Cohort V Spring Camp

[M. Demetrius]

Salvete, omnis,

The Cohort V Spring Campsite is now secured. Our Speculator went today, met with the landowner toured a most beautiful campsite. The land is near Schulenburg, TX, GPS coordinates to be published soon. This is an immersion camp, no public involvement.

Men, women, and children welcome. Military, warriors and civilians.
March 22-25, 2012 Same weekend that Lafe would have been.


Contact [email protected] for more information as it develops, or with questions.


A preliminary general schedule is as follows:

Thursday, set up

Dig a latrina, and build privacy walls

Friday after Noon: period clothing and equipment only. Late comers welcome, but no vehicles in camp after noon.

Activities:

Preliminary marching drill,

Cooking clinic,

Flint and steel firestarting class

Lash logs to make a short tower

Short hike in light kit.

Manufacture sudes (wall spikes)


Civilian and Celt activities TBA



Evening, trade and sale blankets at main area

Saturday:

Drill session after breakfast

Dig a section of berm and wall, install sudes from Friday

Situation hike in full kit, with furcae

May involve building a bridge over a creek

Possible needled felt combat

Drill session before dinner
Main community meal


Civilian and Celt activities TBA


Evening, trade and sale blankets at main area


Sunday:

Drill session after breakfast

Awards ceremony and special recognitions

1PM dismissed, break camp


Registration required, online form link to follow shortly.



Hope to see many of you there.

[M. Demetrius]

All marching drill commands will be taken from the Ludus Militis Tactica.

For a title, we're considering Schulenburg Wald. What do you think?

[Magnus]

I think it's fairly rude that you are posting a counter-event for Lafe, after one was already established four days prior to yours. Why would you do that?

[M. Demetrius]

Thanks for your opinion, Matt.

[M. Demetrius]

We will be doing some experimental archeology with route marching, entrenching and lashing poles together, perhaps building a short bridge.

All soldiers and civilian workers will need the following:
A 50 foot spool of manila or sisal 1/4" rope
A personal water container, at least 1 liter
Small plain towel or other sweat rag
Furca with gear bags
Basket for removing dirt from ditch

Soldiers and civilian workers will need to bring at least one from the following list:
Turf cutter
Dolabra or mattock
Shovel
Hand saw
A hand axe (tomahawk style is fine)

If you have a situla or a patera, you will find a friend, no doubt, on the march. We will cook a small meal during the march, at the location where the trench is dug. And we will fill in the trench and replace sod when we leave.


Does anyone have a set of plans for a small hand cart? We can make good use of it at this camp, and camps to follow. Send a PM, please. Particularly interested in the wheel/axle connection.

[M. Demetrius]

Schulenburger Wald March 22-25.

After a careful study of the site, and an extended hike around in the woods last weekend, we have determined there is no sensible nearby place to build a bridge that is within our engineering ability, considering we are working with someone else's property and not our own. So we will build a slightly larger tower than previously planned,(around 12'--4 meters tall) and incorporate it into the berm/ditch sample we'll build on the edge of the camp. Should provide a good spot to view the sea of cow pies in the pasture...and a video vantage point for the marching drill sessions.

Contact us at [email protected] if you'd like more information.

If you don't have "period digging tools", modern ones are fine (and some of them are more effective than the ancient ones, anyway), we'll just keep them out of camera range when shooting pictures.

[DECIMvS MERCATIvS VARIANvS]

Looks good. I wish I lived close enough to come.

[M. Demetrius]

Here's a rough sketch of what we're building. Exact dimensions will be based on the actual sizes of trees we will cut this Saturday. Around here, we've been in drought for a few years, so some of the cedar (actually Mountain Juniper) trees have died, and we'll cut some of those. Many of them grew crowded together, so they're taller and straighter than the ones that live out in the open. Scouted trees today, and it looks like the height may be more like 14', with the platform maybe as high as 11' or just under 4 meters. It can't be too big, since we have limited manpower and moving the logs from here to there is already a big enough chore.

If the platform moves much higher than the illustration shows, we will add a diagonal between the first and second level of cross pieces. After spiking the crosspieces in, we will rope lash them, to help keep the sides from pivoting. If the lashing is sturdy enough, we should be able to skip the diagonals. We'll make that decision on site, but come prepared to triangulate.

The illustration on the right is from a Boy Scout tower page. Similar idea, much better drawing
.

[M. Demetrius]

Today, we finish packing the big trailer, and head for the camp. Here's a picture of the little cart I build to carry our stuff. This will be especially useful if the ground is still too soft for vehicles. I hope to use the cart, but I hope we don't have to use it to haul EVERYthing. It's only about 3' x 4' inside the box (91 x 120cm) No clue what the load limit is. Hope we don't find out we've exceeded it.

Learned a lot making this cart. Will probably make another over the summer with more conventional wheels.