August update....Gaming, Rules, Gardening, and Food!

 The days of July have rolled past us and we are now into August, and life here as Murph-haus, seems to have taken on it's own pace of things getting done, (or not done). Outside is too hot and humid right now and as a result yard work is terribly overdue. So kicking in right now is my August update.

RULES!

Starting off...

Somewhere around the year 2014-2015, Dashing Dice Games put out a rules book called "Witchfinder General". It had always been on the top of my list to get, but as usual, that list kept getting changed.

And slowly but surely my "want" fell off the page and production ceased.

Recently however I was able to procure a copy of it.

(Vincent Price would be so proud...)

The rules do look interesting but I have not yet had a chance to really get into them. Here's hoping I can find some time in the next couple of weeks.

GARDENING!!!

Those of you that actually read this silly blog of mine will remember that back in May I had decided to try my hand at gardening my planting some herbs in window boxes. Earlier this week, I decided that it was ready to cut my chives. So out in the cool of the evening I went, and brought back in two big bushels of chives.

After washing and separating them, we cut them and have used some for a lot of potato dishes. The spearmint and lemon balm sprigs and leaves I got also have been used for teas.

(Chives goodness. All of this from two small plants that I planted in May.)

And then such strangeness...we found CORN!

Yes...CORN!

Corn growing in our front yard.

Proof that we live in Indiana...

(Two small ears of corn on our solitary corn plant...right in our front yard...)

And our spearmint plant was blooming...

We also finally got scheduled to have our accursed ginkgo tree removed. That will be happening towards the end of October.

PROJECTS!

The gaming front has been active and very helter skelter for a bit. If you read last months entries you will remember me finally getting my Reaper Bones V KS, and then the mysterious package of figures I ordered from Miniatures Market showing up, (to my surprise).  So in addition to  separating and inventorying these, I got back to painting and working on building figures. But first, I had to get all the Reaper Box Stuff out of the way, so onto the shelves they went.

(The Bones IV and V KS boxes, minus the Baba Yaga Hut, The Large Cobra, and the Massive "Sophies Revenge" ship. The bags of figures will go into the drawers.

(And the bag of figures to be inventoried and stored...)

So the first thing I got to working on was a "Big Old Nasty Creature" from Reaper. This is the "Droopy Dragon", as he is nicknamed. 

He is actually known as "Gauth", and here is what he looks like assembled...

(Yeah...he's a big 'un...)

However at the current moment, here is how he is looking on my project table...

(He don't look so tough now does he?...)

I've read mixed reviews about this figure. The biggest issue is the weight displacement, tends to make the wings droop and the body droop forward until it's practically nose to the ground. There's a wide variety of fixes to this, (mostly including pinning the tail and connecting the wings with fishing line), and I think this is going to be a bit of a project.

I've also gotten back to painting up figures. In this case, I have finished up four Foundry Pirate Figures, from their "Treasure Island" range. 

(Four sea going adventurers, ready for....well...."adventure"...)

("Watch yerselves lads. There's trouble on these docks...")

And I started on some more pirates...

(Pirate and Bandit figures from Wizkids, while the one holding the chest is from Reaper. While they (the Wizkids figures) are nice, the softer plastic is more bendy, and despite the fact that they are "primed" and you can paint them out of the box, I found that you really, REALLY, need to wash them first.)

(And the beginning work on a Siamese cat...)

GAMING!

We got back into the swing of D&D and the party continued exploring the old haunted ruins of Saltmarsh. They cleared out the first floor and finished the second floor, meeting a poor old guy that got knocked out and tied up, and then fighting a nest of stirges in the attic above. Their next sessions sends them exploring "down below".

We had a grand time with snacks, drinks, gaming, and good friends. 

(The party reviews what they've done so far and coordinates their future moves, so that no one screams "Leeeeeeeeroy Jenkins!" and charges into a fray...)

( Notes and plan journals are updated...while people discuss their next course of action...)

(Adventure for the players, and a nice serving of ice cold watermelon for the DM...)

FOOD!

After the game ended, three of us wandered uptown for dinner. There at a locals place called Arni's I chowed down on a nice Texas Bacon BBQ Burger and fries.... mmmmm.....

(Tasty!)...

And then after dinner a nice few moments outside enjoying the courthouse, and the evening air...

Later on the following week, my wife and I tried out a Mexican place on the edge of town. It was "authentic Mexican" and not the standard "Tex Mex" stuff. 

That my friends was good eating!

And our town opened a new "Mexican style ice cream shop" and we checked it out!

(My wife got a double dip waffle cone of their mango...it's delicious...)

(While yours truly got a double dip of strawberry and Ferrarro Hazelnut Chocolate, (just like the little gold foiled candies), in a waffle cone bowl... Excellente!!!

So that is it for the month of August pretty much. Our Sept 11th game was cancelled at the last minute but the next one is for Sept. 25 and we are looking at doing a Lasagna and a Chicken Alfredo dinner.

More to come!

Thanks for reading!

May Update: "Gaming, Minis, Painting, and a New Experiment!"

It's May 2021. 

Think about that.

We are almost at the halfway mark for the year already.

Where has the time gone?

And of course that means it's time for another irregularly timed entry into my blog that keeps limping along like an old dog going down a path in the woods.

This one, dear reader is a bit photo intensive, so please be patient as it loads. 

A NEW EXPERIMENT!!!

Okay, so being the owner of a house, I noticed that outside of our dining room and living room windows we had two large window boxes...with dead plants in them.

"Hm.." sez I.

I discussed this over with my wife and while she isn't big on flowers, she is big on herbs and such. So I went and dropped a few dollars, and am now trying my hand at "gardening", (to a degree). I researched up "best simple easy herbs to grow in Indiana", and then went with that. As I am an amateur dirt digger, I decided to go with something that was A: Easy to work with, B: Didn't require a lot of maintenance, and C: Well....easy to work with and lived in this Zone (Zone 5). 

And here's the results.

Box #1: This is Chives, Rosemary, and Lemon Balm...

Box #2: This is Chives, Rosemary, and Spearmint...

Not only are these "easy" herbs for beginners, they are also natural insect repellants.

I look forward to seeing if I have a green thumb or a black thumb...

And on beautiful spring days around the house, the flowers keep blooming...

An amazing assortment of flowers beautifully arranged around our home.

But...

That's NOT what we are here for. 

It's back to the "war room"...

GAMING...

Now that the game room has been established, we have gone ahead and broke it in with gaming, and every two weeks I am running a AD&D 2nd Edition Campaign.  We just finished our third setting, and the party is beginning to explore the ruins of an old haunted house. 

The Adventuring Party: (From L to R): Hanibar, Rakerzon, Mearig, Fargrim, Timos, and Caedrynn. All figures except for Fargrim the Dwarven fighter were painted by me.

The PC's discuss a course of action over what they should do about the "rumors of the old haunted house..." (*insert spooky music here*...)

No fancy vid screens and online "purty stuff"...This is Old School RPG'ing...

The party finds a mysterious clue!!! (*dun dun dunnnnnnhhh!!!!*)

Handouts and maps...Old School D&D...

The mysterious parchment fragment piece that gives a possible clue....What could it mean? What COULD it mean?!?!...

The D&D game weekends are especially fun because we get to visit with good friends, and have good times together and eat good food. This last game, my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), made chicken stacked enchiladas and they were scarfed down.

Always keep the game room fridge stocked...

But the game room is for more than just RPG's...

THE MINIATURES TABLE IS SET!!!

So the following Monday I cleared off the RPG stuff on the table and decided to set up some miniatures. Looking around, I decided to break out some of my Bongolesia stuff, as I haven't done an AK47 game in my third world African hell-hole in a number of years. I've been itching to do a cross border skirmish as I had been slowly building up a force for the country known as "The Fandango Republic", and decided to set it up for this. I also wanted to play more armor intensive this game, as well as test play some homebrew rules I am working up right now to see how they run.

So with a little flourish and some moving things around, I set up Bongolesia's Southern Border.

Looking at the table The border is visible. Bongolesia is on the left side and The Fandango Republic is on the right side...

Looking North from the Fandango side towards Bongolesia. One can see the checkpoints, and the UN monitoring station as well as the small Bongolesian Town of "Bungatown" and the current object of content, the facility known as "Charlie's Chicken Farm"...

Looking North into The Fandango Republic from Bongolesia. Bungatown is closest to the edge of the table.

The UN border monitor site, and the border area along known as "Checkpoint Chester", (named after amateur English ornithologist Chester Wellerfuller, who was reportedly eaten by ravenous hyenas in this area in 1907), which is currently manned by a mixed contingent of Danish and Pakistani UN troops.

The view of "Checkpoint Chester", from the Bongolesian side, including the Bongolesian Govt. border station across the road which is currently manned in this photo by National Police.

The actual border of Bongolesia and The Fandango Republic with the UN Station "Checkpoint Chester" and the Bongolesian border post visible. The current UN contingent on site is a mixed unit of Danish and Pakistani troops.

The UN conducts a border patrol operation while the Bongolesian National Police watch from their positions.

The UN Patrol moves out...what WILL they find???...

COOL STUFF!!!

I will admit that I was surprised this past weekend as not only did my good friends show up for another fun session of gaming but my "Bruddah frum anudda mudda" Dan Merchant brought me a pack of Wiz Kids Deep Cuts Pre-Primed Bugbears Minis, and my good friend Bryan Carter brought me a copy of  "Tank Duel", from GMT games, (still in shrink wrap). I was surprised, humbled, and honored by their generosity.

Looking forward to trying this one out!

And I can't wait to get some paint on these guys!!!

There's a heckuva lot more I can go about right now (including our plumbing problem with one of the bathroom sinks), as well as some of the work on my painting table, but I think I am going to call it quits for now. More cool and fun stuff to come!  

And as always, thank you for reading!