Happy New Year!

As this year draws to a close, I am painfully aware that I have not maintained my resolution to be more frequent and regular with updates to my blog, nor have I been more faithful in keeping in touch with my distant friends. So, once again, my New Year’s resolution will be to fix both of those problems. Also, I suppose I could resolve to figure out what I’m doing next year, but that’s more of a necessity than a resolution.

Anyways, what has been happening since I posted in the summer? The Renaissance Festival was great, as expected. I survived the ordeal of living in a tent on the edge of a swamp in high mosquito season, mostly because it got too cold for mosquitoes in the last few weeks-dropping down to freezing temperatures at night. Of course, this presented other problems, i.e. how to stay warm enough at night! But cocooned in my down comforter, wool blankets, and warm pajamas, I did just fine. My tent turned out not to be entirely waterproof, at least not under the heavy pelting rains that hit us early on. However, a tarp rigged up in the trees just over my tent roof kept me-or at least my stuff-dry. Food was decent-my bosses have a Sam’s Club membership, and everyone contributed $20 to the weekly shopping trip. That meant that we got much better food than we could have otherwise managed. Most of the time we cooked dinner together (usually a slab of meat grilled, with veg and starch), and had sandwiches for lunch. One time, one of the knights went home to go hunting and brought back a whole lot of dove breasts, which were really quite tasty.

So much for basic living. The work was also highly enjoyable, naturally. On the weekends, I got up fairly early to get into costume, before heading up to the stables. There I show groomed the horses, with the other female squire, Nikki. This meant grooming their coats more carefully than just for a ride, as well as braiding their manes and tails. That sounds like a lot more fun than it is, because you quickly realize that horses have a lot more hair than you think. In other words, it takes an awfully long time to put a horse’s mane into little tiny braids with little tiny rubber bands at the end. Still, it was working with horses, so I didn’t really mind. Then, two knights and two squires had to go to front gate-the knights to accompany the Queen on her entrance into the village, one squire to clean up after the horses, and one squire (either Nikki or I) to ride the Queen’s horse, Baron, to the gate. He was side-saddled, but my boss Kate did not see the point of leading a horse anywhere when there was someone to ride it, so Nikki or I took him down and back in the morning. Then we had free time until noon, when we finished grooming the horses and tacked them (and the knights) up for the first show. The rest of the day was a cycle of doing shows, getting untacked to rest, tacking up again, etc. It was fun, but hard work. During the show, the job of the squires was to hand lances (and anything else needed) to the knights, and to clear the field of dropped or broken lances, helmets, knights or anything else that might get in the way of charging horses. We also had to catch the horses after the knights had fallen off, which wasn’t too hard, as most of them trotted happily to the dais, knowing that they got to rest there. However, everything had to be done at a run, to keep the show running smoothly, and in case one of the horses wasn’t so relaxed. Nothing ever went quite as rehearsed, but nothing went truly, horribly wrong (ie. nobody died during a show). There were only two serious injuries during shows: at one point, two knights improvved in an extra punch, and the fan of the elbow guard of the knight doing the punching ripped the punchee’s cheek. That meant six stitches in the face, a show missed, and his squire had to do all the talking during shows, which was actually hilarious, because it was Nikki who ended up uttering dire threats to the other knights (and doing a damn good job of it too). Unfortunately, the next day, the same knight got his knee guard caught in his reins as he went flying over his horse’s neck, and cut Oscar’s tongue. So, Oscar was out for the last show, but he was already healing up by the end of the day. And those were the only serious injuries during the shows. Cuts, bruises, bumps, near misses and hurt feelings abounded, but those are all soon mended.

We did lose one horse during the run, to Patomic horse fever. Her name was Isabeau, and she was a sweet little thoroughbred, ridden by Troy in the show. We found her the Saturday of Memorial day weekend, looking like she was colicking. Kate, who knows a lot about caring for horses, did what she could and called the vet. I don’t know what all they did, because the terms were all new to me, but I believe they gave her a shot, and posted Nikki (who was Izzy’s squire) to keep her up. Basically, horses’ digestive systems, which are already delicate, don’t work very well when they are lying down; they need the gravity to work. So when a horse is having digestive trouble, you have to keep her standing, while all she wants to do, more than anything, is lie down and roll around to ease the discomfort. Rolling is the worst idea, because the intestines can get tangled. Horses, like babies, colic because they have no forward movement in their digestive systems, no burbing, no barfing. Babies grow out of it as their muscles strengthen, but horses just don’t have that mechanism. Anyways, Nikki kept watch on Izzy, making sure she stayed standing, and making her run around every so often to aide digestion. Izzy showed much improvement by the end of the day, so we assumed it was just colic, and went on with our lives. She didn’t work Sunday, but Monday she was back in the show, seemingly fit as a fiddle. Tuesday afternoon, however, she was lying down and groaning again. Nikki and I took her up to the lawn in front of the house where Kate and Robb were staying, because grass cleans horses’ systems out, and what she needed to do was have a great big poo. Once she got up there, she started trotting around, whinnying for the other horses and farting, which was a good sign, and also a good laugh. So after a few hours, we took her back down again in high hopes. The next morning, however, she was worse. I was eating my breakfast in the tent, when Stephanie, Troy’s girlfriend, came running into camp shouting our names, or for anyone who knew about horses. We all bolted over to the stables and found Izzy lying down and groaning. It was almost impossible to get her to her feet. This time the vet realized that it was patomic horse fever. He put her on an IV, and told us to keep her on her feet at all costs, and change the IV bags every hour. We took turns watching her and changing the bags. It was pretty grim. She was very unhappy. She took to blowing bubbles in her water bucket to express her displeasure, but that was the only funny thing that happened the whole day. By the end, having had 40L of liquid pumped into her, without passing anything at all, we knew her kidneys had failed, and the vet came to put her out of her misery. It was really sad, but the right thing to do. That night we held a royal wake.

On a higher note, I’ll tell you about the weekday events that happen just for the performers and people who live out at the fair. On Mondays, there was Bizarre Bazaar, where anyone who wanted to could set up a booth and sell anything, from massage therapists with their tables, to old clothes from someone’s closet, to a litter of puppies. There was a vegetable booth, and a Thai woman selling food and telling fortunes, alarmingly accurately. Wednesday night was the wine tasting, where everyone brought a bottle, for under $10. The bottles were masked, and everyone expressed their opinions, without any special vintner’s knowledge, with some hilarious result. Then, after everything had been tasted and rated, the rest was consumed, with the absolute losers being saved for when we could no longer taste anything. Then there was the dance party. J On the second to last week, this was a costume party, with this year’s theme being ‘birds of a feather’. Not being able to find anything feathery other than witch hats with feathers on them, Nikki and I went as witches. The best costume (to my mind) was someone who dressed up as Ray, the falconer, and did a remarkable impression of him. But I guess you had to be there.

This summer was an amazing experience, and there are so many more stories to tell, but this is already too long, and I still have three months to write up to bring me to the present. In fact, I am hoping to run off and work for Kate and Robb next year, provided I can find enough work for the year. I would need to buy a car (so if anyone knows of a cheap, but good car, that is on the market or will be between now and June, you would have my undying gratitude), but my parents are being very supportive. It was actually my dad’s idea, originally, something he denies hotly now. In the grander scheme of things, they would rather I get a job with benefits, so that the next time I break something or get really sick (ie. probably next November, seeing as that month seems to be bad for my health), I would be safely provided for. But that dream is definitely along the same lines as wishing Mary would marry a rich business man who would make sure she remembered things, and also provide her with health insurance. Parents can dream, I suppose. J I am incredibly grateful to them for even entertaining this wild idea, which by necessity relies so heavily on their financial (as well as moral) support.

To be continued…