Last weekend we finally found Ashland Town Forest, which we initially read about in Ashland, one of those history-of-a-town-type books with lots of photos. There was a (very poor, old) picture of a cave that people escaping from the Salem witch trials would find shelter in, hence called "Witch's Cave," and it said the cave was in Ashland Town Forest. We didn't know there was such a thing, and we didn't know where it was. We assumed it was the state park. But a few weekends ago, Jay was test driving a Rav4 from Bernardi Toyota and we drove past this sign:

Cool sign!, I thought. And we had found the elusive forest! The walk was very nice - there was only one other person we saw (a very nice old woman that told us to keep the place a secret). Actually, Jay figured out that the forest was the place where he fell out of a tree back in college and started getting attacked by bees. He saw the tree and a flood of memories came back... You'll have to ask him to tell you the story. It's a funny story.

And last weekend we visited Matt up in Lowell, and we got to hang out in the Alley for a while. I took this picture that I like 'cuz it reminds me of an owl:


Today we went for a short kayak trip to Hopkinton State Park. We've been to the park before, but never to kayak. It was nice. There were a lot of other people out on the water in sailboats and kayaks and canoes because I think they rent all that kind of stuff out. We took Abe. Abe does pretty good in the kayak. We paddled over to a little island that was pretty much a huge mountain of dirt with trees on it. It was a very, very steep hill. But Abe walked right up it as he created avalances of dirt and rocks, and he disappeared for a while. We then heard rocks and dirt falling from a cliff next to us, and Abe was perched right at the edge wanting to jump off, so we had to pick him up so he didn't break his neck.

Now I'm on the Internet and I'm going to bite the bullet and order firewood. We like to have fires outside, but we end up having to go in the woods right next to our neighbors and snap branches off trees for wood, and that's just not going to cut it. I don't think they like loud, snapping branches right next to their house at 11:00 at night. But maybe they do, who knows?