"You didn't eat an apricot, did you?!"

I know, I know, I said to wait for the Mumford Report. (And I never did the Tinker Report!) But honestly, the Hamlin Report is going to be so much more interesting! All right, how about I combine them?

Mumford, for the first time in the history of the world (OK, the history of the event!), had BEAUTIFUL weather. It was amazing. I don't think it got above 80 except for Sunday afternoon, and even that wasn't bad. No more roasting and parching from the inside out, at least not this year. I only pray it can be as nice next year. Thank you, Lord!

Other than the unusual weather, Mumford was Mumford. It was fun. Lorena's friend, who shall remain unnamed but whose initials are C.P., was there again with his entire unit ("21st Georgia! FIRST CALL!"). We went to the ball. We had to get up EARLY!!! Laura and Lorena wore their new forest green and dark mauve pointed and boned lace-up bodices I made them and they looked lovely as always.

Oh yes, and we had a very energetic young soldier guarding the walkway to Confederate camp, which happened to be just next to our tent, and every time someone wearing any shade of blue meandered down the walkway, he'd yell "Halt! What is your purpose in this camp?" The bemused (and usually amused) visitors would usually answer, "Um, just visiting...?" The fellow would then relax a bit and say, "Well, all right. I suppose you can come through. We have to be suspicious of anyone wearing that color, you know," while gesturing to the blue shirt. The visitor would then self-consciously glance down at him- or herself and laugh. It was great.

The Tinker Report is very simple. THE TRUCK WITH THE GENERATOR WAS RIGHT BLOODY NEXT TO US AGAIN! Even though they promised it would be out in the parking lot...oh well. No, I'm just venting; there's more to the Tinker Report than that. We saw some amazing, amazing wildlife. It was so cool. Laura got to (almost) feed a deer an apple, and we got pics of a daddy, mommy, and baby deer (and then further on two other baby deer) really close up. Deer and squirrels and rabbits and all manner of cute animals run wild in that park.

We attended a Friday night fiddlefest/dance, then danced again at the Saturday night ball. There was a fellow playing guitar who was a dead ringer for Dagonet, one of my favourite knights from the 2004 King Arthur (one of my favourite movies ever). I of course had to waddle up there and tell him that...he was rather tickled.

The girls and I (and Patch and Patch's mom) whipped up a passable-sounding spur-of-the-moment last-minute vocal arrangement for the church service on Sunday (at which several people accepted Christ!!!!!), and Patch and I played music all by our onesies (though technically it would be twosies...). Patch does a great impression of Captain Jack Sparrow, too -- quite amusing.

Nobody set me up this time. It was fabulous!

Oh yes, and we got to set up in this tiny little niche between two pine trees with more trees at the back. It was the dickens to pound stakes while pushing sappy tree limbs out of the way, but it was worth it -- very cosy.

Did I forget anything, Laura? Lorena?

So on to the Hamlin Report!

More interesting weather there...instead of extreme heat or cold (though it was chilly at night, in the 50s), we were almost Gone With the Wind!!!

My gracious, did it ever blow! We must have had 70 mile-an-hour winds blowing straight in off the lake. They started mid-afternoon, after we'd set up already, and increased until dark, then kept on until mid-morning the next day. We were trying to cook our dinner of chicken, corn, and potatoes over the fire, but the wind was so strong that the warmth from the fire was all blown away from the food. It must have taken us two hours to cook dinner. Then the wind got stronger and my mother and I were forced to run round outside pounding stakes down and tying ropes more securely. It felt as if we were in the middle of the duststorm from Hidalgo. Grit, dust, and sand were blown into our eyes; we narrowed them to slits and kept tying and pounding.

When we were able to head back into the comparative safety of the tent, we were greeted by shrieks of dismay from Laura and Lorena. All sorts of debris had been blown into the tent; bits of bark, twigs, and leaves (as well as the ubiquitous dirt and sand) coated the cots.

"We can't sleep like this!!" Laura and Lorena pointed out. It was baffling and frustrating. Even though I used all my strength to tie the back of the tent shut and there were mounds of clothes hanging up in front of the opening, still the dirt and debris kept coating everything. After a fruitless few minutes trying to figure out what to do, I finally came up with a plan: we turned the bottom flaps of the tent to the inside and plunked the canvas groundcloth on top of the flaps, then stacked all our heavy pieces of firewood on the groundcloth to hold it down. It worked!! I have the feeling that if it hadn't, we would have woken up looking like 19th-century New York City chimney sweeps. Ha ha! Speaking of New Yawk...no, I'll leave my unrestrained gushing about my rediscovery of Newsies for another time. (I LOVE NEWSIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I adore Newsies! Newsies is my anti-drug, as I saw on someone's online signature...OK, OK, I'll save it for another time. Sorry. Sorry. *sings* "Ain't it a fine life, carryin' the Banner t'rough it all..." SORRY!!!!!)

As I said, the next morning we woke up to unabated wind, which then slowly died down. Laura and Lorena got up at 5.30 to start the fire for the coffee, then they took the wagon round to the crowds of adoring bleary-eyed sleep-fuzzed soldiers. Fervent calls of "Bless you, girls!" and "Can we give you a tip?" and "Are you coming round tomorrow at the same time??" floated after them constantly.

Laura and Lorena's friends from church came to visit and stayed for most of the day; the four girls were avidly pursued (stalked, more like) by a group of boys who purportedly wanted to play baseball with them...uh huh. Suuuuuure they wanted to play baseball. LOL. Later on Sunday, after Lorena had left, the boys began following poor Laura again and begging her to provide them with (nonexistent) MySpace information, email addresses, screen names (also nonexistent), phone numbers, yada yada yada. One boy tried to persuade her to divulge this information by telling her that he had accepted money from one of the shyer boys to find out this stuff. Laura raised an eyebrow and told him he'd have to give the money back because he wasn't getting the information out of her. Good on ya Laura!! Take no nonsense from any boy, I say!

On the brighter side, not every one of the male species is pushy and/or an idiot. There are a few who constantly prove to us that boys can be witty, nice, and fun all at once. Huzzah for Mack and KiltDan, two of my favourite people! It was so good to see them and their families again. Mack we hadn't seen for almost a year, and KiltDan we saw a few months earlier but because of the grand-scale nature of the previous event hadn't had much time to hang out with him.

It was grand fun laughing, joking, and playing games with everyone. One of the highlights of the event for me came near the very end, when Mack and his parents were just about ready to leave. He was entertaining us all as usual and hanging about near our "diet kitchen" table (no, not "diet" as in "go on a diet because you're too fat," but rather "diet" as in "supplementing the soldiers' diet with more healthful and toothsome items." And yes, toothsome is a word...).


Suddenly I, though I was talking to several people about the diet kitchen, noticed that Mack was extraordinarily quiet for a few moments. I heard the clink of a glass jar opening and then furtive chewing noises. A dreadful thought occurred to me, and I abandoned my conversation with the tourists as I spun round to face Mack, who was standing directly behind me. Grabbing his sleeve, I looked into his face and asked anxiously, "You didn't eat an apricot, did you???"

Guilt and confusion warred in his usually guileless eyes. "Uh........yes."

"Oh no!"

"Why, were they being saved for something? I'm sorry!"

"Um, no, it's just that..." and just here a hysterical giggle escaped me "...they are rather old, and...there was a bug crawling round in there once..."

"Oh, well," scoffed Mack, his forehead clearing of worry lines, "if that's all it was!"

"Eugh," I managed to say before returning to my previous conversation, though I could hardly remember what I was talking about after that.

Now after nearly nine years of re-enacting, bugs don't usually bother me. But mysterious and probably very filthy insects crawling round on old dried apricots in a glass jar that are usually meant only for show and not for human consumption...that worries me. Especially when these apricots are eaten by innocent and more than usually trusting 19-year-old young men who are just looking for a quick and hearty snack before driving home.

A few moments later, I saw Mack making a horrible face and trying manfully to swallow the few remaining chunks of apricot in his mouth. He then reached for his canteen and tried to drown the taste of the apricot. I offered him something to drink, but he waved me away good-naturedly insisting that he was "fine."

Hmm. Seems as though I remember a similar scenario several years ago after Mack had ingested some tainted venison sausage offered to him by a well-meaning compatriot and subsequently spent most of that night and the next morning upchucking everything he'd eaten in the preceding 48 hours. I'd offer him electrolyte-infused water, which he gratefully accepted, and every possible food item we'd brought with us, which just induced another round of chundering.

He was so polite about it, though. I'd hold out, say, Mandarin orange slices or a bagel half, and a thoroughly sickened look would wash over his features. He'd start shaking his head and then, holding up his index finger in the universal "wait a minute" sign, would proceed to turn away and spit several times. Poor Mack!!! And all that was AFTER he spent the night on a picnic table in the lodge at the re-enactment because of bad weather. What a weekend!

We always have interesting things happen to us at these events. None of them are boring (well, hardly ever; you do notice, people, that I am omitting the Batavia Report? Wellll...that is because there's very little on which to report. OK, here's the mini-report. The candlelight tour was good and we nearly froze to death Saturday night...that's about it!). There is always something memorable about each event, and that's awesome. Re-enacting rocks!

Well, is that a long enough post for y'all? I promise, I will try to post sooner next time...but then I always say that, don't I? *sigh*