If you look close there are some bluegills in some of the photos. They wanted to eat my toes. There's a frog in there, too. A really green one.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Back to Walden
Just a handful of new Walden Pond pictures from this morning. I went out and walked in the pond about a quarter of the way around and then hopped for a bit until I found a dry spot where the rocks weren't sharp and I could put my shoes on again. Ouch.
If you look close there are some bluegills in some of the photos. They wanted to eat my toes. There's a frog in there, too. A really green one.
If you look close there are some bluegills in some of the photos. They wanted to eat my toes. There's a frog in there, too. A really green one.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Whales and Wild Dogs
Been a while since I've posted, but it's been a rough winter and spring and I'm only just now getting to have some fun!
My sister and brother-in-law were out this weekend and part of the week (actually, they're probably still out here, sort of, because the airline's trying to keep them here).
They were here a number of days, so we did quite a lot, but unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of photos this time around -- and awful lot of our travel involved water and critters, which isn't the greatest environment for your average camera. I've got a few, though, so we'll see what we can get out there.
And the best part is that some of the plants are that old.
The coolest thing about Logee's is their 114 year old Ponderosa lemon tree (you can see a picture of the tree on this page but it's nowhere near as impressive as it really is). The Ponderosa gives lemons the size of a small melon -- they can weight up to five pounds.
And yes, I brought one back with me.
The evening's entertainment was a whale watching trip. We tried not to have too high of hopes -- the whales don't always read the boat schedule, but we figured on a nice boat ride at least.
What we didn't realize was that the whale boats are COLD. Not just nippy, but freakishly, send in the Saint Bernards, cold. It was a beautiful day, and we hoofed it up to the front of the third level to make sure we got a good view. Leaving the harbor was pleasant.
Then we picked up speed.
Let me tell you, moving at 40 mph into gusty 20 mph wind sounds fun, but it also drops the ambient temperature to 50-something, makes you deaf, and makes it hard to breathe. It also knocks your hat off. I ducked down to rescue it and found out that sitting on the floor was probably the place to be, so we spent the next hour freezing to death and making silly fish puns below the edge of the boat.
When the whales showed up, the cold stopped mattering. They're amazing. That's all I can say. A cell phone camera is almost a waste of time on them, so I didn't bother, but they are seriously cool. We saw 7 whales -- quite a lot -- and two mother-calf pairs, which the biologist, who had been doing this for quite a while, had only seen once before (and that's ONE pair, not two in one trip). They were all fin whales, not the charismatic humpbacks, but trust me, that didn't matter at all.
This year has been a good one for whales, so if you're thinking about a whale watch, do it this season.
Coming back I pinned myself to the front of the boat briefly and attempted to take some photos of the sunset. My fingers were freezing off and we were back into the 60 mph wind -- and boucing -- so don't expect miracles here:
Bet you don't have that in your back yard.
We'd planned to head to Spectacle Island, but instead ended up at Georges -- and I think we're glad we did. Georges Island contains an aging military fort, Fort Warren. It was essentially obsolete the day it was built, and never saw any real action of any sort, but it's a neat place to visit.
Something you have to realize about New England parks is that they seem to be happy to let you fall off a cliff and die if you're so inclined, so this disintegrating fort has a bit of an edge to it as you explore. The place is not restored -- it's in the state that it was sold and recovered as a park. There are placards around explain what everything is, but you're not going to find reproduction military equipment and dioramas set up.
Instead you find eerie, high-vaulted rooms with slit-windows and cracking plaster; dark, tight staircases that you aren't sure you're going to be able to maneuver, and pitch black hallways to nowhere that end in bricked-up nothing.
It is insanely fun to explore, though, perhaps all the more so for not being polished up. Again, no great pictures, as you can't get a feel for how dark it is in there in a cell phone picture (if you're really feeling put out by the lack of photos, go into your favorite image editor, open a 4" x 6" document and use the paint can to fill it with black. You'll get the general idea.)
But that said, we also found some very pleasant grassy places -- in fact, one of the first things we did after landing (and having lunch) was to find our way to the top of the walls and lie down on the cannon pads and soak up the sun (remember, it was cold). Fairly certain that the other folks visiting the island thought we were nuts, but we were happy. After we poked around, we found ourselves another big flat rock on the beach and dozed there for a while.
I do have a couple views of the view from Georges:
You can kind of see the creepy darkness in the bottom photo -- that's not all contrast with the outside brightness there.
I don't know quite how they do it, but the tour is a very nice one -- and they don't charge. They ask you to donate to a couple of causes (the causes change periodically), but you don't have to. The tour itself is quite funny and informative -- and the place is actually quite small! (Yes, Ohio folks, believe it or not, your bottled Boston Lager comes from closer to you than to me). We got to taste and touch all the ingredients for beer (well, except yeast, but you could breathe that in, and water, but we all know what that tastes like). We saw the equipment they use both for local contracts and as a test kitchen.
And then after the tour they give you all nice glasses and you have a beer tasting.
Yeah. Really. For free. Three types of beer and you get to learn about how to taste it.
I was certainly impressed.
So, perhaps reeling a bit, we headed to the Franklin Park Zoo.
The Zoo is beautiful; I'm not sure I've ever been to a prettier one. It's also quite small, but that doesn't really matter. They don't have too many "usual" things -- though you've got your tigers (rescues) and your lion. We got to see pretty much everybody, though some were sleeping. The giant anteater was amazing -- and huge -- and he was also very active. He looked like a slightly warped Afghan Hound.
The guests took themselves around yesterday and today, but my sister did make me dinner yesterday, and I'll leave you with this jealousy-inducing photo, courtesy of my brother-in-law:
My sister and brother-in-law were out this weekend and part of the week (actually, they're probably still out here, sort of, because the airline's trying to keep them here).
They were here a number of days, so we did quite a lot, but unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of photos this time around -- and awful lot of our travel involved water and critters, which isn't the greatest environment for your average camera. I've got a few, though, so we'll see what we can get out there.
Saturday
I could have sworn that I wrote about Logee's Greenhouse before on this blog, but looking back I sure can't find it. Logee's is basically a wilderness under glass -- six greenhouses, some built over 100 years ago and still in pretty much the same form they were when built.And the best part is that some of the plants are that old.
The coolest thing about Logee's is their 114 year old Ponderosa lemon tree (you can see a picture of the tree on this page but it's nowhere near as impressive as it really is). The Ponderosa gives lemons the size of a small melon -- they can weight up to five pounds.
And yes, I brought one back with me.
The evening's entertainment was a whale watching trip. We tried not to have too high of hopes -- the whales don't always read the boat schedule, but we figured on a nice boat ride at least.
What we didn't realize was that the whale boats are COLD. Not just nippy, but freakishly, send in the Saint Bernards, cold. It was a beautiful day, and we hoofed it up to the front of the third level to make sure we got a good view. Leaving the harbor was pleasant.
Then we picked up speed.
Let me tell you, moving at 40 mph into gusty 20 mph wind sounds fun, but it also drops the ambient temperature to 50-something, makes you deaf, and makes it hard to breathe. It also knocks your hat off. I ducked down to rescue it and found out that sitting on the floor was probably the place to be, so we spent the next hour freezing to death and making silly fish puns below the edge of the boat.
When the whales showed up, the cold stopped mattering. They're amazing. That's all I can say. A cell phone camera is almost a waste of time on them, so I didn't bother, but they are seriously cool. We saw 7 whales -- quite a lot -- and two mother-calf pairs, which the biologist, who had been doing this for quite a while, had only seen once before (and that's ONE pair, not two in one trip). They were all fin whales, not the charismatic humpbacks, but trust me, that didn't matter at all.
This year has been a good one for whales, so if you're thinking about a whale watch, do it this season.
Coming back I pinned myself to the front of the boat briefly and attempted to take some photos of the sunset. My fingers were freezing off and we were back into the 60 mph wind -- and boucing -- so don't expect miracles here:
Sunday
I'm not sure what the deal was with cold weather sitting right on the summer solstice, but Sunday was good and cold, too -- and we decided to spend it on the water again.We'd planned to head to Spectacle Island, but instead ended up at Georges -- and I think we're glad we did. Georges Island contains an aging military fort, Fort Warren. It was essentially obsolete the day it was built, and never saw any real action of any sort, but it's a neat place to visit.
Something you have to realize about New England parks is that they seem to be happy to let you fall off a cliff and die if you're so inclined, so this disintegrating fort has a bit of an edge to it as you explore. The place is not restored -- it's in the state that it was sold and recovered as a park. There are placards around explain what everything is, but you're not going to find reproduction military equipment and dioramas set up.
Instead you find eerie, high-vaulted rooms with slit-windows and cracking plaster; dark, tight staircases that you aren't sure you're going to be able to maneuver, and pitch black hallways to nowhere that end in bricked-up nothing.
It is insanely fun to explore, though, perhaps all the more so for not being polished up. Again, no great pictures, as you can't get a feel for how dark it is in there in a cell phone picture (if you're really feeling put out by the lack of photos, go into your favorite image editor, open a 4" x 6" document and use the paint can to fill it with black. You'll get the general idea.)
But that said, we also found some very pleasant grassy places -- in fact, one of the first things we did after landing (and having lunch) was to find our way to the top of the walls and lie down on the cannon pads and soak up the sun (remember, it was cold). Fairly certain that the other folks visiting the island thought we were nuts, but we were happy. After we poked around, we found ourselves another big flat rock on the beach and dozed there for a while.
I do have a couple views of the view from Georges:
You can kind of see the creepy darkness in the bottom photo -- that's not all contrast with the outside brightness there.
Monday
We decided to toss in a quick trip to the Sam Adams brewery before going to the Franklin Park Zoo Monday morning -- if you're ever in Boston, go to this short little tour.I don't know quite how they do it, but the tour is a very nice one -- and they don't charge. They ask you to donate to a couple of causes (the causes change periodically), but you don't have to. The tour itself is quite funny and informative -- and the place is actually quite small! (Yes, Ohio folks, believe it or not, your bottled Boston Lager comes from closer to you than to me). We got to taste and touch all the ingredients for beer (well, except yeast, but you could breathe that in, and water, but we all know what that tastes like). We saw the equipment they use both for local contracts and as a test kitchen.
And then after the tour they give you all nice glasses and you have a beer tasting.
Yeah. Really. For free. Three types of beer and you get to learn about how to taste it.
I was certainly impressed.
So, perhaps reeling a bit, we headed to the Franklin Park Zoo.
The Zoo is beautiful; I'm not sure I've ever been to a prettier one. It's also quite small, but that doesn't really matter. They don't have too many "usual" things -- though you've got your tigers (rescues) and your lion. We got to see pretty much everybody, though some were sleeping. The giant anteater was amazing -- and huge -- and he was also very active. He looked like a slightly warped Afghan Hound.
The guests took themselves around yesterday and today, but my sister did make me dinner yesterday, and I'll leave you with this jealousy-inducing photo, courtesy of my brother-in-law:
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Flaming Kombucha
It's been a while since I've written anything, because, hey, you probably don't want a narration of my classes or my work. Things will get more interesting when it warms up again.
Meanwhile, tonight, after a somewhat rough weekend (6 hour homework stretch, then I went nuts and cleaned the apartment top to bottom... except the cat room), I decided I was going to make myself some candied kombucha scoby.
If you've never seen kombucha, it's a fermented tea drink. It's somewhat tricky to keep going without killing it or yourself, but thankfully the temperatures and humidity around here are just about right for it to grow without going moldy. So mine's been going since I moved here, and I tend to let it go a little too long. This results in the scoby -- the bacterial mat that floats on top and does and the work* -- being very thick.
That means you can scoop it out and candy it, which I'd never done. So for some reason at 7:30 at night I decide I have to do this. So I dig out the scoby (carefully -- I never touch the kombucha with my fingers if I can help it, to avoid contamination), slice it up with a steak knife (it's like cutting raw liver**), dump sugar on it, and start heating it up.
8 minutes later we have kombucha rockets.
Imagine chunks of candied fruit shooting two feet in the air trailing molten sugar. Now imagine one of them smacking you in the hand.
Well, I watched the kombucha chunks shoot into the air from over by the sink, while running cold water over my hand and wondering how the heck I was going to get close enough to turn the stove off. Meanwhile a napalm kombucha chunk hit the microwave and stuck.
Eventually I managed to dive in and turn things off. Even more eventually I got the floor cleaned up. The stove still isn't as I'm waiting for the surface to be good and cold. My hand is unhappy. The remaining unexploded kombucha hunks are in the fridge. Maybe tomorrow I'll try one.
*and now I'm sure I've made it so you never want to drink kombucha. Ask me about hot dogs some time.
**see previous note
Meanwhile, tonight, after a somewhat rough weekend (6 hour homework stretch, then I went nuts and cleaned the apartment top to bottom... except the cat room), I decided I was going to make myself some candied kombucha scoby.
If you've never seen kombucha, it's a fermented tea drink. It's somewhat tricky to keep going without killing it or yourself, but thankfully the temperatures and humidity around here are just about right for it to grow without going moldy. So mine's been going since I moved here, and I tend to let it go a little too long. This results in the scoby -- the bacterial mat that floats on top and does and the work* -- being very thick.
That means you can scoop it out and candy it, which I'd never done. So for some reason at 7:30 at night I decide I have to do this. So I dig out the scoby (carefully -- I never touch the kombucha with my fingers if I can help it, to avoid contamination), slice it up with a steak knife (it's like cutting raw liver**), dump sugar on it, and start heating it up.
8 minutes later we have kombucha rockets.
Imagine chunks of candied fruit shooting two feet in the air trailing molten sugar. Now imagine one of them smacking you in the hand.
Well, I watched the kombucha chunks shoot into the air from over by the sink, while running cold water over my hand and wondering how the heck I was going to get close enough to turn the stove off. Meanwhile a napalm kombucha chunk hit the microwave and stuck.
Eventually I managed to dive in and turn things off. Even more eventually I got the floor cleaned up. The stove still isn't as I'm waiting for the surface to be good and cold. My hand is unhappy. The remaining unexploded kombucha hunks are in the fridge. Maybe tomorrow I'll try one.
*and now I'm sure I've made it so you never want to drink kombucha. Ask me about hot dogs some time.
**see previous note
Sunday, September 22, 2013
I went to the woods because...
... I wanted to pick some apples, but somehow I ended up at this pond:
Yes, this is Walden Pond.
I knew it was up here, and I knew it really wasn't that far, but I didn't realize just how close it really was and how easy to get to.
It's a local swimmin' hole, but even with all the people who were there today (and there were a lot), it was pretty quiet once you were off the main beach. It's just a beautiful spot. I can see why you'd be happy living there in a tiny little house and just thinking all day long.
There's a full path all the way around, and I'd say the loop's about two miles, just from how long it took me. There are several other trail loops, but I had apples in the car and was wondering whether they'd be cooked when I got back (they were fine), so I just did the main loop.
It is beautiful. No questions asked. I think I may have cheated, going there on a fall day, and I'd already just about driven off the road repeatedly on the trip out since the area itself is so amazing (seriously, NE mountains are something else).
And of course I got the chance to stand on some hallowed literary ground.
That last one's the view from the house site down to the pond. It's up a bit, and tucked back off an inlet.
I don't have a whole lot else to say here, except that now I've got to try and pick up Walden again (and maybe finish it this time; I'm fairly sure I've read all of it at one time or another, but not all the way through). Instead I'll end with the rest of my camera roll:
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Maine/Grad School
So my sister talked my Mom into flying out to see me last weekend. She's been talking about doing this for a while, since Mom wanted to know how to deal with flying if there was ever an emergency.
Well, this time we decided we were going to go to Maine -- a good pick, since I think it ended up being about 15 degrees cooler up there, and cloudy.
We visited two beaches, Two Lights State Park and the Wells Estuarine Research Reserve.
Two Lights is a rocky, somewhat scary beach, but absolutely beautiful. I'm getting old, because it was somewhat difficult for me to get down the cliff face, but incredibly easy to get back up. I think I just don't want to fall on my face.
I got the chance to see tidal pools for the first time. If you can see past the reflection, there are mussels and snails in there. Other things, probably, too.
Two Lights also had some really pleasant wooded trails. And frogs. And ducks.
I don't have too many great shots of the Wells Reserve, as it go cloudy, but it's kind of a watery Dawes. There's a salt marsh, and of course the estuary. The water was cold.
Probably the neatest thing we saw there were the piping plovers. They're an endangered bird, and they're awfully cute little things. They also look just like the sand and rocks, so there wasn't a chance on earth of getting a recognizable photo out of them with a phone camera. You'll have to settle for the Wikipedia entry.
Oh, and we got noshed on by mosquitoes. Maine mosquitoes are about a foot long and sound like a helicopter landing.
...
OK, maybe not, but they sure leave big welts.
After visiting the beaches we went for what we really came to Maine for.
Lobster.
There's a place in Wells called Lord's that prides itself on local and homemade everything. So we headed there.
And my sister talked me into ordering a lobster. Yeah, the big red thing that looks like it crawled out of a horror movie.
Of course before ordering I never realized that she didn't know how to eat said lobster. Naturally the internet knows everything, so we weren't completely unprepared, but let's just say that a large mess was made. But it was awfully fun, and they'd parked us in a corner, so we weren't much of a danger to anyone but ourselves. So far as taste went, I much preferred the steamed clams we had as a starter, but the claw meat was plenty tasty, and it was an experience.
Next morning we were both worn out and on a bit of a schedule with the return flight, so we made a leisurely loop of Harvard square, spent a half hour at the pool, and ate lunch at Bluefin. The highlight of the morning was "brunch" at Burdick's. I'd had Burdick's chocolate home before, but this gave everyone a shot at the pastries and hot chocolate -- and yes, the hot chocolate was well received, even as the thermometer approached 90.
As a last little aside for anyone who missed it elsewhere, I did make it into the Extension School masters program. Now things get real.
Well, this time we decided we were going to go to Maine -- a good pick, since I think it ended up being about 15 degrees cooler up there, and cloudy.
We visited two beaches, Two Lights State Park and the Wells Estuarine Research Reserve.
Two Lights is a rocky, somewhat scary beach, but absolutely beautiful. I'm getting old, because it was somewhat difficult for me to get down the cliff face, but incredibly easy to get back up. I think I just don't want to fall on my face.
I got the chance to see tidal pools for the first time. If you can see past the reflection, there are mussels and snails in there. Other things, probably, too.
Two Lights also had some really pleasant wooded trails. And frogs. And ducks.
I don't have too many great shots of the Wells Reserve, as it go cloudy, but it's kind of a watery Dawes. There's a salt marsh, and of course the estuary. The water was cold.
Probably the neatest thing we saw there were the piping plovers. They're an endangered bird, and they're awfully cute little things. They also look just like the sand and rocks, so there wasn't a chance on earth of getting a recognizable photo out of them with a phone camera. You'll have to settle for the Wikipedia entry.
Oh, and we got noshed on by mosquitoes. Maine mosquitoes are about a foot long and sound like a helicopter landing.
...
OK, maybe not, but they sure leave big welts.
After visiting the beaches we went for what we really came to Maine for.
Lobster.
There's a place in Wells called Lord's that prides itself on local and homemade everything. So we headed there.
And my sister talked me into ordering a lobster. Yeah, the big red thing that looks like it crawled out of a horror movie.
Of course before ordering I never realized that she didn't know how to eat said lobster. Naturally the internet knows everything, so we weren't completely unprepared, but let's just say that a large mess was made. But it was awfully fun, and they'd parked us in a corner, so we weren't much of a danger to anyone but ourselves. So far as taste went, I much preferred the steamed clams we had as a starter, but the claw meat was plenty tasty, and it was an experience.
Next morning we were both worn out and on a bit of a schedule with the return flight, so we made a leisurely loop of Harvard square, spent a half hour at the pool, and ate lunch at Bluefin. The highlight of the morning was "brunch" at Burdick's. I'd had Burdick's chocolate home before, but this gave everyone a shot at the pastries and hot chocolate -- and yes, the hot chocolate was well received, even as the thermometer approached 90.
As a last little aside for anyone who missed it elsewhere, I did make it into the Extension School masters program. Now things get real.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
I'm on a Boat/Kalmus Beach
So t'boss invited us out to his place in Hull for an office retreat on Friday. He drives, but he gave us a pass for the ferry. The weather was rotten, but the trip was still awesome. The downside was that I really was only able to get two pictures from the boat that were worth sharing, and they aren't even that great.
Yeah, seriously wish I had some money. Of course if I lived somewhere like this you wouldn't be able to pry me away to go to work.
Then yesterday was supposed to be rainy as well, but just about as I was finishing up laundry, the sun came out. I checked the radar, checked maps, threw a box of granola bars and some water in the car and headed to Hyannis to look for shells thrown up by the remnants of the first tropical storm of the season.
Holy cow, Kalmus beach was full of shells.
Now I can't say that I've been where I could go shell hunting all that often, but I have a rep for finding the good ones (it's the same skill that means I trip over four-leaf clovers and makes me good as jigsaw puzzles). When you've got piles like this, anybody can find good shells, though, so I just got picky and looked for the ones with the best markings. I turned up four conch-types, though they were in pretty bad shape, so I only brought back one tiny one. The scallops and slipper shells are absolutely beautifully marked. I need to get some mineral oil to bring out the colors in what I brought back:
I've seen scallop shells in Myrtle Beach, but I've never seen them so big, or in such a variety of colors. And I didn't bring back any quahogs -- I know where to get ones of those so big you can use them as plates, and that's the city beach, believe it or not!
Some photos of the beach itself:
I pretty much had the place to myself; I think the storm predictions and the fact that it cleared up late pretty much kept everyone but the locals home. It's also a little early yet for tourist season.
The ocean was wonderfully warm, and I walked the tideline with my shoes off while I was searching. I also got incredibly sandblasted because the wind was very high; I don't know if that's typical there or if it was just the day.
The boat back had a full-service bar. All in all not a bad way to commute.
Then here's the view from t'boss' back porch.
Then yesterday was supposed to be rainy as well, but just about as I was finishing up laundry, the sun came out. I checked the radar, checked maps, threw a box of granola bars and some water in the car and headed to Hyannis to look for shells thrown up by the remnants of the first tropical storm of the season.
Holy cow, Kalmus beach was full of shells.
Some photos of the beach itself:
The ocean was wonderfully warm, and I walked the tideline with my shoes off while I was searching. I also got incredibly sandblasted because the wind was very high; I don't know if that's typical there or if it was just the day.
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