Guardians of The Lambsfoot!

[Jack Black]

Morning folks, trying to catch up one page at a time

Today with stag Père David and a small "Mercedes"!!!

Just the Lambsfoot here please Jose

Nice old Milner's, Cigarrodag and Jack.

Thanks pal

Good Morning, Guardians! Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend.

Nice crisp pic of RALF My Easter weekend was going great until I sat down to put my shoes on to go to the Royal Armouries, and my back went!

Good Morning Guardians

Lovely pic of your '19 John

Good Morning, Guardians!
I hope everyone had a lovely Passover, Easter, or just a pleasant weekend. I went up to New York for the family Seder, and it's decided that this is the last one Mom is hosting. She's 85, in good health, but it's just too much work. She says this every year, but I'm going to hold her to it next year. Either one of the kids offers to host, or I'll talk her into coming down to Texas. Maybe we'll just skip it and go to the beach. (for those who may not know, the Passover Seder is kind of like Thanksgiving, but each food symbolizes an aspect of the story of Exodus.)

I'm pretty worn out, but very happy to have a Lambsfoot back in my pocket.

I tried to keep an eye on this thread while I was there, but I hate to be staring at the phone when I should be helping to grind the horseradish, and chop the matzot! I did catch a rumour about a Lambsfoot Barlow, though! Swaybacked or Candle-ended?

Great to have you back Rachel

Candle-end

UK kind of day here, mist, fog and wind...37 degrees F. I've tried to catch up, the BF gremlins(i'm putting the blame here) have eaten post after post sorry. Don't know how some of you get all those multi-quotes to stay within the post.
The Snakewood D. L. is getting some carry today around the house.
Hope all you Guardians have a good Monday.

Weather sounds ropey Preston, it's been in the high 70's here! Sorry to hear about the gremlins too. Lovely Snakewood

USA... USA... USA... Gotta cheer for my home team.
Seriously, it looks like a fun way to spend the day. Can't wait to hear the reports and possibly see some pictures.

USA did well, took first place in the jousting, won the Sword of Honour, and one of the team got the vote for chivalry! More later

It would have been a lot more fun if I hadn't been in agony with my back!

Thanks Jack! I decided to get the old girl out for some sunshine today!

Fabulous Ron, too long since we saw that beauty

Thank you.
I just realized that the first lambsfoot picture I posted after returning home is posing on a patch of "wandering jew". Ha!

Yes, Go, USA! Sounds like a lot of fun, but I wouldn't have expected USA, Canada, and Poland to be involved. Maybe France. I'm sure Jack will post pics.

The Canadians had French heritage! I will post pics

 

[OLd_gUY]

Morning folks, trying to catch up one page at a time
Nice crisp pic of RALF My Easter weekend was going great until I sat down to put my shoes on to go to the Royal Armouries, and my back went!

USA did well, took first place in the jousting, won the Sword of Honour, and one of the team got the vote for chivalry! More later
It would have been a lot more fun if I hadn't been in agony with my back!

Anxious to see the pics.
I'm sorry to hear of your back problems I'm very aware of how miserable and debilitating a bad back can be. I sincerely hope it is a brief episode.
OG

 

[Jack Black]

Happy Dingus Day, everyone!

My sincere apologies for being so out of touch. It’s been a crazy year for me (to be expanded upon in a coming post).

I wanted to share these two for a while, but just never got around to it.

We’ve seen similar examples in past posts, so I’ll just show them for now to add to the archive. A two blade Unity and a Wade & Butcher Sheldon Knife.

First the Wade & Butcher
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And the Unity
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Great to see you here Mike Wow, congratulations on picking up those two interesting Lambsfoot patterns. There is a thread with some more info about the Sheldon Knife here, including a few posts by Mr Sheldon's grandson: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/two-unusual-sheffield-patterns.1483990/ That is a particularly fine Unity Lambsfoot too my friend, very nice indeed Thanks so much for the pics

Thanks, Preston. She's a sweetheart. My Chihuahua growls and nips at her, and a new kitten we got swipes her paws at her, but she just licks them and wants to play. A great lab mix we got at five weeks old:

Lexi as a baby.

Awww...

She is a doll, Vince, I've had only labs in the past twenty-five years. All have been wonderful, loving and hard working retrievers. Dutch likes Lambsfoot!

Dutch has great taste

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Good-looking Damascus Taylor

A Tale of Two (or three) Lambsfoot

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I haven’t told these stories anywhere else on BF. I’m putting them here only because they are Lambsfoot connected.

It’s been a crazy year for me...
On May 15, 2018, I found out I had cancer. Well, not the day I knew officially, but the day I knew from what the doctors’ eyes were saying.
It was also the day I got Jack’s email for ordering the 2018 Guardians Lambsfoot. I contemplated not getting one, unsure about what was in store in the future, but ultimately decided I would regret not getting one.
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The ebony Lambsfoot accompanied me through many appointments, surgery and chemo therapy. Things seem to be going well now, with all of these procedures doing what they needed to do. Obviously, there is more checking needed, but my mind has moved on to other things...

To pile on to the craziness, before chemo started, my wife and I conceived our third child. We gave birth to a baby girl recently, while I was carrying my 2019 Ironwood. I wanted to name her Chatoyance, but got vetoed...
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Now, I’ve gotten a knife to commemorate the birth of each of my children, ones that I carry at each of their big life events, so the hunt was on to find one for the newborn, when another email from Jack shows up, saying there are some special Lambsfoot available. Well, here was the commemorative knife I was looking for!

Say hello to Rosie:
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Here she is with her big brother and big sister:
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So, like I said, it’s been a pretty crazy year with a lot of ups and downs, but the Lambsfoot has been a dependable constant throughout.

Thanks, Guardians, and especially Jack Black , for allowing me to share! Now for some gratuitous Damascus Lambsfoot pics:
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That's a roller-coaster of a post Mike, thank you for sharing it here. So sorry you've had such a tough year, but I'm glad things are better now with your health, and many congratulations to you and your wife on the birth of Rosie Thank you for those incredible Lambsfoot pics, I'm honoured that you're carrying one

 

[Pt-Luso]

Just the Lambsfoot here please Jose

Okay Jack, my apologies.

 

[Jack Black]

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Among the fragrant Jasmine:

Superb AC pics guys

I'm always here reading and enjoying everyone's posts!
My apologies for not writing posts of my own here lately.

I thought I should at least report that I carried my Union Jack as my Lambsfoot of the Week all of last week:

This week that honor goes to my Valley Jack:
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- GT

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- GT

Great to see you here GT, hope you're keeping well my friend, those are fine pics of your '19

Awesome pictures, GT! Glad to see you and your Valley Jack!

Another stunner Mark

I've been pretty swamped lately and haven't had nearly as much time as I would like for hanging out on the porch. One of these days hopefully things will slow down and I'll be back to being a regular.

In the mean time, I wanted to share that my rosewood lambsfoot put in a good turn of work this past Saturday. I was volunteering to help put in some flower beds at our local park and part of the work involved cutting up a bunch of cardboard boxes to line the beds before layering compost and wood chips on top. I was offered an old utility knife but I politely declined and said "I brought a knife". Needless to say, it performed flawlessly and I made fast work of cutting cardboard pieces to size while others were struggling with dull blades.

I was hoping someone would notice the knife and ask about it, but no such luck. No matter, though. I still had fun using it to help out a good cause.

Yay! All our old pals are turning up! Great to see you Greg, sorry to hear life has been so hectic for you. Nice to hear your Lambsfoot is helping out my friend, hope e'll be seeing more of you again soon

I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about and ordered an A. Wright from their website in stag...even sprung for the fancy file work.

Really wish I could of snagged a Damascus version....those look amazing!

Hope you get a nice one Justin

Thank you, it was great to see Mom, and she was very happy my brothers and I could all come visit. I think it's great that she's so active. (old people are like sharks, you know. Have to keep moving) but she's pretty stubborn. I got her to agree not to move big pots of boiling soup off the stove by herself, so I'll take that as a win.

LOL! It doesn't seem like two minutes since last year Rachel Glad you had a great visit

Anxious to see the pics.
I'm sorry to hear of your back problems I'm very aware of how miserable and debilitating a bad back can be. I sincerely hope it is a brief episode.
OG

I'll try and get some uploaded this morning OG, it was a pretty spectacular display. Bad timing for my back problems to recur, it's not been too bad the past few months too I hope it passes in a few days, thanks OG

 

[Jack Black]

Okay Jack, my apologies.

No worries Jose

 

[Campbellclanman]

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Wow! Dwight- Nice shot of a nice Knife matey!

 

[Jack Black]

Oops! Nearly for got to post a pic of lovely Lucy, who's with me today Have a good week Guardians

 

[Pt-Luso]

Here's the other side of my Valley Jack (pile side inspired the name):

Hello Gary, your Guardians 19 is great, especially from the pile side!!!

 

[Jack Black]

OK folks, I've uploaded some pics. Just a little background, there's been an Easter tournament at the Royal Armouries for more than 20 years now, it's a 4-day tournament, but I was only able to go to the final. The teams this year came from Britain, Poland, Canada, and the USA, and it's the first time the Canadian and US teams have taken part (probably a bit of a struggle going through the airport X-ray machine I imagine )

The US knights are Jeff Sanders and Jeffrey Watson. I wondered if our fellow Guardian Dave @Horsewright might possibly know Jeff Sanders as he's a 6th generation professional horseman and vaquero, and still does some ranch work. Jeffrey is a professional armourer.

Team Canada are Jessy Dufresne from Quebec and Jean-Francois Drapeau, who lives in Calgary! Small world @dc50, both seemed great guys

The Polish team are Michal Ruda and Piotr Rydzewski.

Team UK are Andrew Dane, who works at the Royal Armouries, and at 54 is still carrying off most of the prizes, and Mike Collin, a stunt rider and actor with a bunch of TV and film credits.

Having hurt my back in the morning, I was determined to try and keep moving despite the pain, but was not prepared for the seating at the Royal Armouries tilt yard, low concrete benches, which were probably designed with school-children in mind, sitting down was absolute agony! While I was sat there immobilised by pain, the rest of the audience were entertained by limber jesters

The judges rode in, both very experienced in the field.

Team Canada enter the arena.

Followed by Team Poland.

Team UK.

Team USA.

The teams are comprised of two knights, an outrider, and various pages.

The first event was the melee, with the knights armed with wooden staves to clout each with, and a point scoring system for where blows were landed. We were in the Canadian corner.

The horses are amazing, fearless, and incredibly agile.

(More to come)

 

[Jack Black]

The riders seemed to be having the time of their lives too!

Team UK won the melee, despite stiff competition from the Poles

Another pic of Jeff Sanders.

Jousting was next

 

[Jack Black]

With two and half hours to go until the jousting, we went to have lunch at a pizza restaurant adjacent to the Armouries, and sat and watched as the queue (the line) began to grow, extending to several hundred yards long before we reluctantly joined it 45 minutes ahead of the 3.00pm start. The queue eventually snaked back behind us even further than it did in front. When we eventually got back in the arena, our seats were badly placed, and I was in even more pain than before, but I tried to get a few pics of the jousting (I would have stood up, but I couldn't actually move my legs at this point! And it wasn't allowed )

The knights ride in.

The jousting was very exciting, the riders come in at full tilt, and head shots were allowed for the first time this year

 

[Jack Black]

How on earth did we end up playing cricket here?!

 

[Jack Black]

Unfortunately, the pics I took of my Lambsfoot at the event were out of focus But I was accompanied in regal fashion

 

[Jack Black]

The tournament over, spoils went to the victors Each year the participants vote on whom amongst their number has been the most chivalrous. They chose Jeffrey Wasson from New York City

The US team also won the Sword of Honour (presented by a bloke from the Royal Armouries who couldn't be bothered to dress up )

While Team UK galloped in to take the Queen's Golden Jubilee Horn (Andrew Deane has won it twice before, and the Sword of Honour seven times)

The knights ride out.

 

[screened porch]

Plucky of you to keep snapping through pain, Jack Black .
The horsemanship requirement is another reason I wouldn't have made a good knight in shining armor. Nope, holy hermit-dom for me.
I think the bloke from the armories deserves some credit for climbing up on that block and not holding on to anything.

 

[Jack Black]

Plucky of you to keep snapping through pain, Jack Black .
The horsemanship requirement is another reason I wouldn't have made a good knight in shining armor. Nope, holy hermitdom for me.

Thanks Jer, I know a lot of us suffer here, but when I sat down for the jousting, I thought I was going to pass out! Same here mate, 95% of what I know about horsemanship I learned from the emails Dave @Horsewright has sent me!

 

[JohnDF]

Lovely pic of your '19 John

Thanks, Jack.

USA did well, took first place in the jousting, won the Sword of Honour, and one of the team got the vote for chivalry! More later

I'm glad we had a good showing.

It would have been a lot more fun if I hadn't been in agony with my back!

I'm sorry to hear about the back acting up. Also, glad it didn't keep you from going and enjoying yourself.

 

[JohnDF]

Jack, thanks for all those awesome pictures from the tournament. It was a real treat to read and I enjoyed it very much.

 

[Jack Black]

Thanks, Jack.

I'm glad we had a good showing.


I'm sorry to hear about the back acting up. Also, glad it didn't keep you from going and enjoying yourself.

Jack, thanks for all those awesome pictures from the tournament. It was a real treat to read and I enjoyed it very much.

Thank you very much John, I'm grateful