Foolish Thoughts

Fruits Of Our Labour, more commonly known as FOOL was run this past weekend. It was more fun then I thought possible. It is perhaps one of my favorite events to date, despite all the "interesting" things that occurred. FOOL is a learning/teaching event, there were classes all weekend, and I took as many as I could, not to mention I taught two classes. The two classes I taught were Fireside mead, and Intro to Mead Making.

I had fun teaching both, but it was much more different than Forward Into The Past. At FITP most of the students had never made mead and had lots of questions about the process. In this case my students had, for the most part, made mead before, and one student actually helps run the mead competition at Trillies. It was daunting.

The fireside mead turned out quite interesting, weak and watered down, but not nearly as yeasty as I expected. In the two days pretty much all the honey was converted to alcohol and the flavor that came though was a hint of honey, fairly strong orange and subtle spice. I wouldn't deliberately make mead like that again, however I could see doing it for camping events, it was actually quite a refreshing drink. The fireside mead also devolved into an impromptu bardic circle, which was fine with me.

The intro to mead I was actually smart enough to make an extra couple of bottles so I had one to take home this time, well to be fair I didn't have a full class, but I also gave some away to others who hadn't taken the class for various reasons.

Sir Edward the Red's Pole Lathe class had to be one of the highlights of the event for me. I made a bowl on the pole lathe. And I got so incredibly hooked on working the pole lathe that I am looking at ways to modify Ed's designs to create a more portable version that will fit on my balcony and then I can turn bowls plates and goblets to my hearts content. I know the woodchip covered beard I dawned for pretty much the entire day on Saturday was the source of amusement for many who felt I might have been a little too enthusiastic on the lathe, but none the less I enjoyed myself, even if it took the rest of the day to finally rid myself of the sawdust and woodchips.

Unfortunately Lilley, my lovely daughter, had her weekend cut short. She decided (despite numerous warnings) that it would be fun to play in the woods behind the tents and ended up with a bad case of poison ivy. But she spent Sunday and part of Monday with her Grandmother getting fawned over, so I think she's ok with it.

The other big news is Margarite DeChamps (MKA Faye) was given an Award of Orion for her Arts and Sciences Prowess. I am proud beyond words of her, even if she still kind of feels that she didn't really earn it. I will have to find a suitable frame for the lovely scroll she received so we can place it in a prominent place. Perhaps we will have to create scroll wall so Lilley can put up her Boffer Tourney Winner Scroll as well.

I managed to fight at FOOL, which I know will shock some of my fellow Triovantians since, apparently, I am known as "The Fighter Who Doesn't". But my fighting foray was plagued with disaster and in the end I had to withdraw from the torchlight tourney after only three bouts with everything but my shame in tact. It began with a cut to the nose while putting on my helm, then His Majesty saw that the padding in my loaner helm has broken down to the point it no longer passes inspection. I then received the honour of His Majesty King Quilliam, long may he live, granted me the supreme honour of loaning me his personal helm. Despite the massive honour of wearing the Kings own helm, I must say that things went downhill from there. While I lost the first round 2-1, the next round against Rocriptus was going well as after an intense bout I managed to get a clean body shot in taking him down. Unfortunately a hold was called as it was discovered that a most vital part of my armour underwent catastrophic existence failure and I was left without my "gentlemans protection" which oddly jumped three feet to my right without any reasonable explanation. I was forced at this point to withdraw from the field and felt that there was no reasonable way of remaining in the tourney without significantly delaying the combat. As such I withdrew and heartily thanked His Majesty for the great honour he bestowed upon me by lending me his helm. I however did amuse His Excellency Percival quite a bit, as well as everyone else watching from the sidelines, so in some regards I call it a victory (only because I have to look at the bright side lest I turn an even darker shade of crimson then I did at the time).

Interestingly enough I gained a number of nicknames at FOOL, Koo Koo was one of the most common, but I was dubbed Coolaid by his majesty King Quilliam, Koo Koo Ca choo by various people watching the torchlight tourney, and interestingly enough, apparently Koo Koo CaChewbaca by someone(s) from Septemptria. At least Coolaid was relatively close to my actual SCAdian name.