Good morning everyone! And welcome back to winter here at Steve’s Country. It’s only 7F (-14C) this morning, what a way to end the month of March, and quite odd considering we had such a nice early spring this year. However, it is going to warm up to 28F (-2C) today and tomorrow we return to spring like temperatures again. So it’s not really so bad, just a couple days of freezing solid, then I can thaw out once more. Muffin doesn’t quite understand the temperature change. She could have the door open before, now she can’t. She keeps trying to get my attention and runs over to the door, turns and looks at me.

I try to explain that it’s too cold right now. Even when I open the door to prove what I’m saying, she still doesn’t get it a few minutes later. Sigh. But we do have fun playing inside on days like this. Speaking of fun, I saw Skamper out there this morning picking up peanuts and heading home with them. These critters must have big homes. I mean, they start as soon as they come out in spring to collect food for the winter. That’s what they do. All summer. Apparently, from what I have read, chipmunks don’t start gathering for winter until late summer. Obviously that doesn’t apply to northern chipmunks, these start right away.

And now, more indoor fun with old games:

Checkers, of different kinds:

Regular: This is a checker board from about 1920, and it’s a slide in type. They used these in different places like old stores, taverns, etc. There would be a groove in the side of the table and this checker board would slide into that groove so that more people could participate in playing the game. At the bottom of the pic is the part that slides into that groove. The checkers themselves are from the 1950s and are wood.

Canadian: This is a large checkerboard which is said to be of Canadian origin, mainly it’s from the French part of Canada it seems. I had never seen one so big until I started collecting. It is played the same way as regular checkers, it’s just bigger. Mine is from the early 1900s.

Chinese checkers: This game has nothing to do with China nor is it Chinese. It was actually invented in Germany back in the late 1800s, but it was a square design. An American game manufacturer brought it to the U. S. and changed it to it’s present design and it became known as Hop Ching checkers. Somewhere along the way it became known as Chinese checkers. My Hop Ching board is from 1940 and the metal board is from about 1960. I do have the marbles for them as well. The idea is to get your marbles to the space directly across before the other players do the same. You can jump any marble but they are not removed from the game as in regular checkers. Well, I was going to do another checkers game but this is already a bit long, so I will save it for next time. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.