Pirates of Paynetown Recap

Another quick recap as I pack up for my historic trip to Jersey next week.

Last weekend we attended Pirates of Paynetown, a wonderful event on Lake Monroe outside Bloomington IN. What is special about this event is the focus on small water historic boats. Everything from pirogues, dorries, skiffs etc.

As usual, I spent the majority of the weekend demonstrating to the public and keeping everyone in much needed coffee after late nights at the tavern. During the battles I helped the terribly undermanned town defend itself by tending match with the cannon crew. Of course, the town falling into the hands of the pirates had nothing to do with half our cannon crew secretly sympathizing with the rogues. Nope, nothing at all!

Sunday afternoon I had my promised sailing lesson. The weather was perfect and after only hitting one dead spot in the water, I was able to catch a good wind, tack several times with ease & guide the Tantrum back to shore. The more I practice, the easier the reverse direction of the tiller & keeping proper tension on the mainsail becomes. Although my shoulder was a bit sore after the exercise, I wouldn't have passed it up for anything!

Unfortunately, it seems the "professional" photographers at the event aren't much on coffee, as there isn't a single photo of Black's Coffeehouse, or myself from the entire weekend. Disappointing, but photographic proof isn't the reason that I reenact. The 2 young teen girls who spent a good 30 minutes talking with me about coffee and then brought their mother over to "meet the coffee lady", however, is!

L spent most of her time running a muck with the other reenactor children; splashing in the water & sand at the beach, running the resident dog from one end of camp to another, watching the Amazing Budabi Brothers juggling act and threatening one playmate with a wooden spoon when he tried to step on a grasshopper. I managed to get her to wear her bun cover cap all day Saturday, though not without serious bribery. The neckerchief took no convincing. It's silk, dyed with natural dyes at the Pike River Rendezvous, by our camp mates V & A. We both love the bright, orange-peach shade of the material.

All in all a very nice weekend event and another that I look forward to attending next year.

Pike River Recap

Just a quick post as we pack up for Pirates of Paynetown tomorrow.

The Pike River Rendezvous is one of our yearly events. We camp along the beach, bring the fully compliment of boats and weaponry and throughly enjoy ourselves with local friends. This weekend included 3 battles, two by land and one by water. The ladies and I made out like bandits; looting the fallen bodies after each skirmish, although I'm still searching for the perfect pair of buckle shoes. It seems everyone was either wearing high-lows or moccasins, not a single good buckle shoe in sight!

Photo by K. Garland L-R: Miss Sarah, Miss Kelly, Widow Black & Mrs. Bit

L naturally has a great time as well, running around with her friends. This weekend they spent most of the time in the coffeehouse, playing with watercolors, pick-up sticks and various rocks & bits of fabric. They even made 2 batches of butter, demoing for the public and explaining the process as they shared the work. Although the second batch was meant to be whipped cream for our black berries. They were just having too much fun churning to stop! I guess it really does go faster when there are three hands at work. Churn churn churn "Switch"!

Our new beach set-up worked wonderfully. There were no major incidents with the boats this year and the mini camp provided the perfect spot to sit and watch the kids swim. As you can see from this found photograph. JH & I enjoy a chat while sitting on the Catspaw and supervising the swimming.


Here's to another year on the big lake!