Gotta make sure it doesn't snag, doesn't droop, doesn't drag

After exploring the visitor's center and leaving just ahead of some person -- possibly the historian -- we went out to explore the fields of Monmouth Battlefield. Naturally rcoony and I were barely out the door before something strange was going on: a shirtless man was throwing a brick up at a tree, and jumping backwards away from the tree before a falling brick could possibly hit him. This peculiar behavior had a good motivation, in that there was a kite stuck in the upper branches of the tree. So he spent a good bit of time tossing the brick up and completely missing the tree, tossing the brick up and hitting parts of the tree nowhere near the kite, tossing the brick up and hitting nothing but having the impact make the brick shatter, and tossing the brick up and -- finally -- hitting the kite just right to wedge it more securely in the tree. Finally a woman in some way associated with him pointed out the park officials will be able to rescue the kite sometime this week and return it to them, so they aren't out the cost of a kite. I just wonder where they got the brick.

Outside that we wandered around the battlefield, which turns out to include good swaths of cornfields, and a couple of spots that look like trails but might just be where park service vehicles have driven, since we couldn't really figure how to get to one of the spots marked as possible spots for Molly Pitcher's well. So instead we wandered in forested trails where we discovered one squirrel who knew very well how to hide, and we began -- inspired by a visitors center plaque mention of animals which lived in New Jersey tens of thousands of years ago -- began identifying all sorts of creatures as sabre-toothed squirrels, sabre-toothed raccoons, sabre-toothed corn, sabre-toothed birdhouse-that-looks-like-an-old-fashioned-mailbox, that sort of thing.

It occurs to me: I'm doing my best to avoid Harry Potter spoilers, but I've never read any of the books and have only seen one of the movies, and I don't expect that's going to change by my deliberate effort anytime soon. I'm not avoiding it; I just haven't happened to be thinking of reading or watching them. This is kind of like me avoiding spoilers to Bones. I don't know why my brain has latched on this as something to do, but as long as it's keeping itself busy who am I to argue?

Trivia: General Charles Lee had been married to the daughter of a Seneca chief; his Indian name was Boiling Water. Source: 1776, David McCullough.

Currently Reading: The Insanity Defense, Woody Allen.