60. Fantastic Fenway

Week 60  9/12/16

Becky asked me for a birthday suggestion and I said "Lets go to a Red Sox game."  We picked out a Monday night game date with the Orioles coming to town with the two teams near the top of the standings trying to make the playoffs.  Remembering a fun night a few years back with Ben in the bleachers, I thought it would be cool to view the game from 450 feet from home plate again.  We landed seats in section 36; straight away center field some 23 rows back in the infamous triangle. These arrangements set the stage for the rest of the day.
A mid afternoon subway ride in from Wellesley dropped us off in Kenmore Square where we walked around the Back Bay along Com Ave, Boylston Street, and Newbury Street stopping by some statues for photos and admiring the fancy architecture.

 I was also impressed by the elaborate landscaping lavished on the tiny front yards of some of the apartment buildings.
We walked from there back to the Fenway area

and settled on a pub restaurant with outdoor seating on Landsdowne Street for an early dinner and people watching.  We saw some couples wearing opposing jerseys (Sox vs Orioles), agreeing to disagree; a comforting sight.
The game was amazing with the Sox pounding out over a dozen hits and their $30,000,000 pitcher holding the Orioles in check. I kept an unofficial scorecard, as usual.

 Though Fenway may be "America's most beloved ballpark" it really shows its age when it comes to the overall comfort and convenience for the fans.  We had dozens of people walk in front of us constantly throughout the game mainly because of the seating arrangements.  Parking in the area goes for upwards of $50 and you're bombarded with advertising and loud announcements. Many of the fans spent most of their time and attention texting or otherwise staring at their phones. I guess there are lots of reasons to go to a professional sporting event and only one of them is to actually watch the game and appreciate the performance of the athletes.

59. Fall has begun - apples!

Week 59


On the day after Labor Day, we went to two fruit farms our area. First was The Big Apple Farm in Wrentham. We sampled, then bought some Paula Reds. Paul asked if we could look at the netting arrangement for their blueberries, so we walked around a bit.

 

Bird netting, much like we use, is draped across heavy wire strung between these tall poles. When not in use, the netting is gathered under tarps.

 

On our way back to Medway, we came across the crossing of a trail with a small parking lot on Lake Street in Bellingham. We walked about 1.5 miles each way, and then back to our car.

The kiosk at the far end of our walk showed us that this is part of the Southern New England Trunk Trail. We've already walked a few other stretches of this trail.

58. Happy birthday Paul

Week 58. Ashland State Park again

Paul wanted to canoe and swim, so I packed a lunch and we headed to the state park. With school starting tomorrow, it was much less crowded that last time. We started with the canoe, but it was very hot and Paul was fishing. Even with something to read, it was uncomfortable in the sun, cramped in the canoe, so I walked back to our picnic table.

After a swim - water was very cool and refreshing - we ate a salad and some herb/cheese bread I made this morning.

57. Headed north

Week 57  8/23/16

It was time to go slightly farther afield for an adventure. Paul booked a room at an inn in Portsmouth, NH and we wandered around the city with other tourists and locals. Dinner (and beer) was at the Portsmouth Brewery.

Like many other cities, Portsmouth was scattered with statues painted by various artists and others for sale as a fundraiser. We've seen cows, horses, fish etc in different places. This is near the tugboat area of the harbor. Later we stopped at a pub where there was live music. The guitarist/singer decided to go on break just when we arrived. They didn't have any coffee and I didn't feel like beer, so we didn't stay long.

In the morning we joined the ranks of retired senior citizens taking an early walk, all in couples and sporting protective headgear. At the visitor center, there was a movie about Portsmouth history, and a couple of art exhibits. We really liked the work of watercolorist, Wendy Turner. 

Here is Paul on the harbor walk near the bridge.

Here we are at a garden in the city park. Nearby a piano tuner was preparing for a Judy Collins concert. Unfortunately Paul has a meeting tonight so we can't stay. It was very hot, but we sat in the park, enjoyed various gardens and sought out drinking fountains. We also crossed the bridge to Pierce Island, but I'm still recovering from surgery and had already walked too much, so we headed back.

On the way back, we explored an old walled cemetery. On this one, they seem to be confused about the death year of this man.

56. Farm to Fork

Week 56  8/20/16

This is our third time attending the annual Medway Community Farm's Farm to Fork Dinner. For scheduling reasons (caterer? musicians?) it was necessary to change the date to be earlier. This didn't work out for many people who are on vacation this week. Instead of 100 attendees, there were 50. For next year, they've already scheduled a September date.

The passed appetizers are always special. We forgot to get pictures of those.

Here is the band from Worcester, the Hip Swayers.

Paul and Dennis at the beer and wine tent.

We were happy to see Josh and Maria there too. Coincidentally, they were seated right next to us.

The sit down meal was great as usual, with nice touches like these shaped bread sticks.

It was still light out when we went to the coffee/tea and dessert tent. But we didn't get a shot of the bonfire. S'mores and chatting around the fire was an end to a fun evening.

55. Bonus Week - Three adventures!

Week 55  8/10/16

On a day when we finally got a bit of rain, we headed for Garden in the Woods. The soil, plants and animals were so thirsty, that everything seemed hopeful. Because of optimism, we took along ponchos but they were not really needed. Here are a few of our favorite plants of the day. We are not good at identifying names, but remembered a few.

This plant has the creepy nickname of "Dolls' eyes."

There was a very large area of this Partridge Pea plant.

Near a pond area we saw two plants that looked similar but we could see the differences when looking closely. One was Cardinal Flower and we don't remember the name of the other. This is one of them!

I like the unusual pale leaves on this one.

A type of rhododendron.

I love the way the raindrops arranged themselves on this leaf.

8/11/16  

This was the peak of the Perseid meteor shower which is supposed to be particularly good this year. We viewed the sky last night but it was too overcast to see anything. Tonight, though, we sat outside starting at about 11 PM. We saw no meteors for about 1/2 hour, then suddenly I saw the largest meteor I'd ever seen. Paul saw another, and I eventually saw four. It was still overcast and there is too much light in the area, but these large ones were visible. I think I saw some fainter ones, but can't be sure.

8/113/16

Our long-time friends, Pattie and Steve Orr were in town on a business trip from Waco. We had a chance to meet them in Boston for an early dinner.

On the way from the subway stop, we discovered the Boston Public Market, a wonderful new (one year), indoor market space next to historic Haymarket. This is a fascinating retail space for locally sourced food and food-related products. It also has a partnership with the Trustees of Reservations. 

Here is Paul researching Massachusetts wines. We had no idea there were so many wineries here, and the market had lots of information on them, as well as breweries, cheese makers etc.

On the walk from the market to the North End, we stopped at a fountain on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. It was being well-used by children and adults. We also noticed that the sea breeze made a difference in the air, so that we didn't feel as sweltering as when we were home.

At the entrance to the North End is a statue of Tony DeMarco who grew up in the North End and had been welter-weight champion of the world. I used to babysit for his niece and nephew when I was in high school and went to some of the North End festivals with the family. I've seen Tony in the last year or two, as he still lives in the area.

Pattie and Steve arrived at Pagliuca's ahead of us and grabbed a table in a great location. This is one of their favorite Boston restaurants and he food was delicious. What a wonderful time we had comparing notes on our families, trips, retirement (for some of us) and mutual friends.

We walked back to the Boston Public Market with Steve and Pattie and bought a few treats and gifts. Here is a "doughnut robot" that was cranking out apple cider doughnuts. Pattie asked for a bag of them straight from the machine so they would be still warm and very fresh.

A satisfied customer. She shared the doughnuts with us - scrumptious!

54. Spencer Brewery

Week 54  8/6/16

Spencer Brewery is owned and operated by the Trappist community. They began this beer-making venture in recent years to supplement their income for the community as well as their charitable interests. They are also producers of Trappist jams and jellies.

This is a rather large operation, compared to some breweries we have toured. I believe that they only open for tours once per year, and had heard that today was the day.

If we had not seen other breweries, we might have been somewhat confused about what we were seeing because there was very little signage and nobody explaining what we were seeing. It was simply a very long slow line through the factory. We did see a general diagram of the brewing process on the wall and some brief signs such as "capping machine" and "cold water tank"

This is part of the packaging and distribution room.

Many visitors seemed more interested in the beer tasting and bargain prices than the tour. We tasted an IPA and a pilsner. We bought a six-pack of the IPA.

The drive through the Abbey property was lovely - lots of hay fields and beautiful vistas.