Another month, another blog post!  At least I'm settling into a bit of a routine, but it's a far cry from my weekly posts last year.  In any case, it's been a few weeks since our Barony's annual spring event, and I have lots to share.

First, I'll say that we were not chosen to be the next Baron and Baroness.   Though it's never fun to lose, it's a relief to know I won't have to find out what it's like to be a first-time mom and a landed Baroness at the same time.  Our friends who won will do a great job.  Since I wasn't going to have to step up, I decided to renew my warrant as Baronial Chronicler for another two years.  It's a fun and relatively painless job that I'm good at, so why not?

The site was a park in nearby Mountain Home, ID, and in true Mountain Home fashion the wind blew all day long.  I had fun helping out with the heavy fighting championship.  The combatants held a large mug full of water in their off hands, and gained points both for winning the bout and for having the most water in their cup at the end.  I was head refiller of cups, which was great entertainment. 

I also competed in our Baronial Arts and Sciences championship.  My three entries were a loaf of my ale barm bread  with spent grains (with more info and updated documentation), a tablet woven belt based on the Snartemo II find, and a demonstration of period spinning techniques based on my research and practice shared on this blog.  Rather than rehash details of the projects themselves, I'll just share my documentation (see below).  If you look through it, use it, have questions or feedback, etc. please drop me a comment or email and let me know!

The Baroness held a competition for her personal champion, asking people to create and model a belt, garters, or a codpiece for the competition, so I was able to enter my belt for that as well.  The fashion show was pretty hilarious to behold, and nobody was surprised when Lady (soon to be Baroness) Merin won with a gleaming brass-plated brayette (think late-period groin protection worn on the outside) with a beautiful epousse weasel from her device on it.  

The competition for A&S champion was stiff.  There were three of us, and my friends Lord Ambrose and Lady Britta had some wonderful entries.  I really didn't feel like my work was going to win, but amazingly, it did, and I was named Arn Hold A&S Champion for the coming year.  I look forward to enabling other people's projects and sharing my work with the group!  Note to self: get a picture of the lovely scroll to share here.

My husband and I were also honored to be awarded with a relatively unknown baronial award, the Order of the Unicorn Meadow, created in memorial to a former populace member.  The award is given for research and skill in a particular aspect of the Arts and Sciences.  It was a real honor to receive this recognition, and to learn more about Lady Teckla of Unicorn Meadow herself.  The scrolls, created by our friend Lady Britta, were so beautiful and thoughtfully made that I have to share them here.  Recognize us?  She captured me perfectly, right down to the infamous teal and orange bliaut I love to wear. The picture of my husband, Lord Aonghus, is based on one he's always liked from the Silos Beatus Codex, and she even managed to incorporate parts of our devices and symbols of our arts.  

All in all a lovely blustery day, despite the abrupt tear-down in the storm that struck right as we were in closing court.

My belt, since there's no image of it in my documentation.

I have to brag on my friend Cynthia again, because her zakuski spread for the Russian ball was so awesome.  She was the talk of the evening, and everything was awesome.  Here's her full menu:

Russian Zakuskis:

Caraway Havarti
Smoked Gouda
Dill Pickles
Salted Mushrooms
Black Olives
Marbled Wine Eggs
Marbled Tea Eggs
Savory Buckwheat Blinis with Crème Fraiche and Caviar
Black Bread (Chorni Chleb) with European Butter
Rye Crackers
Olivier (Potato) Salad
Cucumber Salad
Georgian Kidney Bean Salad (Lobio)
Smoked Whole Salmon
Kolbasa
Chicken Liver Pate with Red Wine & Cranberry Jelly
Vol-au-vents with Creamy Mushroom & Shrimp Filling topped with Caviar
Russian Teacakes
Black Russian Cake

This event marked the third in the past year that I have stewarded or co-stewarded.  My friends have staged an intervention and informed me I am grounded from running any more events for at least two years, and I really couldn't argue with that.

That said, I'm really happy with how this event turned out.  2016 marks the 25th year of our Barony's existence, and we celebrated in style!  The drama and stress that I went through leading up to the day was certainly drowned out by the nice time we all had.

The site opened at noon (one of the best parts of an evening event), and we had fun setting up with pretty white and blue decorations, including totally non-period Christmas lights.  In the afternoon the populace enjoyed dance practice, and I even got enough of a break to do a dance or two in between handling various issues.

In the afternoon the King and Queen hosted a meeting to discuss the calendar plans for the kingdom.  This has been an ongoing wrestling match for quite a while now, and I didn't really have any feedback to give, but it was interesting to listen to the discussion.  I think the issues we face are those every kingdom deals with.  We want events to be evenly spaced throughout the year.  We want to make sure kingdom events don't conflict with baronial events.  We want to make sure that, as much as possible, our events won't conflict with events in An Tir, which has events that are within an easy day's drive for many of us.  We want to make sure that events don't conflict with religious observances and other holidays (as much as possible).  We want to make sure that we are not trying to plan events at the times when the weather is most unpleasant.  

Anyway, after the business was done, my husband hosted a mask-making workshop, since this is, after all, a masked ball.  After a dinner break, the evening's festivities began (albeit an hour late) with a march of precedence, including  all present members of our barony.  Considering that my husband is our baronial herald, I had a front seat view of what a complete pain in the ass this process is.  I'm sure in years past, when this was a traditional part of the festivities, it was much easier with a smaller group.  In any case, as fancy and historical as marches of precedence might be, my advice is to NEVER EVER HAVE A MARCH OF PRECEDENCE AT AN EVENT, EVER.

<begin rant>
My reason for saying this is that 1) it makes those of us who are low on the totem pole feel kind of crappy, because 2) It makes some of those who are high on the totem pole get very puffed up and proud.  I realize that status is a part of the medieval period, and a part of the SCA, but this blurs the line between "status of titles achieved" and "these people are better than me."  Unfortunately, sometimes those who have achieved great ranks still act like petty humans and forget that they are peers and examples, and there was some bad blood as we prepared for the march.  These are parts of the SCA we generally avoid, ignore, or simply walk away from.  I try very hard to just maintain the dream, but it's hard when you're the little guy and you feel wronged by those who should behave better.  It feels even worse when it feels like because of your low status, you don't really have the power to change/fix/dispute the bad behavior.  I defaulted to my usual "just don't care that much" attitude, and we got through it, but it was a huge time suck and not worth the stress.
</end rant>

Luckily, the rest of the evening was gorgeous, despite the delays in the schedule.  We had a wonderful catered buffet by a friend of ours, Cynthia, who is new to the SCA but not new to catering at all.  Wow.  This was an exciting event for our household because two of our members received awards of arms.  Congratulations to Lady Thora and Lady Simona.  We chipped in to make sure there were belts and knives for both of them.  The event also had a dessert competition, a Lord and Lady of color competition (vote for your favorite garb in each of the hearaldic colors), our annual bardic championship (won by my awesome husband, who got the whole crowd singing a totally non-period rendition of Corb Lund's "I Wanna be in the Cavalry"), lots of dancing with live music by our musicians' guild.

In true crazy Ursula fashion, I decided a week before the event that I wanted to get on the bandwagon and make some garb, since I was the one who picked the Russian theme (nothing says winter like Russia).  I went with an early-period Slavic theme.  My under-dress is a white linen t-tunic, and my dress is a brown linen t-tunic with relatively fitted sleeves.  The trim is some red and gold silk brocade I was given at Raptor War by Baroness Syeira, about two yards and about 30 inches wide.  After the neck facing and wrist cuffs, I had enough to make a filet (lined with red linen) for temple rings (findings from a bead shop) and pearls, and an 8 inch guard at the bottom of the dress.  Since I was limited on yardage, I couldn't make the guard curved, so I just gently pleated it every six inches or so to make it fit the curve of the skirt.  the bonus is that if I ever decide to remake/retire this dress, the silk should be pretty reusable.  I have a little left over that I plan to make a pouch/pocket out of at some point.  I finished the outfit with a leather belt, since I just couldn't bear to wear a dress with no waist shaping.  With my ample frame it just makes me look fatter (will be working on that for 2016).  For most of the evening I wore my hair wrapped in my silk veil with the filet over the top, but eventually when wearing the headset mic to teach some dancing I knocked the whole assembly off, so I just went with the filet and no veil for the sake of my sanity.  Since the site tokens for the event were temple rings made by Baroness Giliana, I'll be remaking my filet with those attached.

Pics below.  Our fundraiser for the event was a photo booth, so there are some great shots of many of us.

I didn't realize until I sat down to write about this that I don't have a single photo of myself, or anything else, from this event.  It was German-themed, with some fun competitions for the fighters, a series of great classes, and a sausage-fest (yes really) courtesy of the Arn Hold Cooks' Guild.

I taught a class/make-your-own workshop on sauerkraut and salt-fermented pickles, which I expected to be kind of a flop, since so many people get that "eew yuck" reaction to sauerkraut.  That said, I filled up the class, used up all the supplies I brought (and should have brought more), gave away every handout, and generally made a giant mess helping people learn and make their first batch of kraut.  I also made the sauerkraut for the evening feast, and can report that four quarts of sauerkraut is just about right for 40 people. 

The evening finished with dancing, and I was infuriated to not be able to join in, thanks to a Morton's neuroma in my left foot.  This is what I get for deciding to try to slim down by getting back into running.  I mainly helped teach, played the music, and observed the goings-on.

In lieu of pictures, below is the documentation for my sauerkraut class.  Enjoy, and if you make your own, please let me know how it goes.   You won't be disappointed.

As promised, here is the documentation for my category-winning bread from Barons' War 2015.

Our barony recently held an event called Barmaids, a Knight at the Tavern, with pub/tavern themed activites, as well as our polling for a new Baron and Baroness.  There were dice games, barroom brawls for both rapier and heavy fighters, thrown weapons competitions (all based around dueling after a night at the pub, of course), and a feast to raise funds for the Arn Hold Brewers' Guild, which is headed by my husband.  New heavy and rapier champions for the barony were also selected.

I was particularly proud of the feast we prepared.  My husband made bratwurst soaked in homebrewed beer and grilled, and I made sauerkraut in a variety of flavors, and rolls made with spent grain from the brewing process.  There was also homemade soda (both root beer and cream soda), and salad.  We sold out, and the food seemed to go over very well.

Congratulations to our incoming Baron and Baroness, Balenor and Teaghan, who will do a great job, and to our new champions.  To close, here's a couple shots of my first time participating in thrown weapons, and one of my sisters and I, who both wore red dresses that day.

Photos: Arlen Donald