The Fellowship of the Ring

Hobbitses.

Pippin.

The Fellowship.

The Pink Dress

A friend sent this picture from the pumpkin patch, and I liked it better than the other.  This is my new pink dress with the apron that Karl's aunt made to go with it, plus my new favorite toy, the butter churn.

Shadows from the Past

Do you remember our Civil War Pumpkin Patch adventure last year with the Federals?  Rain, hail...yeah, that one.  Well, this year the weather was perfect!  Not only did a lot of our friends in the unit show up, but we enjoyed glorious sunny (dry!) days, fall color and huge crowds of visitors.

Before we left home, I found a butter churn online for a fantastic price that I just had to have, so we bought it on the way down on Friday.  Paddy and I drove down with Archie, and although it seemed to take forever, we arrived in mid-afternoon in plenty of time to set up before dark.  Captain Kyle had brought the company stove, so we heated a stew I had brought and had dinner on the farm.

At the end of the weekend, the guys were saying what a lovely, relaxing weekend they'd had without their regular soldier routine of drill, sentry duty and battles.  But for me it was the busiest Civil War event I've ever been to besides the school show!  We opened to the public at 10:00 on Saturday and I was stuck at the front of my tent area straight through until nearly 6:00.  Friday night was so cold that I slept in my modern clothes and I actually came out of my tent on Saturday morning still in jeans.  I never come out of my tent in modern clothes after Friday at dusk, but I just couldn't bring myself to strip down in the pre-dawn chill and put on an icy corset!  So  between breakfast, dressing and hair, I was barely ready when the public arrived.

I set up a laundry station and the new butter churn with some cream I'd brought.  It was a huge hit!  An endless stream of kids and parents came by to try churning butter and washing clothes on the washboard, and I was busy showing them how and talking a bit about the war in between.  I even managed to squeeze in making some really tasty (and period-correct) macaroni and cheese for lunch.  I told the children that I had managed to obtain some special imported macaroni for lunch, and that I thought it really peculiar that the Italians at home in New York eat it with tomatoes.  One pair of older ladies looked at me like I was nuts for thinking macaroni and cheese was so special until I finally said, "You understand that it's 1863?"  Oh!  They laughed.

Ice in Greta's washbowl on Saturday morning.  See the frost on the bowl?

Early morning sun through ice bubbles.

I had never used a real butter churn before.  After washing and drying it, I poured in a quart of heavy cream and let the kids have at it.  If you haven't seen inside a butter churn, you may not know that at the bottom of the stick (the "dash") is a flat, cross-shaped paddle that splashes the cream all over the inside of the churn.  At first, little drops of cream splatter up through the small opening around the dash handle.  After awhile, the cream feels thick and gloppy and nothing appears on the handle anymore.  That's when you've got whipped cream.  It's also when you think the whole process will never work, because it seems like nothing happens for awhile.  Then suddenly, the dash handle looks wet with milky water and splashes appear through the hole again, and you have butter!  The butter separates from the buttermilk and washes all down the inside of the churn leaving it clean of all the creamy mess that was there a minute ago.  It's a very exciting process to watch!  

On Saturday, the sun was shining and almost hot, the kids had been churning intermittently for several hours, and I thought the butter was a fail.  Then I saw water around the edges of the dash!  It totally worked.

My new butter churn!

While I was busy with butter and laundry, Archie drilled an army of children using some of the school show rifles from our Alabama unit.

I wore my new pink dress, so I finally have a picture of it.  I wish I'd worn a hoop though.

On Saturday night, I cooked corned beef with cabbage, carrots and potatoes.  We had a potluck in the big shelter where the farmer holds wedding receptions.  The twinkly lights, although farby, added a soft glow to the evening as we all gathered around long tables to eat together.  After dinner, Captain Ulshafer, who is a bit of a pyro, built a huge fire.  The mist rolled in on the ground, but the sky was clear, the moon nearly full, and we heard an owl and a pack of coyotes in the distance.

Sunday morning I made corned beef hash out of our dinner leftovers.

The officers gathered around the stove to keep warm.

After the crowds left on Sunday, some of the guys took Paddy with them to a nearby shooting range where she fired live rounds with a modern pistol - exciting stuff!

We also took a walk around the farm to view the Pumpkin People.  Every year the farmers line the road with scenes from books and movies made out of pumpkins.   This year we saw Edmund and the White Witch, Robin Hood, Winnie the Pooh, and D. B. Cooper.

Brian, playing "Minstrel Boy."

Archie noticed how cool our shadows look (apart from the scarf around my neck), so we took a picture.

The usual crowd stayed over Sunday night for another fabulous after-party.  We went out for Mexican food and then returned to a campfire, s'mores and rounds of jokes.  Donny told a story of when he was working on some kind of hotline.  A woman called about her daughter, but no one could figure out the daughter's name.  The caller spelled it K-a.  After many questions, the woman finally blurted out, "Kadasha!  The dash isn't silent."  Dang - I wish I'd thought to name my children with punctuation.  How about Forsberg, Claire, (Forsberg Comma Claire)?  Or : Firth, (Colon Firth)?  Or ?  Or !  Or "  Oh, the possibilities!

Captain Kyle introduced us to a funny new song.  I had heard of it, but I'd never listened to it, and it's pretty funny.

I've come up with a name for the after-party crowd.  We refer to anyone in reenacting who is willing to go the extra mile of discomfort or expense for the sake of authenticity as "hard core," or even "super hard core!"  So I'm calling our crew the Hard Corps.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful farm.

 

Early morning, with the moon still visible.

Our tent.

Monday morning we all got a very slow start.  The air was freezing cold, everything was very damp, and packing took forever because my fingers were numb.  I also didn't have anything to dry things off with, because some enthusiastic children on Sunday had washed every last dry towel I had and all of them were still wringing wet.  So we very sensibly went out to breakfast (at noon) to let things dry for a bit, and consequently didn't arrive home until nearly bedtime.

With perfect weather, a stunning location and a great group of friends, it could not have been a better weekend!

Monday morning.

Butter My Butt and Call Me a Biscuit

Fall is definitely settling in around here.  Or should I say Autumn has arrived?!  Have you noticed that Autumn is now a shopping holiday?  I can tell because stores are loaded with merchandise monogrammed just for me!  It didn't used to be that way.  When other kids could find mini license plates or key fobs with their names on them, mine was never there, but now I've hit the jackpot.  No key fobs, but plenty of kitchen towels, baskets and useless hanging signs.

To celebrate the arrival of autumn, (yes, I know it's not capitalized, because I got it wrong on my 2nd grade spelling test for that reason), the girls and I went to a pumpkin patch.  The day was very overcast, but dry and surprisingly warm, which made for a much better visit than previous years of slogging through the mud and huddling under eaves to get out of the rain.  Plus the pumpkins weren't all rotten!

What if pumpkins grew on trees?

I'm afraid it's been several falls since these two grew.  But Claire was delighted the other day when someone asked her if she was in college!

This is a goat, way up in the sky.

You may ask the reason, but I don't know why.

Perhaps he thinks he'll be able to fly.

I do hope he won't actually try.

Lost in the corn maze.

Beautiful fall colors.

Claire does the heavy lifting.

But now it's Hailey's turn.

Smile.

A pretty sight.

The real reason we went to the pumpkin patch was for these - cider donuts - warm, tender, and slightly crunchy with cinnamon sugar.  Oh, if only I could share with you the amazing aroma!  This picture doesn't do them justice at all.

Claire and I stopped at the bookstore the other day to pick up a book for her class.  Do you know what my favorite part of big chain bookstores is?  The entry, where they have tables with odd little books, like these two:

This is a book of funny country sayings.  I bought it to use for Abigail, who is now going to spout goofy country wisdom at every opportunity.  I've already tried it out.  When the girls were sitting around their messy bedroom the other day, I told them, "You'll sit a long time with your mouth wide open before a roasted chicken flies in."  Claire said she was about to do something but I drawled at her, "You're takin' the long way round the barn."  She just stared at me, so I said, "You're lookin' at me like a calf at a new gate."  I threw in another handful of quips I can't remember until I had cracked myself up enough, and then I left.

And one for the Federal side - a book all about the Irish Brigade in the Civil War!

I was in a store the other day that actually had Christmas decorations up already!  When I told this to Claire, she said, "It's never too early to celebrate the birth of Jesus."  I replied, "Yes, but it's a bit early for rampant commercialism and elves."  What happened to the orderly progression of colors throughout the season?  September should be red, yellow and blue, primary colors for Back to School.  October, obviously, should stick to orange and black for Halloween.  November's colors fill the cornocopia - red, orange, yellow, green, brown - anything fall-ish is fair game.  Only after Thanksgiving should the red and green of Christmas be allowed.  But red and green before Halloween?  That's definitely cutting in line.  (And by the way, I just looked up "cutting in line" to see if there is some cute term in use for it.  I didn't find one, but I did discover that Wikipedia actually has a whole article on line-cutting.  Haha!)

Over the weekend, we visited friends and got to ride in their army jeep, Theodore M-thirty-Seven.  Apparently, it's possible to drive this thing under seven feet of water!  (With your toes?)

This is a panorama shot, and I moved, which is why I look like a losing boxer or a Picasso model.

Next weekend, Paddy/Claire and I are off to our final final Civil War event of the season, where our Federal unit hangs out in a pumpkin patch waiting for unsuspecting kids to show up for an unexpected history lesson.  And they need it.  More than a few kids, and one or two adults, told me quite confidently that we beat the British in the Civil War!  Last year it rained and hailed, but we still had a blast.  This year, the forecast on Saturday is for 70 degrees and sunny.  70 degrees!  

I Ran Like a Girl

Today I ran my first half-marathon, 13.1 miles!  The weather couldn't have been more perfect; cool and cloudy, but no rain or wind.  Here's the race link:

Run Like a Girl

It was a really laid-back race, with lots of fun goodies along the way, which I mostly didn't stop for, because I was probably the only person there who actually cared how fast I ran it.

And I ran it pretty fast, as it turns out.  For me, anyway.  The course is a bit hilly, and I was hoping to run it in 2:15, if really booked.  The trail is marked every half mile, so I had a plan for how fast I thought I could run each mile, but I came in under, sometimes way under, all but two of my goals, and finished in 2:05 - two hours and five minutes, with hills!  I'm so pleased.

The hills (from the internet.  I wasn't stopping to take photos!):

 

The lady announcer was really funny.  When we were all lined up for the start, she told us that she'd marked the trail in flour.  While she was at the store buying ten bags of flour, she got some funny looks.  A man finally asked her if she liked to bake a lot.  She explained that she was using the flour to mark a race course.  He asked, seriously, "But what will you do about the gluten-free runners?"

Then she told us the course wouldn't be timed, but if we liked, we could call out to her at the finish what time we'd like to have run it in, and she was good with that.

Karl and my friend Connie came to cheer me on.  Connie brought me flowers (thank you!) and Karl met me at about 8 or 9 miles, just as I was walking up a hill, and handed me a Powerade.  It was great, but it slowed me down a little.

The whole running empty thing totally worked.  I had a small bowl of oatmeal two hours before the race, and nothing during.  I wasn't at all hungry until an hour after the race, and even then, not starving, like I usually am.  (But I did manage to choke down half a chocolate shake...)

Claire made me a splendid song list to run to.   Several times during the race, a perfect song came up just as I was flagging a bit and got me moving again.  Did you know that you can key your music to running by picking songs with a bpm (beats per minute) to match your desired pace?  Then all you've got to do is run to the beat.  Cool, huh?

At the end of the race, a whole bunch of firemen (group? fraternity? cabal?) stood waiting for the runners.  They tooted their fire horn as each of us crossed the finish line, then placed necklaces around our necks.  Pity I was too tired to even admire them.  Lovely firemen.

Some of the assembled runners.

The start.

Thank you, firemen.

The necklace.  Could't get a clearer image.  It's got a piece of wire in the shape of a running girl.

Now I'm home.  My legs are cramping up a little, and I'm starting to get hungry...