Veterans' Day

It was Veterans' Day today and a school holiday so Frost enjoyed a long playdate with Isaac while Wren and I visited a Memorial to the Fallen.

Seriously.

It wasn't really the Plan, but Wren wanted to see the cannons at Cannon Park so we stopped off in the cold and smattering rain to visit them.  He was very impressed with them and tried to "fire them off" like Drummer Hoff in a favorite book.

Trying to turn the cannon

We had to look in the barrel to see what had been
stuffed there.

"I love cannons"

Afterwards, Wren noticed the memorial and wanted me to read the words on the side.  They read:


TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAILORS, SOLDIERS AND MARINES
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN DEFENSE OF OUR FLAG IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN,
THE PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION AND THE CHINA RELIEF EXPEDITION.

My knowledge of history is slight but I was sure it was a memorial.

Wren was sure it was a TOMB and there was a DEAD SOLDIER in it.  He found this sobering and wanted to climb up it to make sure.  Fortunately the sides were smooth and sheer and so his ascent for  knowledge was hampered.

Wren attempts to climb the memorial in which
"there is a dead soldier."

Later, we went to the zoo and stopped at some woodland for a quick mushroom poke.  In the duff nearby I found a large flush of lepista nuda (Blewitts) which had been disturbed and partly driven over by a leaf blower and tractor.  I saved them and ate half for dinner and did not feel badly about harvesting them.  I also found a chanterelle-like mushroom with different "true" gills and different features.  I think it was a lepista inversa so it was the day of the lepista (or clitocybe or Tricholoma depending on which is the trulio correct term).

Delicious Blewitts - supposed to be called
Clitocybe Nuda