Welcome to Minnesota!

After a long and harrowing trip from Sterling, NY, I now find myself in Chaska, MN for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival! Huzzah! The road was long, and peppered with numerous ridiculous toll roads, but myself and the horses finally made it, and now the whole team is once again reunited together! It’s so nice to be able to see everyone again, and I am so thankful we have such a wonderful group of people that I get to call my dysfunctional joust family! We put the “fun” in “dysfunctional”! 😉

Leaving Sterling bright and early!

An ironic coincidence!

Anyways! We made it, and I’m once again set up in my tent, right next door to everyone else… there’s really no privacy here. Since the fair itself is situated on a rock quarry that is constantly expanding and eating up the land, we have to live about a mile away from the actual site in a weird little shanty town we’ve established. The worst part about our living situation is the fact that in order to get the horses to the site, we have to load everyone up and haul them back and forth, which is the biggest pain imaginable!

My first weekend is under my belt, and it was sure an exhausting one! We arrived on site Thursday evening, had a short practice Friday, and then jumped right into the show Saturday. Maggie is currently out with some sort of minor eye problem (the vet is coming out today) so Friday evening it was decided that I would ride Indigo. I’ve ridden him a few times in armor for practice, but haven’t been on him in over a month and have never done a show with him. I do enjoy riding him though, he’s a gorgeous 18.2 hand black Percheron with a wonderful disposition, all though he can be a bit of a idiot on occasion. There are 3 shows per day at this fair; a gaming show at 11am, then two jousts at 1pm and 4pm. Indy was a fired up dragon for the gaming show, pawing the ground and eager to go with gusto!

Ready to go! Love this big guy!

The gaming show consists of riding past a cabbage and slicing the thinnest bit off with a sword, then trying to spear 3 apples placed atop the stanchions, and finally running the rings, starting with a 6″ ring, then a 4″ ring, and ending with a 2″ ring. Since I haven’t gamed since March, we did pretty terrible, missing the cabbage, only hitting one of the apples, and only getting the 6″ ring. But the next day we did much better, hitting all 3 apples and getting both the 6″ and 2″ rings. Indy was a lot better the second day as well, and we had figured each other out by then. I also had fans who found me after the show and cheered me on some more, it was great.

For the joust show, we are sticking to the same script we used in Sterling, which means we do the bit where we get to ride up next to the knights and beat them with stick until they fall off their horses. Since Indy doesn’t care about armor or hitting, we can ride right up and thoroughly smash Harry before he tumbles off and we ride away victorious. Then for the rest of the show we pretty much ride around looking pretty, which we both do quite well, and everyone complements Indy on what a great horse he is. He is very regal and majestic looking with his hair all braided and decked in his shiny armor! I’ve had a lot of fun interacting with the audience at this fair as well, and am enjoying adding commentary to our bits.

Look at that concentration! We make such a good pair!

At the end of the joust, after Harry is declared the winner of the ground fight, us lady riders are supposed to come out with the children of the crowd and enforce the kings justice, which basically means we hit him with the stunt shield and then we are declared the overall winners of the field. And for the last show yesterday, I completely threw the stunt shield right over Harry’s head. And then I did the completely wrong thing and went “OH NO!” and covered my face with my hands… it was terrible… Thank goodness Harry is good at thinking on his feet and without missing beat goes, “What was that?! Come here and give me a kiss baby!”, at which point I shriek and try to run away from him while Shelby quickly grabs the shield and then hits him good. Still, it was so unbelievably embarrassing to miss like that, and I had to go hid in Indy’s stall to escape everyone’s ridicule.

Week two will soon be upon us, and I plan to be up in armor competing against the boys in the joust. I can’t believe how quickly this has crept up on me, and although I’m eager and excited, I’m also extremely anxious as well. This whole week I will be practicing in the counter tilt in full armor, with my horse in full armor as well. We do not use a center tilt rope for our joust, so I have to get used to riding against someone with no middle barrier, which is a bit daunting. I also have to figure out if I will be riding Indigo or Tara for the joust, both are great jousting horses, I just need to figure out which one I will sync better with. However, since Tara is almost a full foot shorter than Indy, it would be less of a distance to fall from her! I will be sure to keep everyone updated with how this week goes, wish me luck!

Much love to you all!