Boston and Maine.

8-7-17 VERMONT: Saturday we went to Boston for the day to visit granddaughter Maggie who’s been living and working there since graduation. We picked her up after work in Brookline, not far from where we used to live in the early sixties, that’s the nineteen sixties, which we visited with her. We went to her apartment, met a couple of her roomie’s and her pet rats.

We spent the afternoon at the harbor, explored Quincy Market, bought her a couple of early birthday presents, watched the whale watchers sail away and had dinner at Legal Sea Foods, which left everyone stuffed, like some of the entrees.

We got back about 11 PM to the unimaginable delight of the dogs. Thanks to Janet and Bill for giving the dogs dinner.

Here, it’s August, which means the beds are getting overgrown, the plants are leggy and sprawling, and weeds are everywhere. There’s also a ton of pruning to be done. I’m still picking blueberries and tomatoes are getting ahead of us. Judy and I have been walking on the dogs on the road for a couple miles almost daily in an attempt to improve our pathetic level of conditioning. There was one rain shower that gave us 0.2 inches, but we need more. After the soggy June and July, it’s now too dry.

I looked at a bunch of milkweed plants and all the leaves are intact, none of them has been chewed upon by caterpillars. No monarch butterflies sighted since that one male passed through.

Next weekend we go to Maine, to visit Ken and Carol.

New blooms: more phlox, more hollyhocks, monkshood, Indian pipe.


Maggie and me, you don't have to tell me it's an improvement.

Quincy Market on Saturday.

Harbor for whale-watching and boat tours, sailboats and condos.

Dinner at the Harbor was excellent. That place is a gold mine.

Gus says to Maizie, "Just because it's called golden rod, doesn't mean we're related."

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, female, taking a break on meadow rue.

Kingfisher, male, still terrorizing our crawfish. Doesn't he have tiny feet?

The Indigo Bunting has been back at the feeder, here sharing with a song sparrow.

I have to include a flower on the Garden Blog, this is a cluster of Indian Pipe, not a fungus, but a 'green' plant without chlorophyll. It is a parasitic plant, a myco-heterotroph, that feeds on fungi that are, in turn, symbiotic with trees. Is it demeaning to call it Indian pipe?