A Taste of Madrigal

 Another cold morning.  Mark built a fire in the wood burner and as I was waiting for Ruth I could see the smoke  rising from the chimney. 

The hunter that stayed in the barn apartment last night really did leave at 5:30 am. He left a nice review: Judith is a wonderful host.  This is my second stay and it was great like the first. Super clean, very remote and quiet, making it feel just like home. The horses are beautiful! Be sure to give it a stay.

 Anna came early to get it ready for our next guests coming in this afternoon. More hunters.  After the walk I drove to TSC to pick up a fire pit for the hunters to use later tonight. Grain was also picked up and I was going to buy 2 bags of black oil sunflower seeds except they were out of the 40 pound bags. They hope to get a shipment in on Monday so will need to remember to call then to see if they arrived. Those are needed at mom's house as she is almost out.  The 250 pounds of grain was dumped, 3 bags in the stall barn for the weanlings and 2 bags in the breeding shed for the stallions. The stall area was cleaned up and the fire pit put together and hung in that barn. I split some of the dimension wood to use as kindling and hauled that up making a pile in the stall barn with the wheel barrow next to the pile for the hunters. The weather was warming up some by that time but I still kept our wood burner going so the house was nice and warm.  Tonight Spark, Rhonda, Mark and I went to the Taste of Madrigal put on by the Peoria Academy Co-Op. We were met by the mime/jester and for a little while was not sure who this mime/jester was.

Riley wasn't sure and decided it was safer on her mom's lap.

I asked Mark to pose by the knight as I wanted to show how the knight really IS life size.

Livie was one of the wenches that was in charge of seating the guests.

After being ushered to our table the Jester came over to silently speak to Lucy and Ivan.

Faith was one of two sopranos and also had a solo part.

We were served wassail for the toast then a big chartreuse board of all kinds of cheeses, crackers, meats, nuts and fruit was put on the table to share. We finished our entire board, it was that good. The mime/jester was running around with a mustard bottle and would offer to put mustard on the crackers, but then would squirt the bottle and a string would come shooting out making the entire table people scream as they thought they were being covered with mustard.  This mime/jester also juggled balls for entertainment. 

For dessert we were served 3 different kinds of cheese cake bites. The riddles were fun, we were able to solve all 4.  The maiden choir came in to entertain us. Berlica, Emma and Livie were part of this choir.

Below is the cast of characters AFTER the madrigal with the exception of the mime/jester who was taking pictures.

IF you were wondering who the mime/jester is I could give you a clue. She is one of my sisters. Below is just part of the entertainment for the night.