Captain Brock Falls; Rufus Rises

...In which, a good time was had by all.  To say the least.  The Battle at Roy was fun.  It was so much fun, that I've held off writing about it for a week, just to savor the experience.

We have some marvelous new recruits.  This is Scarlett and Olivia.  They're fun!

This is Rose.  Rose is one of the Usual Suspects, and we brought her along with us from home.  She's hooked now and wants to come back to the 1860's with us again!  The 1860's are incredibly addictive and should be experienced with extreme caution.

These two fine fellows are on a water run.  Private Dennis Billings, on the left, is a fine new recruit.  You'll hear more about him in a minute.  You may remember Private William Barry, on the right.  His brother Sylvester tried to go over to the Yankees last year and was arrested and shot.

Morning inspection: The girls picked up Rufus' hand-slap game pretty quickly.

And then graced us with a fine Hokey-Pokey:

Clarence passed inspection with flying colors.

Calvin, rattled by the 1st Sergeant, almost didn't!

Are these not the most adorable southern lads you've ever seen?  That's Oliver, who is Olivia's, um, brother.  I think Oliver and Clarence are very much alike!

1st Sergeant Newton and Captain Brock.  Before the trial.  More about that later...

Miss Sarah's husband Jonathan joined us as chaplain.  It was a pleasure to have him!

Look how large and fearsome our battle line is.  (The line overall.  Individual soldier size may vary.  A lot.)  Go Alabama!

I had a whole crowd of young 'uns around my tent this weekend.  Isn't Miss N. adorable?  The children chopped a huge pile of vegetables for Saturday's supper.

This is Miss P., who is Miss N's sister, providing shade for Rufus.  Miss P. is adorable.  I saw her on Wednesday at the fair and she didn't recognize me outside the 1860's, though she's spent several weekends hanging out with me!

Trouble brewing.  Corporal Sammy called Clarence to come help him with something, but he wouldn't say what.  Looks like they're plotting something with Wilson, Johnny and Corporal Danny.  Hmm...
  

Captain Brock under arrest?!  It can't be!

Captain Brock greets Lieutenant Williams at the start of his trial.  Seems our fine Captain has been investing our pay unwisely.

Captain Brock under guard.

Captain Brock tried to charm the jury of his peers, he tried to distract them and make an escape, he tried everything, but to no avail.

They brought out evidence against him.  He says he invested our pay in the Bank of Nashville, but that bank went under in '61!  Where's the money?  It turns out Captain Brock has a gambling problem.

"That's not me!  These are fine fellows.  It's not what it looks like; this was a business meeting."  Then Captain Brock had the gall to try to implicate me.  Me!  Back in May, the Captain asked me to perform a small secretarial service for him, by making up the bond certificates from the Bank of Nashville.  But I had no knowledge of the illegality of his actions!  Fortunately, the Colonel was not distracted by the Captain's ploy, and soundly denounced him for trying to drag an innocent woman into his downfall.

Colonel Toby Gulley, head of the Confederate forces, debates the matter.

Captain Brock, stripped of his rank, removes his hat and turns his tie over to...

Captain Newton!  That makes Rufus 1st Sergeant, and Danny 2nd Sergeant.  The whole pack shuffles.

Private Brock is remanded to his unit for punishment.

Captain Newton was prepared for an execution and called for a Roman vote.  I reminded the unit, however, that Captain Brock had never voted to execute one of his own men, so after discussing possible latrine duty, and with promises of good behavior in the future, Captain Brock was returned to his post.

After the fun, we returned to business, with our annual board (Rufus says "bored") meeting on Saturday night.  Here's the board, (minus me, Civilian Coordinator, because I was cooking.)  I made a huge pot of jambalaya for about 20 people and they ate every bite!  I need a larger stove...

The Saturday evening light was golden and lovely.

Did I mention that (Captain) Kyle joined us again?  You'd think he'd have had enough after being trussed at the last event, but he's a sucker for punishment and we were delighted to have him.

The girls.  Wish my teen years could have been like this!  Scarlett, Hannah, Clarence, Bethany, Rose, and Rachel.

Frederick and a stunning sunset.

Sunday morning inspection.  Calvin is still in his nightcap.

Sgt Lawless laughs at him, and has this to say, "Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood..." from a speech by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.  Rufus always has the perfect thing to say, doesn't he?

But Calvin passes inspection.

So does Clarence.

Sgt Newton tries to intimidate Hannah...

...and Scarlett, but they just laugh.

Miss Sarah always passes inspection.  Maybe it's the cookies...

Kyle looks worried.  Maybe he should bring cookies.

I love Pvt Rounds' poses!

Apparently Rob has been up to a little naughtiness over in artillery camp...

Creepy!

But in other news, Sergeant Lawless received a promotion!  He's now 2nd Lieutenant Rufus Lawless.  Which actually means that he's still 2nd Sgt Lawless unless both the Captain and Lieutenant Rounds can't make an event, then Lawless is in charge.

On Sunday morning, some of the fellows had to help the artillery crews move a couple of cannons.

Sammy, did you call the 1st Sergeant "Sir" again?

The young 'uns, defending their southern home!

Private Billings instructed Rose in the use of the bayonet.

Then came the best part of the weekend.  I don't have many pictures of it, because I was too busy!  Private Billings asked if I would be his Mama.  I happily agreed, and we dressed him in the blood shirt we'd made in May, and then we strolled along the audience, discussing the farm, Uncle Henry's failing health, and the difficulty of getting the crops in with all the men away.  Heads turned.  

Captain Brock and the rest of the unit showed up looking for conscripts.  My boy clung to my arm and had to be dragged away, but they took him nonetheless, along with Mrs. P's boy Sammy.  Then, (as you knew it would), the worst happened.  As we sat watching the terrible battle, a stretcher appeared with a dead soldier on it.  Mrs. P. said to me, "I think that's your boy, Mrs. Kirkland!"  It was indeed, oh sorrowful day!  I wept over his body, but when a passing civilian asked for his shoes, my ire was roused and I told him off.  A boy standing nearby laughed, and I asked him, "Are you mocking my pain?  Would you give your life, as my boy has done?"  He shook his head shamefully.  I turned to other onlookers.  "Who among you would spare your child?  I see some of you with boys old enough to fight.  Why aren't they out there, defending their homes as my boy has done?"

I love this stuff!!  :-)

My boy, unfortunately, kept twitching in his death throws until I threatened to take his bayonet and finish him off!  Here he lies.

But the unit survived intact.

"O Captains, my Captains!"

After everyone else left on Sunday night, a few of us die-hards (chuckle) remained.  Sometimes the after-party is almost as much fun as the event.  We hung out at my tent cracking jokes until Hailey said, "Just for the record, I could not be having more fun!"  That pretty much sums it up for all of us.

The girls asked if they could sleep out by the fire.  I said, "No."  "Maybe."  "Yeah, that sounds fun."  So we slept by the fire - Hailey, Claire, Rose, Me and Rufus, with Kyle and Donny in their cars behind us.  It would have been great, except for the mosquitoes.

Rufus put on the "bonnet of shame."  I'm not sure why.  It's tough coming out of the 1860's.  Do whatever you've got to do to re-adjust.  I don't judge.

It pains Kyle, though.

Donny and Kyle, modern versions.  Love these guys - the laughter never stops when they're around!

Clarence's dog tent.

Clarence, midway through re-entry.

We went out to breakfast and ate the cinnamon rolls we missed on Sunday morning.  (Sunday morning cinnamon rolls are an Alabama tradition, but Calvin was sick of them and asked for biscuits and gravy instead.  But we made up for it on Monday.)  Rose nearly had to be dragged from the restaurant, and I think we were the very last ones to leave the event.

But we've got Fort Stevens in 3 weeks!

The Fair

How I feel about living in the Pacific Northwest varies depending upon the time of year.  In fall, I am thrilled with the glorious color, the crispness in the air, and those incredible apples!  In winter, I'm delighted to actually have snow!  Spring is a low point, particularly April.  The month of April should be full of flowers and at least cool sunshine.  Instead, it's rain, rain, rain.  May's not too bad, but June, aka "June-uary" is a bitter disappointment, with constant rain until July 5th.

But summer, ahh summer!  Probably nowhere on the planet has such a glorious summer as happens right outside my door.  And the high water mark of summer, for me, is the fair, which embodies everything I love about living here - snowy mountain views, the smell of hay, jewel-bright berries, and running into friends everywhere we go.

The fair animals are amazing - pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, rabbits, horses and a few less-familiar critters.  This year camel rides were offered!  I feel so back-to-nature when I walk around looking at (and smelling) all these animals.  The jersey cows have such huge doe eyes, and I think the highland cattle are absolutely adorable.  Every year I come dangerously  close to bringing home a bunny.  I've watched a cow give birth; how often do you get to see that?

I also like the agriculture exhibits.  Our county produces all kinds of useful stuff - milk and cheese, berries, apples, timber - and seeing the bounty makes me sappily proud to live  here.  Not that I produce anything, but I'm kind of proud of others' work!  Every year I swear that our zucchini is bigger and that Karl's jam is redder, and I plan to enter something next year...but I never do.  Brennan and I thought it was funny to see blackberries entered in the produce section, since you can pick them in roadside ditches all over town!

One of my favorite parts of the fair is the quilt exhibit.  I'm amazed at the creativity and intricacy of these artworks in cloth, and I always come home determined to try my hand at one.  So far, I've produced half a quilt.  I vow, once again, to do better.

Then there's the food.  I'm not normally much into junk food, but the fair provides a junk food extravaganza that's hard to beat.  Just once a year, we have to have a loaf of curly fries, made from the biggest potatoes I've ever seen, and cut into impossibly long strings on a hand drill.  My one complaint is that they're always undercooked.  But it's still amazing to eat a two foot long french fry!  

And how about cheesecake on a stick - frozen cheesecake, encased in chocolate and impaled for your dining pleasure.  We didn't actually have the cheesecake this year, but I did allow myself to be talked into getting the Chocolate Supreme Funnel Cake.  It was as good as it looks.

There are also fat gyros, turkey legs, roasted corn, loaded nachos, bottomless lemonade, massive burgers, and virtually anything fried - oreos, brownies, twinkies, ice cream and butter.  I sat next to the deep-fried stand, hoping to see someone order deep-fried butter, but no such luck.  I'm feeling a little queasy just reading this!

My absolute favorite part of the fair is the horse show.  It's not the kind of horse show I used to do - jacket-clad girls in English saddles with velvet helmets and not a hair out of place.  Instead, we watch pole-racing cowgirls, brave little tots clinging desperately to the woolly backs of sheep in hopes of winning the sheep race, teams of huge draft horses trotting around the barely-big-enough arena, and the Crazy Eights.  We may be one of the few fairs in the country to feature the Crazy Eights, teams of eight miniature draft horses that race around the arena together in a terrifying free-for-all.  Last year, two teams actually crashed, resulting in some broken harness and a few limping horses.  This year, the teams narrowly avoided disaster, to the gasping delight of the audience.

After the teams finish, pairs of mini-draft horses return for thrilling chariot races!

This year, Karl got us tickets to see The Guess Who.  Because the band has been around since the 60s, we were definitely the youngsters in the audience, and it was fun to see senior citizens rocking out in AC/DC t-shirts.  This is the second concert I've seen at the fair, and the acoustics are, well, painful.  Although we got a nice, close-up view of the (septuagenarian) band, the sound was painfully loud, even with the earplugs Karl remembered to bring.  And did I mention that it was raining?  Heavily.  We  moved up to the back of the stands under the roof, but the sound booms into the covered inside stadium and was infinitely worse!  But we still had fun. :-)

And so we returned home wet, tired, full of creative plans, and filled with the unique smells of hay, fried food, and wet pavement.

Battle Again!

We're off again!  Full report on return, so if you can't stomach yet more Civil War pics, don't read next week...  :-)

You Gotta Have Water to Float

I've been wanting for a long time now to write about running, mostly as a record for myself, and because writing always helps me organize my ideas.  I started running last fall, about November.  I had been walking a lot, but wasn't really getting anywhere.  I mean, I was walking and walking, for as much time as I had available, but still wanted more exercise.  So I thought I'd run a little.  Just a little.

It was kind of fun, and one day I thought I'd see how far I could run without keeling over.  While the kids were at soccer, I ran around the track ten times.  That's 2 1/2 miles, and I was awfully pleased with myself...until I mentioned it to a friend, and found out she'd been running 3 miles.  Okay, fine, I thought, my competitive juices rising.  I can do that.  So I did.

Then I tried the "Zombies, Run!" ap with Hailey and my young friends Hannah and Morgan, (see my post 12/21/12), and delightedly outran most of the teens.  It's incredibly motivating to outrun people less than half my age!

Since then I've added to my distance.  Yesterday I ran 12 miles.  Yup, 12 miles.  In the rain, I might add.  Then I ate most of a cheeseburger and fries and crashed on the couch for the rest of the day.

I'm going to run a half marathon in October. Now I'm committed, because I've said it out loud.  Well, I've written it out loud.  I've also been meaning to write down for a long time some things I've figured out since I started running.

1.  Pavlov's Dog:  Do you know about Pavlov's Dog?   A scientist called Pavlov noticed that lab dogs (that's laboratory, not labrador!) salivated at the sight of research assistants' white lab coats, because the dogs had been conditioned to expect food when they saw the coats.  Pavlov then came up with his Classical Conditioning Theory, which in essence states that people can be conditioned to exhibit certain responses when exposed to certain stimuli.

Ivan Pavlov     

What does this have to do with my running?  Well, every time I run, I listen to music on my MP3 player.  Now, like Pavlov's famous dog, I've become conditioned to want to run every time I hear certain songs.  If I don't feel much like running, I just start playing the music, and that splendid classical conditioning kicks in and I'm off.  Pretty cool, huh?  Just think of the possible applications of this!

Here's one of my running songs.  Doesn't this just make you want to kick up your heels and run?  Click it.  Then I double-dog dare you not to get up and dance!

A Little Less Conversation

2.  My favorite bug juice:  After I came home from a run feeling sick one day, Karl suggested I try something more than water for a longer run.  In fact, he pointed me fairly, um, pointedly to the grocery store to get a sports drink.  I bought a bunch and taste-tested them all.  The winner?  Powerade, especially the Sour Melon flavor.  It's the only brand that has a mouth-watering tang, though to be honest, they all taste pretty gross until you put a few miles in.  Then suddenly they are nectar from heaven.  Go figure.

3.  Second time's a charm:  I've noticed that each time I add a mile to my distance, the first time stinks, but the second time I run that distance is a breeze.  Yesterday's 12 miler was a first, total exhaustion, so I'm looking for the next long run to be awesome!

4.  Hills help:  I used to find running even a few steps uphill almost impossible, but practicing really makes a difference.  Never thought that would happen.

5.  Bigfoot:  I read somewhere that it helps to buy running shoes a size larger than you normally wear, so I did.  I don't have especially dainty feet to begin with, and adding half a size made me feel decidedly clownish, but it was sound advice.  Even with larger shoes, my toes get kind of calloused.  Kinda weird, though not painful.

6.   Other clothing: Polyester in winter; cotton in summer.  I nearly froze in winter running around in cold, wet cotton, so I bought a couple of running shirts that are supposed to wick moisture away from your body.  They kind of work, but they just feel icky in summer, so I'm back to cotton for now.

7.  Running is fattening:  Crazy, I know.  I burned well over 1,200 extra calories yesterday.  But I've been hungry for two days!  Normally a burger and fries would put me under the table for the rest of the day, but yesterday I ate a big dinner and then two slices of bread and butter.   And I've been hungry all day today as well.  So I'm afraid I'm somehow going to gain weight while burning calories like crazy.

8.  Corset time:  The first mile or so of a run feels a bit like the first ten minutes in a corset.  "I can't breathe and what the heck was I thinking?"  But then, miraculously, it becomes fun.

9.  You gotta have water to float:  Somehow, after corset time is over, a sort of floating feeling sets in, kind of an automatic pilot where you could go for miles.  It's easy - no heavy breathing, no hard effort, just coasting along.  But you gotta have water to float.  I've found I can run with quite a lot of water in me, but without it, I sink like a rock.  Must remember to hydrate!  And stretch.  I never stretch enough.

Alright, that's all for now.  Run along!

Fiddle Dee Dee!

What do you get when you take a bunch of really happy people of all ages with a variety of instruments, and throw them together on a hot, windy elementary school ball field for a week?  Fiddle Camp, of course!

Last year I was decidedly unexcited about the prospect of going to Fiddle Camp.  Sure, the kids would have a blast, but I'd be spending the week cooling my heels in the middle of nowhere.  It turned out to be restful and fun however, but I still was none too excited to leave home again so soon for a week there this year.

I was wrong.  There's just no way not to absolutely love Fiddle Camp!  What an amazing environment for musical kids to hang out in.  Some of the top fiddlers in the state and country came to teach musicians of all ages.  Claire and Brennan took classes for most of the day, and then participated in optional workshops in the afternoon.  Every evening brought dances in the school gym, homemade pie and ice cream, and on Wednesday, the "band scramble," where mixed bands were formed to perform for the rest of us.

On Thursday, Claire took part in an evening jam with her teacher from last year.  When Brennan and I headed back to the tent, we came across a group of about 50 kids playing and singing in the middle of the soccer field.  One of the older girls had taken charge and was asking each child what they wanted to play, including a tiny tot, who only knew "Mary Had a Little Lamb," so, much to the little girl's delight, the whole group played it together, very slowly, with her.  The kids at Fiddle Camp were fantastic.  They were so encouraging of one another, and I never saw even a tiny quarrel the whole week.

Setting up our tent.

Dancing in the gym.

Claire jamming.  She took guitar classes all week and played fiddle on the side.  Although she's only had one guitar lesson, Claire played in the intermediate class and is progressing rapidly!

Zombie children at the final recital!  I was sitting very far up in the bleachers.

Claire's guitar class.

Brennan's final recital.

Could not get Claire's final recital video to load, (which is why it's taken me half a week to post this!  Sorry!!)