the contractor showed up this morning to take a look at the house and give me an estimate as to how much it'd cost to restain it. turns out his crew did some work for a neighbor, that's why i got one of their flyers in my mail. i have another appointment with a 2nd contractor tomorrow morning and i'm still waiting on a third contractor to get in touch with me. i can't wait to get this all taken care of so i can see how much money i have left in the bank and whether or not i can do some traveling again.

in the early afternoon i left for the assabet river national widlife refuge in sudbury. i haven't been there in about 2 years and a lot has changed. there used to be fields of wildflowers which attracted all sorts of flying insects, but they cleared all that out. they're also building a headquarter inside the refuge, which is kind of strange, because it involves clearing out acres of supposedly-protected wildlife. parts of the property seemed more like a busy construction site than a nature preserve.

what little there is left of wildflowers still managed to attracted flying insects, mostly dragonflies, but also butterflies as well. i walked as far as the fishing platform (trail marker 11 and 12). since i was walking mostly on the service road, there wasn't any mosquitoes. but once i started going into the forest, that's when i got bit, 2 on the back of my neck, 1 on my lower lip. a quick application of bug spray protected me from then on. the sky also got cloudy, like maybe it'd rain (it never did), so i decided to head back.

i stopped by the cafe and got a chance to see the renovation progress at LG a few doors down. construction guys were gutting the interior and throwing everything out in one of those large metal construction trash container.

for dinner i made a reuben sandwich, with a plum and some cherries for dessert.