Silver Kingdom Diaries~ A Fair Faire Weekend!

Saturday, June 15, 2013

A pretty good night's sleep because of the cool night there were no mosquitos. YAY for snuggle weather!

Did my cards again this morning, and was graced with a lovely miracle! A dragonfly who had been frequenting my deck and was curious....actually landed right on my cards. What a lovely Omen!

We are here for our 8th year at the Silver Kingdom Faire in Charlton MA. It is a small faire, but one that has a LOT of heart. The participants and owners really put a lot into this event. It takes place at an old horse farm, and the barn itself was turned into a tavern years ago. There is a lot of excellent entertainment here and it is a secret treasure. My only wish is that more people knew about it and would frequent it for the vendors.

There are great entertainers here! Harry and I met Jay and Abby Michaels here (otherwise known as "The Harper and The Minstrel") at both our first weekend here in 2006. We've been best buds ever since! The four of us SO enjoy playing together and this is one of the faires that we both do and can join up at sets sometimes. They are excellent musicians and very talented.
This is a pic of us playing together there last year!
We all LOVE to play music with each other.

Also here is Granny Gruesome (a fun matronly singing zombie) with her clever songs and wit and humor! Phoenix Swords for skits, Myschieff Managed (a fun and clever acapella group), and the faire's Bardic Circle (a group of singing friends) and The Graces (a bawdy female duo for your randy pleasure) and Buzzards Bay Buccaneers for some fun instrumental jigs and reels!
 

Squishy footwear, fun patrons, an absolutely PERFECT Faire weekend was had! The weather was awesome, mild, sunny, pleasant with a most delicious breeze. A most enjoyable day of music, food, fun and rennies. We wandered the grounds between our four sets, visiting and singing for vendors and patrons.
I got a couple of gorgeous necklaces at this booth, and I made Harry try on some of the crowns that this one vendor made!
He looks great, don't you think??

Oh, I say...how droll.
It's Good to be King, isn't it Harry?

We played a lot of songs in the lanes, that we haven’t played in awhile, just for fun.
Dragging out some of our old repertoire is always enjoyable.

Now, with this next story, I have to start by saying that recently, I posted on Facebook that I wished to have some photos done of me (tastefully done nude photos) out in nature, someday soon.
Just for fun.
Hey, I'm still a babe!
A fifty-three year old babe...
regardless....
but still a babe.
I feel it's much like that movie "Calendar Girls" from Britain where all the old ladies got together to do a nude calendar instead of a bake sale to raise money for cancer awareness. (They made a lot of money too and felt awesome about themselves as old babes!)
Check out the movie if you haven't! As a matter of fact, I think I'd like to see it again sometime...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337909/

I got offers of photographers and much support was given to me for this 53 year old’s wild hair project.

One Facebook friend and faire patron fellow joked to me online that....

"A scarf placed strategically just so, here or there, might be the ticket.”

 He then emailed me and said that he’d bring some scarves to the faire today, for a lark for me, to chose from. Well, damned if he didn't show up and brought a bunch of lovely silk scarves from Japan for me to choose from! As a GIFT! How sweet!This one scarf called out to me and he and I both agreed that the colors were especially nice. I'm thinking of draping it in the sunshine sometime...
I think this one is beauteous, don’t you think so too?

Then another Facebook Artist friend saw and loved this pic that Harry took of me-
(I was just goofing around with my new scarf.....)

And that picture inspired her to paint this fun painting!
How kewl is that?
How awesome and inspiring right back at me!

(If you like  and want some of Susan Snow Violets's work for your very own... find more at her website!  artbyssnow.fineartamerica.com

She makes me feel like getting out my paints again too...

Anyways, in the evening after the faire day ended, we sat with Jay and Abby (The Harper & The Minstrel) on our “porch” and had drinks and nibbles of: smoked oysters, sardines, crackers, fresh cheese curds and a great visit. We then cut across fields and brought some food to kick in to the “pot luck” that was going on over at the Faire tavern after hours. Delicious food, some randy stories and subsequent laughter, and then Harry and I jumped into a shower. Nothing like a hot shower to really make you feel human again.

Walked back through the fields with Jay and Harry and parted ways under a “Half Moon Cookie”- Moon in the sky. A most beautiful first quarter new moon.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Yes, there’s a bird in our building. It answered my phone's wake up alarm with some trills and that’s when we saw the nest. As long as it stays in its nest in my room, I’m all good.

There was a new Pirate Ship there and the group did excellent Black Powder demonstrations and blew off said weapons periodically. They had everything from Wheelock Pistols (before the flintlock), original Flintlocks, Blunderbuss, original Chinese Boomsticks, small canons and early hand grenades. They were very knowledgeable and added a lot of fun and boom for the money! We got a bang out of them! :)

Also new this year was Jousting! There was a small jousting troupe and the crowd really liked it! They were pretty good and did breakaway lances (which is always spectacular when they explode on impact!)

The faire was wonderful indeed and we are always happy to be here. Every year I wonder if it will be the last one, and every following year I'm amazed that it's still plugging along. Such wonderful people! Such creativity and dedication!

We hope that you can go next year!

We finished our faire weekend with hugs and kisses, and then treated ourselves to our annual repast at Zorba's Greek Restaurant with Jay and Abby. I ate some amazing Seafood and devoured a Greek salad and washed it down with coffee and Baklava to go....

Harry and I then drove home for 5 hours and got in to our home at 1am to a happy Monty and waiting Nick and Alyssa and drinks and relaxed before bed.

Life is good.

Actually, Life is pretty FAIRE. :)

Ren Faire Diaries~ Checking in

Travel Log to Silver Kingdom 2013

Stopped into the Thruway rest stop for coffee, gimped out of our car and creaked to a full standing position….stretched out and when I walked in, I was heading straight for the Ladies Room. Then I saw a woman coming out of the men’s room, who was obviously in some alias. A man in a woman’s wig, skirt and awkward heels, almost looked like he was either (in my imaginative mind) in a witness protection program, was hiding from the mob, or was up to something. He didn’t seem like a real transvestite to me. His vibe was way different, like he was incognito.  He, however, was the first of several interesting cross dressing men that I saw over this weekend. That, in itself is an interesting phenomenon.I wonder why?

Speaking of vibes, I’m reading aloud yet another book to Harry on the trip. I’m reading my current fascinating choice, “The Lightworker’s Way” by Doreen Virtue.

So we’ve been on another dimensional mind set all the way here. Interesting indeed. Like how to better listen to your Intuition, read people,  and talk to dead people kind of stuff,  and how to better your psychic readings. We’ve already established that my psychic abilities are Clairvoyance and Clairsentinence. Harry’s is also Clairvoyance and also Clairaudient. SO we’ve been comparing notes.

Like for instance some fun we had was that we took our time and went on a relaxed pace here…didn’t really watch the clock. I asked Harry “what time do you imagine we will get there?”
He said, “5 o’clock.”

So we traveled along, and stopped and got gas, I read, we pondered, he drove some more, we stopped and watered…and then we pulled into the Faire and it was exactly…..5 o’clock. On the button, driving into the faire driveway. Kewl.

Saw the faire director and he told us we had our pick of some of the cabins down on the lower shire. So we drove down there. After all the rain that the area had in the last few days, the jousting field is wet and the path to our site is “sog-trodden” (Merlyn’s new word).

Hopefully, it will be dry by the morrow....

We stop at the first cabin…. I open the door and I see a quaint, nice, clean little trailer, swept out with care….And den?

Instantly In front of me about 1 foot away is a writhing, wiggly, SNAKE!
It shoots right past me and writhes RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.  
 It’s at least a yard long, and I’m guessing (and hoping) it’s a stripey garter snake. Who is now only inches from me in the cabin.

IN THE CABIN!!!!

(Insert blood curdling scream and some sort of an Epileptic style seizure from Merlyn on the threshold)

OH HELL NO.

But that’s not what I said.
I said something more like
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAKKK!"
And then I kept murmuring to myself for awhile longer…. “oh fuck no…no…no…no.”

Yes, friends, that’s the Universe’s “Sign” for Merlyn to NOT sleep in THIS cabin. While the snake symbolism translates to being lucky for “Transformation and “Fertility” and “Guardian”, there is absolutely no fucking way I’m ever going to feel any easy living in THAT particular space. EVER. It has been tainted in my phobic mind's eye.. Can you actually imagine me walking across the floor at night in dark just thinking of it? That image was hard to dispel.
Even though the snake is long gone (I probably scared him too with my scream)....his image still lingers in my mind.

We look over the other options  and aren’t quite ready to take them on for various reasons. The one we settle on is a Tudor style LARP shed that is made for LARPing battles and  Zombie attacks.

We move in for the weekend.

Open eves, no lock, no screens, and the floor has slats in it. A bonus point here is that there is a ladder in it for going up to the loft. (as you know,  most folklore and info says that zombies can’t climb stairs. Having an untouchable getaway safe ground is a bonus point in my opinion.)

 But still you could also sleep in this building. And so we planned to, and Harald, the faire director helped us by dragging some of the bed frames from another cabin over and making it our house. We did that instead of staying in the snake pit or other dicey choices.

Yes, I know, there are slats between the floorboards of which you can see the ground under it about 6 “ away… No there aren’t any screens, but hopefully we won’t get eaten alive by bugs. Yes, there are open eaves but hopefully there won’t be any bats or bird friends visiting. Nor are there any locks. I post an Angel at each door.

I maneuver the twin wire cot frames together and strategically place them a bit away from any wall (no unwanted guests please).

We do have a “porch” though and it will be a good spot for eating, practice and feeling at home.  

 Hmmmmm.....

I crawled in my sleeping bag and snuggled in next to Harry. I am most thankful we brought a potty with us, cuz there’s no gdamn way in hell I’m walking across a wet field of soggy grass with possible snakes and zombies, in the dark, in my jammies, to a porta-john at 3am.

I mean, how much more like Zombie Land can you get for a possible scenario?

How’ere, I WILL be brave enough to traipse across the room with my lantern in a Tudor Zombie shed, and I will also hope that the snake that is in the cabin across the lawn, doesn’t decide to come visit us here in LARPland. There are cracks in our floor and I can see the earth underneath and am hoping for no more surprises in the way of snakes.

Or possible bats.

While I appreciate these awesome creatures....they both freak me out about the same.
They are unpredictable, quiet and surprising.
And wiggly.
Very wiggly.

I close my eyes and dream of a bright, dry, sunny and fun Faire day tomorrow.....

It sure is beautiful here tho.....