Thoughts

Pennsic prep has consumed my last couple of weeks, especially in the online aspect. Previously when I had the job I only had to deal with emails and the occasional phone call. I had no idea that with the advent of social media every day was going to start with a conversation about the Pennsic Troll Booth even before I was out of bed and be garnished with more conversations throughout the day and into the after-midnight hours. I like helping those who have concerns. It feels good. I dislike dealing with my Pennsic boss and now have a mental litany, "three more weeks, just three more weeks and then you never have to deal with her again." A friend asked me about what I was struggling with regarding the woman and I gave a short explanation, and, trying to be compassionate and understanding, said, "She is an insecure needy person who doesn't value herself and can only remedy that by trying to make other people "less" than herself. She has no clue that her behaviour underlines the reasons other people do not respect her." To which my friend replied, "She's a bully." and that hit me between the eyes. She is exactly that and in trying to just deal with her effectively for my job, I never put the profile together. Bossman had said something like that last year when she insulted him in front of others but it hadn't registered when he was telling me about it. So I don't know if this is a passive-aggressive move or not, but I am printing up a few cards with this on them:

"Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships
through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends
to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an
individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over
one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening."
- National Centre Against Bullying

Because I know her nasty side will rise in the middle of the stressful Land Grab weekend and she will hurt and insult others while "doing her job" inside the troll booth (read: usurping mine). So I am prepared to monitor her and if I see/hear it happening, to pull her aside, tell her privately that what she is doing will not be tolerated, and give her the card with the definition on it since I know that her very first response would be to tell me that I am wrong and she's not being a bully. This way I can say, "this is what your behaviour presents as" and suggest that she takes a break or something. I'm pretty sure that she'll then try to turn it around by verbally attacking me. And if that scenario doesn't play out, if I can't get her to step aside with me or if she does but then continues the behaviour afterwards, I am going to contact the Mayor and ask him to remove her from my area. I will not allow my volunteers to be abused. Or, by Gawd, myself. The trained SCA mindset of "just work around them" has had me in thrall for too long but I am finally awake. It is too, too easy to "be understanding" or "forbearing" and step around the broken stair rather than calling them on their behaviour.

Weather and air quality has me concerned for the event. Especially weather. I am not acclimatized this year and am physically weaker than I'd been last year. Thank goodness our camp has electricity. We're bringing two or three fans and between that and the fans & shade down at the troll booth I should be okay. I won't be doing a lot of walking or visiting though we're bringing my little folding stool that I can sit on for a break whenever I get winded. Yeah, I probably should bite the bullet and get a powered scooter but good gravy, while they are not too expensive I am obese and need it at a campsite - heavy duty and with big wheels, in other words, and it'd require a trailer to get it to and from our home. I've only got one more Pennsic on my horizon. I can walk it.

I've been sewing when I haven't been dealing with social media or emails. Slowly, oh so slowly. I've made four lined hoods, two tunics, and have applied trim to a tunic I found in my work pile and have never worn. (and oy! Applying flat trim around an already completed tunic - what was I thinking?) I have only two sewing projects left to accomplish before we switch to packing the truck on Saturday. A pair of draw-string linen trous my spouse pulled the strings out of, and making a handful of "cooling bead neckerchiefs". I'm doing the cooling bead job first. While I've never made any before, those will be much less hassle than taking the waistband for the trous apart. They are well made modern pants with a duel-elastic waistband. The drawstrings are anchored in the middle of the back of waistband so I will have to use the seam ripper to access that area and then see if it will be a simple repair or if I will need to redo the entire thing. The anchor straddles the two channels of elastic. And he tells me that he "seems to be missing a lot of his SCA trous". I'm hoping they just got mixed in my mine since they were all the same sizes and colors because it is certainly too late for me to try to make any. He'd borrowed a pair of mine one long-ago event and liked them, and since I bought them in extra-long, they fit his long legs. Over time some shrank and became just mine but during post-event laundry it is easy to get them mixed up with each other's, even though we tagged them to avoid that.

Our struggles with the downed willow tree continue. While the city does pick up yard waste, including tree branches, they are haphazard about it. Today was trash day and none of the piles of carefully cut wood were removed. Then again, our regular trash and recycling wasn't removed either. It makes me want to shake my head. Why does it have to be the last trash day before we go on vacation? And we found a steady line of wood ants climbing our porch pillars when we went out to check the status of the wood piles. It is too late before we leave to get a service call to take care of that so it'll be the first thing I get done once we're home again.

[Update] The cooling beads were a bust. They were very tiny and I thought they'd swell up a lot but they didn't. This is what I get for mail ordering them without getting a referral from a previously happy customer. I just bought the wrong brand, it looks like.

We're home from Pennsic.

I have not had a Pennsic that was so difficult ever, in the 29 years I have been attending. I'd agreed to be a deputy to a department head, who is already overwhelmed with life and on top of that had their son & family coming for a first-ever visit with their grandchild while staying in their camp... and they are the camp master, to add to their stress. They're also a micro-manager who does not believe in training their subordinates and responds to every question or suggestion with a loud and public diatribe about why the speaker is wrong. We bled out volunteers as if we had a cardiac wound. Extensive training-from-below was applied by me, discussions held with their direct superior to reinforce "volunteer management advice" and I bit the inside of my cheek so much I ended up with a cold sore in the raw area.

"How bad was it?" you ask.

I worked 20 hours straight on Landgrab Friday because I was unsuccessful in pinning them down on forming a schedule in advance when only they and I could be in charge of a shift and the department had to be open for 38 hours straight. Then when they came to relieve me so I could finally rest they let me know that they'd need to be relieved soon because they spent their sleep hours working on the infrastructure in their camp and "missed their window for sleeping".

I made it to bed around 5am (was relieved on Saturday at 4am), falling asleep in a closed tent which roasted in 91-degree (f) weather and woke up to heat exhaustion around noon, woozy and weak. Had to phone my husband to come take care of me because I could not stand without aid... he opened up all the sides of the tent for air flow, force fed me water and juice, trained two fans on me, and stayed with me until my temperature went back to normal, then went back to the department we'd been working in to continue the work he'd been doing there since 8am. I saw him again when I returned to the department around six in the evening and we both worked until it closed that night at 10pm.

That was just day One and a half.

We didn't have time to cook any food. Everything was grab-and-go or purchased from a food vendor. We didn't have time to help our camp set up hardly at all, or to assist at tear down. We didn't see a battle, a class, a show, a party, someone else's camp, our friends, or the merchant area except for one hour the day after our department closed down. (I got to see Kendrick which was a treat.) I never set foot in the Cooper's store - I hear that the upgrades are fabulous. I look forward to seeing them next year.

I got heat exhaustion twice. And retained so much water that I had to buy men's extra wide shoes to make it through the second week because I'd damaged one little toe from jamming my feet into shoes that were too tight. We thought I might have broken it. Oh - and had a UTI to boot.

One night I posted something on Facebook about how sad I was that a camp I knew well had six parking tickets (between two couples) and that meant that they'd lost their seniority on their block - and was immediately attacked by members of the unnamed camp for "betraying them" (of course I had not named anyone or the camp) and "owed [this ticketed couple] and [that other ticketed couple] a public apology as well as one to the whole group for not acting like a Peer and attacking them in public..." I just set the post to "private" so I could save it should the offended parties try to do more than merely backstab me now that we're back from the event. I'm still a little at a loss how I'm the bad guy for mentioning a camp losing their block seniority in a post explaining why I was sad that day while the ticketed folks have become my poor viciously benighted victims. They are, of course, blameless and what I was posting about "never happened". My spouse asked me why I'd posted - why did I let myself care about what they do to themselves? He is right, so I've set myself a new rule - ignore the group. Disengage from any interaction and from their FB page and put myself in the mental space of noting but not speaking about anything the group does. I'd been heading that way over the last year anyway and this just put the nail in the coffin of an already dead relationship.

Nonetheless, and barring all of that, friends did stop in to say hi while we were working, and we had little moments of joy when they did even though we were usually too busy to talk for more than a couple of minutes. One person volunteered at my department specifically to spend some time chatting with me between duties. It was lovely to catch up with her. She's grown up so much! I've known her since she was a senior in High School and now her children are almost all out of High School. Towards the end of the event, there were more people allowed to be in charge of a shift and I even got a whole day off to go into town and do laundry and shopping. My spouse had to work though. That was tiring in its own way, but I felt a lightness of freedom too. One friend brought a sample of her cooking to me to taste - beans cooked in bacon fat with onions and garlic, spiced with a mix of herbs and spices she'd bought at Aunty Arwen's. That friend cooks over a fire every year and tries to eat what her persona would have eaten. And she brought it to me in an adorable little cast-iron pot that had been enameled on the inside and had a wooden lid. Hers is enameled in red but I could only find it in black - I'm going to get me one of those pots! It is just the right size for one person or two not-so-hungry ones. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KBY4RCF/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=A1TWYVWG4QDVKK&psc=1

Before Pennsic I was asked if I'd be willing to take on getting new walls for our camp's giant ger and I agreed. The old walls had been thrown away (without anyone being consulted) because "they take up too much room in storage" so I searched for a useable alternative and found seven-foot-long fabric shower curtains with a repeating design on them. Folks in the household threw money at me until we could buy as many as we needed. They look like a Persian interpretation of Mongolian art. The curtains are lightweight and pack down into a tiny pile. They are polyester so will age over time but we can replace them at need or maybe someone will make real walls someday. In the meanwhile they worked very well and looked pretty, too. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DB17DG1?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details


We also brought "sheep walls" from home, three-foot-long panels that we'd made for the Great Dark Horde encampment for War of the Wings long ago. A long-ago Autocrat had decreed just two weeks before the event that every camp was to "be completely encircled with sheet walls" but they'd typo'd and had written "sheep walls". So of course our quickly-thrown-together walls featured sheep of all varieties. At Pennsic we've been using them to hide a big plastic sink at the top of our camp but this year we learned that our regular walls had gone walkabout, so the sheep walls were press-ganged into being camp walls. We have a long boundary at the foot of a hill that we don't normally wall off, not having enough red & black panels to use. We made it into a clothesline this year but weren't really thrilled with it. I'm going to make more of those sheep walls, as are some of my household members, and we'll run the sheep walls along that boundary. Lots of people walk along that block edge as it is beside a road leading from the Bog and lakeside areas. I think the walls will entertain some of the children who make that hike.

Years ago I decided that the big ger (yurt) in our camp at Pennsic deserved to have its walls restored. Somehow in the course of a Pennsic Packout the original canvas walls were thrown away (!) and just the roof kept. It is a huge Ger and we didn't set it up often - it takes up a lot of room and is often used now as an additional University classroom for the Hordesmen (Great Dark & Moritu) who are offering classes in camp. But the wooden walls are latticework skeletal so rainy days mean no classes can safely be taught. I was going to make new walls... and purchased the first bit of canvas to make a pattern with once it was up, made some stencils, and acquired paint and brushes once I got on site, then waited for the ger to be built. And was promptly attacked by a small group of well-meaning but meddlesome folks who didn't like my plan, didn't want walls, thought they had a better plan and I had no business getting involved - and didn't follow through. As happens. Once something gets in "a committee with no leader" it often shrivels and dies.

One of the people who remembered my attempt is now a co-campmaster for us and in a private chat she asked me about "the wall project". I had, at the end before giving up, suggested we purchase fabric shower curtains to use as walls since that answered the repeated complaints about canvas being too heavy and bulky to pack and not letting any air circulation through once it was up on the walls. She remembered that and wanted to know if I was still working on it. I told her my sad tale and how I ended up getting too disillusioned to fight the jeering crowd but still liked the idea of the curtains. Back and forth the conversation went and I ended up saying that I'd be willing to bring it up to the household again. Yeah, about that. People threw money and I'll be buying and delivering 12 wall curtains this year. And a vacuum bag to seal them in for seasonal storage.

Also I was in charge of creating a sheet wall to hide away a deep sink we had at the top area of the camp. It was one of those big white deep sinks and is heavily used but rather unsightly. So I planned on making walls once I got up there (it was a light year for service jobs for me) and brought the "sheep walls" the household uses locally as camp walls*. It turned out that folks in camp liked those better than going with a more dignified camouflage and we never made any new ones even though it takes two panels to make the walls high enough, we just traded out panels whenever the camp kids determined we needed new scenes and I sent home some blanks for people to decorate for the next Pennsic. So yesterday I had to remind folks about those, too, as there hadn't been another Pennsic yet. They want the same ones again. And a few folks remembered their blanks and have promised to decorate them before the event. And a few more would like me to send them blanks that they can work on now, before this Pennsic. We're making our own "Sunday Comics" for the top of the Hill. Most of the sheet walls are panels of cartoon sheep doing this or that. Few are actually "serious" or artistic designs. I kept meaning to get around to painting something a bit more serious but barely managed a couple.

And it is confirmed that I am going to be the Head Troll for Pennsic 50. Anyone want to play around in the troll booth? We open fairly late (8am), close fairly early (10pm except on the middle weekend) and shifts are only four hours long.

I bought more fabric for making some early period clothing to wear at Pennsic. Haven't decided exactly which style I will be sporting but I think likely it will be Greek or Roman. Maybe. I don't wear much jewelry so whatever culture I choose to dress in won't be real obvious unless I wear draped garb. Trinkets make such a difference.

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*Just weeks before a big event in Atlantia called War of the Wings, the staff announced that all camps were expected to have sheet walls up to mark their boundaries. Except there was a typo in the announcement and "sheet" was turned into "sheep" so of course I painted sheep on the walls for our camp, as I was campmaster and didn't have time to farm the job out. And got some others to do that too. The children at the event loved the walls and asked their parents to take them for walks around the camp that first year so after that we just had to keep the goofy things and add to them as we could. Now we don't really have a camp there anymore, not after my spouse and I stopped going. Finding a campmaster is a chore. But the panels will live on at Pennsic.

Many years ago, at Pennsic 20, I volunteered at the troll booth during the event. Within three years I was so emmeshed that I was deputy to the head troll and then started a run of years as the Head Troll. I stepped down to support a new Head Troll at Pennsic 31. It didn't seem fair to hog the job when my deputies, well trained and chomping at the bit, were quite capable of running the booth. Took a year off from doing anything much but manning the desk at "security"/the Watch, then founded a new department at Pennsic 33, the Quartermaster (supply) department. Worked that for five years and then stepped aside, again, so my deputies could step up. I've stayed on staff since then but have bounced from job to job, even doing three stints as a Deputy Mayor for Cultural Affairs.

All of that means that I haven't worked inside the troll booth for eighteen years. But this year I get to go back to my "roots" and will be helping out at troll again. I am strangely excited about that. I'm not in charge, just a backup person, which is good because our intake processes have changed drastically. And I'm still down for manning the desk at The Watch, as one of the more senior captains.

I was thinking about bringing our camp oven/stove to the event but now I hesitate. I don't know how much cooking time I am going to have and that is a bulky item to pack if we're barely going to use it.

My vision is coming back into focus. That is one less worry for me.

My Pennsic staff members have sorted out all their difficulties (so far as they are letting me know) so I am feeling very positive about how this year is going to go. And now we're into the 'fun time' - pre-packing for the event, whittling down, in my case, the things that I've been bringing every year so it won't be such a burden for my husband when it comes to loading up the truck. Besides - I have too much miscellaneous SCA stuff. I have a perfectly good, if somewhat eye straining, pink collapsible basket I could bring for trips to the shower, except it is full to the brim with SCA tchotchke I've been holding on to, meaning to 'find the right place' to pass it on or to use some time in the future. I am determined, this year, that it get emptied out and all that stuff removed from my house or actually used.

Three weeks of living in the muggy outdoors was exhausting. And yet not. For the first time I had an air mattress on my bed rather than a real one and it was a joy. The mattress predictably lost air during the first night and then stayed in that state for the rest of the time. Its softness was an awful lot like sleeping on our waterbed. For once I came home without sore shoulders and hips. And slept deeply, too, almost every night.

The Deputy Mayor job was fun. Great, even. I'm going to miss doing it next year.

I'm taking a year 'off' from the SCA. Or more specifically, from my local group. Maybe two years, I don't know. I've been very excited about my plans ever since I made the decision - projects that I had waiting are now things I am looking forward to, and I'm even planning new ones. They are all for my own satisfaction - no deadlines, mostly, and no pressure to please others or work around their expectations. So relaxing.

This break time will eliminate the time sink volunteering has had over me so I cannot use any more excuses about getting stronger and building muscles & mobility. I'm looking forward to camping next summer and being able to be useful during set-up, or rather, during unpacking and erecting the pavilion. I AM useful during set up after the pavilion is up, as I am the one who arranges all the furnishings and creates the kitchen set-up. But the heavy lifting has been done by my husband and it's not fair.

Yesterday started the 'build muscle' regime. Minorly, just one exercise done here in the house, but I feel good about it. Today I return to my food log. It was lovely to set it aside for a month (a whole month!). I ate double-stuffed Oreos last night as my celebratory farewell to unmonitored munching. It wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be - the dietary changes have modified my dining desires. I would have killed for some decent cherries instead. Alas, the season has passed.

Today I also pull out my sewing machine to put together the rest of the blank sheet walls our camp will use for War of the Wings. Or at least 'this batch' of them. I've had the fabric sitting there for a year and was never inspired to finish it up, even with a whole bag of bias tape hanging from one of the cabinets in the craft room as a 'reminder'. Now I want to do it.

After I get some sleep. It's become fugitive again so I guess the "Pennsic Recovery Period" has passed.

We shipped our (ruined) brand-new pavilion back to the manufacturer a couple of days ago. Today I drafted and sent a letter to them about it basically demanding a replacement. I think that if a tent fails on the first use of it, replacement is not unwarranted. I do not, however, expect that my hopes will be met - in fact, I foresee a lot of hemming and hawing about it. The business has changed their warranty policies since the original owner passed on and they are not as good as they once were ("warranty repairs up to $50 will be made for free" - anything more involved means the tent owner pays for it, and that after shipping & handling in both directions. Which, from our place, was $148US _one way_. Our tent is now more expensive than if we'd ordered one from the Big Box suppliers like Panther.)

I included photos of the damage and the poor quality in my letter. It ended up being more in a 'chatty cathy' sort of tone - I wanted to invoke a desire to 'do right by these poor folks' sort of reaction in the manufacturer but, well - I don't expect I shall succeed. And there may be a lengthy conversation leading me to demand a full refund. We're within our bank's "shopper's support" time limit to have them take action about the charge. That sounds weird. I mean that we may have to contact the bank & Visa about them getting involved in attempting reimbursement. I sure hope not. I sincerely hope that "chatty cathy' will be enough to inspire them to make everything right with us.

In the long run, however, we can no longer recommend the small family business that once was so golden. The original owner has died and his heirs have turned it into something not worth the investment... it saddens me.

So here's what happened about halfway through Pennsic, thanks to a defective central grommet in the roof:

And here's the type of quality that already had me unhappy about the dags - notice the sloppy sewing on the edging? The whole thing was like that.

It is the middle of the night and medical thingies have me awake for a while longer*. I had been playing a mind-numbing solitaire game but decided to leave that and go to LJ for some catching up.

I haven't read a thing recent. My hand slipped with the mouse and I ended up opening a 'tag' and reading the entries that were there, and now I am filled with love for my friends all over again, because I have such loving ones. I'm so very lucky.

Vacation time (Pennsic) is coming. I have a big job this time around and it isn't one I know the duties of even after a year of holding it. There is no guidebook, no "standard operating procedure" text. Strange situations come up and others look to me for answers - and I have no clue what the right one is because I have no personal experience with the departments involved.
(Example: "How many radios does Cultural Affairs need this year" "I don't know. There isn't a record anywhere that Cultural Affairs ever used any. We'll take the same number as last year." I guess. As a dodge. And once I get on site I can look at the radio check-out sheets and count up who gets them so I can pass that information on to my successor.)
Luckily, I have resources to turn to and things get hammered out, but wow, am I going to be relieved when this job is concluded. It is a situation where a title, a position, was offered and it was one I'd wanted to try for years, so I took it - and was woefully ignorant. The same title/job in a different division would have been a piece of cake but I got my ego wrapped around 'finally' being given a chance to do 'that job' and jumped when I should have backed away. I don't think my people suffered from my inadequacy but neither did they thrive. I want them to thrive. The sad thing is that I doubt, based on this year's performance, that I will ever be offered such a position again and wouldn't you know it - now I know what's required for it so could do it so much better than I have.

I think I might have a lot more free time this year than I have had in the past. There are daily (? Some mayors have had three-times-a-week ones instead) meetings to go to and multiple departments to check on twice a day, but barring something blowing up in any of them after that I have no duties. And all of my department heads are competent and resourceful so I don't think I'll be seeing much in the way of explosions.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing with myself. Bossman surprised me buy pushing for purchasing the camp stove/oven combo that I'd been lusting over. I'd talked myself out of it, finally, since I'd wanted one for years and had never bought (or was given, as it was on my 'gift lift' for holidays) one... and then he up and surprises me with "I think we should buy it" during our trip to replace the finally-dead propane stove. (Poor stove. We've had it for over 30 years of camping and it just wore out. The newer ones are not nearly as good in quality, for the most part.) Anyway, I am looking forward to playing with my totally-non-period camp oven and producing new things to eat at Pennsic.

And we have a brand-new tent, a 16x16 'single pole' pavilion. It's still in the box. We haven't opened it yet. We probably should do that soon, assuming the rain ever lessens. I'm making hanging oil lamps for it per Master Bedwyr Danwyn's class. The effect should be lovely although I am concerned about the amount of light they will produce at night. Most likely there will be pictures after Pennsic. I suspect that Bossman and I, or mostly "I" will be spending a good amount of time arranging and re-arranging our tent layout until it is pleasing and efficient for our needs. We are going to have a much larger and more comfortable hospitality area.

I should have the time to visit the Herald's Point more often than I have in the past - that would be fabulous - although I don't trust my heraldic ability much right now. I've been slack, I tell you, in keeping up with it, instead working on other things I'd let slide over the last few years, so I'm not sure how useful I could be. But I'm being forced to bring my computer to the event so if nothing else, I could maybe help in the 'names' department. Names are fun. Blazonry still has me scrunching up my forehead a bit.

And classes - since I need to check on Pennsic University and the Dance staff as well as Performing Arts, well then maybe some classes might fall into my lap too. Just since I'm there.

The new walker means that I can stroll the merchant area too. For years I've been rushed, at best, whenever Bossman and I go to the merchant area, since there are few places to sit down and restore circulation to my legs. Now I can sit on the walker's seat any time I want. Any time! And I bought a cup holder for it, too, so the only hassle is going to be running across a merchant's tent that is too packed for me to bring it in there (it is wide). But I'm pretty sure no one would take it if I had to leave it outside while I went it. I can use it as a 'base' to return to and the booths as new frontiers to explore.

Oh - and my two classes at our recent University went over well. They were small but full of excited comments and questions, with the students wanting further information for their own research. That's a win.

So was being there when Ranvieg was given a writ for her Laurelling ceremony at Pennsic. That alone would have made attending University worth the trip.

*Contrast iodine during a CT scan can encourage a barely-there-and-going-away UTI to wake up and roar. Guess how I found that out?

We came to Pennsic site late this year, in the middle of service week rather than at the beginning of it. That started us off in a very surreal mood. A dear friend, Treestone, came to camp and helped us erect our loaner tent... he was working the night shift so I appreciated his kindness and was in a rush to get everything done as quickly as we could so he could get home and go to bed. Not to mention his girlfriend was in town for a visit and waiting for him back at his house.

While we were setting up the tent other staff members came by to welcome us back. To each one, as they complimented the pavilion, we explained that we were borrowing it and had plans to sell it for the owners during Pennsic-tide, to be delivered when the event was over. (And thusly we wouldn't have to pack it ourselves at the end when we would surely be the most tired and sore.) One staff member bought it right then! Even after seeing the silly dayshade.

We divided the tent as we had planned with curtains separating out the rounded ends. Bossman devised curtain rods of PVC pipe with holes drilled into the ends of the wall-side of the poles so they would fit over the tent pole spikes and be more secure. We had a connecting piece for each pair in the middle where the support poles for the ridge pole were, and after putting the 'raw' edges into that connector the whole mess was securely lashed to each support pole. As it turned out, the small section of curtain rod that Bossman cut into an "L" shape so he could drill a hole in it was a bit too long and poked out a little beyond the wall pole's spike, just enough to allow water to leak a bit into the tent at that spot during rainstorms - four spots in total. But the leaks were minor and by putting the tent poles on the bare earth rather than near our tarp/ground-cloth, the water simply flowed down and away from the interior anyway.

Our little 'bedrooms' were oddly shaped but we were able to fit both beds in there, albeit smack in the middle of each curved area, with the rest of the furniture on either side of the bed. Kitchen items (storage and garbage container) crowded in on one end since there wasn't enough room for them in the designated kitchen area. The drinking cooler and 'room temperature' water bottles were on Bossman's side while the stacked cases of drinks, the garbage container, and our dirty clothes hamper was on my side. It wasn't too bad but certainly not optimal.

One thing I hate about camping is the daily emptying of water from the ice chest before each ice refill. A couple of years ago I solved that in the food cooler by adding in three containers dedicated to storing the ice - they get filled and the rest of the cooler stays dry, so I no longer have to deal with coming back to camp to find water-logged cheese goo or pink water from leaking meat containers. And the daily routine is a simple matter of removing the ice containers one at a time to be drained and refilled. It is much easier on the back. This time, I took our left-over 'leveling wood' (the bits brought along to act as wedges to level furniture since we were camping on a hill) and used them to build a platform to put the big cooler on. Oh, that was nice! It was about the right height for digging into if one was sitting on a chair. Prepping dinner and putting away groceries was much easier than in the past! My back thanked me.

Our 'drink' cooler was filled in the normal way, bottles and cans covered in ice. It had to be drained everyday but it didn't weigh nearly as much as the food cooler did and was easier to maneuver around. It was also handy for storing store-prepared salads on top of the ice since I usually ate those within a day of purchase. They didn't fit well in the food cooler.

Through all the rain and the unseasonal cold, we were comfortable enough to be able to lend extra blankets to other camp members. I love wool blankets! I especially love wool-silk blankets! I've been using lengths of fabric to make blankets for camping since they store better than purchased blankets and I can be more sure of their content. Well - except for my Pendleton Wool blanket, that is. I just buy seven yards of material, cut it in half and then divide one half lengthwise to sew to the selvage edges of the full half. That gives me a good queen-sized blanket with the joining seams (mostly) along the edge of the mattress. After sleeping on a linen-covered pillow for the last two years, I've now decided to do the same with lengths of linen and make sheets for my bed too, if not for Bossman's. He's a little less 'adventurous' when it comes to bedding and holds tightly to his sleeping bag and bedrolls.

First you take something like this:


and you cut it up into the strips that most appeal to you.



And then you use your stripes to decorate garb.