Hannah in band jacket with concolor

Check out the hair pine cones!

Shaggy Concolor Wreath

holiday cheer

Fall Food

A few random photos of fall foods from the garden...

We grew our first fig this year on our smallest fig plant.  It was little but delicious!
 

We also canned tomatoes for the first time...the tomatoes were probably overripe and we obviously did not put enough in each jar, but it was a learning process and it will be interesting to see how they turn out as sauce this winter.

We also made pesto with the abundance of basil we grew.  We prepare it without the cheese and freeze it in ice cube trays so we can just use however many cubes we need for a particular dish during the winter.

Sunflower and Spider

We grew the tallest sunflower we have grown this year- a Russian Mammoth.

We also hosted a large orb weaver spider for a while who remade her web ever night after wrapping up her catch.

Lovin' Lovells

This summer we went back to Lovells Island for some local getaway time.  We explored more of the island than we did last time and found more hidden treasures. 

We took the ferry from Quincy to Georges Island and hopped on another boat to Lovells.  On Georges they have Adirondacks with ottomen that you can sit in while people in period clothing play music and you enjoy the distant view of downtown.

at our campsite there were many cicadas the the skins they have left behind...

on the beach...

view of Boston Light House

walking on top of the bunkers...

there is a series of these spaces- differentiated by the slightly different vegetation in the circular area where the gun was mounted and by the condition of the railings.

then we headed down a path to the east of the island...

The Graves Lighthouse could be seen through the hole in the granite

 

this is looking back west towards Long Island and Gallops Island

you can see where an old building fell from the eroding land (more up-close pics from our last Lovells post)

our first Oystercatcher sighting!  he's sitting on the rock in the center. 

new bunker discoveries!

old tracks to move guns around (or so we guessed)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

back into the field with the little brick building...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

we went up the stairs onto another trail...

 

 

 

this is a view of Georges island in the distance- you can see the top of a lookout

 

then the sun set- you can see Nixes Mate beacon in between Lovells and downtown.  Long Island is to the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the next day we took the ferry back to Georges...for the first time we noticed this wooden building built into the fort walls

 

 

 

view of Lovells- where we just were

 

view of Deer Island to the right and downtown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

downtown in the background of Fort Warren

 

 

 

 

 

 

heading back on the ferry...

 

 

 

 

 

back in Quincy by the USS Salem