My Vacation Home(s)

Several times a year we venture off to places near and far if possible, but always seem to end up in the 17th century. As such I have to take my home with me. This isn't too hard since it is made of canvas. In fact I have 5 such vacation homes, all identical although two have more mud adhering to them than the others. Here is a picture of several of them.

 

  They tend to be rather small compared to the old "CrackHouse". They sleep two and have no electric or plumbing. The kitchen looks sort of like this; 

 

Every year we try to attend the Dublin Irish Festival in Dublin, Ohio (near Columbus). We set up a small recruitment camp and perform drills throughout the day. This year the festival is August 5-7 and generally brings in 50,000 visitors. We get to attend free. Food is provided to all performers (we are considered to be performers!) and we get to hang out and watch some really cool Celtic bands at night. We tend to stay in tents on site but some of the members get hotel rooms. If there are any house bloggers out there that think attending this would be fun let me know. The bad news is the women have to dress like Deborah in the picture above and the guys have to dress like this (I am in the orange coat); 

 

  I have extra orange coats (orange is not a popular color at an Irish Festival. I am often asked why I am wearing orange. I then get to explain about how wonderful Oliver Cromwell was..... If you know your history you will find humor in this.) I have extra muskets and some hats etc. and of course the extra vacation homes (A-frame tents). If this looks like something you would like to try out, let me know so I can send you off to Goodwill to find some cheap ass shoes that I can cut the sides out of. Additional information: My regiment is the Earl of Essex's Regiment. They were a Parliamentary unit during the English Civil War (1642 - 1653) hence the orange coats. We do this small event with Col. Tilliers Regt. a Royalist Irish Regiment (and thus the reason we attend an Irish Festival). If you have ever considered any kind of re-enacting, this is by far the cheapest period to do. Uniforms are not standardized and if you don't like guns we have these too;

 

 They won't teach you this in school because according to them history in this country began in 1776 but, the last battle of the English Civil War was fought in Maryland in 1655. Two years after the war had officially ended a unit of Parliamentary "New Model" soldiers was sent to claim the Maryland and Virginia Colonies. A very small battle (300 participants total) took place near the present Bull's Run battlefield between these soldiers and the St. Maries City militia. It is known as the Battle of the Severn and is pretty much forgotten unless you study the history of Maryland. 17th century events are held mostly in the eastern states where settlement occurred during this century and in Florida where many pirate raids are re-created. We have even done some events involving period sailing ships and some relating to the earliest wars with the Indians (who sometimes won in this century), as well as skirmishes involving the Swedish colonists and Dutch colonists. See, the 17th century was great! Everyone was beating up on their rivals so they could take their smokes (tobacco) and steal their furs. So much like prison, today!