The second half of April

The "big news" for the second half of April was that Storvik held its annual Novice Tournament on the last weekend of the month. We've been holding it in June for quite a few years, but we always get quite a few complaints about heat, humidity and mosquitoes. Now that we have added horses and dogs to the activity mix, it behooves us to pick a date with weather that's less likely to make the critters overheat.

This year, though, we inadvertently drew a weekend on the other end of the temperature spectrum. April 2026 has seen quite a few days in the 70s and 80s, but Saturday was cool and cloudy, with the threat of rain in the afternoon and evening. Things weren't too bad in the middle of the day, and my friend Patches was in charge of the archery range, so I went out there to shoot some arrows.

After a brief refresher lesson from a marshal-in-training -- who was named the next Kingdom archery champion during afternoon court! -- I started firing off my loaner arrows with my loaner bow. And I did not suck! It wasn't long before one of my arrows found its way into the center of the target! My instructor captured the moment on my phone camera. (I seem to be having issues with uploading the actual photo.) And more arrows hit the center zone, too! I really should be doing target archery more often.

Later in the afternoon, after I'd rested my feet for a while, the wind really picked up as the temperature dropped a bit. The site that Storvik rents for outdoor events is very flat -- it was a Black-owned airport decades ago -- and it sits next to a wide part of the Patuxent River known as Jug Bay. So when the wind blows, it doesn't encounter much in the way of barriers. Also, the various weather apps on people's phones converged on 5 p.m. as the time when rain would hit.

At many events, I stay for feast, while one of my friends (who has a number of dietary issues) eats her own food and plays the hammered dulcimer for the enjoyment of feast guests. This time around, she didn't want to expose her instrument to a potential rainstorm. And, truth be told, when afternoon court ended just before 5 p.m., both she and I were chilled to the bone (again -- I should have learned my lesson last month!) and I agreed that feasting in the rain didn't sound appealing (even though I just LOVE tacos, especially when cooked by my Pennsic campmates). So my $10 for feast became a donation to the barony, and my friend and I picked up a bucket of KFC on the way to her dry, warm home.

That's my tale of Storvik Novice Tourney 2026, A.S. LX.

Speaking of which ... tomorrow is the first day of A.S. LXI. Happy New Year, and Happy 60th Birthday to the SCA!

How things stand, mid-April

I enjoyed both Spring Coronation and Night in the Port. The latter was the Barony of Lochmere's annual rapier event as well as its Baronial Investiture. Laydes Fayre performed four vocal selections before the afternoon Great Court, and five of us Laydes performed an instrumental processional for the Last Court of the outgoing Baron and Baroness.

Yesterday I finished up and sent out the April baronial newsletter -- eight days late, unfortunately, but still better than my performance in March. This time last year I fell WAY behind, but my mundane-work-for-pay schedule was different.

Before I get any further, I should probably explain that I have several different "threads" of SCA activities going on, more or less simultaneously (or ebbing and flowing).

First of all: service. I'm serving as baronial chronicler. I'm Sea Tyger Pursuivant, the deputy senior herald in charge of education (though whether or not we'll have a University of Atlantia session in June is still up in the air). Those obligations aren't going away.

Second: Lithuanian studies. Often I shove this topic onto the back burner because so much else is going on in my life. However, I have a few goals in this area: schedule another Slavic Interest Group meetup for Pennsic 53, start working on a display or class about women in the medieval Baltic region, and maybe even start a website for SCA resources about the Baltic region.

Third: dance and music. I participate in the local dance group almost every Monday, even when my feet are hurting. I would really like to get back into instrumental music, because there will come a time when I am just too old and physically messed up to dance. I play soprano recorder and am trying to learn alto recorder (different fingering). I can also contribute percussion if necessary.

Fourth: weaving. I'd put my inkle loom aside for a while, but last Pennsic I took a class in Baltic pick-up weaving, and I love it. I'm slow at it, but I don't care. For once I am doing a craft that feels authentically aligned with my persona! I'm keeping a Flickr album of my work so far. I'm hoping to get as much done on the second band (gold design on a brown background) as possible before Storvik Novice Tournament on the last weekend in April, so that I can enter it into the competition A&S display there.

Fifth: Everything else ... making garb, fixing garb, knitting, making lucet cord and kumihimo braids, wire weaving, writing pysanky (called marguciai in Lithuanian), and doing all the other things I've tried over the past two decades.