RMA International Horseback Archery Competition

I haven't been posting things here lately, as I had been preparing myself and my horse for the Rogue Mounted Archers International Horseback Archery Competition — also known as the RMA Horseback Archery Zombie Shoot. Yes there were zombies. Five of them. They got shot full of lots of arrows.

I had backed out of this event, feeling that I wasn't quite ready for the big show. I got talked back into it, and I am glad I went, even though I ended up WAY low on the final scores. Partly because I had to pull Delight out of the Sunday shoot, as she had come up with a stone bruise. Then again, my shooting is still pretty hit and miss...mostly miss, so I went for the experience more than anything else. I met a lot of wonderful people, and had a great time. Delight did me proud and didn't spook at the crowds, and gave me consistent runs of between 12 and 12.6 seconds in 90 meters, which is plenty fast enough for me. Any faster and I wouldn't get any shots off at all. Just so long as she stays under 14 seconds, which is the cut off. Go over 14, and you get penalty points.

There were contestants from all over the US, and also from Japan, South Korea, and Brazil. There were two grand masters attending. One from Japan and one from Korea. The Japanese were using the traditional Yumi bow, which is much longer than the shorter horse bows. All in all it was a very fun event, even if the weather turned very hot, and toward the end a bit smoky from the forest fires burning in Oregon and California.

Here are two pictures of me and Delight taken by the wonderful photographer Carla Resh (All rights reserved. Please don't re-post anywhere without giving her copyright credit).

In the above photo, I am not celebrating a great shot. I am saying, "Oh, shit!" because my arrow hit the target but bounced off...no score. 

Another photo by Carla Resh. Not many people get to meet a true Samurai. Tanaka-San from Japan is such a one, and it was an honor for us to meet him. Here is a photo of him and my husband, Robert, retrieving arrows off the course between runs of shooters. He was out there all day, helping the ground crew, and in his 70's he could outlast a lot of the younger guys. And boy, could that man drink whiskey! Chugged it down like water, and then just walked away, steady as a rock. He told me later that he'd had lots of practice in Mongolia drinking Russian vodka from a bowl. Yikes!

There are a ton of stories I came away with from this event, too many to tell here, but ones I will cherish. Can't wait to meet up with all these people again next year.

Next up is an SCA mounted archery event October 3-5 and then I am done for the season! Back to artwork, beading, sewing, and new experiments. 

My Other Life

Here's what I do when I'm not stitching, sewing, or doing other artwork. I do target mounted archery. This is the first photo of me on my own horse, Delight, doing a run at the canter. It is one of the most fun things I have ever done on a horse, and yet it took a lot of courage on my part to learn this...especially at my age. It still scares me to let go of the reins, and shoot while going that fast, but I keep at it, and I keep getting better, as does my mare. And I love the feeling of power it gives me. I truly do feel like a warrior.

Photo by Carla Erland Resh, taken on the course of the Rogue Mounted Archers (The club we belong to), Eagle Point, Or.

In a Hermit Kind of Mood + Playing with Vintage Clip Earrings

All of September and the first of October were really busy weeks for me. In September I attended the first Gathering of the Amazon Mounted Archers, which took place at the Flying Duchess Ranch in Arlington, Washington (more about this event and the SCA one will be posted on my horse blog site, Equine Madness. The link is given above, on my header) After initially feeling completely overwhelmed by the caliber of women I was riding with, and after getting over a meltdown of insecurity one night, I pulled up my big-girl panties and got on with it. A nice pep-talk from two of the women certainly helped, but the bottom line was, I had ridden up with friends and was basically trapped until the meet was over. I had to either pull myself together, or stand aside while everyone else had a fabulous time riding and shooting.

This issue of being overwhelmed was not caused by anything any of the other women did or said. They were all great, and very supportive, but I am more of an introvert, and tend to be a bit overwhelmed when in a room of extroverts, all laughing and joking and having a great time, especially when I didn't know over half of them. They were all much better at mounted archery than I was, since I have only been doing it seriously for one summer. Some of these women compete internationally and have been doing mounted archery for years.

But I got over my feelings of being overwhelmed and outclassed. I told myself that I could still have fun, even if I was the worst archer there, which after the scores of the competition were toted up, I was, coming in dead last. But by that time it didn't matter. I had fun. I met a lot of wonderful women, and am looking forward to next year, when they all meet again here in Oregon. It will be even better for me, as I will have another summer of practice under my belt, be riding my own horse instead of a borrowed one, and will be riding on a course I am very familiar with, as it is the home course of the Rogue Mounted Archers, to which both my husband and I belong.

So for all you who bother to read this, here is what I do when I'm not doing some kind of artwork, making jewelry, or sewing. I ride a horse at a fast gallop and shoot arrows at targets.

Me and Jebe, my borrowed mount (he is wearing war paint), do a back shot. I love that the photographer timed it so that all four of Jebe's hooves are off the ground.

After getting back from the Amazon meet, I had about a month to prepare for an SCA event due up on Oct 4-6, that also included mounted archery. I was in charge of that part of the weekend activities, which included, along with regular target archer, a mile and a half hunt, where we shot at animal targets...all of them made and painted by me. Fortunately, all the targets I used last year and had stored in the attic above our garage were still good. But for me and Robert, it is a big job putting all these targets up, marking the course, and getting everything ready for the riders coming in from out of town, then going back and taking everything down again. I also got tangled up in some politics and personal issues with people over this event, which didn't make my life any easier. I am highly allergic to drama, but got sucked into it anyway.

So I jumped from one busy, emotional event to another. By the time the SCA event was over, I wanted to do...nothing. A big, fat nothing. I didn't want to ride, I didn't want to shoot, I didn't want to work outside, I didn't want to talk to anyone other than Robert. I wanted to sit on the couch with my cat and read a book while drinking copious amounts of tea. Part of that feeling lingers on, but I am slowly pulling out of it. Slowly. It was almost like I needed to detox, which sounds terrible, but that's exactly how I felt, and to a certain extent, still feel.  So, lots of tea, lots of reading, and lots of private time to myself.

Which brings me to playing around with vintage clip earrings. I have had a stash of them for quite awhile, picked up in bags of other stuff at thrift or antique stores. Some I used by cutting off the backs and adding them to beaded necklaces or bracelets. I recently acquired a few more pretty ones from an Internet friend. Most of the nicer clip-ons sit in a little bowl on top of my antique dressing table, looking very sparkly and fun, but I hadn't really decided what to do with them.

Here they are out on my deck, so they will show up better in the photo.

Here are a few of the ideas I came up with on how to use these little gems, which you can usually find quite cheap. The two sweaters are high-end, pure cotton ones I recently found at the Goodwill for $4.99 each.

I have already worn the taupe sweater with the little clips, and will take the purple sweater out for a spin soon. The next way I wore the clips was to help hold down the front of one of my hand-stitched and beaded boleros. They tend to flip open sometimes, so I clipped the fronts to the straps of my tank top and it worked beautifully and added a bit of sparkle.

 

Oh, and, um, apologies for the cat hair. It's impossible to get all of it off, so...sorry.

Lastly, I clipped one into the hat band on my old felt fedora. I think it looks great.

 

This particular earring (also shown on the purple sweater) belonged to Robert's grandmother. There is only one of them, the other having been lost who knows how long ago. I love the color and flash of these old rhinestones. 

So, there are my ideas on how you can play around with these fun old earrings. I'm sure I'll think of more ways to use these sparkly bits of eye-candy as time goes on.

After Event R&R, then Moving On

It has been a week since the ARC event. It has taken Robert and me that long to detox and get our place back to normal after concentrating on nothing but ARC for over three months or more.

ARC (Ancestral Remembrance Celebration) turned out to be a ton of fun, but in retrospect, a ton of work. And as usual with such things, mixed messages and human error or misunderstandings were part of the territory. In the end, it all worked out and everyone had a grand time. I kept thinking of the lines from the movie Shakespeare In Love, "It will all work out"..."How will it work out?" ... "I don't know, it's a mystery." Friday evening I was in a panic because folks hadn't shown up to get qualified to play, the lady who was supposed to bring the equipment for them to qualify with didn't get to the event until after 6 pm – too late to do anything— which was moot, since there was only two riders on site by that time, and they had already done a "going through the motions" type qualifying with borrowed weapons. Then I heard that the man who was to make the prize for the hunt didn't come to the event, and there was no prize. To say I was in a high state of anxiety is an understatement. However, by late Saturday morning, everything had smoothed out, the prize was indeed on site, and the qualifications went just fine. Truly...it was a mystery. 

Here is the group photo of the riders right before they started the hunt course. They were out for over three hours, trail riding and shooting targets. Everyone had a good time, which in the end, is the real goal of any event organizer. That's me standing next to Robert on Apollo. I didn't ride the hunt, as I was manning one of the last obstacles, and toting up the scores. Robert and I did ride the course on Friday morning, which was nice, we just didn't shoot.

The Monday after the event Robert and I went back to the site to take down all the targets. When we got to the one of the crane, we found a little surprise. This is the back of the target.

Apparently the local bear took an exception to fake cranes in his territory.  While clearing the course in the weeks previous to the event, we had spotted quite a few piles of bear poop on the trail, so this wasn't a total shocker.

So, now that ARC is over and life has gone back to normal, whatever that is, I can get back to the projects that got put on hold while I drew targets and organized a hunt. First will be finishing the riding costume, and then I need to make an SCA period winter cloak or robe for Robert, who needs one badly. After that, not sure, but lots of ideas in the works. I also want to get back to playing around with the Alabama Chanin-type T-shirt adaptations and of course, making more jewelry. It helps that winter is setting in, and outdoor chores will be nothing much other than cleaning stalls. Oh, and I also want to get back into writing, and doing some artwork.

So, that's it. Event recap and the projects lined up for when the Dark Days have socked me in for the winter. Hopefully, they will keep me from going insane until the sun comes back next May.

Still Working on Targets...Gah!

I'm still buried in the preparations for the mounted archery hunt coming up fast...Oct. 5-7. Probably won't get much posting done here again until after this event is over. But here are two of the targets painted, and ready to glue to the insulation foam. And yes, that is the rabbit you think it is.

The wolf didn't turn out looking quite as fierce as I wanted. Actually, he looks like he's falling asleep, but...oh well. The poor thing is just going to end up full of holes anyway.

So, between one thing and a zillion others, I will sign off for a bit, and be back after Oct. 8.

Making Targets

I've mentioned it briefly here a few times, but come Oct 5-7 our local SCA (Society For Creative Anachronism) group is holding an event, which this year includes a mounted archery hunt, target mounted archery, and a pumpkin shoot. Since I am the Equestrian Officer for said local group, I am in charge of the horsey stuff, and also since the hunt was my idea, I am responsible for making the targets for the hunt, which is a course of about a mile, with aprox 15-20 targets. A friend is handling the target archery part, and we will both run the pumpkin shoot. So, to get to the point of this entry, here is what I have been working on instead of jewelry or sewing projects. I've been drawing and making animal targets.

Here are about half of them, drawn on cardboard, cut out, and now positioned on insulation foam. I drew around each shape with a black marker, took the cardboard animals off, then cut the shapes out of the foam. The cardboard will then be glued to the foam shapes, and the animals painted a bit more life-like. Once in place, like theater standies, they will be taped to wooden stakes in the ground and ready for the hunters. Not all the targets will be made his way. Some drawing will be attached to large cardboard boxes painted to look like background. These will be in the forest part of the course, and will hopefully prevent arrows from becoming lost in the woods. Some will only be painted straw bales with cardboard faces (a boar) or draped with a hide (the bear). These and the standies will be for the open hay field part of the course, where the arrows will be easier to find if the target is missed.

It has been a challenge to figure out the best, and also the least expensive, way to make these targets, get them drawn, and now ready to paint. Once these are all finished, I can go back to my regular schedule...whatever that is.

BTW, the Bud Light empties belong to the husband. I never touch the stuff! LOL