September 2020 Newsletter

Routine Maintenance and Upkeep


The website received a facelift this month, which gave me the opportunity to change up the layout of the front page. After an update to the template I was using, formatting got strange and I no longer liked the way the site looked. I also wanted to try and get a more column type layout, as much of what I do with the site is easier to represent in such a manner. Swapping to a new template gave me space to make some side bars along the right which will persist across all the pages. I am very excited I can now have a bulletin of recent stories and news across all the networks show up on every page. It also means I can fulfil a Patreon promise I’ve been trying to figure out the technical requirements behind: one of the tier benefits for Yeomen, Esquires, and Knights of the Household is to have their name displayed in the “Hundred Rolls” on the website where everyone can see.

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August 2020 Newsletter

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ROUTINE MAINTENANCE AND UPKEEP

The Turnip of Terror Arms (Heraldry)

All links are sound with very few updates required to keep it all current. Nothing was sent to the morgue in any of the lists this month, and since it was empty, there were no resurrections to speak of. On the 27th I updated the cosmetics of my heraldry which required a scouring of the website for instances of the old image for update. As far as I can tell I got to all of it. There was a bit of fiddling to get the og:image and site token correct, with much gnashing of teeth and rending of shirts as I repeatedly scraped the Facebook debugger and uploaded the site repeatedly on different screens in different browsers in a variety of cog and incognito. I’m certain there is something I have missed, but as far as I can tell there are no errors which leave empty gaps or image errors.

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July 2020 Newsletter

Routine Maintenance and Upkeep

The website has received its monthly links review with only a half a dozen links needing repair due to a small behind-the-scenes architecture restructuring, which were easy to fix once identified. The Groups Billboard which received a dramatic upgrade last month did not get the attention it deserved, and I still need to get the UK section outfitted with both images and group descriptions. The Merchant Roll received some significant work, both in reviewing the entries and adding new ones. Danegeld Historic Jewellery, Gemmeus, Gaukler Medieval Wares, and Nordens Historiska Fynd are now on the merchant list. The list has also undergone a much overdue schism. As described it was meant to be a place for businesses which have secure checkout, which I consider a way to gauge the ‘safety’ of a site in that it uses a digital merchant broker service of some sort. Many suggested retailers who operate websites with contact-direct order forms or who purvey through Facebook or other markets were not included because of the inherent risks in working with a seller one on one.

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June 2020 Newsletter

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Household Q&A Session

In June I offered members of the household the opportunity to submit questions which I then recorded extemporaneous answers to. If you are interested in submitting a question to the next session, join the household on Patreon. I want to thank my patrons for their support. For as low as $1 denizens of the household not only receive access to member only creative influence, such as this Q&A and a member only discord, but they are supporting the entire Turnip of Terror project. One membership covers the continual maintenance and upkeep of the website, curation of the resource lists, multiple podcasts, event coverage, continual updates on living history and reenactment related interests, reenactor focus articles, product reviews, interviews, videos, and more.

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May In Review

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Videos

Fun and Games

May 10th I was delighted to release a fun community project in the style of the “Don’t Rush Challenge” viral videos. For those who missed the trend, the “pass the brush” and “don’t rush” style videos involved a compilation of multiple contributors who all received an item from off screen, such as a makeup brush, used the brush to cover the camera allowing for a scene cut. When the brush was removed in the second clip, the person was all dolled up in their makeup, and they threw the brush off screen to be “received” by the next person in the compilation. Instead of passing along a makeup brush we passed along an arming cap… but we still got our glam on by switching from our normal clothes to our full harness.

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April in Review

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April went by in a blur. If we’re all lucky this will be the last round-up post I make which has to reference how big an influence Corona Virus had on the month. I spent the first few weeks of April working from home, and homeschooling the little one. At the time it felt like I wasn’t getting anything done, but now I’m back in the office and I sorely miss spending all day with the family and being on the pulse of her schooling and activities. This whole experience has been a profound perception shift in a number of way.

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March in Review

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It occurred to me when I published March is Madness, I was doing my monthly reviews all wrong. Why was I posting a monthly review on the second-ish week of the month? It makes a whole lot more sense to recap the previous month at the beginning of the following month. Kind of a ‘duh’ moment for me. So to put the schedule back on track I am checking in on the last few weeks of March (which is still Madness, by the way) and I’ll put out the next resource post in a fortnight.

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March is Madness

Featured Image for the Article March is Madness Post on the medieval reenactment and living history resource the Turnip of Terror

Welcome to my virtual hearth. Before getting too deep into things, I will address the elephant in the room: as I publish this the nation is gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, AKA Corona Virus. In fact, the reason I am publishing the general review of my last month late is because of it. These updates are not meant to be a livejournal-esque personal diary, and I know the volume of Corona Virus information in my feed is exhausting. Without adding to the noise, I think it would be a disservice not to acknowledge the current issue, and to acknowledge its influence on this project.

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