained valuable insight from Richard's practices.
There are those who are better armorers, and those who are more historically accurate in their kit, and those who have been fighting much longer. But there is absolutely no one in our Shire who has been more consistent and dedicated to learning the art and putting in the time on Court and at events than Miach. Of course I say this as his Lady, but any objective observer would agree with me. And it has paid off. Miach now has quite a bit of renown, has drawn the attention of not only the two local Knights, but also some of the more prominent Royal Peers in the West and in Cynagua. Fighters that Miach feels would have been on a par with the most famous Knights and Kings of the medieval world, due not only to their awesome fighting skills but also their mundane educations and professions, and their innate sense of self, honor and responsibility. In many ways, he is pulling me along with him, because I would be content to hang out with Lady Miriam and Lord Michaell and plot on how to increase our local An Tellach Mor members -- a goal that I still aspire to, but one that I suspect Miach often overlooks.
I am feeling this is the end of the beginning, and the beginning of something much bigger than I would ever have believed likely back when our Cheiftain, Morgan, was sitting at our table and convincing Miach to make the journey to Great Western War. It would not have happened if it had not been for the Shire, and that is a fact. Everything that has brought us to this point can be traced back directly to the Shire, and yet it seems like our natural progression is to begin to identify more with the very larger SCA world in which once we were beneath notice. Like all good mythic journeys, perhaps this one will end up in the future back where it started, but for now, it appears we are gathering the Fellowship and setting off.

Night of Exploding Mead

Back in April, in preparation for the Viking Tournament that Mountain's Gate hosted, I made two meads: a quick mead and a regular one. The quick mead was AWFUL. The regular one fermented energetically for a couple days, then slowed down. Now, let me explain my brewing philosophy: I like to keep it simple. I don't generally measure specific gravity and figure out how much alcohol potential a brew has, because that requires futzing around with tools that I'm pretty sure period brewers lacked. I strive for cleanliness and make a real effort to either sterilize or disinfect everything that comes in contact with my cooled wort, but I'm not really into the trappings of modern brewing. I made a mash tun out of a large round Home Depot 5 gallon water cooler, which is as much futzing as I can tolerate. I like making a mash, instead of using malt extracts or dried malt extracts, because I'm pretty sure that period brewers didn't use extracts. I strive to recreate the brews that my ancestors might have made.
Therefore, it is only with extreme reluctance that I measure specific gravity, which Miach consistently measures with his brews. And as with many things, Miach does have a good point: if you don't measure the specific gravity, how will you know when the brew has finished fermenting? However, I also believe that my own point is good: specific gravity won't necessarily go to "1.0" due to the yeast going dormant if the alcohol content reaches a certain percentage, and the mash perhaps being heavier than usual with sugars.

So, the regular mead -- which actually is a metheglin, since I added a few teaspoons of Heather extract to it -- just didn't do much after a couple days. I racked it into a new carboy, and put it in the garage (Meads like warmer fermentations) and every so often I'd go out and sniff over the airlock to see if it was still putting off CO2. When I racked it, I tasted it because Miach insisted that we measure the specific gravity and I humored him. It tasted REALLY good, and I felt that was a bad sign. Too much honey not fermented yet. So, I let it sit out in the garage for another 3 months. Finally, it seemed like it wasn't doing much of anything at all any longer, so I decided to bottle it. Miach again insisted that we measure the specific gravity, and then he became quite huffy and insistent that it was not ready to bottle. But really, it wasn't detectably fermenting AT ALL to my senses of smell and vision. So, of course, I disregarded his advice and bottled it.

Last night, just before dinner, we heard a loud "POP" and fizz. For a brief moment, I wondered what it could be, but then I realized with some alarm and a sinking sensation that it had to be my mead. Sure enough, a bottle had blown it's cork. About half of it had shot out all over the dining room carpet, and scared Maggie the Nervous Yorkie into the furthest corner of the house she could find to get away from it. Miach was again insistent that we put all the mead back into a clean carboy to avoid disaster, and I really didn't want to do that because it aerates the mead and that is not good once fermentation has started. So I drank the rest of the bottle, which was very sparkly and fizzy and sweet. As we were finishing dinner, "POP" and "POP". Frenetic activity ensued, with Miach cleaning the dining room carpet and me carefully opening the remaining 15 bottles of mead and pouring them into a disinfected carboy. All of the bottles gave a nice "POP" when I de-corked them, and at least half of them gave a very hearty "POP" and the cork popped out with only a bit of help, and then they fizzed out like champagne onto the kitchen floor. After I got the mead into the carboy and re-sealed the bubbler on top (that's the picture at the top; the Belgian Monk's Ale is wearing a pink T-shirt to the left of it, in a bucket fermenter), I also got to mop the kitchen floor down.

That mead is sooooo good. It will break my heart if it is ruined from aeration. Updates to follow.
Not for the first time, Miach is irritatingly correct in his reasoning.

Going Home

The day after we got back from June Crown, I got a call from Springfield, Illinois from the facility my handicapped brother lives in. It was the call I'd been dreading for years, and suddenly every one of those years of separation weighed heavily on me.
My brother has Down Syndrome, and was born with a heart defect that was considered inoperable at the time. All during our childhood, he never got any taller than 4'6" and never weighed more than 90 lbs. This was largely because of the heart condition, and his difficulty with chewing food. My parents doted on him, and having been told that he would not live to be very old, they figured they'd let him do pretty much whatever he wanted to do. So, he lived on hot dogs, applesauce, pudding, mashed potatoes, occasionally creamed corn or spinach, and ice cream. Lots of ice cream. And he drank strawberry Quick, which we all called "Silly Rabbit" because of the trademarked bunny that hawked this product.
He was fascinated with dogs and dinosaurs, and learned to identify almost every breed and species of same. He enjoyed listening to an extensive collection of LP's (ask your grandma to explain that to you) of Alvin and the Chipmunks. And he spent hours coloring. My most enduring memory of him will always be of him sitting on his bed, hunched over a coloring book, coloring away frantically and energetically.
My brother is Peter Pan. But I'm Wendy. Maybe that's why that particular story has always seemed so sad to me. I grew up, and married, and had kids, and moved away from Illinois.
My brother kept coloring.
My mother made the very hard and very brave decision to place him in a residential care facility after she fell down the basement stairs and twisted her ankle. She realized she wasn't getting younger, and she worried what would have happened if the injury had been more severe. Would Jody have been able to call for help? Or would he have colored away, oblivious to food and drink, until he passed out from dehydration? She cried every single day, sometimes more than once a day, for the next 3 years. I used to plead with her to just go get Jody and bring him home, and not worry, because I would take care of him if she couldn't. But she knew better than that.
She wanted me to have as normal a life as I could, and I'm very grateful today for that decision.

So, my brother has lived with the Franciscans in Springfield for nearly 30 years now. Amazing.
And the head nurse called, and they were very worried that he was complaining of not being able to swallow without pain, and he ended up dehydrated, and had to be hospitalized and given IV fluid. They discovered that his heart is now 3 times normal size, which is not good because bigger means weaker in this case. He also has arthritis in his hips, not unusual considering he also was born with abnormal hip sockets and a tendency for his hips to dislocate. He used to walk with a swaying, stiff-legged gait. My Dad called him "Wiggle Butt". He no longer walks, due to the discomfort mostly. During the time he has lived with the Franciscans, he put on weight, because unlike my parents they actually expected him to eat somewhat normally and would not let him have ice cream unless he finished his meal first. He gradually gained weight over the 12 years that my husband and I lived in Illinois, and we took him home for all the holidays and his birthday, and some other weekends. My kids grew up with him as a frequent, eccentric repeating character in their lives. He did his best to present an authoritarian persona to them, which we all found very amusing since it was rather like being lectured by an elf. But now, he just isn't able to eat that regular food; it gags him and he throws it up. So, he's gone back to his preferred diet after 30 years, and he's shrunk back down to about 80 lbs.
His doctor says there is nothing to be done. Feeding tubes would just cause a fluid imbalance that would stress his heart, as would IV's. The facility called to let me know he is fading away.
For 12 years, we had him in our home for a great deal of the time. After moving to California, he came to visit 2 times, bringing oxygen with him. Finally, one of the doctors said he should not fly any longer due to the cardiac condition. Since we have no living family in Illinois any longer, and since Jody usually is good for about an hour of chat before ignoring you in favor of coloring, it seemed wildly extravagant to fly out to spend part of an afternoon with my brother. I'd also have to rent a car, and book a hotel room for 2 days -- just to spend a couple hours. There were so many other things to spend that money on, when you have 4 kids and 7 grandkids. And like so many other people, I seemed to believe that time was not passing. I had actually asked for 2 weeks in August, planning on going back and visiting with Jody and maybe spending a couple days in St. Louis and a couple more days dragging Miach around Central Illinois to my childhood memories. But the facility did not react with enthusiasm when I reported this plan to them, so I thought about it.
I called my work on Tuesday following Crown, and told my supervisor that I would need to take the next week off. I looked into tickets, realizing that I'd have to pay for 2 seats on the airplane, because I've gotten so damn fat that squeezing into one seat has been torture for years and flying is such misery anyway ---why not at least buy myself some room? And then it occurred to me to look into Amtrak.
I ended up spending less on the entire trip, including car rental, hotel room for 2 nights, and meals than I would have spent on the tickets alone to fly. And I was relatively comfortable. It was also easier on my spirit, allowing me to make the transition emotionally as well as physically from California to Illinois.
My brother looked the same to me as he did the last time I saw him, nearly 12 years ago. Although I noticed that in the pictures I took, he looked like a little middle-aged elf. And I know I look older to him. He kept talking about "my other sister" -- you know, the young one he last saw 12 years ago.
He visited with me for 8 hours. And he ate an entire container of sherbet, and drank a whole glass of cranberry juice. The hospice nurse came and admitted him into the hospice program, and I signed the papers. On Monday, the hospice chaplain called me and offered support, and we discussed whether Jody would like to talk to him.
I didn't mention that besides coloring, his next most favorite activity is talking about every person or animal that he has known who has died. This started with my father's death, and we all thought he'd get it out of his system within a few months, but he never did. And as the years went by, he added my mother and various dogs and cats, and then men who died at the facility. He would talk endlessly about them.
A great deal of our visit was spent in him talking about our dog, Freckles, who had snapped at him because of pain, and had eventually been put to sleep. He would bring this incident up over and over. He also brought up my father becoming impatient with him and demanding he pick up his toys at some point in time.
He doesn't realize it, but he's led a blessed life if these are the two harshest memories that he has -- which they evidently are.
The folks at the facility were very supportive, and they reassured me that Jody has lived there for 30 years and it is now his home. Several of them told me they loved him. I cried, and Jody comforted me. We agreed to use Web video and Skype to talk with Jody, which hopefully will work out better than just voice phone. He has a tendency to zone out while on the phone, and often shakes or nods his head instead of answering. At least this way, we can see him and get some non-verbal cues.
I don't know where this summer will lead us. His heart could suddenly give out, or he could live on ice cream for God knows how long. I will eventually have to fly back, but I am grateful for the train trip this summer, and the sense it gave me of place and time.
The picture is of the Amtrak station in Springfield, Illinois, which smelled like my grandfather: pipe smoke and dust.

The Roundhouse Goes to Crown

Here is what the Roundhouse ended up looking like. We are well pleased with it. In the picture on the left, on the left margin, you can see the dog pen. If we had to put it inside, it would easily fit -- but we don't have to, because the dogs can no longer burrow out from under the tent walls. The walls and floor are sewn together, which makes me happy I chose this option, having completely forgotten the dogs and thinking only of rain and ease of erecting the tent. I'd guess it gives us about twice the space of our old pavilion. We had our bed set up in about 1/4th of the ground space. Miach put up his clothes rack in the middle, which also acted as a privacy screen for our sleeping area. We put our chests and storage boxes and the armor bag around the periphery. We still had a large area of unfilled space. The rug we brought, that had covered half the floor of the pavilion, covered about 1/4 the floor. (Which reminds me, I need to scrub the carpets and let them dry. Weather will be good for that this Sunday and for the next few days. They'll disinfect in sunshine.)
The tent went up easily, and one person could easily do it in about 1/2 hour or slightly less if they're good with a mallet. It is possible for one person to tote the tent, in bag, for a short distance. There was as much cross circulation as one could hope for, and the windows were well spaced for this; the vents also seemed to allow hot air to escape. I suspect that had we held June Crown in the Valley again, instead of near the Coast, we would have been hot but we were hot in the pavilion last Crown, too. For people that don't mind the extra work lining up tent and groundcloth, and who don't mind periods of little privacy sacrificed for greater comfort, the removable/roll up sides would be the better option in hot, dry climates, I think.
All in all, we are very pleased with this tent, and with our conversion of it into a Roundhouse. We are looking forward to using it frequently, and perhaps painting some more designs onto it. I am still planning on ogham letters listing our names over the door, and if I get real creative, maybe around the lower margin of the roof where the ropes are attached.

The tent arrived several days ago, and we put it up as best we could on our very inclined front yard yesterday. We took the dogs out and put them in their enclosure, and made an event of it. We ran out of yard. We could only stake it down on 2 sides, really. It went up easily enough. Hardest thing about it was pounding in the stakes -- there are a lot of them, and while they're not plastic and not the flimsiest metal I've seen, they also ended up bending on a couple of roots or rocks. We might have to take our iron stakes.
The canvas isn't as heavy as our Regent pavilion, but that's ok -- it's sturdy enough. We did stir up some excitement in the 'hood: a little kid was screaming "What is that thing?!" while his dad was walking him around our corner. Miach kept insisting it wasn't any bigger than our current tent, but it sure seems a lot bigger to me. Now that we've put it up and can see how low the walls are, I'm thinking we'll just stick with our air mattress. I'd go with a futon, but that would add another heavy thing for us to carry in/out of camp. We'll see, I suppose.

The big aggravation is that I just spent my entire Sunday making HUGE stencils. My neck, knees and back are aching from so much time tracing and cutting. Everything was working really well, too. I had discovered that you can use freezer paper to make iron-on stencils, which you can then peel off once the paint has dried. So, I figured I'd need 4 big heads, 8 large triskeles and 8 knotwork panels. Miach enlarged the knotwork and triskeles for me, each one about the size of 4 sheets of regular printer paper. I then fitted them together and laid a piece of the freezer paper (plastic side down) over them, and was easily able to trace the design --which I then re-traced for the number of stencils needed, and then cut out. It took HOURS. The sample stencil worked like a charm during the test on the canvas tent bag.
They did not work on the actual tent, however. My theory is that the waterproofing agent on the canvas works so well that the plastic on the freezer paper can't be stuck (using a very warm iron) onto it. It just won't adhere.
So, I drew the Celtic Heads on freehand, and I'll make an actual hard stencil of the knotwork and triskeles tomorrow. Hopefully.
Miach keeps saying we need to do this when the tent is up, but I don't think we can on the roof. The pitch is too severe, even if we got a ladder. And it would require us hauling PAINTING SUPPLIES on top of everything else, so no way.

On the right is a Roundhouse, a housing design that has actually been used in many cultures and times (including currently in parts of Africa, I believe). This one is a Celtic one, on display in the U.K.
I've always been fascinated by these dwellings, largely because my persona and my true heart is early period and tribal. From the time I was a kid, I've been studying ways to survive in the wild or at least without modern conveniences. As I've gotten older, I really appreciate those conveniences, let me add! The Roundhouse is a great design. It uses wattle and daub for the low walls, and the roof is thatch. There is no smoke hole in the roof, because modern reconstructionists have proven by trial and extreme error, that this would tend to draw a strong enough draft to set the whole roof on fire. Instead, the extremely high pitch of the roof allows smoke to collect away from the lower living area, and to dissipate through the thatch. Neat, huh?
The roof is very heavy, so there are fairly thick posts incorporated into the wall structure to support it. There is no central beam, but there is an inner ring of heavy timbers to help support the roof.
Many of these would be clustered together and surrounded by a periphery stockade, and there was usually one gigantic roundhouse in the complex that might have been the Chieftain's house or a meeting area. These stockades were usually situated on hills or sometimes on either natural or man-made islands in lakes.
On the left is a modern canvas tent, a modified Sibley design. It is sold in the U.S. out of Austin, TX, but the mother company is a U.K. company. There are other companies selling this same model, but they're more expensive. However, they also offer more accessories .

A pavilion is probably one of the two most expensive things that you will aspire to obtain as a Scadian, the other being for some people or families, a set of armor and a helm. There are factors beyond cost in considering a pavilion, and a big one is ease of set-up. True reconstructionists, and there are many in the SCA, will not be happy with anything less than the most authentic pavilion that they can afford to purchase or to make themselves.
Miach and I were going to go the "make it ourselves" option to replace our current Regent tent from Panther Primitives because the main reason we're replacing it was to get more space, and when we looked at the cost of buying a pre-fab for the size we wanted, the value just wasn't there. Making it ourselves would bring the cost down to where we could afford it; and of course it then would add another massive project to a growing list of projects that we are already way behind on. Plus, in this case, it involved depending in some way on assistance from others with experience of making tents, and while we have people who say they will do this they are unable to meet our timeline in getting it done and frankly -- when you're doing something out of the goodness of your heart, why should timelines even be in the picture?? But we were really hoping to have more space sometime this tournament season, which is about half over now.

So, after having researched the whole thing, purchased the ultimate sourcebook on it, shopped for various canvas types and treatments, pondered the requirements for "ripping" poles from lumber, and obtaining an old metal geared sewing machine for the job............I found this gorgeous tent while messing around on the Web. And my first thought was "Bingo! Celtic Roundhouse!" and my second thought was "Holy crap, they are asking for less $$ than we were going to spend making the pavilion. And we don't have to do anything. And it will be here by June Crown." At which point, I was sure Miach wouldn't approve, so I didn't say anything and I researched the new tent for a couple of days, finding alternate sources and other companies that made Sibley-styles and comparing them. I even plotted out the groundspace of the tent, and tried to visualize if it would be large enough. One would think that two people and two small dogs and their assorted stuff would fit into the Regency 12 x 12 that we currently have, but we are very crowded. Part of this is that we have to set up a small pen inside for the dogs, and Miach's armor bag is the size of another whole person. I ended up showing my findings to Miach, who surprised me by being very enthusiastic. At which point, really, it was a done deal for us. I gave it an additional 24 hours and also asked for some advice from the SCA Tentmaking group on whether this would be acceptably SCA-ish. I can tell you that for strict reconstructionists, none of which evidently monitor the SCA Tentmaking group, it will not be. A Sibley tent is a mid-1800's tent. Plus, this one has an aluminum center pole and A-frame on the door and it has synthetic ropes. I suspect that the stakes will be hard plastic, and we'll probably contract with a blacksmith for some iron stakes. But for ease of set-up and our budget, I'm willing to go with a collapsable aluminum center pole and door frame, both of which are nearly entirely hidden from view. I may live to regret this decision if the tent is not as durable as I would expect it to be, or if it is a lot more difficult to erect than everyone who has reviewed it says it is.
I am also looking into camp cots. We currently sleep on an air mattress on the ground, but I have been inside several "period" tents that have cots, entirely hidden by bedclothes. The alternative is a relatively simple platform bed which can be broken down and transported, but it is still going to be heavier and require tools that we do not have to make one. We aren't woodworkers, thank God. And it looks like we're not tent-makers, either, again thank God. We don't have enough time currently, despite having a lot of time, to do the things we enjoy and to complete projects we have bought materials for.
We still have a box of combat arrow components that we've had for over 4 years. I have a bow that needs to be strung and have a grip and ledge applied. I have armor that needs to be rigged.
A wonderful tapestry that needs to be backed and tabs placed on it for hanging. Silk that needs to be made into banners. Cloth that needs to be made into clothing. Wax tablets that need styli.
And inside my noggin, a plan for a map to be drawn on a piece of leather. And the neck coolers that I promised Their Highnesses I'd have done 2 weeks ago.


Painting the tent will be much easier than making it from scratch, so hopefully we will get it together enough to paint it so that it really is impressive for June Crown and looks as close to being Medieval as possible. I will write an update and post some actual pictures of the actual tent when I can.