A weekend in the woods

We spent the weekend camping out along with several other Reenactment units portraying several states at the Steppingstone Museum in Susquehanna State Park. It was wonderfully relaxing and fun, the guys got to skirmish for spectators Saturday and Sunday, I got to teach spindling to several ladies in the Unit, and I brought one of my spinning wheels so I spun while the spectators were in camp and answered questions and gave demonstations. The spectators seemed to enjoy the spinning wheel being there, and learning about it. I sometimes felt a little odd at having people just walk through and take my picture (same with everyone that was in period clothing) but I have kind of gotten used to it from my volunteer work at the Carroll County Farm Museum. I didn't realize until this weekend that along with us having fun and building friendships with fellow reenactors, having us there is a big draw for the museum for bringing folks to watch the skirmishes as well as to walk through camp and see how the people lived in that era.I snuck away from the spinning wheel on Sunday just long enough to watch my two guys on the field. In the first volley of "fire" Mark went down, that's him in the foreground on the grass. The Virginia unit also took heavy casualties due to cannon fire from the Union artillary, but Jonathan and the Maryland group fired the Mountain Howitzer back with lots of noise and flames, much to the delight of the spectators lined up on the hill to watch. After the skirmish was over, there was a group demonstating Victorian Era dancing along with a live musical group.
Here are Mark (far right) and Jonathan (in his red artillary shirt) conferencing with the Major with his wife in the foreground prior to the battle. Our unit is very family oriented and many folks in the unit have kids that are involved, both grown and young. We enjoy each other and have some lively conversations around the campfire with lots of laughter all around! It's all about frienships and teaching living history to the public. We're tired and have a mountain of laundry to do (and I have to go back to work this morning!) but it was well worth it.