Some Images from the Bakersfield Event

Below are a few images I got from the Bakersfield event:

This is Fluffy, our resident trench rodent on the American side. Fluffy was a real trooper even witht the 90 degree plus temperatures and required no water whatsoever!

This is a scene of the living area I set up for myself. I even made up a location sign based on a landmark in the City of Orange, California- Orange Plaza. A good part of Co. G, 364th Infantry was recruited out of Southern California including Orange, Santa Ana, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Sorry for the poor image quality- the sun was extremely bright.

A picture of my compadre Chris.


And here's me.

Hey Bud, Got a Carrot For Me?

A friend of mine sent this picture of Max to me while I was out of town in Bakersfield. I thought it was humorous... :-)

History of Heroes - WWI Event Report - Part 1

Well, it's Monday and I'm back from the "History of Heroes" event in Bakersfield. My compadres and I provided the WWI portion of the event and it was probably the best WWI event we've had since we lost (well, more precisely walked away from) our permanent battle site out at Jackrabbit Trail in Riverside County back in 2004.

The event is organized by the Kern Veterans Memorial Foundation and the purpose of the event is to raise money for the Kern Veterans' Memorial. The event site itself is at the Kern County Museum.

I took Friday off of work to have enough time to work on getting the trench system for the first public battles on Saturday (the organizers had a backhoe big out the trench systems for both the Allies and the Germans the week before).

After having stopped off at the stable to check on Max and turn him out for awhile, I then proceeded to drive up north through the Grapevine. Luckily for me, the water pump on the van held and I had no trouble with engine overheating (yay!).

When I pulled into the event (after having to deal with the crappy instructions that the event organizers had posted on their web site), I knew this was going to be fun- it was hotter than the proverbial "Hubs of Hades" and temperatures were in the mid-90s all through the weekend. In contrast to last year, I was the only one there and the prospect of having to begin work on the Allied lines in the hottest part of the day did not exactly appeal to me.

After taking time to fortify myself with Gatorade (drank ALOT of that during the weekend), I started work by working on the sleeping quarters and after fits and starts, managed to create a fairly decent temporary "hooch" for myself. Since nobody else was there, I pretty much decided to make it my own and it wasn't bad for what it was. I managed to nail together various scrap wood and soon had an improvised roof frmed together finished off with my shelter half.

"Reinforcements" didn't arrive until after 7:00 so much of the sandbagging and the like was done by myself with some help from the event organizer staff. They went well out of their way to help provide needed materials, even going as far as to order up 600 burlap sandbags (which was a definate improvement from the modern polyester white sandbags we had the year before). It's a real pain filling sandbags by yourself but I managed to sustain this until about 12 Midnight when I finally went to sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and early and soon the temperature started to rise (it didn't cool down at night until about 3 AM). Soon, what few Allied reenactors showed up so I put them to work fixing up the front line. We were outnumbered by the Germans about 3-1 and that was after a couple of the Germans switched uniforms and gear and "galvanized" as Allied soldiers. All told, we had 2 French, 1 British, 1 Indian and 4 US reenactors. It was a good illustration of the problems we've been having attracting and retaining Allied reenactors.

More to follow...

WWI Event in Bakersfield

I have a short week this week since I'll be attending a living history timeline event in Bakersfield this weekend. I'll be going in my WWI infatry impression as a private of Co. G, 364th Infantry, 91st Infantry Division. Co. G was recruited mostly from Southern California so it's definately got a local historical tie.

I'll be driving up tommorow to start preparing our battlesite. The event organizers are digging trenches (sure beats doing them by hand!) and we'll have to do the finishing work- sand bags, barbed wire and the like. We should have 4 or 5 Americans so hopefully we'll be able to get our side together. It seems that more and more, it's resting on my compadre Chris and I to do everything. Since Chris can't get to the event before Saturday aftgernoon, it's going to be up to me a far as the US side. What a pain.

There's a lot that I wanted to do but I ran out of time (life get's in the way again!). The weather is going to be hot- no surprise for Bakersfield. Hopefully, I'll have some pictures to put up when I get back.

Here's a link to the event:

http://www.historyofheroes.com/index.htm

At the Front with the 2nd Chevauleger

Here's a couple of pictures from a WWI reenactment that I did out at Jack Rabbit Trails in Riverside, California in April 2004. This was the last event we ever had out here. Unfortunately, the vandals finally proved too much and it was too much work repairing the constant damage and destruction.

This was one of the main Bavarian defensive positions. We nicknamed it "Bayreuth" after the famous Bavarian town (especially for all you Wagner fans!).

Here's a close-up of me in the position. We protrayed the 3rd Squadron of the 2nd Chevauleger Regiment (Bavarian Light Cavalry). Although they remained mounted throughout the war, they would take their place in the rotation and would serve for roughly three weeks at a time as infantry in the main line of defense. The rest of the time they were used for provost marshall duties and as messengers.

This was a fun living history impression to do but unfortunately, it pretty much died out when we lost the battlesite. The membership simply lacked the dedication and committment to continue on so I decided to start doing American.

Unfortunately, I now have a closet full of uniforms and equipment that are unuseable- it sucks being an "army of one" and there are too many odd cavalry items to be able to fold into the one German infantry unit still in existence out here. It's a long story and I'm still a bit irritated with the whole thing but I'll save that for another day.

It was fun while it lasted. Enjoy!

North American Trail Conference Ride (or Something New for Max to Do)

Yesterday, the lady who owns the stables where I board Max asked me if I would be interested in taking Max to a trail riding competition. The whole idea is to complete a 25 mile trail and you are judged on horsemanship, tack turn-out (i.e. how well maintaned and clean you tack is), and completion.

Unlike endurance, this is not a speed contest and you are judged more on horsemanship than anything else- basically you are called upon to do various tasks such as stepping over a log or backing up. Also, there are several vet check points where the horses' pulse and respiration are checked- if they're too high, the horse is pulled from the event.

Basically, this would provide a great oppotunity to once again get Max out somewhere new and give him some more trailering experience (especially since we're looking at taking him up north in August to Morro Bay). Also, this is an overnight event, so experience will be gained in this area. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and no disasters will occur (the trailer is a big one).

Max seems pretty fit but I'm a bit nervious, especially with the new saddle- I haven't ridden more than a couple of hours in it at any one time so it's a big question mark. So far, there appear to be no issues but you never know. Also, since my normal trail riding partner has been unable to ride due to a knee injury, I haven't been able to do longer distances. Well, there is the vet check points...

The ride itself is called the Californio Ride and it's on the weekend on May 12, 2007 so there isn't a lot of time to get prepared. We'll see how this goes...more later.

This Week In Review (or make the weird weather go away!)

Yeah, it's been a week since I last posted but I've just been too tired and unmotivated. Such is life...

Anyway, we experienced some high winds last week with a bit of a cooling trend to include intermittant raid. Just the kind of weather guarantted to get the horses all buzzed up and occassionally unmanageable. Great.

Anyway, I wasn't able to get a lot of riding in last week due to a chaotic work schedule and life in general but I was able to work Max a bit and remind him that he does have a job he's expected to perform on occassion and that Spring Break doesn't last until Labor Day.

This last Saturday I had to work most of the day so I didn't make it to the stables until about 3:30 in the afternoon. The wind for blowing fairly steady and cool so I decided to take him for a short ride down the wash and then cut accross towards the Orcas Arena, without crossing the river, and back home again.

For the most part, Max was a good boy although I had to urge him on a bit (he gets lazy on occassion). I've also started using spurs again but only on weekend days but VERY carefully- the rub spots are beginning to have hair grow back in so I don't want to mess it up.

While riding behind the Equestrian Center, I heard some loud voices coming from the general direction of a trail thats located accross a small valley (from the trail behind the Equestrian Center, you have a pretty good vantage point and you can see almost the entire Hansen Dam basin). I then noticed three horses with riders galloping after another horse that only had a saddle- looks like someone got dumped.

I thought great, windy day and buzzed up horses- a good recipe for disaster. I quickly spurred Max and got him going down the trail and away from the action- the last thing I want happening is for Max to feed off the action and start getting stupid. He didn't seem to notice and we soon got out of sight and hearing of the that group.

We finally returned to the stable and on the way, I would halt him now then and make him stand for about a minute or so. Max knew he was on the way home and I was purposely working him so he had to do things he didn't necessarily want to do. In the past, Max tended to start getting impatient if you stop him for too long on the trail and especially when your headed back to the stable.

I've been working on breaking Max of his impatience and I think we've had some success. I also made it a point to ride past the gate and then turn around and ride by the gate going in the opposite direction and then further on. The basic idea is that I'm training him that things are not always predictable and that he needs to listen.

Sunday found me out at the stables a lot earlier so I decided to do some arena work and then head down trail on out usual route. Max was very good on the arena work and he was soon giving me a nice forward trot, good leg yields and I was able to get in some good serpentines at both the trot and canter. I use a combination of neck reining and two-handed reining.

As a reward of sorts, we rode down the wash and towards the Orcas Arena. I then decided on a change in itinerary because there seemed to be a lot of people working horses in the arena (when its windy and you have a number horses together, it can sometimes get a bit dicey) so I decided to take a trail that leads over the river. We proceeded on sort of a long loop that eventually lead back accross the river and up the wash.

What really stuck out this weekend was the high numbers of rental riders and high number of rental riders doing stupid things- like trying to kick up their mounts into a trot and have them take off while, in most cases, the rider barely stays in the saddle. All it takes in one horse getting excited and the result could be a real disaster. Granted, rental string horses don't tend to be very energenic but you never know

Anyway, overall a good weekend.