The Fall Season, VHS Tapes and Goals

     Summer hasn't been extremely busy on the reenacting front, but there has been a lot of other stuff going on. Eileen and I's band Sweet William has been releasing new music, doing art and such. We've had kids visiting at various points this summer and that has been a blast. Just a lot of family stuff and staying close to home. But this fall looks to be filling up with some really good events and we're looking forward to getting out and seeing folks. The living history community is home and I never feel like I get quite enough time out in it. 

Just a few of the titles. I've added more since this was taken

    I've been collecting VHS tapes, just another weird hobby on top of the several other weird hobbies I have. When I was a kid, like so many others, movies really fueled my passion for history and informed what I spent my time doing. I'd get up early, throw on Last of the Mohicans, Gettysburg or something like that and then the rest of my day was set. I'd dress up, take off into the woods and I'd be totally occupied for hours. And so those memories are tied up with the VHS format. Sticking those tapes in the player, rewinding, fast forwarding. Not the instant gratification we experience now with streaming and such. There was actually some effort involved. At any rate, I've accumulated most of my childhood favorites and all of the history movies I enjoyed growing up and even some new ones to me. It's been a lot of fun. 

    Yesterday (as I write this), I took the boys out into the woods and we had a fun time aping the "savage." I really hope all my kids grow up with a love of history and getting out into the woods and knowing something of the old ways. 

    

    The fall season will soon be upon us and I'm excited for the events coming up. It's also gonna be time to start preparing for the fall and winter outings I've been wanting to do. I've been talking with Jim Jacobs a lot and we are making some plans to get out into the woods. His knowledge and woods skills are really something I'm wanting be exposed to so that hopefully by some osmosis and observation I can get to be a slightly better woodsman. When you spend time with people who have been doing it for a long time, and you keep your eyes open, you'll pick up on little things that they do, habits that they have developed, items they never leave camp without, items they never forget to include in their kit, small ways they arrange their gear, the devil in the detail type of stuff. 

    I've been cooking up a plan to hit the woods with Eileen at some point this fall. Hike in, build a shelter and just enjoy the woods, work on some skills, make some moccasins and scout around. It's got me thinking about brush huts and makeshift wigwams. John U Rees did a great paper on this subject in a rev war context back in 2003. You can read that here. 

    In 2018 during the Floyd's Defeat event, Tom Landefeld and I built a brush shelter the first night. We stayed nice and warm and it's probably the most pleasant night I've ever spent in the woods. Later on we built a bigger shelter once the rest of the company arrived. 

Brush shelter by Tom Landefeld

    

Shelter we built the following day when our party arrived

    A good belt axe, a tumpline, some kind of rope or cordage and a blanket or plenty of brush and you're in business. We had some canvas tarps and some oil cloth with us on that particular outing. Really came in handy as the snow began to to fall the next morning and by noon it looked like this. 

    So my main goals this fall and winter are simply to get out in the woods more, work on some sewing projects and hone the skills a bit more. Let me know what goals or exciting things you have planned for the fall season in the comments.