Spring OVPR ?

OK, so March 19-22 was the Old Virginia Primitive Riflemen's Spring Rendezvous. I spent March 13-15 getting house and yard tasks done plus getting my 1777 Charleville musket and all its accouterments cleaned up & ready to shoot. Bounced around like a loose pinball March 18th getting my 'Vous gear in order & packed. Very tricky packing the truck after dark. Left at 4:30am on the 19th and got to the 'Vous by 8:30am after a very pleasant ferry ride across the James River. Registered as participant #3 even. By 10am I was all setup next to my friend Buffalo Woman and the weather was delightful. Set out my trade blanket, made the rounds of various lodges catching up on all the news, and returned to camp as Bob & Norma Ritchie were setting up their marque near my camp. Late afternoon brought some light rain and lower temps but Thursday night was otherwise fine. I had packed my 7x7 hunter, put it up for sale and it sold by dinner. Cool, more $$$ to help pay off my new stove.

This is Flick of Split Rails - He sells leather stuff, clothes, copperware, knives and the best fudge on the planet.

Friday dawned cold. And stayed cold. All day and night. And all day Saturday. And all night Saturday. And all day Sunday until who knows when after I left for home at noon. I have been to warmer winter camps at Belle Grove in late November. I've been to warmer winter camps in Michigan in January. The ticks of course were unaffected by the cold, I removed 8 of the things before I left the 'Vous. I still had a good time. I still shot my first ever smoothbore competition with my flintlock musket. I learned a bit more about flinters and got some pointers on working up a good competition load for my musket. Sang some, delivered some photos to folks, bought some cool buttons, delivered the haversacks I had made for Holly and Bob. But it really really needed to be about 10 degrees warmer at a minimum.

Got home mid afternoon Sunday & got the gear unloaded, cleaned and put up. Discovered the tentpole hanger I swapped for got left behind somehow. Grrr. Also mucked up copying the photos I took and they went into cyberspace somewhere. Grrr. Took me the drive home and a hot bath to be truly warm. In spit of all that I had a wonderful time. Go figure.

A special tanks to Kat for seeing to the pets and bringing me 3 boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

Crocus !

These wonderful crocus greeted me Saturday went I went out to get the mail. Yippie ! Spring is almost here ! For those of you who have forgotten, I have specific markers to indicate the change of seasons. Spring will officially be here when the tree frogs and peepers begin to sing. The cardinals are in breeding plumage, the titmice are twitter paited, but that's just nature's way of announcing spring is on the way. It takes tree frogs and peepers to make it spring. By the way, these crocus were here when I bought the house, they appeared in my side yard in 1993 and have faithfully reappeared every year since. They remind me of my childhood home on Fiske Rd. in Michigan. Except in Michigan the crocus usually bloom right through the snow.



The warm weather prompted me to spend 2.5 hours Monday climbing up and down a ladder trimming the maple in my front yard. Should have done the trimming years ago - oh well better late than never. So now just about everything from my waist up is sore. Sawing off tree limbs from a ladder takes all kinds of muscles I forgot I had. I have been reminded. Of course carrying 4 large logs for the stream bridge from the woods to the bridge probably didn't help my muscles any. So Tuesday I was dishes, did the laundry, cleaned up the kitchen in general, sent off 3 ebay sales and got some prints of Phil/Philomenia from the OVPR of last spring.













So here's Phil and
his twin sister Philomena -
A handsome set of twins they are too !

Not Exactly Spring But at Least There's No Snow !

Well its not very cheery, kinda dead and gray in my woods but at least the snow is gone. Nothing much is growing yet, although the crocus are beginning to come up. Nothing wild is greening up yet. Winter can leave at any time now. I won't mind.















Here's a picture of the log bridge over the spring fed creeklet that runs through the woods behind the house. A true bridge to nowhere ! Its still too wet and muddy to walk back in the woods right now but maybe soon . . . The thrushes and wrens are singing their mating songs, so they must know things are about to improve.


So what does a re-enactor/rendezvouser do during the winter ? Make things of course. I resewed the back seam on the bargain box weskit I bought at the Eastern Primitive Rendezvous and then I made a bunch of haversacks and food/candle/firestarter bags.

Winter, You May Leave Now

This is the sight that greeted me March 1st - so much for heading off to the Valley for church ! There's 6 inches of this stuff over ice on the road. Two vehicles are stuck in the road between me and the exits from my subdivision. Phooey ! Did someone mention Florida ? Oh right, it was in the teens at night at the Alafia Rendezvous in January. This winter has been far too much like a Michigan Winter - cold, gray and depressing. It can be over any time now.

Motorcycles under a blanket of snow - a Very Sad Sight Indeed !

Project Progress

Operation Bedroom has been Completed !
All the boxes are out, 3 kitty litter bags of paper stuff & 2 trash bags of junk have been eliminated, 5 boxes of stuff have been packed up & the rug has been Bisselled completely ! I had intended to go ahead &, paint the room too but decided to move on to cleaning the other front bedroom out instead. I'm planning on finding both front bedrooms & the front room, then moving on to painting all 3 rooms



I do plan on getting the Motorcycle Event Pin display up above my bed as well as clean some areas of the walls & doors. The closet door still needs to be fixed & the stuff hanging on the doors put away but this is tweeking - the room itself is now neat & clean.



The CD & DVD media shelving units will move to the front room & a nice maple bookshelf will go here at some future time. Meanwhile it sure is nice to have music & movies where I can find them.



Clearly the cats approve of their new sleeping digs too.

Old Friends Renewed

Barry O'Neil did a house concert at the Cook's place Saturday night - Don, Dolores, Kat & I all went. It was a Grand & Glorious evening that ended all too soon. Barry's hair is shorter now than back when he & I lived in Ann Arbor MI but little else has changed. He sings the same & his songs & stories are as wonderful as ever. Thanks Barry ! Kat enjoyed the concert greatly, its always fun to share the old parts of my life with my daughter. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures.

The rest of Friday evening, Saturday and part of Sunday was spent finished up the wedding photos for Sara & Noel. WooHoo ! The photos are done & burned to disks ! Kat has them for delivery ! Many many hugs and thanks to Don Nichols for editing the photos themselves and to Dolores for putting up with both of us as we chugged through the whole editing process. If I ever get asked to shoot a wedding again, will someone please knock me out before I can say yes ?

The New Stove & Vent Hood are Installed !

Kat & I moved into my current home in mid-September of 1992. The house came with refrigerator, dishwasher, stove and vented stove hood. The stove & vent hood were installed when the house was new, so after 26 years it little wonder they were more than ready for the local trash center. I'd been keeping a weather eye out for a good deal on a glass top electric stove (gas stoves are nicer but installing a tank here at the house is complicated & costly). Sunday last I stopped at Best Buy on the way home from church & what do you know, there sat my stove. A nice midline Frigidaire on sale for half price due to some dents in both side panels and a matching vent hood for less than half price. Monday about noon my little red truck & I went and got me a stove & hood. Getting it up the steps of my house & into the kitchen was a bit of a struggle but I got it there then headed off for work.

Today I got the old stove and hood removed and out of the kitchen. The stove was easy enough, but the hood was a nightmare. The installer seemed to think a light weight aluminum stove hood needed 8 mounting screws and lots of glue to keep it in place. A couple of the screws broke off so after the rest were out I had to wiggle the hood over the broken screws & then remove the screw stubs. Plus the inside of the old hood had at least 3 different kinds of abandoned wasps nests inside its fan and vent pipe. Of course the wall & floor area behind the old units needed serious scrubbing. Lots of serious scrubbing. The kitchen cabinets are recessed on the bottom so the hood needed spacer blocks. I had wood for that but couldn't get at things to screw the spacers in place. Elmer's Woodworking glue to the rescue ! Then I needed to chisel out a notch for the hood power line, the cord port is in a slightly different spot on this hood and the hood wouldn't fit flush to the wall & cabinets without a notch. At this point I discovered I needed about 4 drywall mollies. Well I wanted to put a wall shield between the hood and the top of the stove anyway so Hi Ho Hi Ho Its Off to Lowes I Go ! Took forever to find what I wanted at Ruckersville's new Lowes, its a bit smaller than the Charlottesville store & organized a bit differently. Came home with dry wall mollies & a nice stainless wall shield. Got the shield up with a bit of tweeking here and there to get it flat & screwed down in the lower left corner were it butts up to the counter. Got the old power cord hooked up to the new stove but had no stress relief bracket. Enter American ingenuity - adapted a hose repair clamp to work as a stress relief bracket. Got out my level, leveled the stove, & flipped the breaker. Drum roll please, everything seems to be working just fine. Set the clock & boiled some water for tea.