White Hart, weekend 1

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Hoo boy...what a weekend!  :D

So, opening weekend of White Hart...went REALLY well.  :D  For those who weren't there (or for those who were but who just like reading other peoples' perspectives), here's the rundown from my side.

Thursday night, I had to go pick up my kids from church, where they were wrapping up a week of vacation bible school, and we didn't get home until after 11pm.  Chris and I had made it clear to the kids that Friday was going to be very rushed and that we all needed to do our parts to make sure we'd each done what we could to get out the door on time.  I'd planned to leave work at 11am, but due to a software release that needed to go to production, that needed cooperation from another department in order to be tested, and due to that department's lack of a sense of urgency, I didn't end up leaving until noon, and even then, the piece I needed to test hadn't been done and I actually delegated my testing to the freaking DIRECTOR (hah, what balls I have when push comes to shove), but whatever, I wanted to get out and camp and play, and dammit, I'd already put in my 40 hours by coming in early everyday, so screw it, I was leaving.  (sorry, had to kvetch.)  Anyhow, so I got home an hour later than I'd expected, and found that not one of the three kids had showered, or packed, or ANYTHING.  Eeek!  I sent them all off to get ready, and thankfully had had the foresight to make each of them a list of what needed to be packed, so they were able to do most of their own packing, so it wasn't long before they were ready.  I ran around in a frenzy gathering my own things, plus packing the food, plus cleaning the cat boxes, yada yada yada, and then Chris came home and he packed up the rest of the things (thankfully HE'D had the foresight to pack the tents and other such things the night before), and by 3:30, we were off.

We first headed for the sheep dairy, to pick up the lamb I was going to use, but when we got there, the place was deserted.  ...the hell?  We hung around awhile and checked all of the barns, and called out that we were there, and I tried calling the house, but no one answered.  I finally saw that a cell phone number had been written on a dry-erase board by the side door of the house, so I called it, and got the farmer, who said he was at the Farmer's Market and would be home in about 45 minutes.  A look at the sky told us we had maybe an hour and a half of daylight left, and we still had a 45 minute drive to the faire site, plus had to set up camp, so we decided to go to the site, drop off our gear, then Brenna and I would come back for the lamb while Chris and the other two kids set up camp.  We did just that, and by about 9:30, Brenna and I arrived at the camp with Penny, the understudy lamb (the original lamb I was to borrow had died earlier in the week, which is a story for another time), and our hot-dog dinner was ready for us to eat.  I must say, that Chris is a godsend.  :)  We sat up awhile, letting the lamb get used to her surroundings, and then all settled down for some sleep around 10:30.

Only...it got cold.  And Chris and I had opted to open both sleeping bags up and to stack them, so we'd have a bit more cushioning, and we'd just cover up with a sheet.  A good plan when it was as hot as it was when we retired for the night, but not a good plan when the temps drop into the 50's at 2am.  So between the lamb occasionally bleating, and me worrying that she was going to wake the other campers up, and the icy cold temperature (which, yes, it's not that bad when you have a blanket, but we were both LYING atop ours), I didn't get much sleep at all.

Saturday morning, around 5:30, the lamb started to get noisy.  Apparently she's used to being fed in the early morning.  So up I got, and I fed her, and then headed the half mile or so to the main barn, to grab a shower.  Flash heaters, we were told, no end to the hot water!  Woohoo, sign me up.  I jumped into the shower and reveled in the hot water...for all of a minute.  The hot water started to go away, so I fiddled with the knobs for a bit until I realized, that yes, while we do get hot water, we only get about 3 gallons of it.  Eek!  No time to enjoy it, really, just get in, get clean, and get out.  At least the "cold" water was still warm enough to tolerate, though, so I finished up, and threw some clothes on, then hiked back to camp.

Brenna was up as well, as she didn't sleep well either, and we enjoyed the quiet together as we ate our breakfast of nutrigrain bars and cheese and started getting ourselves hydrated for the day.  We let the lamb out of the large dog crate we were housing it in for the night (with the bottom removed, so it could access the grass, of course), and tethered it near the camp so it could wander about and graze.  Eventually the rest of the group woke up, and we got costumed up and headed up the hill to start the first faire day.

At 9:00, we had morning meeting, at which the premise of the storyline was explained to all, and also at which Penny (the lamb, as she had come to be named) was introduced.  9:30 had us out front, greeting the first patrons of the day.  The "secret" was shared with those patrons, and then Chris, dressed as the huntsman, arrived and Adrian set about pretending that yes indeed, there IS a white hart, and good luck in finding it.  The faire day opened at 10, and in we went.

That first day went well...we had over 300 patrons, which is remarkable considering the newspaper had printed wrong directions to this faire set out in the middle of nowhere, and all seemed to thoroughly enjoy the day.  I heard many times from many people that this was the first renaissance festival they'd ever been to, and that they were very pleased with it and would certainly be back.  Unfortunately, by the end of the day, almost all of them had gone home (it IS a small faire, after all), so pub sing was sung largely just to ourselves.  Which, really, was okay, for most of us were simply tuckered out and ready to go ungarb and relax anyhow.

The lamb did very well that day, though she did refuse to drink any water until we got back to camp, and by the late afternoon she'd determined for herself that I was "mama", and I couldn't leave her side without her crying for me and following me if she could.

That night back at camp, when I took off my skirts, she was no longer sure about who I was, though, and cried for about 2 hours.  Finally we put her back in the crate, and she eventually settled down.

We all crashed at about 9:30 that night, and finally, I slept like a rock.

Sunday brought the lamb crying at 5:30 again, so up I got, fed her, showered, lather, rinse, repeat.  The second day of faire was admittedly slower than the first day, which we expected, due to church and such.  In the afternoon, we got a solid downpour upon us, but it only lasted about 20 minutes, after which the sun shone brightly and we all dried out quickly enough.  On this day, I didn't need to lead Penny around at all...she simply followed me wherever I went, which was absolutely adorable.  Well, it was, until she got my skirts confused with the robe of Brother Donald the storyteller, and started crying for him when he'd walk by, heh. 

That day, also, three news crews came out with their cameras to film the festival, and I got a report from the sheep owner that night that he'd seen the faire on the news.  I'm hoping that the news coverage will help to pull in even larger crowds next weekend.  :)

After the wrap-up of the final scene (which, apparently, will change each day, and of which yesterday made me laugh from deep within my belly, hee!), but prior to the official end of the faire day, we were released so that we could return the lamb to her owner and then get packed up to head back home.  That whole process was rather uneventful and included a stop at McDonald's for a solid (though admittedly unhealthy) dinner.  We got home around 12:30am, and headed straight for bed.

I had to get up at 5:30 for work, so here I am, wishing I was still in bed, knowing that there are mountains of laundry to be done, and knowing that none of it will get touched until tomorrow night, because I've got to get Brenna to a People to People meeting tonight.  Whew!

So yes, overall and in-between, the weekend was a success on all counts.  I'm so looking forward to the continuation of this faire, as it really is a relaxing and stress-free place to be, with absolutely no drama involved.  I've heard tales that there is an after-hours pub or food or some such thing, but never got details on it, so if you read this and know such details, please share them so that Chris and I might be able to partake of such fun next weekend. :)

To those of you who were there, thank you so much for the fun you added to the weekend.  I can't think of a single person who failed to continue to provide entertainment at all times...it really was such a joy to be out there with you all.  Many thanks again, from the bottom of my heart.  <3