New York Faerie Festival...better late than never...
Let's turn on the Way Back Machine and set it for June 26-28, 2009 at the New York Fairie Festival. A first year festival with a whole lot of spirit...and a little rain...make that a lot of rain!
But the site, the land, the location...oh goodness...it made up for the weather.
The site was just outside of Binghamton, New York. Located in the tiny hamlet of Ouaquaga. And I mean tiny. Sort of one lane, some houses, that is about it. A really gorgeous setting of rivers and streams and rocks, with the falls....oh my. That will have to wait, but until then that picture is sized as a desktop image, so clicking on it will open a large size.
All the pictures here are either my own, or friends or acquaintances from the festival. Most are hosted on my Photo Gallery, some are linked in from Facebook, and some I pulled off of Facebook and may not remember exactly from where. I usually better about this, so if you see an image of yours and don't want me to use it, or need accreditation, please let me know.
The event was hosted by a group of friends, and artists, with the infamous Billy Bardo of the Bardo Brothers leading the charge, with his business partner Glen, both of them master jewelers of Future Relics. Now, I call Billy infamous, because...well...he is. In a fashion. Billy has a cult of personality that tends to proceed him, which he and I both find funny, as I tend to have the same thing. Folks know me, who..well...I don't know! So we are a lot alike. The land for the site actually belonged to Glen, and has been in his family for years. Their group of friends have been camping and gathering on it in Celebratory Spirituality for some time now, and being inspired by the other Faerie Festivals, and New York lacking a Faerie Fest, they decided it was time.
The drive up was very nice, a great trip through some beautiful scenery of Pennsylvania. Of course there was a long section through the urban areas of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, which was still interesting. At one point, we went through Frackville, PA, which those of you who are Battlestar Galactica fans will understand, we found amazingly funny!
This is the first time that our family has visited New York state together, and only Leah had been there before. So when we crossed the state line, we had to stop at the rest area and take the requisite tourist picture.
Finding the site was a bit of trick. Did I mention that the village is tiny? Oh yeah, and coming in after dark, I wasn't expecting a simple turn off just between to houses. Sort of surreal, as the this opened into a field, which went on into a river bottom, into forests and so on...
Arriving as darkness fell, we found a parking place and some friends. We learned that we had come in just after a massive thunder and hail storm, capping a week of regular rains, on a site would have some trouble with rain. So we weren't sure what the dawn would bring as we put up our tent in the drizzle and slosh.
The morning brought a bit more rain and a site that was long and stretch along the river bed. A road of hard packed stone and gravel base, however, either side was thick with mud and many cars got stuck loading in. We managed to make it in and out although there was a frightening moment or two and set up across from our proposed site, as it was several inches deep in water.
Here is our booth in the muck.
Those two pictures were actually taken after a long wet Friday with very little customers and more rain.
Next to where we were supposed to set up, our friends, Robert and Rebecca Turk of Goblin Road, leather artisans, goblin makers, and fellow maskers. There site was several inches deep in water, only they were already set up, so moving was possible. Robert, a fellow BOG Brother, and ever industrious, took on the challenge with aplomb. He leveled the area, went to the local lumber store, bought plywood and 2X4 and built a floor and gangway. On either side of the entry ramp, where the water would stand, Robert started moving stones and longs to create a bit of drainage and make it interesting. Later, he found where several ferns, etc. had been uprooted to prep the site, so he brought that back to help create the little garden area.
Here is Robert and some greenery.
And here is the front of the booth, not really doing it justice.
By Saturday, things really had started to dry out, and I took this picture, which shows just how clever and lovely his little garden was. It meant that won best decorated booth, and their fee for next year is comp.
Friday really was a miserably wet day. The rain just kept coming down. The handful of patrons who came in were greeting cheers and applause. The organizers were confronted with numerous micro emergencies all day. Vehicles tried to come in along the one road, and sometimes sliding off and almost into booths. Luckily, by the time the day had ended, there were no major injuries, and we had even made a sale or two. However, the prospect of lugging all our camping gear up a hill, as there was no way we could drive into the camping area with our vehicle, was daunting to say the least. We broke tradition in our family and headed into town, found dinner and lodging and a got a goods nights sleep. Staying in hotels, with the expense isn't something we normally do, but this felt well worth it. Dry beds, hot showers and food, can do wonders.
Saturday dawned with more rain, but calling for lightening off. Which it did, and before we knew, a Faerie Festival happened. It still was a hard day, with intermediate showers, but the folks came out and the Green Men Marched!
The site really was something else, and you've already seen a great picture of those waterfalls. Here is another from the trail.
Across from there was the Faerie Garden, a paved interlude between the trees, with crystals, standing stones, and a throne for the Faerie Queen. The pictures really can't do it any justice, and other folks took better ones than me.
I feel madly in love with the rocks there. I know that sounds odd, but as a stone stacker, landscaper, and rock worker, it makes sense to me. Despite our property have 2+ acres of field stones, I still bring rocks home. The stones of that part of New York are a sedimentary mudstone, with lots of of micro-fossils. It forms these beautiful slabs of flagstones and spears of rock. I don't have the best of flagstones on my property and the stone there stacked and locked together so well. Suffice it say, that it was a good thing I didn't have any room in the van, other wise....
The long extended road into the site was lined with vendors and artisans for much of it's length, which actually was an excellent lay out. A slow descent into Faerie Land. First the markets, where Faerie and Mortal overlapped. Here and there along the road were excellent little nooks and benches for Minstrels. This is Billy Bardo and Klaus of Medieval Moccasins, who I learned is apparently a Bardo.
Here is the remarkable EJ, formerly of the Rogues, and now with the wonderful medieval influenced band, Teribus. They were wonderful.
The festival volunteers were certainly a range of fascinating faerie folk.
One of the more popular and interesting characters on the site was a stilt walker and balloon artist. Now there are lots of folks out there tie balloons up into twisted little poodles and such. This guy was fascinating. Plenty of odd and simple things, bows and arrows, etc. Occasionally the absolutely surreal. Like when I saw a girl going by with an flying octopus on a leash. He truly approached it with a sense of whimsy and art. One of my favorite things he did was created balloon sculptures. Filling them with helium and twisting them together into installations to be flown from one of the tents. I told several folks that they reminded me of the remarkable glass artistry of Dale Chihuly. You can judge this for yourself.
Here is a lovely cluster of characters, and our intrepid balloon artists is the one with the very long legs. This pictures is filled with talent. Seated with her back to us is Noelle Stone, known ever so appropriately as The Pretty Juggler. Seriously, go look at her pictures. You'll see. Then there is her sometimes partner and always amazing Trinket, aka: Lisa Oberg. Lastly, but not leastly, is Trinket's companion, Dave, a capable and awesome organizer and friend of many.
Oddly enough, I am in that picture as well, but I am down in the river and you can only see the top of my hat.
The site organizer and vendor coordinator was Marianne, a talented jewelry artist in her own, apprenticed with Billy Bardo and Gene, the owner of the land. Now all weekend, there was LOTS of issues and the three of them ran around like crazy. Gene spent most of the weekend on the tractor, pulling stuck vehicles and laying stones on the paths. Billy spent it handling major logistics and the off site issues with neighbors, etc. This meant that all the vendor issues and 100's of little things were left to Marianne, who, at times, was the only promoter able to be found. This had a little bit of effect on her, although she handled it with aplomb and pluck. However, by the end of Saturday, she was getting a little weird and turning a bit blue.
At one point in the weekend, I was witness to a monumental moment in the history of the Faerie Realms. A rare moment when two true Celebrafaeries met for the first time and find a kindred soul of such intense silliness, that they thought it never possible. This was when Noobler, The Tinker Gnome met Wedju TuCheeks, the TransFaerie Goblin. Here they are, meeting on the cross roads.
Let me say, that these are two of the wittiest and clever performers, able to launch off in to goofiness at a moments notice. Noobler performs mostly in song and story, and Wedji is mostly just mad...or Mab, just Mab. Standing there, talking with Noobler, when up walks Wedji, asks who he is, and off they went, twenty minutes or so of interaction that drew a small audience and had me laughing with tears down my face. I can really in no way accurately describe the characters of these two, so it is my wish that you get to experience it for yourself someday.
Wedji is always a hit and here she is showing her pet giant cockroach, Fluffy, to Ellawyn and her friend Trinity.
Here is a better shot of Noobler, serenading us in our booth.
That long road, through the vendors, ultimately opened out into a largest meadow. Performance stages, a coffee/tea lounge tent, and this remarkable structure. This is the Bardo Booth and Ancient Relics. It was used that weekend for the performers and souvenir sales. It was always filled with musicians jamming together and chatting. At first glance, you may think it a permanent structure. Actually, looking close, you will note the canvas roof and that the walls are panels that bolt together. There is even an interior loft space supported on post. This sort of thing won't be surprising to my friends who attend Pennsic, which is where it is assembled every year, but I found it amazing.
From there, it was a walk down a long trail with out booths. A faerie woodland, bordering the stream. Hung along the trail were empty picture frames.
Coming along towards me is the Faerie Queen of the festival, Kate Hopkins of Roundtable Production, the jousting troop of the festival. Yes, we had a joust at a Faerie Fest, but more on that later.
Kate was a remarkable queen, a stunning beauty. Here she is up close and personal.
And just to further illustrate how lovely of a Queen Kate was, and the remarkable quality of the site, this picture was taken by David Windham of Faerie Wind Studios. Although David is a Photoshop artist, and makes his living at manipulating images to appear other worldly, this one hasn't been. Kate washing the mud from her dress when David captured her on film. He did some awesome work to it later, but this is the original.
At the end of the trail it opened out again into another meadow with a performance stage and a small stone circle. This is where The BOG Brothers dressed for our Green Man March. A very nice March indeed, with a couple of new Brothers joining, and one old one.
I was please to have Jared along for this, as he doesn't do so very much, and I love this picture of him.
The only problem with having a Bog March at a Faerie Festival is the place is often infested with Blue Goblins. Here is evidence.
I only got the one picture of Leah all weekend, which was a shame, as we she was as beautiful as always. We were very busy with the weather and dealing with it.
Ellawyn had a HUGE fun time. Here good friend Trinity was just down the row from us, and they were joined at the hip for the weekend. Later, we all made new friends in the Greene family. The mother, a talented singer, Jenna Greene of Greene Lady Music, dad quickly became a BOGie, and the daughter, Saris, was like a little mirror of Ellawyn. Here are the three girls in a picture that a friend commented about, "This will be great to show them in 20 years!"
Ellawyn and I provided some entertainment of our own, doing the Little Red Riding Hood bit.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention our immediate neighboring booth, the awesome and talented fantasy artist Jane Starr Weils. It was great being next to her and Jane's talent is hard to describe. She is truly one of the best fantasy artists in the industry. I was especially pleased and surprised by something she created. Jane was asked to do the T-Shirt and poster for the event. She used a picture of me during a BOG March for her inspiration. It wasn't supposed to be precisely me, but every time someone who knew me saw it, they said, "Hey, is that Shane?". It was a little odd seeing my face on the T-Shirts, and oddly enough, I never got around to getting one.
The weekend had two major highlights for Jared and I. The first was the joust. I was pleased to learn that Kate's companion and lead Knight of the jousting troop was my old friend Rob Earhart, whom I haven't seen in a long time. Rob wasn't aware that he was a BOG Brother, as he Marched with us at MDRF before BOG was officially formed. We reconnected and I watched them joust in the slippery mud on Saturday. We learned that they didn't have enough squires or assistance and the ground conditions were alarming. Needing more squires on the field, and crowd control, I rounded up a bunch of BOG Brothers and myself to help on the lists. This was a awesome flash of the past for me. I have lots of horse experience, worked with them at some RennFests, on Farms, etc. Additionally, I was a squire for several years at Medieval Times in Dallas. Of course, that was 18+ years ago! Here are some pictures from the joust.
Our Lady Faerie Queen and Mistress of the Lists, offering instructions to some of the squires, including a bemasked Jared. I told him to remove it before the joust as you need all your peripheral vision when hooves, and steel are flying. I was VERY glad that he got this experience.
Kate and Rob's friend, Stephanie, being incredibly brave and holding rings for the games part of the show. I am not sure if I would do this, as Knights aren't perfect and horses are unpredictable. She was rock solid.
A few more of squire Shane, directing traffic, and wondering which lance is next for a show he doesn't know. My darling wife, Leah took these, at long range, because she knew I was positively giddy about getting to squire. Man, that was fun. Can't wait till next year.
As fun as all that was, the rock were my favorite thing. You saw the first picture on this, of rock balances and waterfalls. Jared had done a couple few balances on Saturday. Here he is.
With this, we realized the potentiality for an large installation at the site. He and I love balances, and he is often better than I. We planned to return on Sunday and spend several hours out of garb in the water creating a lot of big ones. We did. It was wonderful. Folks gathered along the shore to photography and to watch and we saw several little children trying out tiny balances. I planned it so the installation would embrace the falls, and I focused on large ones, many with prows of stone cutting into the current. For these it was often necessary to build a buttressed foundation under the water. I am not afraid to try big things, and some of the stones I moved weighed upwards of a hundred pounds or so, with one weighing several hundred and being the anchor work of the display. Jared focused on intricate and complicated balances along a gravel bar, which made for an excellent accent. I will let most of the pictures speak for themselves, and those that look like computer desktops were taken just for that and are linked, so click them if you like it.
My Wish For You Is, May You Always Find Balance....
Kubiando
But the site, the land, the location...oh goodness...it made up for the weather.
The site was just outside of Binghamton, New York. Located in the tiny hamlet of Ouaquaga. And I mean tiny. Sort of one lane, some houses, that is about it. A really gorgeous setting of rivers and streams and rocks, with the falls....oh my. That will have to wait, but until then that picture is sized as a desktop image, so clicking on it will open a large size.
All the pictures here are either my own, or friends or acquaintances from the festival. Most are hosted on my Photo Gallery, some are linked in from Facebook, and some I pulled off of Facebook and may not remember exactly from where. I usually better about this, so if you see an image of yours and don't want me to use it, or need accreditation, please let me know.
The event was hosted by a group of friends, and artists, with the infamous Billy Bardo of the Bardo Brothers leading the charge, with his business partner Glen, both of them master jewelers of Future Relics. Now, I call Billy infamous, because...well...he is. In a fashion. Billy has a cult of personality that tends to proceed him, which he and I both find funny, as I tend to have the same thing. Folks know me, who..well...I don't know! So we are a lot alike. The land for the site actually belonged to Glen, and has been in his family for years. Their group of friends have been camping and gathering on it in Celebratory Spirituality for some time now, and being inspired by the other Faerie Festivals, and New York lacking a Faerie Fest, they decided it was time.
The drive up was very nice, a great trip through some beautiful scenery of Pennsylvania. Of course there was a long section through the urban areas of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, which was still interesting. At one point, we went through Frackville, PA, which those of you who are Battlestar Galactica fans will understand, we found amazingly funny!
This is the first time that our family has visited New York state together, and only Leah had been there before. So when we crossed the state line, we had to stop at the rest area and take the requisite tourist picture.
Finding the site was a bit of trick. Did I mention that the village is tiny? Oh yeah, and coming in after dark, I wasn't expecting a simple turn off just between to houses. Sort of surreal, as the this opened into a field, which went on into a river bottom, into forests and so on...
Arriving as darkness fell, we found a parking place and some friends. We learned that we had come in just after a massive thunder and hail storm, capping a week of regular rains, on a site would have some trouble with rain. So we weren't sure what the dawn would bring as we put up our tent in the drizzle and slosh.
The morning brought a bit more rain and a site that was long and stretch along the river bed. A road of hard packed stone and gravel base, however, either side was thick with mud and many cars got stuck loading in. We managed to make it in and out although there was a frightening moment or two and set up across from our proposed site, as it was several inches deep in water.
Here is our booth in the muck.
Those two pictures were actually taken after a long wet Friday with very little customers and more rain.
Next to where we were supposed to set up, our friends, Robert and Rebecca Turk of Goblin Road, leather artisans, goblin makers, and fellow maskers. There site was several inches deep in water, only they were already set up, so moving was possible. Robert, a fellow BOG Brother, and ever industrious, took on the challenge with aplomb. He leveled the area, went to the local lumber store, bought plywood and 2X4 and built a floor and gangway. On either side of the entry ramp, where the water would stand, Robert started moving stones and longs to create a bit of drainage and make it interesting. Later, he found where several ferns, etc. had been uprooted to prep the site, so he brought that back to help create the little garden area.
Here is Robert and some greenery.
And here is the front of the booth, not really doing it justice.
By Saturday, things really had started to dry out, and I took this picture, which shows just how clever and lovely his little garden was. It meant that won best decorated booth, and their fee for next year is comp.
Friday really was a miserably wet day. The rain just kept coming down. The handful of patrons who came in were greeting cheers and applause. The organizers were confronted with numerous micro emergencies all day. Vehicles tried to come in along the one road, and sometimes sliding off and almost into booths. Luckily, by the time the day had ended, there were no major injuries, and we had even made a sale or two. However, the prospect of lugging all our camping gear up a hill, as there was no way we could drive into the camping area with our vehicle, was daunting to say the least. We broke tradition in our family and headed into town, found dinner and lodging and a got a goods nights sleep. Staying in hotels, with the expense isn't something we normally do, but this felt well worth it. Dry beds, hot showers and food, can do wonders.
Saturday dawned with more rain, but calling for lightening off. Which it did, and before we knew, a Faerie Festival happened. It still was a hard day, with intermediate showers, but the folks came out and the Green Men Marched!
The site really was something else, and you've already seen a great picture of those waterfalls. Here is another from the trail.
Across from there was the Faerie Garden, a paved interlude between the trees, with crystals, standing stones, and a throne for the Faerie Queen. The pictures really can't do it any justice, and other folks took better ones than me.
I feel madly in love with the rocks there. I know that sounds odd, but as a stone stacker, landscaper, and rock worker, it makes sense to me. Despite our property have 2+ acres of field stones, I still bring rocks home. The stones of that part of New York are a sedimentary mudstone, with lots of of micro-fossils. It forms these beautiful slabs of flagstones and spears of rock. I don't have the best of flagstones on my property and the stone there stacked and locked together so well. Suffice it say, that it was a good thing I didn't have any room in the van, other wise....
The long extended road into the site was lined with vendors and artisans for much of it's length, which actually was an excellent lay out. A slow descent into Faerie Land. First the markets, where Faerie and Mortal overlapped. Here and there along the road were excellent little nooks and benches for Minstrels. This is Billy Bardo and Klaus of Medieval Moccasins, who I learned is apparently a Bardo.
Here is the remarkable EJ, formerly of the Rogues, and now with the wonderful medieval influenced band, Teribus. They were wonderful.
The festival volunteers were certainly a range of fascinating faerie folk.
One of the more popular and interesting characters on the site was a stilt walker and balloon artist. Now there are lots of folks out there tie balloons up into twisted little poodles and such. This guy was fascinating. Plenty of odd and simple things, bows and arrows, etc. Occasionally the absolutely surreal. Like when I saw a girl going by with an flying octopus on a leash. He truly approached it with a sense of whimsy and art. One of my favorite things he did was created balloon sculptures. Filling them with helium and twisting them together into installations to be flown from one of the tents. I told several folks that they reminded me of the remarkable glass artistry of Dale Chihuly. You can judge this for yourself.
Here is a lovely cluster of characters, and our intrepid balloon artists is the one with the very long legs. This pictures is filled with talent. Seated with her back to us is Noelle Stone, known ever so appropriately as The Pretty Juggler. Seriously, go look at her pictures. You'll see. Then there is her sometimes partner and always amazing Trinket, aka: Lisa Oberg. Lastly, but not leastly, is Trinket's companion, Dave, a capable and awesome organizer and friend of many.
Oddly enough, I am in that picture as well, but I am down in the river and you can only see the top of my hat.
The site organizer and vendor coordinator was Marianne, a talented jewelry artist in her own, apprenticed with Billy Bardo and Gene, the owner of the land. Now all weekend, there was LOTS of issues and the three of them ran around like crazy. Gene spent most of the weekend on the tractor, pulling stuck vehicles and laying stones on the paths. Billy spent it handling major logistics and the off site issues with neighbors, etc. This meant that all the vendor issues and 100's of little things were left to Marianne, who, at times, was the only promoter able to be found. This had a little bit of effect on her, although she handled it with aplomb and pluck. However, by the end of Saturday, she was getting a little weird and turning a bit blue.
At one point in the weekend, I was witness to a monumental moment in the history of the Faerie Realms. A rare moment when two true Celebrafaeries met for the first time and find a kindred soul of such intense silliness, that they thought it never possible. This was when Noobler, The Tinker Gnome met Wedju TuCheeks, the TransFaerie Goblin. Here they are, meeting on the cross roads.
Let me say, that these are two of the wittiest and clever performers, able to launch off in to goofiness at a moments notice. Noobler performs mostly in song and story, and Wedji is mostly just mad...or Mab, just Mab. Standing there, talking with Noobler, when up walks Wedji, asks who he is, and off they went, twenty minutes or so of interaction that drew a small audience and had me laughing with tears down my face. I can really in no way accurately describe the characters of these two, so it is my wish that you get to experience it for yourself someday.
Wedji is always a hit and here she is showing her pet giant cockroach, Fluffy, to Ellawyn and her friend Trinity.
Here is a better shot of Noobler, serenading us in our booth.
That long road, through the vendors, ultimately opened out into a largest meadow. Performance stages, a coffee/tea lounge tent, and this remarkable structure. This is the Bardo Booth and Ancient Relics. It was used that weekend for the performers and souvenir sales. It was always filled with musicians jamming together and chatting. At first glance, you may think it a permanent structure. Actually, looking close, you will note the canvas roof and that the walls are panels that bolt together. There is even an interior loft space supported on post. This sort of thing won't be surprising to my friends who attend Pennsic, which is where it is assembled every year, but I found it amazing.
From there, it was a walk down a long trail with out booths. A faerie woodland, bordering the stream. Hung along the trail were empty picture frames.
Coming along towards me is the Faerie Queen of the festival, Kate Hopkins of Roundtable Production, the jousting troop of the festival. Yes, we had a joust at a Faerie Fest, but more on that later.
Kate was a remarkable queen, a stunning beauty. Here she is up close and personal.
And just to further illustrate how lovely of a Queen Kate was, and the remarkable quality of the site, this picture was taken by David Windham of Faerie Wind Studios. Although David is a Photoshop artist, and makes his living at manipulating images to appear other worldly, this one hasn't been. Kate washing the mud from her dress when David captured her on film. He did some awesome work to it later, but this is the original.
At the end of the trail it opened out again into another meadow with a performance stage and a small stone circle. This is where The BOG Brothers dressed for our Green Man March. A very nice March indeed, with a couple of new Brothers joining, and one old one.
I was please to have Jared along for this, as he doesn't do so very much, and I love this picture of him.
The only problem with having a Bog March at a Faerie Festival is the place is often infested with Blue Goblins. Here is evidence.
I only got the one picture of Leah all weekend, which was a shame, as we she was as beautiful as always. We were very busy with the weather and dealing with it.
Ellawyn had a HUGE fun time. Here good friend Trinity was just down the row from us, and they were joined at the hip for the weekend. Later, we all made new friends in the Greene family. The mother, a talented singer, Jenna Greene of Greene Lady Music, dad quickly became a BOGie, and the daughter, Saris, was like a little mirror of Ellawyn. Here are the three girls in a picture that a friend commented about, "This will be great to show them in 20 years!"
Ellawyn and I provided some entertainment of our own, doing the Little Red Riding Hood bit.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention our immediate neighboring booth, the awesome and talented fantasy artist Jane Starr Weils. It was great being next to her and Jane's talent is hard to describe. She is truly one of the best fantasy artists in the industry. I was especially pleased and surprised by something she created. Jane was asked to do the T-Shirt and poster for the event. She used a picture of me during a BOG March for her inspiration. It wasn't supposed to be precisely me, but every time someone who knew me saw it, they said, "Hey, is that Shane?". It was a little odd seeing my face on the T-Shirts, and oddly enough, I never got around to getting one.
The weekend had two major highlights for Jared and I. The first was the joust. I was pleased to learn that Kate's companion and lead Knight of the jousting troop was my old friend Rob Earhart, whom I haven't seen in a long time. Rob wasn't aware that he was a BOG Brother, as he Marched with us at MDRF before BOG was officially formed. We reconnected and I watched them joust in the slippery mud on Saturday. We learned that they didn't have enough squires or assistance and the ground conditions were alarming. Needing more squires on the field, and crowd control, I rounded up a bunch of BOG Brothers and myself to help on the lists. This was a awesome flash of the past for me. I have lots of horse experience, worked with them at some RennFests, on Farms, etc. Additionally, I was a squire for several years at Medieval Times in Dallas. Of course, that was 18+ years ago! Here are some pictures from the joust.
Our Lady Faerie Queen and Mistress of the Lists, offering instructions to some of the squires, including a bemasked Jared. I told him to remove it before the joust as you need all your peripheral vision when hooves, and steel are flying. I was VERY glad that he got this experience.
Kate and Rob's friend, Stephanie, being incredibly brave and holding rings for the games part of the show. I am not sure if I would do this, as Knights aren't perfect and horses are unpredictable. She was rock solid.
A few more of squire Shane, directing traffic, and wondering which lance is next for a show he doesn't know. My darling wife, Leah took these, at long range, because she knew I was positively giddy about getting to squire. Man, that was fun. Can't wait till next year.
As fun as all that was, the rock were my favorite thing. You saw the first picture on this, of rock balances and waterfalls. Jared had done a couple few balances on Saturday. Here he is.
With this, we realized the potentiality for an large installation at the site. He and I love balances, and he is often better than I. We planned to return on Sunday and spend several hours out of garb in the water creating a lot of big ones. We did. It was wonderful. Folks gathered along the shore to photography and to watch and we saw several little children trying out tiny balances. I planned it so the installation would embrace the falls, and I focused on large ones, many with prows of stone cutting into the current. For these it was often necessary to build a buttressed foundation under the water. I am not afraid to try big things, and some of the stones I moved weighed upwards of a hundred pounds or so, with one weighing several hundred and being the anchor work of the display. Jared focused on intricate and complicated balances along a gravel bar, which made for an excellent accent. I will let most of the pictures speak for themselves, and those that look like computer desktops were taken just for that and are linked, so click them if you like it.
My Wish For You Is, May You Always Find Balance....
Kubiando