Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

This weekend we opened up the hives to do a process called a walk away split. This is where you take some of the resources from a hive to get a new hive going. It’s an interesting but time consuming process. And one of the most important things you have to do is find the queen bee. You don’t want to move her over to the new hive or you end up with two dead hives. She has to stay with her hive.

So, we broke open the hive and started inspecting all the frames under the queen excluder. The queen excluder is a sheet of plastic with holes in it. These holes are too small for the queen to pass through but big enough for the worker bees to pass through.

Well, we found her and it was quite a thrill. Here is a picture: (Pretty amazing how all the other bees are attending to her)

I have a video on my youtube channel if you want to see more and see her walking around on the hive.

The blacksmithing is going well and the home made forge is working very well. I have been learning all about the art and am making progress. It is always a matter of time! Anyhoo, I have created a new tutorial that shows one of the basic skills of the smith - drawing out metal. This is the skill where you hammer a piece of metal to make it longer and thinner. Picture it sort of like having a length of iron that is 10 inches long and an inch thick, if you heat and hammer it you can make it (eventually) 20 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. Lot of work but particularly one of the most basic skills when it comes to sword making.

And that is my goal: To make some nice swords!!!

This tutorial on how to draw out metal is in a video format on my youtube channel here: Blacksmithing - Drawing Out

 I have also started a new section on my website that is all about the art of blacksmithing. It is only just begun but there is some interesting stuff there: The Art of Blacksmithing

Yesterday I was just browsing some stuff on the web and I Stumbled across a blurb about the death of Frank Frazetta. Wow, How did I miss that? He passed away two months ago. (May 10, 2010). I was shocked at his passing but also shocked that I didn’t know about it.

 Well, this morning I was out for a run and thinking about the website and work and what I was going to do today. My thoughts returned to Frazetta and that old Don McLean song just popped right into my head. You know, American Pie. One of the critical lines in the song is “The Day the Music Died” and it occurred to me that the day Frazetta died is the day the Colors died. Pretty much as simple as that.

His work breathed a certain life into the writing of many famous authors including the Conan series by Robert E. Howard.

You see, the genre of epic fantasy is a simple one. You take a man and set him against tremendous odds. Then see if he has the metal to overcome everything. That pretty much sums it up and Frazetta did the same thing with his paintings. The compositions were simple, usually 1 character and one beast, and the tension was palpable. How will our hero fare in this situation was the question being asked. He created wonderful visual representations of what the books were all about.

 I decided to do a little tribute to him for my fantasy guide website and while looking up his paintings and book covers I was shocked to discover how many of them I owned. I wonder how much of my reading in the genre was influenced by his covers. Evidently a lot. And I wasn’t the only one. He did the cover for a Robert E. Howard book called “Conan the Adventurer”. That book went on to sell ten million copies which in the late 60’s was an unheard of success. It could be considered the “Twilight” of the sixties.

 Frank Frazetta - Movie Poster - 11 x 17

Website and blog review

Being involved quite deeply in the medieval stuff and having a blog and several websites that are deeply involved in it means that I get a lot of email from shops and stores that sell renaissance and medieval clothing.

Now, this is great and it helps me to keep tabs on what is out there but for the most part none of them offer anything special. That is “for the most part”.

I got an email from one particular renaissance shop that also has a blog and I was really astonished at how good it really was.  The clothing and accessories are high quality and superbly made. I am not really into the clothing aspect of the Renaissance, medieval period or LARPing but their selection is really high quality. I like it.

And, To take this a bit further they obviously have a love of the whole arena and it shows in their blog. Here are some sample posts they have:

• Where to Go with Your Renaissance Costuming
• Allied Kingdom: Medieval Research with Joyce
• Waterproofing Your Footwear

Anyhoo, I am not affiliated with them in any way and I don’t know them but I very much approve of what they are doing. This is because we obviously share a passion here! So check them out:

Their Blog: http://blog.pearsonsrenaissanceshoppe.com/

Their website where you can see and buy some beautiful stuff: http://www.pearsonsrenaissanceshoppe.com/

You probably already know I am a big fan of medieval castles. There aren’t a whole lot of them here in the US  but there are a few that could be reasonably categorized as Medieval Castles. Anyway, there is one in New Hampshire calle Kimball Castle. It is pretty run down but still standing. I haven’t been able to make the time to go up there and visit so I ended up hiring a photographer to make the trip.

He delivered the pictures today and they are pretty neat. The place does have the reputation of being haunted and judging by some of the pictures it looks like people throw halloween parties in there! Anyway, I have posted a bunch of pictures to my facebook page and I will be doing a write up about the castle on my medieval castle website

The exterior

An amazing structure on the inside. Having been built in 1895 light was a very big consideration, thus the big beautiful skylight.