What beautiful weather this weekend in Illinois, good time to check up
on a few of my letterboxes:

I replaced the lost Starved Rock Buffet box with a new one. New clues
to follow shortly...

The Effigy Tumuli box is doing fine, though the container looks to
have been attacked by a woodpecker. The logbook is one of those
miniature composition notebooks with a speckled cover and glued
binding and its falling apart already! I don't think I'll be using
these anymore, but I like how it looks more like a miniature book than
a spiral-bound notebook.

The Magic Hedge box was dry in its container, but the logbook was
sopping wet inside its ziploc bag! I'm not sure how this happened,
must have been the rapid melting of the snowstorm we had last week?
The binding of the hardbound sketchbook was so sogged it fell off when
I opened it! So I took it home to do some amateur book binding. The
interior pages of the book are holding together, so its just a matter
of putting a new cover on it and pressing the whole thing flat again.
It should be ready to bring back on Tuesday, in case anyone was
looking for it while it was at the book doctor.

I'm glad I used a decent sketchbook for the logbook, because its
repairable. What a patina this logbook now has! It should last for a
few more years, and maybe even a few more cover replacements. From now
on I think I'll only use log books that can be repaired if they get wet.

Matt the Rat
Chicago