vole in my life
Last weekend we risked another infamous SuAsCo hike. After eliminating several options cheerfully describing areas that would be unpassable during the wet season, we selected "hike number 8", Weston Town Forest. As usual, the map and trail description did not correlate at all with the trails we were on. We think it's possible that the author of this book did not make it farther than the first field and just laid down in the tall grasses imagining what to write. Aside from the annoyance of being hideously lost, the trails were level with easy terrain, meandering through pines and dense clusters of ferns.
At Stonehurst, jewel weed is starting to bloom, adding lanterns of orange to the green undergrowth. Wildflowers are abundant in the fields - black eyed susan, queen anne's lace, yellow goat's beard and purple vetch. I came home from my walk this morning to find a dead vole on the floor. We haven't been breached by rodents since last spring, when two field mice found a way in. There are three species of voles that live in Eastern Massachusetts, the meadow vole, the red-backed vole and the less common pine vole. The latter, claimed by naturalists at Massachusetts Audobon society to be "unlikely to be seen by the non-specialist" seems to match. Notably this vole had grey fur and much smaller eyes and ears than the other two species.
As predicted, we've really been enjoying the Carcassonne expansion sets. Julian was a hero and modified our box insert to have a third channel; enough to store all game components in the same box. Adding the river I to river II has led to some interesting game play. If you combine the sets, don't remove any of the end lakes and start with the three way junction, the river can be either short or quite long. We also experimented with playing out river I and then using the three way junction to expand onto a random amount of river II. The number of possible game varriants using these combined sets is fun. There are three meeple types to choose from (pigs, builders or large meeples) and also three special tile types to play (cathedrals, inns, and crafts).
Julian has been playing Lost Odyssey and has moved onto disk two. I've been working my way through Sam and Max. Episode five included 3-D characters solving a text based adventure in a fun homage to Zork. I still mean to finish Tomb Raider but diverged into a silly arcade game "Feeding Frenzy", where you control a fish eating other fish in order to grow larger.
Last night for dinner we had meatball subs using up some leftover parboiled meat from our stock that we had stashed in the freezer. The meat was fairly bland but we blenderized it and perked it up with egg, salt, pepper, parsley, tomato paste, beef stock granules, and worcester sauce. The final stroke of genious was to coat the meatballs in breadcrumbs before deep frying, adding a lovely surface texture. Although not a top choice for entertaining others, these meat cubes were also acceptable in pasties, lasagna, and pies.
Currently the weather is stormy with rumbles of thunder. Hopefully the rain abates so that we can enjoy our 4th of July weekend.
At Stonehurst, jewel weed is starting to bloom, adding lanterns of orange to the green undergrowth. Wildflowers are abundant in the fields - black eyed susan, queen anne's lace, yellow goat's beard and purple vetch. I came home from my walk this morning to find a dead vole on the floor. We haven't been breached by rodents since last spring, when two field mice found a way in. There are three species of voles that live in Eastern Massachusetts, the meadow vole, the red-backed vole and the less common pine vole. The latter, claimed by naturalists at Massachusetts Audobon society to be "unlikely to be seen by the non-specialist" seems to match. Notably this vole had grey fur and much smaller eyes and ears than the other two species.
As predicted, we've really been enjoying the Carcassonne expansion sets. Julian was a hero and modified our box insert to have a third channel; enough to store all game components in the same box. Adding the river I to river II has led to some interesting game play. If you combine the sets, don't remove any of the end lakes and start with the three way junction, the river can be either short or quite long. We also experimented with playing out river I and then using the three way junction to expand onto a random amount of river II. The number of possible game varriants using these combined sets is fun. There are three meeple types to choose from (pigs, builders or large meeples) and also three special tile types to play (cathedrals, inns, and crafts).
Julian has been playing Lost Odyssey and has moved onto disk two. I've been working my way through Sam and Max. Episode five included 3-D characters solving a text based adventure in a fun homage to Zork. I still mean to finish Tomb Raider but diverged into a silly arcade game "Feeding Frenzy", where you control a fish eating other fish in order to grow larger.
Last night for dinner we had meatball subs using up some leftover parboiled meat from our stock that we had stashed in the freezer. The meat was fairly bland but we blenderized it and perked it up with egg, salt, pepper, parsley, tomato paste, beef stock granules, and worcester sauce. The final stroke of genious was to coat the meatballs in breadcrumbs before deep frying, adding a lovely surface texture. Although not a top choice for entertaining others, these meat cubes were also acceptable in pasties, lasagna, and pies.
Currently the weather is stormy with rumbles of thunder. Hopefully the rain abates so that we can enjoy our 4th of July weekend.