Apples and Pumpkins and Sunflowers, Oh My!

For anyone in the west Chicago suburbs (or passing through), let me tell you about this awesome gem called Kuipers Family Farm. As I recall, we first found Kuipers as a way to go out with friends while social distancing — specifically in the orchard, so I’ll start with that.

There are somewhere around 40 different types of apples available, which you can pay to pick 1/4 peck paper bag of, per person. (The picture below is about 3 of those, for reference, including the full bag.) Each week has a different selection of apples to pick, depending on what’s in season, which means you can feasibly come back 3 or 4 times over autumn and get new flavors every time. Which are available is visible both on the board outside the orchard and on their website, which also offers a “Notify Me” option for when specific types are in harvest. Both of these have a 1-5 rating scale, giving each apple a score for its popularity raw, in baking, and for applesauce. There’s also a policy I’m rather fond of: you’re welcome to taste test the apples as you pick, so long as you finish the whole apple. This lets you go “wow, that one is really good!” and use your limited space accordingly.

I’d give you directions from the orchard to the sunflower area, but honestly between the train looping it and the seven acres of flowers… you can’t miss it. Now, seven acres might sound a little excessive, I admit, but according to the website there are over 20 different varieties of sunflower there. So if you’re up for a bit of a hike, wander through the various paths in the fields, stop for photo ops at the random tractors scattered throughout, and when a specific sunflower catches your eye, take note of where it is, because admission to the sunflower area comes with 1 bloom included — that is to say, you get to take home one flower of your choice, or more if you pay a little extra.

Kuipers also has a pumpkin farm. Unfortunately, I’ve never done that part of the experience, so I can’t tell you much more than the website says — they’ve got a ton of fall activities, from a corn maze to pig races and a petting zoo, to, of course, picking your own pumpkins. What I can tell you is that the Orchard Store, which is kind of in the middle of everything, is a magical little experience and you will leave with some sort of food. Like apple cider donuts. Or mint chocolate fudge. Mmm. *cough* Anyways, since I don’t have any pumpkin photos for you, have another sunflower pic!

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Pixel Art

Yes, I have fallen prey to the hypnosis of color-by-number apps. While I realize there are probably several options along this vein, I’m going to be talking about the one I use, aptly titled Pixel Art.

The basic concept seems fairly self-explanatory — an image is divided into squares, numbered by color, and you fill it in accordingly. You don’t have to use the colors in order, or all of one color at once… in fact, it’s often easiest to start with the highest numbers, as they tend to be the least prevalent. When you select a color on the number bar, it shows how much of that color you’ve completed so far, and marks all pixels of that color with a dark grey to set them apart from the blank white of other unfilled cells. You can choose between tapping these individually to color them, or dragging your finger across several, which is quicker but risks hitting other numbers, too. If that happens the pixel will remain a paler version of that color (number still visible) until you hit it with the correct one. The page of the palette before colors 1-10 has two “Boosters”: the Color Wand, which colors multiple neighboring cells of the same color with one tap, and Color Splash, which colors everything in a set radius with one tap, regardless of color. Honestly, though, I don’t really see the point in those.

There are a couple different menus, all comprehensively organized. First there’s the main one, at the bottom of the page, sorted into Library, Daily, My Works, and Create. Yes, there’s an option to create art for this — don’t ask me how that works, I’ve never done it. Daily is fairly self-explanatory: there’s a new image there every day, like an all-year advent calendar of coloring. My Works has a second menu near the top, split into, again, “My Works,” which shows everything you’ve colored at least one pixel on, and “In Progress,” which shows only the images you haven’t completed yet. As you can imagine, In Progress is super useful for when you’ve got multiple pictures going on at once, especially the more detailed ones that can take a while to complete.

The most complicated tab is Library, which has a 4-tab menu of its own. First off, Event. Currently, there’s a “Desert World” event going on. What the event is changes regularly, but they each have thematically appropriate art, and the more of those you complete by the end of the event, the more rewards you get, including Bonus images, which is the third tab from the left — pretty much, the more event art you complete, the more bonus ones you collect. The tab between those is New, which is also fairly self-explanatory. New art appears at the top of the page, and the more you scroll down, the older the stuff you’re looking at. It’s worth noting that a lot of times, these are added in clusters, hence why my screenshot has four images pertaining to Japan all completed around the same time.

The fourth and final tab in Library is Books, which, like how In Progress acts as a filter for My Works, is effectively a subset of New. These are collections of 8 images each, bound together by a category, be it Landscapes, Comfortable Clothes, or even just “Orange Color.” You unlock each next row of the collection as you work, going through seven easier images and ending on a full one. I won’t say photorealistic, necessarily, because sometimes full pictures are intricate patterns instead, but rather than being a cutout of some concept within a given space, full images take up the entire square.

Both books and individual art are sometimes locked, and while you can buy premium, you can also just watch an ad to unlock them.

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Sudoku Challenge

“Hold up, didn’t you already tell us about Sudoku?” Well, yes, sort of, but that was Hawaiian Sudoku! And, no, I’m not here to talk about the normal version, at least not exactly — I’m here to talk about the board game.

Yep! Sudoku is a competitive game now! Sudoku Challenge actually came out in like 2006, but I didn’t have a blog then, so we’re going to pretend this is a new discovery. The first thing to choose is which side of the board you’re playing — Sudoku (9×9 grid), or Zoodoku (6×6). What’s Zoodoku, you ask? Well, it’s the easier version of Sudoku, and much, much cuter, since instead of numbers, you’re placing animals.

Whichever you choose, the mechanics are the same — you start by placing the starter tiles (marked with a different backing), one in each box, no overlapping rows/columns, and placing each player’s chosen pawn at 0 on the scoring area. Players then take turns drawing a face-down tile and choosing where to place it. Just like regular Sudoku, it can’t be in the same row, column, or box as a tile of the same type. Unlike regular Sudoku, you have another goal: scoring. When you place a tile, you get 1 point for each other tile that shares a row, column, or box with it. Each tile is only counted once. If you’re feeling exceptionally masochistic, you can play Sudoku with a twist — instead of scoring one point for each other tile, you add up their values. Note that if you do this, you will run out of 40-point tokens; we used the Zoodoku tiles as stand-ins.

There are going to be times when prior placements leave spaces unable to be filled, like the empty space in the middle right of the board below, where the box needs a deer (blocked by row) and the row needs a raccoon (blocked by both column and box). If a player draws a tile they cannot place, the game ends immediately, and whoever has the most points wins.

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Prairie Plants

Depending on where you live, some of you are probably already familiar with the concept of pocket prairies — little areas of land specifically dedicated to native prairie plants. Not only does this help preserve the native species, but prairie plants have extensive, deep root systems that hold the soil in place, decreasing erosion. And, y’know, they look nice. So since I was at a pocket prairie the other day, here are some pictures.

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Pavlov’s Dogs

Brought to you by the same people who made Schrödinger’s Cats, Pavlov’s Dogs is a cooperative psychology game that will challenge your memory and your capacity for dog puns.

Players start the game by collectively deciding how many tests they’re going to play, and how many of each level, ranging from Easy to Very Hard, with 2 sets for each level and a bonus Silly set. Each set represents a different Dogtor, the likes of Sigmund Fetch and Immanuel Mutt, and, with a maximum of 1 from each set, the tests you draw are placed in the Dogtor folder faced down.

For each round, one player will be selected as Dogtor, and choose one rule to flip face up. This is the rule for the first test (Ex: scratch ear when Sit is played). The other players will be read this rule, and then dealt 5 cards each, face down, and take turns flipping their top card. Following any special instructions from the tests first, they conclude by listing the value of the test. For the first card played, this is the number in the corners; for the cards that follow, it’s that number added to the sum of the cards already played. The Dogtor will use the folder with the tests as reference, and say either “Good dog” or “Bad dog,” depending on if they followed the instructions correctly. If they got it wrong, the value of the test resets to 0, and that player loses one of their bones (everyone starts with 3). Your grade at the end is based on how many bones the group has left, so be careful!

At the interim between rounds, players can choose to shuffle around bones — this is advantageous because if a player loses all their bones, the game is over and you’ve failed your selected difficulty level. Then comes the hard part — a new Dogtor is chosen, a new test selected, and you now have to adhere to both the new test, and every test that came before it. Yup, that’s right — they stack! You thought one rule and simple addition was easy? Try five rules and simple addition, and one of those rules changes the value of some of the cards. Now play the game again with a new set of rules. Can you see why it’s a challenge?

It’s a true legacy to Ivan Pavlov, as well. After all, you really are training yourselves — specifically, training your memory and cognitive flexibility. And a lot like Lumosity, a mental training program I posted about here, I suspect if you recorded your scores you’d notice definitive improvement the more you played.

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Avocado Time

Anyone remember my post about Throw Throw Burrito? Well, here comes the sequel: Throw Throw Avocado! I didn’t think it was possible, but the avocados might actually be even cuter than the burritos.

As a quick review, Throw Throw Burrito is a speed matching game where you’re trying to draw and discard (hand limit 5) until you have a set of 3 matching cards, which you play into your score pile. If these are Battle Cards, all other gameplay stops long enough to carry out the specified combat. Whoever loses that battle gets a boo boo, which counts as a negative point when scoring.

For the most part, the mechanics of the two games are the same, though the normal cards come in different varieties depending on which game you’re playing. Battles, however, are a significant difference. Where Throw Throw Burrito has a duel (back-to-back, walk, turn and draw), a brawl (two players) and war (all players, except whoever played it), Throw Throw Avocado’s battles are decidedly wackier. There are legs duels, where you have to throw the avocado through your legs, double brawls, where the two players have to keep grabbing and throwing until someone has been hit twice, and freeze wars, where all players — including whoever played it — go to war, and if you get hit you freeze and become a human shield. Another difference between Burrito’s wars and Avocado’s freeze wars is that in war, whoever gets hit first loses, and in freeze war, the loser is chosen by the last player standing. There’s also a chaotic combination option if you own both decks, but we haven’t tried that yet, so I can’t really comment on it.

The cats were very patient with us and our flying squishies, and it’s a lot of fun to throw (soft) things at the important people in your life! (Or strangers; who cares? Everyone wants to throw things at people.)

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Product Endorsement and Cuddles

For those of you who haven’t read it yet, last week I wrote about the Civil War battlefield game Battle Cry. So, this week, I thought I’d open my new onslaught of cat photos with Zuko’s demonstration that the lid is a great size for cats! (Sorry it’s kind of blurry.)

And two photos of Diane cuddling other cats on the couch, because apparently Diane is who you go to for cuddles.

Diane leaning back on Zuko, both curled up in the same direction, chins visible by the camera like they're asking for scritches.
June and Diane napping on the couch, Diane facing the camera's right and top of her head up against the top of June's, where June is facing the camera's left and has a paw draped over one of Diane's.
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Hear My Battle Cry

Have you ever wondered how battles from the American Civil War might have gone differently, were you in command? No? Well, that is a sort of specific thing to wonder. But if you’re wondering now, try the game Battle Cry!

Battle Cry has a number of battles you can play, setting up the board with appropriate troop starting places and terrain tiles for each. The terrains all have slightly different effects — if you move into the woods, for example, that unit can’t battle or move further that turn, but anyone attacking a unit in the woods gets 1 less battle die to attack with.

What are battle dice? Well, let me back up and explain the units, first. There’s infantry, which can move one space per turn and battle; cavalry, which can move three spaces per turn and battle; and artillery, which can move one space per turn or battle. There’s also generals, who can attach themselves to a unit to give the unit an extra battle die when attacking.

So… what are battle dice? Well, when a unit attacks, you roll battle dice to determine how many enemy pieces they hit. Each die has five symbols — infantry, cavalry, artillery, crossed swords, and a flag, with infantry appearing twice. For each roll that matches the enemy unit, you remove one piece. Crossed swords counts as a wild die, and a flag forces the enemy unit to retreat one space back towards their side of the board (or be eliminated, if they have nowhere to run). The amount of dice you roll on an attack is determined by what kind of unit you’re attacking with, and how far away the target is. Cavalry have three battle dice, but can only attack from an adjacent hex. Infantry and artillery have longer ranges, four and five respectively, but decrease in battle dice the further away the enemy is. So, for example, if I used an infantry unit to attack a cavalry unit adjacent to them, I’d get to roll four dice — if, however, the cavalry I was attacking were three hexes away, I’d only get to roll two. The target also has to be within line of sight, which means that a straight line between the centers of the two hexes must be unobstructed by any other units or terrain that would impede it (hills, for example).

The units you can move/battle with (order) on a given turn are determined by cards. How many cards you have in hand depends on the map you’re playing, but in every case you play first, resolve, and then draw at the end of your turn. Cards can have fairly small effects, like “order 1 unit or general on the left flank” (the board is split into two flanks and the center), or significantly larger movements, like how Mom opened our last two games: All Out Assault, which lets you order every unit you have. Yeah, sweet initial draw, right? For the record, I still won the second of those games.

You win the game by being the first player to capture six flags — each unit has one, as does each general, and it’s the last piece of the unit to fall.

Battle Cry is a fun two-player game, balancing the strategy of battle with the luck of the draw and the dice, and providing an accompanying history lesson for each map you play.

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