Day 4.181: Tangle-free

We finally gave Exile #3 her birthday present today - she had her ears pierced. We decided doing it before we went camping was not the best idea and since then we seem to have been crazy-busy.

Although it was a birthday present, it came with a condition - she had to stop twiddling and tangling her hair. Honestly, I thought she would fail and we would be able to put off this rite-of-passage for several years - but she managed it and has been tangle-free for several months.

Of course, no sooner had Exile #4 heard about this birthday present than she started making plans about her 9th birthday. However, today - after hearing from her sister how painful it was - she was scaling back her ambitions, "I think I'll get my ears pierced when I'm 19 or 20!" That sounds about right!

Day 4.180: Christman in July

Having dropped Exile #3 off for a birthday-party-theme-park-visit-sleep-over and become a family of four until the middle of the day tomorrow, we set off to visit somewhere new - the Christman Sanctuary near Duanesburg NY.

Our hope had been to loop around the whole sanctuary, but we had not factored-in yesterday's rain which not only made some of the trails into shallow ponds and some into streams, but made the ford across Bozen Kill completely impassable.  Not that we were disappointed for long.  We saw lots of interesting plants and fungi:

and some insects:

Those damselflies look just like bright blue flying sticks when they are moving around - there's no sign of their wings at all until they land.

The kids had lots of fun including Exile #4's engineering project and E5N1's piece of small-scale land art:

and, of course, the recent heavy rains meant for dramatic waterfalls:

I'm sure we will go back and attempt to access the orange trail, but this was a great introductory visit. We walked about a mile (circuit of the blue trail plus the yellow trail section to the waterfall and back) and that meant we had a bit of energy left for yard-work when we got home!

Now, thanks to the Nature Conservancy, we have another list of places to check out!

All those photos and more are available here.

Day 4.179: Friday Haikus #11

Some pieces of cloth -
Two big sisters' persuasion -
Exciting couture!

Dad has sympathy -
His own big sisters are still -
Friendly tormentors*

He seems so happy -
Maybe not so tormented?
Really loves orange!

* with an emphasis on friendly and a little poetic licence.

Day 4.178: Vietnamese, Beginners

We ended our date-night for Exile #2's birthday eating wonderful Vietnamese food at My Linh. It was our first experience with this cuisine and we didn't really have a clue what to order, but having taken some advice on what was gluten-free (for the birthday girl) we settled on stuffed chicken wings, noodles with seafood, duck (non GF) and some flourless chocolate torte to end. Wonderful and over-indulgent - I don't think I'll need to eat for the rest of the week and that's even though I didn't have a piece of birthday cake that I bought at Sherry Lynn's and left with instructions for Exile #3 to get it out at lunchtime (and snap a photo).

Before that we went to see Beginners.  We met a friend there and had a wonderful time.  The film is magical and moving and beautiful - pretty much perfect (with the possible exception of Ewan McGregor's inconsistent accent).  We loved it.

Day 4.177: After the rain

We had a fairly exciting thunderstorm early this evening. A couple of hours later I was with Exile #2 at Stuyvesant Plaza where the shepherds delight was delightful indeed!