The Headless Horseman

On Saturday, we went to watch a showing of The Headless Horseman put on by a local puppetry troupe called The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers. They are not only great people, but they are really talented at puppeteering. We watch their shows every year at Christmas and Halloween. It was a real treat to be able to take Liam to his first puppet show. He was entranced throughout most of the show. He fell asleep for the last fifteen minutes. Other than that, he was up and watching carefully to the action on the stage. Watching him soak up new events is such a treat. One of the best parts of going to these shows is to listen to the children in the audience as they laugh and clap during the show. The joy that these puppets bring to small children is well worth the price of admission. I look forward to the days when Liam is a bit older and can give a big belly laugh to the puppets antics.
After the show, we went up to see the puppets first hand. Liam was pretty enthralled with them. It makes me wonder what goes on in his head. How does a little mind even begin to sort through and make sense of a puppet?

Sunday was another gorgeous fall day. We enjoyed a very relaxing morning and then set off to find a letterbox. No, this does not mean that we were shopping for a new mailbox for our house. This does mean that we were searching for what is known as a letterbox. Letterboxing is a fun activity, which we have just recently learned about. It is much like a treasure hunt. People all over the United States and England who are into Letterboxing hide little containers, which hold a stamp and minature notepad. Then they post clues as to where these containers are hid. Then fellow Letterboxers follow the clues to the box. Usually, Letterboxers carry with them their own stamp pad, stamp and notebook. Once you find a Letterbox you stamp your stamp into the logbook and then take the Letterboxes stamp and stamp your notebook. The notebook from the hidden container acts as a logbook to see where fellow Letterboxers are from.

The Letterbox we found was hidden at the Indian Point Blagden Nature Conservancy right here on MDI. It was well hidden and contained stamps from people all over the United States. This is only the second Letterbox Liam and I have found and the first for Mike. I have a feeling that as Liam grows older this could turn into a fun family activity. It appears to be the kind of thing that you could do no matter where you went in the US.

After finding the Letterbox, we continued down the trail and landed at the ocean. We enjoyed walking on the beach and then took a small fire road back up to the car. On our way up the road, Mike spotted a little cemetery set back in the woods. As most of you know, I have a love of cemeteries. Finding one hidden in the woods is pretty exciting to me. We stopped to check it out. What we found was pretty interesting. There seemed to be two main families represented in the cemetery. It appeared that both families lost many of their children in 1863. Our guess is that some sort of epidemic swept through the island at that time. I hope to have time to research that theory. Finding the cemetery added even more fun to our day. I have very fond memories of going on cemetery hikes with my dad when I was a kid. He taught me so much on those hikes and started a love for history and genealogy that I carry with me today. I hope to be able to pass on the same to Liam as we continue to explore cemeteries together.