Monday, June 7, 2010

Joust Kicking Around

Much progress has occurred on the house and its environs! We've been busily unpacking and piling up the mountains of stuff we don't need anymore on the porch. Will we have a yard sale? Or will we just take it to donate (or the dump)? Good question. Not sure yet.


First off, let's talk about wildlife today. Noel and I had to jump in and perform Turtle Rescue 2010, when we saw this little guy in the middle of the road:




That's him, resting (and probably panicking) in the floorboard of the truck. Noel safely relocated him to the creek by our house.



He is probably a very happy turtle now, thinking he had a near-death experience that somehow transported him to the reptile equivalent of Beverly Hills.
In other flora and fauna news, Mom came over on Friday and helped me clean out the old flower beds by the house's front porch. We left the mint & sage already growing there, but tore out everything else (mostly weeds) and planted some hostas and some plants that are perhaps weeds, but they're pretty flowering weeds! I also planted some basil, rosemary, and catnip seeds. They should start coming up soon.


Speaking of coming up, look!!!



Our cucumber seeds are growing!! I am SO. EXCITED.
The other stuff in the garden should be coming up soon, and might already be coming up (I haven't checked on the garden in 2 days). (I am perhaps a bit impatient to be a gardener.)

And as a last fauna update, the kitties were relocated to the house last week. They weren't sure what to think of the house at first:



They hid under the couch for oh, about 3 hours. But then started to explore, and I'm happy to report they seem to be enjoying the new house quite a bit. They have lots of windows to stare out of, lots of bugs to catch (must spray the house for bugs!), and their choice of furniture to sleep on:

King of the Castle, indeed.

I got them a crinkle cave and Loki particularly seems to really love it.


Right now they're sleeping next to me on the couch. I think it's good for them to have lots of space to run around - it was always one of my concerns in the RV that they didn't have enough room.

Speaking of the RV, I can hear all of you now asking "where is the RV?" On Saturday morning, bright and early, we went to pick up the RV from the campground and bring it over here. See, we have plenty of room here at the house to park it and keep an eye on it (and also get our residual junk out of it on our own time). We also have a steep and curvy driveway that makes bringing the RV to the house a special challenge. Our nice landlady and her mom (who lives next door to us) kindly allowed us to drive through her yard and the field between our homes.

We drove through it once with the truck just to make sure we could make it, and then went and got the RV. We cut quite a swath through the field!

We managed to get the RV into position and park it just fine.


The only issue occurred right as we pulled it off the asphalt road, when the bumper fell off. FELL OFF. Completely.

Kelli's Towing Service to the rescue. Heh.
So the RV is here, with only a small appendage lost, and now we have all our vehicles in one spot.

Yesterday, Noel and I decided to go to the Renaissance Faire in Rogersville, TN. It was, frankly, somewhat disappointing. Noel had never been to one before, and I had high hopes that this would be similar to other faires I've attended. It was MUCH smaller, with only a dozen booths, and NO steak on a stake, my absolute favorite thing to eat at these faires. SIGH.

We didn't bother to wear costumes (I have my blue velvet Renn dress but it was hot out and also...the dress was a bit tight. Must go on diet.) Noel had his kilt to wear, but said that if I wasn't going to dress up, he wouldn't either. I don't think he believed me that lots of people wear kilts to these things. Anyway, I would've been seriously overdressed at this affair, because other than the royal party, who were wearing gorgeous costumes:


the other costumed women were dressed up as...how can I put this politely?.....ladies of the night. Inexpensive ones. Noel asked me why they weren't dressed in normal Renaissance dresses like mine, and I was asking myself the same question. There were more women dressed as "fairies" (and I use that term loosely, which is also how they were attired) than actual historical women. Mini-skirts, bare midriffs, fake fairy wings, belly dancing costumes with bra tops, and one woman actually wearing a string bikini with a chainmail loincloth over it (!?!?!) all made me sad for the future of the Renaissance Faire. See, I always liked to go to these things in the dresses I took a lot of time in making, and enjoying the pseud0-historical chivalry of the times. Now it's a meat market, similar to Halloween, when women compete to see who can wear the skimpiest costume.
I just don't get it. What's wrong with elegance and leaving things to the imagination? I worry for girls nowadays, growing up with this kind of example.
Anyway. Enough sermonizing.
We had some food that was NOT steak on a stake (sigh) and then proceeded over to the jousting area. And this is where things turned around for our Renn Faire experience, because these guys were AWESOME. Full armor, full contact jousting. Loved it.

Before the jousting began:

(PONIES!!!)
Getting all suited up:



And this is the best picture I could get of the actual jousting action, very blurry because it was pretty fast.

I have much higher hopes for the Highland Games in July - they're supposed to be HUGE and very impressive. They won't have steak on a stake, but we can surely get some shortbread and meat pies!

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