Turkeys on the Harvard Medical School Quad

Buzz Buzz

This small neighborhood park is just down the street from my apartment. Also nearby are some community gardens, an athletic park with a multipurpose field and basketball courts, and the Muddy River park. I love being around so much green open space.

Lake Cottage Weekend

Logan, Marie, Greg, and I spent the weekend at a lake cottage in Sturbridge, about an hour west of Boston.
The weather was perfect, sunny then cloudy then sunny again, and a very nice temperature. On Saturday afternoon (after we'd swam and canoed), we got a terrific thunderstorm. We watched it for awhile, then took naps (a great thing to do during a storm).

Marie and Greg look for frogs

We went to Yankee Spirits, New England's largest liquor store, and found really interesting craft beers for our own beer tasting. (We didn't drink all of these that night; we took most of them home.)

The water was perfect too, not too cold.

On Saturday, Marie and Logan took out the canoe, then Greg and I did. Here we are about to take off. We canoed around the whole lake, looking at all of the houses. On Sunday, the four of us went out in kayaks together. The house had everything we needed. Greg found a fishing pole and he and Logan did some catch and release.
There's Greg swimming.
See the slide that goes into the water?
It was an awesome place; I'm glad we got to spend the weekend there.

Germany and the Czech Republic

It took me a long time to organize the photos from this trip. I took a total of 1158 photos over those ten days. I realize that people have varying levels of interest (you may not care about photos of people if you don't know who they are) and patience for other people's vacation photos. So with that in mind, I made a short version, and a longer version for people who were on the trip. But I wanted that second one to also be manageable, and in the process, I cut a lot of the photos out. So then I decided to make a long version for those interested in seeing all the photos I think are worthy of sharing. The long one is also edited down; I cut out 474 photos.

Greg's brother Mark was a foreign exchange student in high school and lived in Germany for his senior year. Mark's family and his host family have stayed in touch over the years, and have visited each other a few times. I went with Greg, Mark and his wife Shaney, and Greg's parents John and Sue first to Berlin where Shaney's mom and brother met up with us. After a few days, Linda and Galen left and Mark's German host parents Dietmar and Heidi picked us up. We went from there to Prague and Dresden, also with Mark's host brother Jan and his daughter Michelle. You can read the rest of the story with the photos on Picasa.

The short version (74 photos) http://picasaweb.google.com/genoa76/GermanyAndCzechRepublicShortVersion?feat=directlink

The mid-length version (351 photos) http://picasaweb.google.com/genoa76/GermanyAndCzechRepublicMidLengthVersion?feat=directlink

The full version (684 photos) http://picasaweb.google.com/genoa76/GermanyAndCzechRepublicLongVersion?feat=directlink

Sorry It's Been So Long

The turkeys are growing up.

Turkey Teenagers!

Billy's new favorite cave.

Greg dusted off his old remote control airplane. Logan got a plane too and the three of us, plus Logan's fiancee Marie, went to the flying field. I thought it would be dumb, but we (even Marie and I) really had fun.

Cool! I've seen lots of different kinds of dragon flies this summer.
Some hydrangeas near Harvard University (across the river from us at Harvard Medical School)
A robin

The flower above came from the tree below.
My friends Zeke and Britt left the same building at the end of the work day (we were heading to happy hour) dressed very differently.
Ducklings!

Camping in Quechee, Vermont

Two friends ran the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in Quechee, VT, and we decided to go camping in the area, then cheer them on during the race on Sunday. Eight of us went, and although it rained most of Sunday, it was a great trip.
A covered bridge in Woodstock, VT.
Luna moth
Quechee Gorge


Woodpecker
We also saw chipmunks, red squirrels, spiders, and lots of bugs.

The Turklings are Growing!

Okay, I looked it up, and baby turkeys are called poults, but what fun is that? I like turklings better.
Wild turkeys are the state game bird of Massachusetts.
Last year, there were three adults. This year, I've only see this mama with her six turkinos. They hang out in the fenced in lawn on one of the colleges. They have stopped traffic crossing the road, as the Canada geese do. By the way, I've seen only a few goslings this year, so far...