Research, Re-Potting, a Chiweenie, and The Rose Tournament Tomorrow

Today was off to a slow start.  I returned yet another pair of brown boots I didn’t like.  That makes the second pair returned.  I have put in an exchange for a pair of real leather uppers, unlike the pleather ones I had ordered previously.  I do prefer leather…

I did some online database research for my Women in the Viking Age presentation, scheduled for the 27th.  Since I last did literary research 40-odd years ago, using the electronic databases offered through the Ohio State library system is a little daunting.  This morning I tried out the one called JSTOR, which has the excellent attribute of offering downloadable PDF files of its articles, which I took full advantage of.

But still, there are some scholarly journal articles not on JSTOR that I want to access but am not quite sure how.  A challenge to figure this mystery out!  🙂

After wearing my eyes out on electronic databases, I decided it was time to get my hands dirty, so I re-potted the two Madagascar palms that Tim Porges brought me from Virginia exactly one year ago.  They were dreadfully root-bound and pot-bound in their 6″ pots.  A few days ago I got 12″ pots for them and some wonderful new Miracle-Gro potting soil to put them in.

I got my hands dirty, indeed, because the last time I did any gardening (almost at the beginning of summer, I’m ashamed to say: and my perennial bed shows the results of lack of weeding and watering), I put my leather gardening gloves away wet.  Rode hard, put away wet.  Not a good practice!  I could coax only one into accepting my fingers, which was a real downer because Madagascar palms have big, sharp thorns!

Nonetheless, I survived and so have the palms, at least so far…

Sitting on the concrete floor of the garage to do the potting was not kind to my gimpy hip. So after a break for a snack, I went out on the path with my binoculars.  It was late in the afternoon, and windy to boot, and I only saw some mallard ducks (but not the blonde hen I like so much) and a bunch of robins, plus one male cardinal.  Oh well, I’ve been really lucking out at that time of day previously.  Last time I went out in the late afternoon, not only was our resident Great Blue Heron on the pond, but also a Great Egret and a Green Heron.

But the paucity of birdlife on my walk was more than made up for by my introduction to a Chiweenie!  My first ever.  It was following along beside and behind its human so sweetly that I simply had to ask the human about the pup. He picked her up to show me and told me she was 4 months old, a tiny thing and very shy around a huge unknown human out in the wild.  He kept saying Chiweenie, but since he had limited and very accented English, I didn’t cop to the meaning of the word until we had parted.  Yes!  A chihuahua-dachshund mix! Here is one who is similarly-colored to the tiny one I saw, but she had daintier bones:

What a sweetheart she was!  She definitely made my day.  Yes, I’m a cat person, but I also like dogs.  In fact, I know what kind of dog I’d like to have if the circumstances were ever right:  a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, like this one, who is a puppy:

A young couple here in the condos have a year-old Cavalier King Charles named Luna, which they amazingly got as a rescue puppy. She is spunky and energetic and, like the rest of her breed, has a hunting dog’s temperament.  Meaning that there is a big dog inside that small body!  I like that..

Coming home from my walk, I realized it was time to start thinking about the Rose Tournament, which is being held quite nearby tomorrow all day until it gets dark.  I am riding there with my old friend Janet VanMeter, who I used to reenact the 17th C. English Civil War with, along with her husband David and another couple, Jennie and Mark Gist. We were Royalists and called ourselves the Cavaliers.  But the group kind of petered out.  I quit going to meetings and events with Cavaliers around 25 years ago, and I’ve only seen both Janet and Jennie once since then, rather recently.

Janet is an archer and will be doing some of that tomorrow, but she said she will not be joining a Rose Team because tomorrow will be the only time she’s shot all year.  Here is a photo of a past Rose Tournament:

And here are this year’s Roses:

And more Roses:

And last but not least, these Roses:

Each Rose has a team of seven fighting for her,  numbering one member of the chivalry (a Knight), three unbelted armored combatants, two rapier combatants, and an archer.  This Rose Tournament is my first, although my second event overall and both here in Central Ohio.  Then I will be going to Fall Crown Tournament with Mistress Halla of Mugmort, mka Halle Snyder, who is coming over this Sunday to play lutes with me!  Sometimes I play lutes, sometimes I play dolls. 🙂