Ren Faire

Best donut holes of my life. Amazingly tender and melty.

 The local Renaissance Faire is gearing up for a final spring weekend before they close up shop until autumn. I'm sharing our recent experience just in case anyone feels inspired to go take a wander through the grounds and see a joust face to face. I had never personally been to a Ren Faire although they are just the sort of places "my sort" of people tend to hang out, the people who like old fashioned things, who like costumes and acting, the sort who love fairs, the sort who make things, the sort who are kind of in love with romance and literature and all things dreamy. Yeah...my people.

 In fact, the reason why we went at all is because an acquaintance mentioned in passing that he thought I ought to know that there was a Renaissance Faire happening nearby this weekend....he told me that it "seemed like my sort of thing." There's a piece of me that bristles somehow at the accusation, but I have to admit he's completely right. It was exactly my sort of thing. 

 I loved all the handmade items for sale, the beautiful ideas, the impressive craftsmanship and the wonderfully hard to find types of objects that only the old fashioned folk would even think of selling or buying. Ah, specialization!

 The boys were wild fans of the live jousting match that we watched, never thought of a Ren Faire as the perfect boy activity before, but I sure will now! And thus inspired, Dee went charging across a field after a poor, surprised grounds maintenance woman, sending about a dozen onlookers into titters. I can't believe I caught a picture. Love his ardent fervor.

 The big boys both got to shoot at very Robin Hood-esque targets with an old fashioned bow and arrow and the kind target practice booth man also gave them a free demo of crossbow shooting which Ru thought was positively dreamy. He's kind of mildly obsessed with medieval weaponry (especially crossbows) thanks to this book which he got for Christmas and has been devouring ever since. Nothing like an unintended living history lesson.

 Lots of wonderful music at the fest too. Fiddle, uke, guitar, and peppy vocals in large doses. Makes me remember how much I love traditional folk music of all kinds and how much I really need to get serious about attending the local contra dances. Why in heavens name have I waited so long?

Oh, wacky Ren Faire people....you're so cool.

Ren Faire....I think I love ya.....

Sugaring Festival

Image via Wikipedia

We drove a great deal this weekend and managed to get all the way up to the top of the state to the part of Connecticut where there is still snow. Far away, up there it is still the end of winter and the maple sap is flowing. A generous farm decided to host a local sugaring festival for free for anyone who wanted to come celebrate. We had a grand time.

There were pony rides (Ru was a very smug fan. I wish I still could fit on a pony.), there were sap and syrup tastings, there pancakes hot off the griddle, there demonstrations of maple cookery and a big evaporator steaming up the attic of the sugar house with the effort of cooking down the farm's arboreal takings.

And then they made sugar-on-the-snow, just like in Lara Ingalls Wilder's story about sugaring off in Little House In The Big Woods.

I've never actually seen it made or tasted it, although I grew up in a family that made maple syrup. I totally get why it is described so fondly in the book. Wow.

The syrup turns into this lovely, moist taffy stuff that is a glowing gold as it spins on your fork (you twirl it up off the snow after it is ladled out) and it mixes with the cold crystals from the snow and ice and gives you this warm/cold feeling as you eat it. So great.

We left remembering just exactly how fond we both feel of this local, American product and decided that next year, maybe we'll try tapping the  maple trees by our house. There are two that would be unobtrusive to tap, in our back yard and then if we got brave we could tap the two others along the street in the front yard. Do you know any stories of urban tapping?