OVPR #5–The Traders & Cooks

Of course any decent Rendezvous has traders and the OVPR events are no exception.  Whether you’re looking for candles (which you forgot to pack) or a whole new set of clothes the excellent traers at the OVPR can probably take care of you.

Split Rails

The weather was so grand that Flick didn’t set up a full tent for his wares.  He had petticoats, shifts, trade shirts, breeches and his fine leather shooting bags & pouches.

Seams Colonial

Seams Colonial is another great place for men’s & woman’s colonial attire.  They also carry various working class caps, mittens, socks, nice modest cost powder horns, some knives and the like.  Custom work is available.

Barkertown

Missy Clark is again becoming a regular trader at OVPR.  Missy’s clothing is very well researched & second to none.  She offers both ready made clothing & made to order custom work.

Mountain Forge

Tom Muschlitz & Sons has been a regular OVPR trader since long before I knew about the event.  He sells just about everything a ‘Vouser could want in camp except clothing. 

CClay Smith Gunsmith

Clay Smith Firelocks

Clay Smith has been bringing his fine firelocks and firelock components to OVPR of late.  And a grand fellow to chat with about firelocks & their history. 

The Green Man Inn

The Green Man was back with its most excellent food.  They are just opening for breakfast here.

The Green Man’s Lady

OK, so she isn’t green or a man but she sure cooks up some awesome food.  Her fella isn’t green either but he’s half of the Good Food that comes across the counter here.

Green Man Patrons Awaiting Lunch

While we’re on the subject of food, let’s not forget the hard cooking chicken crew that make that barbeque for the Saturday evening camp feed & potluck dinner.  (The potluck part is optional.)

Tim & the Chicken Crew

Cooking the Chicken

Sigh.  Another OVPR has come, been celebrated and gone.  How long until March?

OVPR #4–Family, Friends & Camps

Rendezvous isn’t really about women doing things with other women while the mem do stuff with other men.  It’s about people doing stuff with their family & friends, stuff which happens to involve some of the skills of our ancestors who lived before 1840 on this continent.

Open Fire Cooking

Cooking and heating wash water over a fire is a daily event in every camp.  The camp fire equipment need not be fancy, these folks have dug a shallow fire pit and are using a modest sizefolding fire grate. 

Father & Daughter

This father & daughter are off to the range for the junior match.  They came back with the daughter grinning ear to ear so I gather it went well.

A Goodman and Goodwife

I’ve camped near or next to these folks the last couple events.  I very mush enjoy their company as neighbors.

A Goodwife Helping Her Goodman Dress

OK, sometimes it seems you can dress them up but you can’t take them out.

All Dressed Up & Ready to Go

Or maybe you can.  A glass or two of wine helps. 

Just 2 Friends Making Lunch

Sausage, cheese, a hot beverage, and a warm little mid-day fire shared with a friend – the best of lunches.

Waiting for Dinner to Cook

Open fire cooking just plain takes longer than stovetop & oven cooking.  Time to sit, chat, mind the fire, and stir the pot.

Another Family Cooking Supper

Supper tends to be eaten in the late afternoon rather than in the evening.  It’s best to be able to wash & clean everything before it gets dark.  Washing things by candlelight does not produce pleasantly clean dishes.

Heating Water for Cleaning

Sanitation is just important in camp as it is back home.  Soap residue on cookware and dishes tends to lead to frequent trips to the hooters, soap being an excellent lubricant for that kind of thing.  Which is not much fun.

Another Family Camp

Cleaning the firelock back at the lodge, a job repeated in camp after camp all over camp.

Two Old Friends, a Fire & Bacon Cooking

The coffee is ready too, and the scrambled eggs will replace the bacon in the frying pan once it’s done. 

Awaiting His Friends Return from the Range

Rendezvousers fit their camps in where ever it looks good.  This usually means fitting the tent, dining fly and firepit location around trees, stumps, humps, and depressions in the ground.  It can be quite a challange.

A Nicely Pitched Teepee

Buffalo Woman had her teepee set up on the other side of camp from this one.  This group actually had 2 teepees set up along with a dining fly and some other tentage.  It can be tricky to find enough vertical room for a teepee in a wooded site such as this one.

OVPR #3–The Lads

The OVPR was started by a group of lads who were shooting black powder muzzleloaders on the weekends and felt there could be more to it than just the shooting.  More even than shooting in period attire.  Now the shooting, the hawk & knife throwing, and the archery are a solid part of what makes a Rendezvous, it’s the spending time with your friends & family that actually is the heart the affair.

Shooting the Breeze

That’s right, just hanging out and talking to your friends about whatever is as important as the clothes & the skills of the era.  What a concept.

Cooking Food & Planning Shenanigans

Now the lads don’t have an Informal Tea or Men’s Social as organized affairs but that doesn’t mean they don’t plan shenanigans.  They just plan them a bit more spur of the moment.

Reliving Past Shenanigans

Of course planning new shenanigans requires reviewing old shenanigans to revisit past successes and avoid repeating past failures. 

Discussing the Finer Points of Shooting

Of course a Rendezvous does invole shooting contests, so there are consultations among the lads as to loads, loading techniques, and the like.

Gun Cleaning

Shooting a firelock means cleaning said firelock after the fact.  Else the firelock ceases to work in a reliable way.  An unreliable firelock is a dangerous firelock. 

Just Chillin’

Of course there’s also plenty of time to just sit & enjoy your camp, the weather, and the woods.

Attending to Camp Keeping

A bit of housekeeping around one’s lodge is a good idea too.  Just not a strenuous amount of housekeeping.  It helps if the lodge is small.

Firekeeping Duty

Fires need tending too, both for safety and so that the cooked food is also edible food. 

More Shenanigan Planning Sighted

It’s a good thing the lads spend so much time planning shenanigans, it leaves them less time to actually accomplish the aformentioned mischief.

End of the Day at One’s Lodge

There’s always a a quiet time at day’s end to just savor it all too.

OVPR #2–The Lassies

So here’s photos of the fine lassies of the OVPR camp.  It has been pointed out to me that my camp shots made it seem that this was a guytime event with a few stray women around.  Well it’s not, so I deliberately went out and photographic the ladies in camp.

A Lass at Her Lodge

Lassies’ camps are just as varied as laddies’ camps.  Some are very spare, some quite opulant, most are somewhere in between.

A New Outfit at its 1st Party

And looking mighty fine too at the Masquerade Tea. This is definetely a Wise Woman and not a witch!

Campfire Dutchoven Cooking

If a watched pot never boils does a watched dutchoven never burn on the bottom?  It’s late afternoon here & getting somewhat damp & chill – not ugly cold, just enough for a jacket.

A Faithful Dog Soldier Off Duty at Her Lodge

The dinner has been cooked & eaten and the dishes have been washed.  Now it’s time to kick back and relax.

Holly’s Happy Home Away from Home

Plain or fancy, a lass’s lodge is her castle.  Her hearth is warm and there is always room for a friend to visit.

Two Ladies on the Way to the Range

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Let it be known, the ladies love the shooting just as much as the gents. 

Another Lass Going to the Range

Unfortunately I missed the award ceremony so I don’t know how well these lasses did on the range.  I’m pretty sure they had fun though!

The Seamstress & the Cook Chatting

The Traders don’t get as much time to socilize as the rest of us.  Here the Seams Colonial seamstress and the Green Man Inn cook chat before opening up for the day.

A Powhatan Lady

A prosperous Powhatan lady out enjoying the fine weather & shopping at the Trade Tents. 

Two Ladies from the Northern Prairie

The OVPR Rendezvous asks for pre-1840 attire of the North American continent.  Many OVPR ladies choose 1700’s colonial attire of the Virginias, but attire from the 1800’s or other geographic areas is perfectly acceptable

When Two Ladies put Their Heads Together . . .

Perchance Mischief is About to be Managed – in fact I’m sure of it.  Hide the bucket, hide the alcohol, the game is afoot!                    Squirrel!

Buffalo Woman at Work

Buffalo Woman & I spent a fair amount of time ripping out machine stitched button hole stitches and buttons, then stitching handsewn button holes and sewing on buttons.  Mistakes happen in sewing, we were helping a friend fix them

OVPR #1 Of Witches, Wise Women & Wee Ones

October and the OVPR Rendezvous is here!  Mother Nature was very gracious to us this year, the weather was absolutely perfect for tent camping & socializing.  The day time temps allowed for shift, petticoat & bodices or shirt, breeches & weskit to be all one needed to wear.  Of an evening a light matchcoat or sleeved weskit was nice but not absolutely necessary.  No wind, no rain – truly Shining Times!

The Witches Lair

The spring rendezvous is often blessed with a fine informal tea attended by ladies who might not have great earthly wealth but possessed great inner grace and womanly strength.  A fine & gentel gathering it is too. 

The Witches Signpost

The fall ‘Vous hosts a rather different affair.  Oh it looks like an informal (as opposed to high) tea but its participants know the old ways and wisdom.  These are witches & wisewoman; loyal above all to their friends, perilous to their foes.

A Friend of Witches

The Witch’s Lair is easy enough to find.

Broom Parking

Secure valet broom parking is available to one and all.

Wiches or Wisewomen?

What is this?  A Masquerade?  How devious!  Witch or Wisewoman, who can say?  How now indeed.

Witches Methinks

Witches drinking witches brew for sure.  Those are not tea cups!

A Wisewoman in an Owl Mask

Obviously a Wisewoman, no witch would dare to appear as an Owl Avatar.

The Princess

A princess perchance in this gathering of crones? Methinks nay.

A Pirate & A High Elf

Truly this is an eclectic gathering.

Two Young Apprentices

Apprentices were welcome at the tea.  But are they apprenticed to witches or wisewomen?  The mask hides all.

Two More Apprentices

Be they witch or wisewomen in training clearly the Old Ways are being learned by the young ones.

The Apprentices’ Caucus

Well at least the Future of the Learning is secure.  There are many hands here to carry the Traditions.

The Witches Tea Hosts

T’wod be amiss to not honor our gracious hosts.  T’was their want to have a Masquerade at the Gathering. 

The Gathering

A Grand Time was had by one and all – even if we weren’t quite sure who we all were, or so we all pretended.

The Barking Spider Inn

This is the (In)Famous Barking Spider Inn.  Of a Friday or Saturday night it hosts all sorts of woods runners, casual laborers, tinkers, peddlers and itinerant musicians as well as even less savory sorts.

A Gentile Gathering of Ladies

But it’s Saturday afternoon and the Inn is a reformed establishment.  Here a ladies from the better classes are playing a social game of cards.  No gambling or cheating here!  (Well maybe just a wee little bit.  Hee Hee!)

A Prosperous Goodwife

The Ladies Social is open to one and all – as long as they are in truth ladies.  No masquerades here!

Two More Goodwives

Spirits and Special Stuff is available for all.  (Special Stuff has no alcohol.)  Man handling the barkeep is strickly forbidden.

The Good Alewife & Two Matrons of the Town

Barb the Alewife (center above) and her 2 friends see that no unpleasantnesses occur in her establishment.  Personally I think facing the local court would be easier than crossing these worthy women.

The House Social Band

The house band knows many a lively tune to entertain the gathered ladies of the town.  The guitar player is even rather handsome although the waterman sometimes needs a little reminder of just what is and is not proper.

Grandma, Mama & The Twins

Mama Heather capped the festivities by bringing her twins to meet & greet everyone.  They are cute as 2 kittens in a basket.