We were out running our weekend errands last Saturday and stopped at one of our local farmstands. Getting out of the car I glanced at their fields next to the stand where the corn was picked and plowed and the pumkins were big orange orbs that looked near ready to pick. 
A sure sign of summer coming to an end for me is the arrival of these denizens of fall. It’s been a great growing season in our valley and many of the crops of fall are already making an appearance at the local farmstands. The bounty of summer will continue into autumn. Now here we are at Labor Day weekend the day on the calendar that signifies an end to the lazy days of summer and return to school for kids as well as young adults in college who arrive daily at the numerous colleges nearby. My daughter’s school days are behind her but these days still have me reflecting on the summer that was…
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hot, we saw more 90+ degree days along with plenty of humidity than we’d seen in a very long time.
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got me back in a reading groove. I finished five books this summer, more than I’d completed in the previous part of the year.
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enjoyed a number of dinner and movie nights with Crystal and Kevin. They came over after work and did some laundry while we had a light supper and watched a movie from their Netflix or some Ghost Hunters.
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taking a family drive to Foxwoods Casino and Resort to see the Titanic exhibit and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.
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celebrating my friend Paula’s birthday with her having dinner together at The Wok, a favorite local chinese restaurant.
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going to Starbucks many more times than I have before to enjoy their a/c over a frappuccino or my new favorite sweetened iced green tea.
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getting to the shore in Connecticut and Matt actually putting his feet in the water!
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sunrise at the shore, with the sound of some classical music in the background and the show of colors nature put on it was magical.
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our first Taste of Amherst gave us many delicious foods to try, and good music.
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Boston not once but twice! this summer.
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Bar-b-Que and music night at Chandlers. Good food, homemade sangria and the sounds of Tom Carroll.
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getting a deck put on out back.
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being able to grill out on our deck. Every weekend we took advantage of it.
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despite my lactose intolerance I used my lactaid pills and enjoyed a couple sundaes. Not being able to have them as often made them taste all the better.
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having our Grandkitties spend a few days with us to escape the heat of their house.
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getting a second kitty ourselves and bringing Meeka into our lives to join Oliver.
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the Green Monster Coolatta at Dunkin Donuts a perfect antidote to many a hot evening.
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walking around downtown Northampton with Primate Fiasco as they played their unique sound of dixieland music.
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farmer’s markets and farmstands full of summer’s bounty with all the hot, sunny weather we had and not much rain.
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going to dinner and the movies with Crystal, seeing “Ramona and Beezus”. It was a perfect mother/daughter experience.
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Terriers around Town in West Springfield.
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RiverCulture in Turner’s Falls, lots of great music.
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Bar-B-Que, at home, at Curtis’s in Vermont and Famous Dave’s with Crystal and Kevin.
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going to Revere Beach out near Boston.
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fresh seafood at the shore in Connecticut and at Revere Beach.
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grinders for supper. The perfect meal on all the hot summer days we had.
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iced coffee at Cumberland Farms on afternoon break.
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getting to ‘meet’ our friend Joanna in person as we spent a day showing her around our awesome neighborhood.
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going up to the top of Sugarloaf.
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eating a light supper in the park in Northampton.
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celebrating Crystal’s birthday with her and Kevin having dinner at a local restaurant.
It was a summer that was AWESOME!
There’s a reception desk to collect your ticket and the Hancock Tower behind it enticing you forward. Going in for a closer look 
I zoom in on the Hancock and beyond. The steeple you see in the upper left corner near the water is the Custom House, what in Old Boston was the tallest building in the city and its first ‘skyscraper’. The Skywalk gives you a 360 degree view and I’ll share some views that you’ve seen from
ground level here. This is the grounds of the Church of Christ Scientist. Here we’re looking out on the harbor. 
You can see a couple of the many harbor islands there. Moving over looking out toward Fenway Park. 
That’s the Mass Turnpike(toll road) running through the middle and you can see the famous Citgo sign on the right. Continuing along the skywalk we see the Charles River here. That’s Cambridge on the other side and 
you can see the Longfellow Bridge as well, or the ‘salt and pepper’ bridge as it’s called for those pillars. In the forefront of the picture is the Back Bay. Called that because before extensive landfilling it was literally the back bay of Boston. The thicker clump of trees running in the middle of the shot is Commonwealth Avenue. Looking out toward Charlestown we have the Bunker Hill monument in this view 
along with the Zakim Bridge. Over to the left center of the picture the white ‘dome’ shape is part of the Boston Science Museum. We’re back where we started and one last look before we step back on the elevator, another Boston landmark, Trinity Church. 
The reflective building to the right is the John Hancock Tower. Feel free to visit the Boston link on my Category Cloud again to see many more views of this spectacular city and many of these spots from the more traditional ground view. And be sure to visit the Challenge blog to see all the other participants photo essays.
Yankee Candle flagship store where I gave her the grand tour of the store. No matter how many times I walk into the Bavarian Village and see the huge Christmas tree I’m struck by it. Joanna felt the same sense of awe. One of the cows from New york City’s 2009 Cows on Parade now resides at the store. 
This was actually the first chance I had to get a picture of it. Joanna found a couple of candles she wanted and I was able to get her my employee discount. We checked out and met up with Matt for our next stop. We headed through some farm roads to one of our favorite farmstands for ice cream. Crops are growing very well this year and many ahead of normal. We saw some early pumpkins and squash already available. 
Very good prices too since things are pretty abundant this year. We enjoyed our ice cream sundaes on one of the picnic tables and then headed up Sugarloaf to check out the view from the observation tower. 
It’s always fun to pick out where our house is from the top of Sugarloaf. We have a beautiful view of it from our living room window. It’s also wonderful to look at the winding Connecticut River making its way down the valley toward the Mt. Tom range. 
All that green and beautiful farmland. It was a clear, sunny day with just a bit of haze and the temps in the low 90s. You gotta enjoy these last days of summer. We headed over to Old Deerfield next and paid a visit to the farm. The ducks and geese were in the yard. 
They have a couple little wadding pools they splash around in and at dinner time cross the path to eat. The pigs were also out in their pen playing in the mud and the sheep were lazing in their area nibbling some grass. 
One last stop before we said goodbye. Richardson’s Candy Kitchen. I was taking a few pictures while we waited our turn to be served and made our choices. Just as I took this shot Matt stuck his finger out to point. My first thought was ‘darn, gotta retake that’, but when I looked at the picture I knew it was a keeper. 
And Yes! we did get some of those White Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels. They were Amazing!
I’ve gotten quite involved watching “Deadliest Catch” and when I heard the Captain of the Northwestern had written a book I definitely wanted to get it. This has been a good reading summer and I’ll be reading it soon as I finish my current read. After looking through Artful Blogging, I paid for my book and headed over to Whole Foods to make up a salad for my supper. 
Brought a book with me to read while I ate but I have to admit I probably spend more time people watching while I eat than read. Whole Foods is always interesting that way. The next day after work I headed up to a new to me local Farm Stand. 
They had lots of the traditional veggies you find at local stands, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, corn and so forth but they also had a section with more peppers and hot peppers than I’d ever seen before. 
Both sides of this table were full of different hot varieties as well as baskets on the top. Thankfully they had a chart with details about each one and their level of ‘heat’. I’d never seen or heard of these before that were ranked on the top of the heat chart. 
I was to afraid to even touch them let alone try to eat one. LOL I picked out some lettuce, good-looking tomatoes, milder varieties of peppers and new to me, lemon cucumbers. 
A nice batch of veggies that made for some yummy salads along with the local salad dressing I also found there. Made it to Friday and a very tough work week it was. I needed me some ice cream. Luckily we have plenty of ice cream stands in our area and I had my lactaid pills with me. I decided to try one that just opened up this season at the truck stop down the road and was very pleased with it. 
No frills, basic soft serve in chocolate, vanilla or twist of the two. Your basic sundae toppings and the stress of the week melted away with each bite. It was a very nice afternoon and I didn’t feel like going home yet but didn’t want to go that far either so I headed over to the Old Deerfield farm to see what critters might be about. Caught these two piggies and let me tell you that saying ‘happy as a pig in mud’ is for real. I knew just how they felt, I was pretty darn happy myself. 
A little this and a bit of that. A quiet little spot near the Springfield Museums in Springfield, MA
One of the Boston Duck Boats in the water near the Zakim Bridge. 
Seen at the Yankee Candle flagship store. 
At Panera Bread. 
Going by a local Harley Davidson dealer there was a bunch of bikers and their bikes gathering for a ride. 
Outside a yarn store in downtown Northampton. 
A hungry bird at Revere Beach.
Pour yourself a cool drink, put your feet up and enjoy. 
We went out to Revere early before it got too crowded. There were miles and miles of beach so not to worry. 
Some clouds moved in by time we headed back to Boston but nothing to stop our wanderings, just made the temp a bit more comfortable. 
There’s just never enough hours in a visit to do everything but luckily we’re getting out there more so I don’t have to try to. 
It doesn’t hurt to have so much so close either or within a short subway ride away, as visiting Revere Beach was. It’s fun revisiting favorites and finding new ways of photographing them. 
Yes, it was a sweet(hint of food to come here) trip! 
I’m very excited about this trip cause we’re taking the Blue Line of the T out to Revere Beach. So not only will I get a day in my favorite city but a trip to the shore as well. Since we’re celebrating Matt’s birthday there, we’re going to his choice for lunch, which happens to be at Revere Beach, 
Another beautiful summer day in Boston. Twice in one summer! Wowza! I guess I’ll be looking for another album for the pictures from this coming trip. hehe Let me catch up on some more Project 365 here. Last Friday Crystal and I went over to Gramma’s house so I could pick up her car. She was letting us use it while ours was getting repaired. I captured this picture of the two of them when Crystal was showing her Grandma some pictures on her camera. 
She’s getting up in years and it means more to her than anything to have a visit from her family. I shared some pictures here already from the Turners Falls RiverCulture Fest. The one I chose for my Picture of the Day was one that I felt captured the magic of the day. 
One of the most unusual group of musicians we’d ever seen was performing. The sun was low in the sky and I wanted to get the performers with the 
I’ve mentioned how much I love watching “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” on Planet Green, and I’m reading the book one of them wrote. I placed an order for some of their fabulous goat’s milk soap and a delicious sounding jam. My order arrived Monday and it was my picture of the day and highlight of my day. 
You can visit their 
To quote from their menu. “A full slab of St. Louis-style spareribs, a whole chicken, 1/2 lb. of either Texas beef brisket or Georgia chopped pork, coleslaw, Famous Fries, Wilbur Beans, four corn-on-the-cob, and four corn bread muffins.” Since we had pork for our appetizer and the ribs, Matt chose to go with the beef brisket. Excellent choice. Tender! There were five different barbecue sauces on the table to try as well. Crystal and I both chose to have Sweet Tea with our meal which was out of this world too. A wonderful birthday celebration with our ‘kids’ full of good company, good conversation, good fun and good food!
In Brattleboro, VT one Saturday I was looking at shots up and down for a photo challenge. This is one of the pictures I took that day. Love the colors of the building. 
Taking some pictures of some ducks earlier this year and captured this group. 
Hmm I think I definitely have food on the brain. A local pizza spot in Northampton. 
I love going into Anthropologie. They have the neatest merchandise and their displays are amazing. Sadly they don’t like you taking pictures in the store, so I have to get creative about it and shot from the hip. It’s always interesting to see what I come up with. 
We went by the SUNY (State University of New York) Albany Campus on one of our trips out there and I captured this shot. 
One of the coolest independent bookshops in Boston, the Brattle Book Shop. 
Now I’m off to eat.
