Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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Vacation Wrap-Up
So I have now been home from vacation for exactly 1 week. It sure doesn’t feel that long ago, and it feels like ages ago. It was a wonderful time.
We started out heading out to Northampton to pick up the last member of our ragtag crew. I had shotgun for that leg and had the Madelintosh sock yarn ready to go to start the Kai-Mei socks. (Which I did cast on in the car.)
While there we played a LOT of boardgames, swam. boated, kayaked, I found some fun things in the woods
we relaxed on the deck with a great view of the lake
people went tubing with various levels of success. Our buddy was very successful so the boat driver took evasive maneuvers to try to knock him off.
while when handsome and I went I screamed my head off while he laughed and waved. Contrary to my ascertations, we did not actually die.
We all cooked together and cleaned together and had a great time. We had amazing hosts and everyone did a combination of individual and group things. I got up early every morning to either drink tea and knit, drink coffee and knit/read, or to run and then want to die. (Vermont has these strange things called hills. Cambridge isn’t sure what they are but I think Somerville has heard of them.) This means that in addition to playing a lot of games, swimming, boating, and tubing I also got quite a bit of knitting done. From casting on in the car on Tuesday to leaving on Sunday I was almost done with the heel flap and about ready to turn the heel.
And now I am well on my way onto the foot and working the lace. I also am well on my way to wishing we had another vacation lined up. Maybe we’ll get to go the other place on Vermont, the one with no electricity! (Gas lights = knitting for me but no computers for the fella!)
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Fells Fungi Fun
Today the rain managed to hold off and allowed for a beautiful hike in the Middlesex Fells. (Check it out.) A friend and I went and started off near the Botume House and then just followed the fire roads and some of the trails so we ended up walking by Spot Pond and then over along another smaller pond. For that part we followed the blue Cross-Fells trail for a ways, which had some fun ups and downs.
In the smaller pond there were lots of lilly pads, many of which are in flower right now. Definitely worth checking out if you live nearby.
However, in addition to flowers we ran across many fungi! There were little orange jelly fungi, small orange cup fungi, little brown mushrooms coming out of logs. some pinky Russula looking things, and this little fella near a bridge we crossed.
It was hidden amongst some leafy liverworts and mosses there. However the most exciting find of the day just might be some excellent white slime mold plasmodia! Those myxomycetes were getting ready to finish turning into fruitbodies, but they still had some plasmodial trails. Very fun to see. If I had time to go back in a couple days, and if the weather stays rain free, they would be fun to collect and identify.
So nature and fungi are out and ready to be discovered. Throw on your hiking boots, grab your hand lens and go have some fun! I sure did!
