December 6th is Sankt Nikolaustag!

A particularly festive rendering of St. Nicholaus, who somehow, some way slipped into the house last night undetected and left our shoes full of treats.

Just as I was on the cusp of sleep last night -- really at about 2am this morning since I had trouble falling asleep -- I thought I heard some very soft noises downstairs. Figuring it was our cat Rannveig on one of her nightly prowls through the house, I rolled over and drifted off into lala land. Imagine my surprise this morning, when I came downstairs to make coffee and fix Young Master Paul's breakfast and discovered that three pairs of our respective shoes in the downstairs closet had been filled with various and sundry chocolate and caramel goodies wrapped in a variety of bright paper and foil. It's really starting to feel a bit like Christmas here at Stollen Central. So, let the tooth decay begin!

And here is an inviting photograph of the Nuernburger Weihnachtsmarkt that I mentioned in yesterday's post.

On another related note, the Grand Duchess maintains the Christmas Market in Nuernburg is the most charming in all of Germany given the delightful town environs in which it is set. She and two girlfriends usually rented a car every year to drive from Berlin to Nuernburg for a long weekend in early December to shop at the market and enjoy some of the food and, of course, partake in the warm gluehwein, a type of mulled wine that I urge you to try if ever you seek something to warm your heart (in every sense) on a cold winter's afternoon. Oh, yes! I almost forgot. It's about time for the Grand Duchess to whip up a few of her Dresdner Stollen. I love this time of year!

And here is a photograph of said stollen. It's really a kind of fruitcake variation I suppose, but a stollen is better than fruitcake thanks to the copious amounts of butter and powdered sugar in the recipe. Why, I could eat my weight in the stuff!

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It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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