This was the weekend of what colgaffneyis calls “Muster”–a reenactment training event for members. It was held on a lovely farm site just south of Mankato.

The event had a disturbing preamble. Late last week EF, one of our veteran members had what he described as a “mini-stroke”. He is at least 10 years younger than I am. I had gone for a 3+ mile walk over lunch on Thursday. After hearing this I joined mia_mcdavid and our son James for their walk in the evening. This helped me deal with the personal reminder of mortality, but the effects of EF’s stroke rippled through the weekend.

I had Friday off, so I slept in. Mia and I puttered around the house and packed during the morning and early afternoon. We had James with us, but we decided to only take one car. This one car being a ’95 Ford Escort wagon, we had to make some compromises and leave some our period camping gear behind. We finally departed for Mankato about 2:30 PM. Rain and hideous traffic slowed us down in the Metro, but a mile or two past I-494 (The southern side of the “Ring Road” around the Twin Cities) both cleared up and we then had an easy drive south.

We were the first to arrive on site, and thus had the choice of real estate on the campground. We picked a place close to the outhouse (I am a practical man) and set up our tent (a fairly large pavilion) there. A van-load of other members arrived after a while and set up their tents next to ours. twolodge arrived about 7:30 with the trailer of corporate equipment. He was apologetic about being late, but in fact I thought he had made very good time. A few other members also drifted in. We joined all of them in putting up most of the corporate canvas. About 9:30 PM six of went into town for dinner. We saw what seemed to be an Irish Pub, but turned out to be a bar with deafeningly loud music. However, the pizza was very good.

Saturday started with a nice breakfast, then a day filled with teaching sessions. As someone who had qualified in all the subjects being taught, but not scheduled to teach, I had expected to spend most of my time on the manual labor of running the camp (chiefly the kitchen). Not a problem–you get to hang out with a lot of the best people that way. However, with EF unavailable, I volunteered for the presentation and discussion on the historical background of our period. I had to put this together on the spot, but it went over quite well. I will write up my notes for colgaffneyis Newsletter for future reference by the membership.

After dinner I got to work on the “gun crew” of the 30′ Trebuchet (medieval counterweight catapult) that our host had on site. Nothing fancy for me, just helping wind the winch that lifted the counterweight. James and botanicavix were also part of the crew. It was most impressive to watch it fire.

Afterwards Mia and James went back up to Minneapolis to pick up the black powder magazine–it had been left at EF’s house. So they missed out on the evening group sing, with great contributions by botanicavix, bullettheblue, and others. Mia and James finally made it back to camp about 11 PM.

To be continued.