A Renaissance Day

I haven't been to the renaissance festival in probably ten years. We planned to go last year, but ran out of time. So this year I made sure to get a costume, and convinced Katie to get one too (it didn't take much convincing.). I love dressing up, it's silly and childish but I LOVE it!

That's how I ended up wearing snake skin stiletto booties, a fedora, and a miniskirt to a karaoke party, when I can't even sing. And why I gave myself Vulcan eyebrows to go to a Star Trek party even though I only knew a handful of people there. I just can't help myself!

So you know I'm going all out for the Ren fest. I found this awesome bodice thingy and got it for fairly cheap, along with a cotton crop top to go under it. Leggings from target (clearance, baby!) and a cheap piratey hat. Katie got me a fantastic silver bracelet. I got ostrich feathers from Kohler & Dramm wholesale, and the crowning touch, my piratey dagger, that I love...probably a little too much.

Katie's outfit was a costume that we added a few touches to. A felt hat from Target with the side pinned up, ostrich feathers added, along with a ribbon and rhinestone peacock pin. She got so many compliments on that hat! She also bought different leggings than the ones that came with the costume, different boots too. Add some jewelry and of course... weaponry!

She looked awesome!

So on to the festival! Nervous at first, but that didn't last long. Get a crossbow into my hands and I'm all over it!

Oh yes, the liquor helped.
Mead and wine. I think the Egyptian mead was my fav.

OH and the turkey leg, LOVE! Even better than the state fair.

Did I mention I really love my dagger?

Now, our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

SO! Fall is coming to Minnesota.

I was not prepared. Although we did get a few days warning about the frost coming so we got to harvest pretty much all of the sensitive crops before it hit.

And I have to say, it was nice not doing it in 30* freezing drizzle like usual. Plus Phia came out to help, which was AWESOME. I don't know if y'all know this; but, help is helpful sometimes.

Now we just have all the stuff that we put in weeks or months ago to dig up, like potatoes and carrots, and the other stuff, like leeks, (we have a ton!) onions, shallots, Brussles sprouts, cabbage and winter squash. Plus some misc. stuff like greens and herbs.

I just read Dreams of Joy by Lisa See. It's all about an idealistic young Chinese woman going back to China during the communist era. Super interesting, especially since I'd never read anything about what happened there during that time. Even though it was a novel it was well researched and that almost makes it better than reading real accounts, at least I can say these were fiction, not real people that were suffering. Even though real people did (and are) suffer(ing).

What I thought was interesting, and what got me on to this in the first place, is how fragile our food resources are. Even with CRAZY weather this year, (that made us buy tomatoes from other farms to can because we didn't have enough of our own) we STILL had a ton of food come out of the ground.

But, that's only because we were allowed to grow a wide variety of crops. And use our own judgement in what to plant, where to plant it, and how to cultivate it. I can see if someone else with less or no experience on our particular piece of property was to come in and try to survive...well, good luck!

Anyway if you do want to read Dreams of Joy you should know it's a sequel to Shanghai Girls.

How did this turn into a book review?