Saturday, June 19, 2010

Berry picking


Today I went berry picking at Impossible Acres, a cute little farm off of Covell blvd, on the edge of Davis. I was surprised by their selection of berries and other fruits. Not every variety was ripe yet, but I picked some Rasberries, Mungo berries (a variety of blackberry), Boysenberries, and Marionberries for my berry basket. Everything came out to a little over one pound. I was charged a grand total of only $3.25, about 3 or 4 times less than what I would have paid at the grocery store! And I had a lot of fun. So I think I'm going to continue picking my own berries while I can instead of buying them.

Actually, today started with getting up at 8:30 in the morning for another reason all together. The hunt for an elusive berry known as the black rasberry- a fruit that has been elevated, in my mind, to almost mythical proportions now. I had not heard of this berry until my friends told me about it recently. According to them, it has the taste and look of a blackberry, but more antioxidants than a blueberry. And is so rare that its picking season is only two weeks out of a year. There are only two places close by that grow this berry for picking, one is in Grass valley and the other is in the mountains by Placerville. We drove to one of the places today, only to find that it was not open yet. And spent the rest of the day shopping, eating korean food, and picking some more ordinary berries, which was just fine by me.


Phillip picking berries in his mom's hat.
Me and Phillip showing off our berries. He had more in the hat, but took them out to weigh them.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Boggle



One year over... I feel slightly nostalgic about my first year ending, even though I will still be in MSB almost every day. It wont be the same. Today I walked by the office where everyone would hang out during the year, and the door was closed (which almost never is the case). And it reminded me that I wouldn't see those people for a while. I'll miss the random conversations, statistics puns, problem solving, general dorkiness, and playing games on the computer... Speaking of which, I am officially obsessed with wordsplay or boggle in other words (I know boggle sounds like what my grandma would play if she was white, but trust me this is different). The one I play is on wordsplay.net, and the board is timed. You get 3 minutes to make as many words as you can on a 5 by 5 board, competing against anyone else that is playing at the time. When your time runs out, you get to see your ranking and all the words you made and missed, and what everyone else made. Try it! If you like scrabble or text twist, you will love this. Btw- how many words can you make from the board above? Partial answers below... (don't peek!)

MSB kind of reminds me of Hogwarts, only instead of learning magic and wizardry, you spend every day learning math, until eventually you're decent at it. You hang out with and see the same people every day, except during the summer. There are also the good and the evil professors... but there isn't nearly as much excitement or danger, or cool shifting staircases and secret rooms and stuff.