Trebuchets! Horsies! Geology!

Sunny was the day and high our hearts as we parked in deep grass full o’ crane flies and waded into the 7th Annual Snohomish Pumpkin Hurl & Medieval Faire. And I could continue in the mock-epic language, but I’m not one of Terry Pratchett’s dwarves, so I think I’ll just give you some pictures and snarky commentary instead.

Like Trebuchet said, we only got to see each other for a few minutes, and the new onager had some performance issues, but it was still a lot of fun. Here is a bit of the onager posing with a Cascade mountain whose identity I don’t know because I am teh suck at maps and landmarks.

Image shows the arm and sling of an onager, with a dark pointy mountain in the distance.
The new onager, avec mountain.

It’s okay. He brought Mixed Nuts, too, and that one did its usual excellent job. I haz video. You can haz after I’ve done it up for ye. In the meantime, here’s a hawt action shot where you can see the sling rippling after having hurled its pumpkin.

Mixed Nuts in action.
Mixed Nuts in action.

I love that machine.

Last year, one of the things that disappointed B and me was that we’d missed out on cannons. Not this year! And it was extra-special:

Image shows a group of people getting ready to fire black powder guns. To the far right, there is a man dressed as a pirate with red-striped socks. He looks like Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters. There's a finger pointing to him and a text box that says, "Pirate Jamie Hyneman." To his left is a gallant-looking pirate who seems to be taking a shallow bow beside a small canon. A thought bubble says, "Time for me aaarghncore." In the center bottom of the photo, a blonde girl with a crown is visible. Her thought bubble says, "It's good to be the queen...." To her left is a spectator in an ornate pirate outfit. He looks like Baron Munchausen from Terry Gilliam's Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The text box beside him says, "Totally Baron Munchausen."
We had many illustrious personages present.

You have absolutely no idea how much I love that photo. And I couldn’t even see what I was photographing. There were tall people in front of me, and I could only hold the camera above my head, click, and hope. We got lots of hawt black powder action, and you shall have video of it as well.

I didn’t get many good photos of the pumpkins hurlers in action – my timing was teh suck. But here’s a nice tableau with all the various machines for ye.

Image shows a line of trebuchets and onagers in order of descending size.
The contenders.

There weren’t many this year. What this means is, if you are at all interested in hurling pumpkins to their death with garage-built siege engines, you should build one this winter and have it ready by next fall. I WANT MOAR PUNKIN CHUNKIN ACTION!!

There were people in armor bashing each other heartily, as I so fondly remember from days spent with SCA members. No, the other SCA. The one that includes kilts, drinking, and people bashing each other with fake weapons. I am very happy with this shot of them:

Image shows two men in silver suits of armor. One has just thunked the other mightily, and the thunked one is in midair, falling.
I smite thee!

Alas, my zoom function was being a bugger, so there’s no larger image – I had to crop to achieve. But ’tis awesome.

Image shows same knights on the ground, one atop the other. The one on top has a text bubble saying, "And stay down." The one on bottom has a text bubble saying, "Verily, Ow."
Le aftermath.

I’ve got many lovely horse pics for ya, most of which I’ll post with the bit o’ video. But I wanted an iconic shot of the knight on horseback with volcano in the background, and this one is it:

Image shows a knight on a gray horse, holding a lance. The horse is in mid-whirl toward Mount Baker in the background, a green blanket with a black edge flaring around its rump. The knight holds a spear. It is very majestic.
Knight, steed, volcano.

That right there is all I’d hoped for. Marvelous!

Having said hello to our own Trebuchet, acquired some of the best jerky in the Pacific Northwest, snagged fresh-popped kettle corn, and seen a bunch of awesome stuff (including small children wailing on each other with foam swords, always awesome), plus all of the other action, and now suffering from heatstroke, B and I took our leave. Seriously, it was bloody hot. My legs felt like some evil child was aiming the sun at them with a huge magnifying glass. Since we hadn’t thought to bring sunscreen, we had to leave earlier than we might have wished. We headed back to B’s, where we watched the new all-women Ultimate Fighter, and I buggered off before Doctor Who, because I’ve not finished Series 7 yet because I’m having a hard time with the idea of saying goodbye to Amy and Rory, to say nothing of Eleven, but I’ll get there eventually.

I rounded out a relaxing day by reading people bashing Twilight and eating jerky. Seriously, people, if you’re a carnivore, order some of this. It is amazing, and they have many varieties, including kangaroo, which I may someday be brave enough to try. I hear the gator and the wild boar are also amazing. B will report back on the salmon soon, but I’m pretty sure it will make your mouth go into delighted spasms. I will certainly be getting more if Starspider takes me to the faire today. If you happen to be there, I’ll be the one in the olive green expedition hat with a mouth full of beef jerky. Come say howdy!

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Trebuchets! Horsies! Geology!
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10 thoughts on “Trebuchets! Horsies! Geology!

  1. 1

    That’s probably Mt. Pilchuck in the background. It’s not particularly tall, but is fairly prominent on the Everett skyline because it’s close. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pilchuck I’ll look off in that direction today and verify.
    Note that the picture in the Wiki article doesn’t look like yours because it’s taken from a different angle, somewhere to the north.
    There used to be a ski area on Pilchuck but it closed due to consistent lack of snow.

    Something apparently broke on the new machine as I trailered it home yesterday because I just noticed it leaning at a drunken angle when I looked out the window. I didn’t even notice it when I unhitched because I was so dang tired. Happy tired, however. Guess I’ll get dressed and go see what’s up!

  2. 5

    No Dana today. I’m sad. Except I’m not because there was an AWESOME young female hurler who brought her little treb to set up next to mine and seemed nearly as obsessed with hurling as me. She got to pull the trigger on my larger one. So did her mom.

    Oh yes — definitely Mt. Pilchuck.

  3. 10

    At another office, I had a view of the Cascades. From the 6th floor. We got the most AMAZING sunrises in the morning.
    I used to say I had the best view of anybody in (really big aerospace company formerly headquartered in the Pacific Northwest) who wasn’t actually in an airplane.

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