arontius | Entries tagged with yule feast

.....The past week has not been all that bad in reality. I was thinking that the lead up to Serjeantry Trials would be an angst inducing and emotional train wreck. But I'm finding that I'm gaining the perspective that 'it will be what it will be' and that there isn't a whole lot more I can do to radically change it. There will be highs and lows. Ellen has done a smart job of trying to corral us into one direction, although her sanity may pay for that effort later. :-)

.....Last Thursday was my brother, Sean's, birthday. He turned 42 years old. I guess that makes him 'the answer' now. We didn't get a chance to talk, although I did manage to leave birthday greetings on his Facebook page. Which was after I had the opportunity to peruse his farm pictures. That was rather interesting. We spent part of our youth in California on a farm. We had beef, a horse, lots of chickens, a garden. Even goats. Huge Nubians with the worst tasting milk I think I've ever tasted in my entire life! When we left California, we sold absolutely everything with the intent that our farm days were absolutely behind us all. :-)

.....Which made it all the more surprising when I start seeing pictures of Sean with the horse, the bull and cows, building a chicken coop. All of this on a farm in Sunnyslope. Amazing, I say. But if that is what fascinates Sean and Dad, I'm not going to speak against it. Especially since I still collect and read Mother Earth News magazines.

.....Mom's birthday was on Saturday. We were at Yule Feast, so I didn't get the opportunity to say anything until Monday. She turned 67 on Saturday, and is still working here at the Shipyard. I'm torn about whether or not to talk to her about retirement. She would like to retire, but the finances would not work out well. Plus, I really worry about what she would do without the requirement of getting out of bed each morning, getting dressed and getting herself into work. I have visions of her spending literally years in her easy chair watching the race cars on TV. Which is entirely her prerogative, but I'm not going to encourage it.

.....Yule Feast turned out to be rather nice. There were a couple of comments of not having anything to do since we moved all the Championships off of it. But as I explained to people, we needed the opportunity just to relax and get to know our friends and family locally. We don't ever seem to get that chance as we're running our hind ends off at events trying to keep things organized and running smoothly.

.....We had a fascinating discussion on the new Arts and Sciences Championship rules. We spent about an hour to an hour and a half in dance. Which reminded me how out of shape I was. :-) Then a nice and flowing Court. The feast was absolutely tasty. Which I suspected it would since Petr Catspawz was the Chief Cook. :-) I missed being at the Aquaterra Feast to witness the step-down of Hauk and Rosamund, but our Yule Feast was nice none-the-less.

.....It was our first opportunity as well to try out our new Rotring cartridge calligraphy pen. It was fantastic! I was able to autograph all the scrolls with little trouble. There was a slight scratchiness and a little wobbliness to my name, but I still enjoyed writing it and was at least satisfied with the results. I now need to do a little checking at what lettering we need to use for the Second Age scrolls, something from the thirteenth / fourteenth centuries. It gets a little trickier I think with the flourishes, but the results will be worth it if I invest in even a little practice time over the winter break.

.....The Toys-For-Tots Challenge is turning out great. I'm actually glad that Jenae and Conchobar pushed this year on it. We collected 134 toys since last week. Aquaterra accepted the challenge, but I haven't seen any postings from them on the numbers collected. After Jenae posted the count I wasted no time in forwarding on to the Aquaterra list in the hopes that would either generate an e-mail with their numbers, or something. I haven't seen much yet. I'm not sure how much to pester them on it. I don't actually want to irritate the new Baron and Baroness. But it IS a challenge. :-)

.....Monday was the last preparation night for the Serjeantry candidates. We spoke of the Quests that each would declare should they prove victorious on Saturday. All the Quests seems to be accepted well, so no issues. I like them all as well personally. So, double bonus.

.....Last night was the regular social. TBT was not feeling well at all and so stayed home for the evening. The VFW Hall was well attended. I was pulled aside and given the opportunity to 'improve myself as a Pelican'. :-) I'll use that as the tag-line to some 'go-dos' I have to get done before the end of the month. None of them overly onerous, but if the tasking lingers too long the mold will smell ugly. Being a Pelican can sometimes be a messy job. :-)

.....Tonight is the Wednesday Night Fight Practice at the Soccer Center. I'm hopefully going to get a chance to talk Serjeantry with Sir John in the hopes that he'll undertake an errand for us. I'm crossing my fingers.

.....Thursday is a FREE DAY!!!! I won't know what to do with myself, having a free night at home. It'll feel like freakin' heaven!!! :-) But I'll probably fill it up with anxious wanderings on the computer in preparation for Serjeantry on Saturday. :-)

.....Friday is a house-warming. It should be low key.

.....Then Saturday is the Serjeantry Trials. The schedule is set in as much stone as possible (although I'm sure it is going to shift on the day of :-)). We'll do the best we can, we'll wing the rest, and we'll make it through the end of the day. I'm still glad we finished a bunch of the testing over the past month. I look at what we have scheduled on that one day and picture us trying to get an entire set of Trials done and see in my mind's eye a twenty four hour day of non-stop action. I hope we never get to that point!

.....December is also probably the absolutely worst time in the world to hold a Serjeantry Trials, just sayin'. I'm grateful for Blatha An Oir and others coming to our rescue to help with the testing.

.....I hope that the day turns out magical, at least a little bit. If that magic is being able to put my feet on a footstool at the end of the day with the thought that we at least made it through the day with everyone more-or-less satisfied, I'll be happy with that too. But a little magic would sure be nice! :-)

.....Then, WINTER BREAK. Three weeks with only the usual SCA meetings schedule (and several of them canceled as well!). And two whole weeks off from work! I can hardly wait!!! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: good
Current Location: Computer Room.
Current Music: Ventilation System.

.....The past twenty-four hours have been interesting. Some highs and some lows, and some just absolutely frustrating things.

.....Work has been something of a zoo. With the Shipyard about to unroll their new management system, the rumor mill has been into overdrive. The rumor rumbled again yesterday that I, and my work, was about to be rolled into the Miscellaneous Work Code, Code 360. I could hum this tune in my sleep as I know it well. But I've had at least three different people stop me today to ask about it, so the chatter is louder than usual. The mid-level boss has heard nothing though, and the Big Boss has said absolutely nothing. So, since this rumor has happened a number of times before, we're operating under a 'Business As Usual' attitude. But it sure is frustrating to have all these people talking about what's about to happen, and hearing nothing official.

.....Something funny, actually. There is a guy at the Shipyard who is really, as in REALLY, into all things Star Trek. He's been blanketing all of the bulletin boards with advertisements to get an enthusiasts' group together. Not sure if it is a literary group? Or people getting together so they can travel to conventions together? But it does look like fun. :-) Not that I could make the time for something like that these days, but I find it rather cool to think that in such a blue collar and industrial world like the Shipyard, that there are people interested in things other than golf, cars and boats. :-)

.....Yesterday started the December Death March towards Serjeantry Trials on December 10th. We basically have something scheduled every single night through the Trials. Thankfully, things slow down a notch after that. Just have to survive the next twelve days with some resemblance of sanity intact.

.....Which is difficult! Monday nights are not good nights for me to start, and the evening started off with news that TBT and I had upset someone because we hadn't adequately recognized a recipient or two for all the hard work they've been doing for the past several years. Sigh! Of course, this didn't come straight to us, this came through another, for which the proper response should have been to ignore it until complaining person either came to us in person or we confronted them.

.....But the whole thing frustrated me incredibly as all the names involved were people I knew well, and who I thought would actually come to me or TBT and tell us what was on their minds! Sigh! And, you know, it's pretty easy to e-mail recommendations to us. We've been pretty free with our e-mail contact information. Double-sigh! I think we've done a pretty good job of acting pretty swiftly on every recommendation given to us. The people in question are good people as well. If a recommendation had been sent us, I bet they would have received something by now.

.....I'm doing my best to get it out of my system and let it go away. There is really nothing to be done about it until approached, unless I want to approach them and I'm not sure it is even worth it, to be honest. I suppose also I could go to the person being complained about as not having received the proper recognition and find out if they are actually feeling left out or unappreciated and find out how to make it right. Although we've been doing a pretty good job of singling these people out for recognition on e-mail and in our reports, but scrolls are the proper coin of acknowledgement.

.....Sad, in a number of ways. I was doing a little looking around on the OP today out of curiosity. Dame Gwenllyn of our retinue was last awarded our Baronial Service Award back in 2003, and was awarded our Baronial A&S Award back in 2006. That's fully five years ago. And because she is part of our retinue, and a good personal friend of ours, she is probably going to receive very little from us for the remainder of our tenure because of the perception of favoritism. She's someone who has kicked hind end in the doing and being for us as Baron and Baroness. We owe her a lot, and she deserves a lot. We'll have to think of some good way to thank her before we step down. As well as take a look around us closely to make sure those working alongside us, doing our real grunt work, are aware of how much we appreciate them and all their help.

.....All the information presented wasn't BAD, per se, just really frustrating. I did my best to shake off the frustration as we made our way to the Serjeantry Testing of the evening. Last night was Practical & Domestic Sciences and Games. The Practical & Domestic Sciences started with a show-and-tell session for various activities such as sewing, riveting, knife sharpening, and the ever popular starting of a fire without a match. Both candidates did very well I thought. Then it moved into the lecture portion. Wherein they spoke of various aspects of their persona and where that persona lived. There were questions on animal husbandry, crops, domesticated animals, dealing with various illnesses and injuries, and a number of other practical issues. I tried not to delve too deeply as most of the topics are also fair game for the Persona Development Q&A at the Trials themselves, and the candidates will most likely field detailed questions there. Both were able to come up with reasonable answers to all the questions. It was easy to see that Madrun had gone really deep into her research! She was coming up with a myriad of details! Her Persona Development Q&A will be vastly entertaining I think.

.....The Games portion went faster. Madrun and Jahnkin set up and played each other chess while the rest of us watched. They would have continued for hours if we hadn't put a stop to it. :-) They knew the moves well, and had basic strategies and tactics down. They set up and played Nine Man's Morris. Then described several others. Madrun showed off some stuffed leather balls she had sewn herself and described several games from her location and time period. It was really rather fascinating. Most of the evidence she had came from illustrations of the time period, but all of her suppositions were grounded rather well.

.....The testing went on for easily two hours. After two nights of pre-Trials testing, I'm glad that we decided to start the testing early to get some items out of the way. It is easy to see why some Trials end up going on all day and through the night. I was also somewhat relieved that we were down to two candidates. I am sorry that Caedmon and Helen had to drop, as it would have been fun with more candidates. But with us 'testing' the system, it was probably a good thing we ended up with only two this time around. I think that having the Trials take place during the summer next year will help a lot. Although I still think some pre-Trials testing is warranted. There is a lot of stuff to do in support of the Trials!

.....Saturday will be the dance portion of the Trials. Both candidates will dance, and lead dancing. I think they'll be ready for it.

.....Next Monday will be the last Pre-Trials Meeting. We'll finalize the Quests for both of the candidates and Sargent Alaricus so that the individual Quests will be announced at the Trials themselves. I like where the Quests are going. I hope the candidates end up appreciating them as well by the time they are finished.

.....Reminders for myself: Tonight is the regular Tuesday Social. Wednesday night is the Toy-For-Tots Championship at Fight Practice. Must remember prizes!!! Must also remember gift(s) for Aquaterra Baronial Succession!!! Thursday night is the Business Meeting. Friday night is the pack up for Yule Feast on Saturday. Saturday is Yule Feast itself. Must put together a 'to-do' list for Yule as there are still a number of things to finish in support.

.....It's busy these days!!!! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Computer Room.
Current Music: Road Noise.

.....The past four days went by in a rush! It's hard to believe that it is time to go back to work tomorrow. At least we have a little Christmas slowdown coming on the horizon in a handful of weeks. Just have to make it through the next two weeks.

.....The banner making was a little frustrating. TBT drew up an absolutely fantastic design on paper. But the pencil transfer did not go very well. Then the gutta outlining was not all that satisfying either. There are wobbly lines, thick lines, thin lines, and a variety of small mistakes on there that don't make me very happy with it. I was going to start with the dye process today, but did not feel motivated.

.....TBT and I were talking about various methods that might help with the outlining. We spoke of Talon's method of projecting the design on the wall where the silk has been tacked down. That'll work, but for a larger banner, you'll need a rather large wall space. We also talked about maybe using a large quilting hoop and outline the banner a section at a time. This will help keep things steady, but the amount of time needed all together will be pretty massive. A embroidery stretcher and tapestry frame were also suggested. We'll have to try out these methods next time and see what works best.

.....Another busy week. Monday is continued Serjeantry Testing. Practical & Domestic Sciences and Games are on tap for the evening. Tuesday is the Social at the VFW Hall. Wednesday is a Toys-For-Tots Tournament at Fight Practice. Thursday is the December Business Meeting. Saturday is Yule Feast.

.....I'm a little saddened that Aquaterra's Yule was scheduled on top of ours. I would have liked to have seen Hauk and Rosamunds step-down. They've been good friends, people we've always been able to go to and know that we have friends available whenever we needed some in Cousins. They will be missed. Half the Kingdom is going to be in attendance for the Ceremony, so it'll be a lot of fun. But our Yule Feast doesn't look bad. Kierran has the day nicely scheduled, and Petr is a fantastic cook, so the food will be great.

.....The following Monday will be the finalization of Quests for the Serjeantry Candidates. Which means that TBT and I have some homework to get done this week. Saturday, December 10th, will be the final Trials for Serjeantry. It'll be a rather long day. But it'll be interesting to witness. Then we'll move into the Questing portion of the Program. This is where our Serjeantry really starts veering off of the typical Kingdom standard. But it is also something that gives our Serjeantry a purpose that continues even after they've been into the group. So I'm rather excited to see this come together.

.....Need to start pumping up the acceptance of Letters of Intent for Candlemas. It'll be here before we know it.

.....Time for bed. This has made me really tired. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Bedroom.
Current Music: Mindlessness On The Tele.

.....Spent the day with TBT and Gwen in Seattle. Had fun at Seattle Pottery being inspired by the books and supplies dealing with glass blowing. Spent some time at Costplus by Pike's Place. Then a trip to Dick Blick's Art Supply on Capital Hill.

.....There was a contingent of the 'Occupy Seattle' group on the grounds of Seattle University across the street from Dick Blick's. Tents set up on the grass. Slogans plastered on signs denouncing corporate culture. It was rather inspiring, at least to me. I felt a longing to go and join them. At least to soak in the mood of the crowd encamped there.

.....Picked up a cartridge calligraphy pen that I've been wanting to get for a while. I had the chance to play with the one Renart had at Last Chance. Unlike some of the Speedball cartridge pens I've used in the past, this one flowed smoothly and was easy to handle. It scraped the paper a little, but it only requires a little self control to keep it moving precisely. I should practice more with the regular nibs and an inkwell, but this is a great way to practice at least my name for signing scrolls.

.....After a late lunch at Zoopa's we made it home around 4PM. I felt extremely unmotivated the rest of the evening. There is about ten million things to get done, but I ended up playing on the computer and watching the last Harry Potter movie, for the third time. But at least it is quality time with TBT down in her studio. :-)

.....Must get a few things done tomorrow:
* E-mails to the local e-lists (Barons and Baronesses) pertaining to challenges in the Toys-For-Tots Tournaents - both marshallate (November 30th) and A&S (at Yule).
* Finish tests for Heraldry and SCA Geography for the Serjeantry Testing on Monday.
* Finish pounding out Serjeantry Matrix (call up Dame Ellen to ensure we're on the same page).
* E-mail the Baronial e-list with the Serjeantry Event Copy and request for help.
* List of items I'd like to see happen at Yule Feast Court (so I can sit down with TBT and finalize a version of the Agenda).
* Pull together a gift and message to Aquaterra to ensure that they know we are not skipping out on their Succession on a whim.
* Go through the agenda of the Serjeantry Trials and start pulling together the pieces needed.
* Must give Renart and Aelianora a call - see if there is a good time to meet for conversation to catch up on some details on updates from the past handful of days.
* Pull together notes for Retinue meeting this week.
* Pull together ideas for next silk banner.
* Start putting together the larger 'to-do' lists for a.) the next three weeks, and b.) the two weeks of vacation happening at the end of December.

.....Tickets for Sting at the Paramount are coming down in price. I should never have signed up for updates. Tickets are still available for both Monday, December 5th, and Tuesday, December 6th. On the floor, they are still $200 to $300 each. But up in the nosebleed sections in the rear, there are now tickets available for $36 each. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. I wonder if I could get Tuesday or Wednesday off from work. I'd really like to go.

.....Short week this week. Serjeantry gathering on Monday. Dragon's Laire Social on Tuesday. A meeting on Wednesday. But the work week is over at that point. Looking forward to a four day weekend.

.....Thanksgiving this Thursday. Mom has already told me that she would like to stay home this year. I think there is something on T.V. she wants to see. I wonder if there is some big European Grand Prix happening or something? :-) We'll put together a plate and take it over for her. Maybe on our way over to Talon and Jenae's. Last year we were in Turkey coma late in the afternoon, and after getting Mom home all I could do was drive home and pass out. I think that TBT and I are going to try really hard this year to at least make an appearance and say 'Hi'. Haven't said anything though. Surprising people is a lot better than having to apologize later for not showing up when expected.

.....Friday is a banner design day. I want to get designs drawn on to the silk and at least get the goutta process done. This time we're going with the dyes instead of the paints, to see how the process differs. I'd like to have a couple more even, but that'll take time to make happen.

.....Haven't thought far enough to cover the weekend. One thing at a time.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: TBT's Studio.
Current Music: Mindlessness On The Tele.

.....Huh. According to SciFi Wire progress is now being made on the production of the 'Dragonriders of Pern' movie. I'm not sure whether to be excited or skeptical. It has the potential to go in several different directions. I suppose it'll depend on the story they really want to do, how much they want to cover, how much action takes precedent over story, etc. I'll tentatively look forward to it in the interim. I read the stories a lot when younger and enjoyed them a lot.

.....I had high hopes for the Narnia movies. But with three of them out now I can say that I am disappointed in them. Visually they look pretty good. The scenery and photography are nice. But the acting and the story line translations have not been very good. Nor have they been very gripping. 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' had great potential as a movie and I left the theatre, frankly, yawning. In fact, believe it or not, I think Peter Jackson did a better job of putting 'Lord of the Rings' on to the big screen than was done for Narnia. Which is sad since I think that Peter Jackson did things to the story that should require him to be beg the Tolkien Estate for redemption!

.....Hope that we hear something on the Pern effort next week at NORWESCON.

.....Must, must, must get my Ingasbo SpreadSheet for 2010 completed so that TBT can finish filing our taxes. It's the only hold-out information at the moment. And it doesn't take an incredible amount of time to do. I just have to condense my income and expense sheet from last year and classify all the entries as appropriate. Shouldn't take more than an hour. Just haven't had the time to do it. Would be nice to complete to also pay off Washington State and their sales tax requirements. I've received a multitude of 'Pay or Die!' notices now and must get that finished before they send the Goon Squad after me.

.....Lots of things in the hopper at work. Not bad things. Just lots of things. It's like work has ADD or something. I'm only allowed to concentrate on any one thing for a stretch of five minutes at a time before the next crisis phones into the desk. Next week it looks like a flight out for the Team to Kings Bay, Georgia. I'm actually glad I received the 'head's up' today as that gives me a handful of days to get everything put together and out the door before it affects NORWESCON. It'll be a squeaker. And it probably means that at the very least I'll have to bring my cell phone with me to SeaTac for the duration. Sigh! Was hoping to leave it at home.

.....The Mid Level Boss was on vacation last week and this week. He'll be back next Monday. So he can take the baton on this particular crisis. I think that I'll even not feel all that guilty as I'm sitting in the hot tub at the Doubletree Hotel. :-)

.....I may be considered as 'non-essential', but the stress level is certainly not proving that. I'm starting to wonder if this was not such a good time to take on the Coronet. Too late now I suppose as I'm not about to give it up this early, but need to force some adjustments at work before things get too overloaded. I'm sure glad the old Big Boss is gone. Life would be completely hell if he were still in place.

.....Banner will be completely painted tonight! Will let it dry over the next day or so and then will get it steamed on Friday or Saturday. I'll have to check in with Anne to make sure that really is the next step in the process. Then it will be time for cleaning and final sewing. Almost done! I can hardly wait to see it flying. I'll have to set up the banner pole in the front yard and fly this from it for a while just to see how it looks. Not incredibly happy with the 'mottled' look of the paint. But am hoping that the steaming process smooths that out a bit. At the very least you can't really notice unless you get close to it. I have learned a lot by working this banner. Lessons learned that will definitely be applied to the next one!

.....Meeting tonight at Brian and Jane's house. The hook was a Salmon dinner. But the conversation will be concerning an elaborate feast that Brian and Jane want to do at Yule in 2012. It'll be interesting to hear their ideas. I'd like to see it be a 'full on' feast. Which, in my mind, means a themed served feast, complete with all the trimmings. Alongside the proper entertainment, and a hall that is decorated completely to match the theme. I remember the Feast that was in Tournaments Illuminated that was decked out in full glory with banners and walls and trencher tables and thrones. It really was Camelot. I'm hoping to convince Brian and Jane to maybe go to the same extreme. With a year and a half to plan they certainly could. Wouldn't it be cool to also have it as a story in Tournaments Illuminated as well? :-)

.....The 'to-do' lists are getting chaotic again. I have a couple of dozen sticky notes in my notebooks and my iPod Touch is speaking in three different languages from all the conflicting notes I'm inputting. Must spend some time this weekend and get a little organized. I'm not even sure what 'to-do' item is the highest priority at the moment.

.....Well, I suppose it could be worse. At least I don't have to move during this time as well.

.....Gotta get ready to go to dinner.

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Computer Room.
Current Music: Road Noise.

.....It's been a good day in all actuality. TBT and I cleaned the house before a July 4th picnic with friends. As usual I thought that we would not have enough food and as usual we ended up having so much food that we were all stuffed silly. :-) The rest of the crowd is at a baseball game featuring the Kitsap Bluejackets. I'm not a baseball fan so I stayed home and got a few chores done. I realized that it had been a while since I posted. Not my norm.

.....The week started off on a rather frustrating note. I posted to the Baronial e-list our wish for a new Fight Practice site, a new June Faire site, and a few people to step up to the plate and take on offices for the Barony. By the time I was headed into work on Tuesday morning I was frustrated and cranky. Instead of constructive suggestions and an outpouring of ideas, I received a handful of e-mails from people who complained about various things associated with that e-mail. As Seneschal, I may be the Business Leader for the Barony, but that doesn't mean that I'm the Shell Answer Man. How in the hell am I supposed to find people, places and things that are all things for all people? There is just no way, even for a Pelican.

.....The Universe has an interesting way of putting things into perspective when you least expect it though. Within a half hour of my arriving of work the phone started ringing like mad. In San Diego one of our riggers working at Point Loma had had a heart attack during the morning briefing just prior to work. He simply collapsed in front of everyone. Someone in the meeting immediately started CPR. The Point Loma emergency services were on site within five minutes. But after almost an hour of work the emergency personnel called a halt, the man had died.

.....I knew this man. Not incredibly well, but I had worked with him in the past. He was married and had four children. He was a nice person. He was in his early 60's and this was going to be his last trip to California and then he was planning to retire this December. Damn!

.....A lot of the senior management were absent early this week and for just a little bit I was nervous as hell as I thought that being the senior planning guy in the Submarine Office that it might fall on my shoulders to start contacting the family. I'm not sure whether or not I should be ashamed to say that I felt a little relief when I found out that the duty fell on the shoulders of a senior Production Department manager. I'm not sure how I personally would have handled that.

.....After a day of that, handling the Business Meeting Tuesday night was a lot easier. I usually go into something of a reverie after things like this happen, but not so much so this time. I think that after the past year of immense amounts of change in my life I am starting to get a handle on how to roll with life and the things it throws at you. There is a sense of security in which direction you can aim, but in reality you have no real control over what happens in your life. The more you realize that the more you can relax and actually LIVE. It's taken me a long time to start accepting that reality. I'm not there completely, but the epiphany is wonderful.

.....This week was a lot about trees for some reason. Last week the Northwest Regional Admiral gave a speech in which he spent a few minutes talking about the house in which he lived on the grounds of PSNS. His house was built for the Navy Yard in the 1900's and was over 10,000 square feet in size, one of the largest houses of this type in the Naval housing system. One of the landscaping features outside this house is a sequoia tree that was planted in front of the house in 1907. This tree is over a hundred years old now and over nine feet in diameter. I had the opportunity to walk by the house and tree on Thursday and it is a beautiful tree, and just IMMENSE. The admiral is talking about opening the house for tours later this year. I would love to bring TBT and Rhys by to tour the house and see the tree. I think that they'd both enjoy the tour.

.....Our Baronial Yule Feast this year is planned at the Eagles Hall on Jackson in Port Orchard. What is interesting to me about the Eagle's Hall there is that in the early '80's, when I was connected with the local Boy Scout troop over there, we planted a whole group of sequoia and redwoods around the big water tank out back. I've driven by the place several times and have watched the trees grow. But I've never had the opportunity to actually stop and walk amongst them. I'm looking forward to that in December. :-)

.....On Tuesday I was talking with Aelianora about silkworm farming. We've been talking about doing this for a couple of years now. The only problem is the mulberry trees that are needed for silkworm food. Aelianora and I both purchased seedlings and baby mulberry trees two years ago and planted them on her property in Kingston. The seedlings died off rather quickly, but the small trees lasted the year. They died off last year I believe.

.....Aelianora and I are talking about making the run down to southern Washington and purchasing a couple of nine foot mulberry trees so as to give them more of a fighting chance at survival. I've been told that the best time to plant them is in the fall when they go dormant. That way they can acclimatize to the soil and then when the spring growth season hits they'll be able to jump start into production. So that's what I'm aiming to do. I think that we'll plant a few at FoxDog Farm, but I'm also thinking that maybe we could get one or two planted here at the Brandevin-Bygelswade estates. The areas where we've removed the hedge out front get quite a bit of sun and may be good spots for a couple of mulberry trees. We'll have to think about that.

.....Hmmm, going to go and get something to nibble on before the fireworks begin in earnest. Hope everyone is having a wonderful 4th! :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.

Current Mood: good
Current Location: Bedroom.
Current Music: Mindlessness On The Tele.

Profile

Arontius

July 2021

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Gathering Some Thoughts.
Miscellaneous Notes For A Tuesday.
The Weekend Endeth.
Organizing.
Time Sure Moves Fast When You Have Things To Do!
The Week In Review.

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 24th, 2025 07:33 pm

Arontius of Bygelswade

Known as Michael Aaron Rogers

Entries tagged with yule feast

Gathering Some Thoughts.

Miscellaneous Notes For A Tuesday.

The Weekend Endeth.

Organizing.

Time Sure Moves Fast When You Have Things To Do!

The Week In Review.