Equestrium Weekend
Apr. 24th, 2006 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callistotoniPretty good weekend. Tarnmist Rocks! Beautiful site. Wine tasting. Wine Buying. Dinner at the Madonna Inn! Educational inter-kingdom anthropology. Much smoozing.
Details:
The original plan was to leave after work Friday, but Thurday night M told me that she wanted to leave Friday noonish. Had to, therefore, take Friday off--oh darn. Stayed up late Thursday and got much of my packing done, courtesy of M's coffee-for-the-road.
Got up early, finished packing, and headed off to the barn to ride Brandee. Had a lovely time--progress is being made. When I got out of the barn M was delayed, so I treated myself to a nice big fattening meal at Flames. Got to M's house and met Donwenna, who had flown in late Thurday night. I confess, after the first five minutes I couldn't help thinking that this was going to be a *long* trip, but in fact it all worked out and was quite pleasant. :-) M came home, got her vehicle all packed and we left at about 2 PM. The only issue was that the styrofoam joust tips took up so much room that we decided to get food and a cheap ice chest when we got to Tarnmist.
It only rained Friday night. The grounds were mostly sand, so the site drained and was pretty dry. Like I said back in October, the Montana del Oro State Park as a gorgeous view of the ocean and Morro Rock. The site was set down in a ravine so you didn't see the view there, though.
I got a call from falzalot about Halima while we were at a Starbucks in Paso Robles. My sympathies to Halima's friends. I was given the task of telling Collett in case she didn't know. As it happened, we didn't see Collett and Alessandro until noon Saturday, and by that time we all thought that they'd decided to help out with the Halima situation. But they came south anyway, although the news did delay them. In any case it was good to see A&C.
Friday night M, Donwenna, and Alison and I all wound up at the Madonna Inn for dinner-yay! Very silly tourist place that I remember from my childhood. Everything is still pink--including the suger--and they still have the cheesy carnival-glass multicolored water goblets. Nice to see it is still doing well.
Saturday it didn't rain, but the weather kept changing from cold to not so cold to pretty darn warm back to cold. Over and over. I must have changed clothes about five times (well, layers if not complete outfits). They started the day with a trail ride because the horses were all pretty high. I forget how lucky we are to have a covered arena and to be able to work year-round. Most if not all of the horses had not been worked much for months because of this year's weather and so this was the first time many of them saw action. No wonder they were high! M and I were not riding, so we took off and did the food shopping. Got back and the jousting stuff started. That took up most of the day.
I smoozed and set up a date to go have a sewing workshop in Tarnmists: June 17. I'll be sending copies of How To Make A Sloper down to Ellen so that they can all be ready to have version 1 fitted. Rosie(erminerat's squire)'s husband wants to make 16th C clothes, so I'll be draping him and bringing him books to look at. Should be fun. And I really do like to hang with the Tarnmist folks. :-)
Saturday afternoon we had Donwenna's classes and Marguerite's Pluvinel class (no horses). Last time M taught her reconstruction the class was made up of dancers, and they had some interesting insights. This time it was all horse people, and they had different opinions. Interesting.
There was a large contingent of CAIDans there, all from the Barony of Altavia. Those folks have a great set up. They have a barn were they have once-a-month practices, and an available rental string, allowing for about 6 regulars who don't have horses to come play too. They therefore have a solid and growing EQ group. I talked to most of them a bit--nice folks. One young woman I found particuarly found entertaining in that she told me she'd taken up polo just so she could meet straight men who rode english. :-) It didn't really work, though, because the polo crowd turned out to be mostly 30-60 year old men--way too old for this young college-age women. There is apparently the collegiate circuit, so hope was not completely lost. ;-)
Saturday night potluck was huge--seemed like we had food for 100 and there was only 30 of us humans. Tarnmist provided big hunks-o-meat. M and I hit on the idea of potatos baked in the coals so there'd be something else hot besides the meat. (Apologies to my period food friends. ;-) ). M, D and I were all back in our hotel by 10 and crashed hard.
Sunday morning the three of us had breakfast in a really cute little restraunt in Morro Bay that must be a local favorite. I'm going back there when I'm there for the sewing workshop, since that will be in Morro Bay at Rosie's place. Got to the site and helped a bit with the 2nd part of the jousting class. We took off a bit before 1, and after getting lost we managed to find the Eagle Castle Winery that hosted the Fall Tarnmist feast. D had never been wine tasting before. We all still had our event costumes on so we were a big hit. We were such a hit that the owner gave us a tour of his still-in-progress "castle" that he's buiding, which was a treat. Oh, and he peronally carried our case of wine to our car for us. :-)
Got to SJ and had dinner at an Olive Garden (thanks again to D for paying for that!) and took D to the airport. After another detour to OSH we go to the barn just before dark to turn Brandee out. Brandee obviously needed it because she ran and bucked like a maniac for a long time. Grr--I'd asked someone to turn her out Saturday, but that obviously did not happen.
Interkingdom anthropology: Wow, other places really aren't like us. We don't care about titles--really! Don't name-drop to us because we really don't care. And we must have the most happy-happy-joy-joy peerage councils on the planet. Boy, in other places people really do not play well together. I figure because we are all so centralized and there are so many old peers (and peers in general) that no one can build an effective power base. And it is super easy for most of us to just vote with our feet. Thank goodness I live in the West!I think it took D about a day and a half to, how shall I put this, calm down as it were and just go with the flow. There was a teacher from CAID who wouldn't give me the time of day because I have no interest in jousting. And she interrupted M's class, almost trying to take it over. I think she feels the need to always be The Expert, which was weird and unfamiliar to this little westerner. M let this go on longer than I thought she would, but then shut her down in her own M-like manner. And for the most part the Altavia folks were horse people who got involved with the SCA through horses, so they were pretty new to the SCA in other aspects. All except one woman, however, who is a white scarf from another kingdom who moved to CAID (I believe her name is Arabella; owns a pretty little grey arab). Anyway, it was good to smooze with everybody, and it was a super mellow social event. :-)
Home now. I'm taking the day off to dig out from all the neglected housework.
Details:
The original plan was to leave after work Friday, but Thurday night M told me that she wanted to leave Friday noonish. Had to, therefore, take Friday off--oh darn. Stayed up late Thursday and got much of my packing done, courtesy of M's coffee-for-the-road.
Got up early, finished packing, and headed off to the barn to ride Brandee. Had a lovely time--progress is being made. When I got out of the barn M was delayed, so I treated myself to a nice big fattening meal at Flames. Got to M's house and met Donwenna, who had flown in late Thurday night. I confess, after the first five minutes I couldn't help thinking that this was going to be a *long* trip, but in fact it all worked out and was quite pleasant. :-) M came home, got her vehicle all packed and we left at about 2 PM. The only issue was that the styrofoam joust tips took up so much room that we decided to get food and a cheap ice chest when we got to Tarnmist.
It only rained Friday night. The grounds were mostly sand, so the site drained and was pretty dry. Like I said back in October, the Montana del Oro State Park as a gorgeous view of the ocean and Morro Rock. The site was set down in a ravine so you didn't see the view there, though.
I got a call from falzalot about Halima while we were at a Starbucks in Paso Robles. My sympathies to Halima's friends. I was given the task of telling Collett in case she didn't know. As it happened, we didn't see Collett and Alessandro until noon Saturday, and by that time we all thought that they'd decided to help out with the Halima situation. But they came south anyway, although the news did delay them. In any case it was good to see A&C.
Friday night M, Donwenna, and Alison and I all wound up at the Madonna Inn for dinner-yay! Very silly tourist place that I remember from my childhood. Everything is still pink--including the suger--and they still have the cheesy carnival-glass multicolored water goblets. Nice to see it is still doing well.
Saturday it didn't rain, but the weather kept changing from cold to not so cold to pretty darn warm back to cold. Over and over. I must have changed clothes about five times (well, layers if not complete outfits). They started the day with a trail ride because the horses were all pretty high. I forget how lucky we are to have a covered arena and to be able to work year-round. Most if not all of the horses had not been worked much for months because of this year's weather and so this was the first time many of them saw action. No wonder they were high! M and I were not riding, so we took off and did the food shopping. Got back and the jousting stuff started. That took up most of the day.
I smoozed and set up a date to go have a sewing workshop in Tarnmists: June 17. I'll be sending copies of How To Make A Sloper down to Ellen so that they can all be ready to have version 1 fitted. Rosie(erminerat's squire)'s husband wants to make 16th C clothes, so I'll be draping him and bringing him books to look at. Should be fun. And I really do like to hang with the Tarnmist folks. :-)
Saturday afternoon we had Donwenna's classes and Marguerite's Pluvinel class (no horses). Last time M taught her reconstruction the class was made up of dancers, and they had some interesting insights. This time it was all horse people, and they had different opinions. Interesting.
There was a large contingent of CAIDans there, all from the Barony of Altavia. Those folks have a great set up. They have a barn were they have once-a-month practices, and an available rental string, allowing for about 6 regulars who don't have horses to come play too. They therefore have a solid and growing EQ group. I talked to most of them a bit--nice folks. One young woman I found particuarly found entertaining in that she told me she'd taken up polo just so she could meet straight men who rode english. :-) It didn't really work, though, because the polo crowd turned out to be mostly 30-60 year old men--way too old for this young college-age women. There is apparently the collegiate circuit, so hope was not completely lost. ;-)
Saturday night potluck was huge--seemed like we had food for 100 and there was only 30 of us humans. Tarnmist provided big hunks-o-meat. M and I hit on the idea of potatos baked in the coals so there'd be something else hot besides the meat. (Apologies to my period food friends. ;-) ). M, D and I were all back in our hotel by 10 and crashed hard.
Sunday morning the three of us had breakfast in a really cute little restraunt in Morro Bay that must be a local favorite. I'm going back there when I'm there for the sewing workshop, since that will be in Morro Bay at Rosie's place. Got to the site and helped a bit with the 2nd part of the jousting class. We took off a bit before 1, and after getting lost we managed to find the Eagle Castle Winery that hosted the Fall Tarnmist feast. D had never been wine tasting before. We all still had our event costumes on so we were a big hit. We were such a hit that the owner gave us a tour of his still-in-progress "castle" that he's buiding, which was a treat. Oh, and he peronally carried our case of wine to our car for us. :-)
Got to SJ and had dinner at an Olive Garden (thanks again to D for paying for that!) and took D to the airport. After another detour to OSH we go to the barn just before dark to turn Brandee out. Brandee obviously needed it because she ran and bucked like a maniac for a long time. Grr--I'd asked someone to turn her out Saturday, but that obviously did not happen.
Interkingdom anthropology: Wow, other places really aren't like us. We don't care about titles--really! Don't name-drop to us because we really don't care. And we must have the most happy-happy-joy-joy peerage councils on the planet. Boy, in other places people really do not play well together. I figure because we are all so centralized and there are so many old peers (and peers in general) that no one can build an effective power base. And it is super easy for most of us to just vote with our feet. Thank goodness I live in the West!I think it took D about a day and a half to, how shall I put this, calm down as it were and just go with the flow. There was a teacher from CAID who wouldn't give me the time of day because I have no interest in jousting. And she interrupted M's class, almost trying to take it over. I think she feels the need to always be The Expert, which was weird and unfamiliar to this little westerner. M let this go on longer than I thought she would, but then shut her down in her own M-like manner. And for the most part the Altavia folks were horse people who got involved with the SCA through horses, so they were pretty new to the SCA in other aspects. All except one woman, however, who is a white scarf from another kingdom who moved to CAID (I believe her name is Arabella; owns a pretty little grey arab). Anyway, it was good to smooze with everybody, and it was a super mellow social event. :-)
Home now. I'm taking the day off to dig out from all the neglected housework.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:06 pm (UTC)and re: interkingdom anthropology...I think there are pockets of the west here and there. and most of AnTir is VERY western. In my experience, Caid and the people from tehre just have a different mindset. not right or wrong, just different (titles, peers perogatives, social interactions, authenticity standards, etc comes to mind right off)
I've travelled to a lot of places, and I feel most at home in the west, specifically in the MIsts, etc area. Nice people other places but it just isnt home :)
we've also seen some interesting social dynamics in the Old School SCA HOrse People (tm) vs the New School (tm). *shrug* :)
again, I'm glad the classes went well! isnt it great that there are so many resources becoming available for period horsemanship? :)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 08:59 pm (UTC)Horses and our wet weather...
Date: 2006-04-24 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 09:41 pm (UTC)