Massachusetts: Two-Shore Summer

The summer has been a busy one for both Jane and me. After a few years of lead-up, we’re expecting a new addition to the family at the end of the year - our first child. To the usual slate of work responsibilities and few weeks off (I’ve usually taken my vacation weeks in the spring and fall, my favorite seasons for travel and prime landscape photography), we’ve added medical appointments and planning for home furnishing and childcare arrangements. With everything going on, I’ve honestly felt quite fatigued. Weekends, especially the hot ones, have been spent largely napping, resting, and being lazy. In the midst of it all, we’ve had to make intentional effort to go out, camera in tow, to photograph Massachusett’s beautiful greenery at the height of summer. More and more, we’re becoming cognizant that we may be making some of our final memories as a traveling, childfree couple. In a few more months, everything changes.

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July 17, 2022: A visit to Bird Park in Walpole, for a friend’s wedding gathering.

July 30, 2022: A spontaneous day out on the South Shore. We drive an hour out of the city to the Whitney and Thayer Woods in Cohasset. After a brief walk in the woods, we stop by the beach in Minot before grabbing lobster rolls, fried seafood, and iced tea at the Olde Salt House. After lunch, we drive along Jerusalem Road, visiting Holly Hill Farm and gawking at Cohasset’s seaside mansions. We return home via Hwy 3A, stopping along the way for Chinese groceries in Quincy.

August 13, 2022: A morning trip up to Smolak Farms in North Andover. After stopping at the farm store for amazing breakfast sandwiches, cider donuts, drinks, and honey, we walk around the property, say hello to Mister Pig, and visit the peach orchard to pick a big bag of yellow peaches.


Cape Ann: Birds and Wildflowers

In the last week of May, Jane and I take a overnight trip to Cape Ann to do some spring birdwatching and wildflower spotting. We start our morning in the Parker River Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island, where we walk on the beach, and I use my new 600mm lens to photograph wading birds, waterfowl, and an osprey. In the afternoon, after eating lunch in Essex, we travel to Halibut Point State Park, where we walk around the park’s old flooded quarry, exploring the rocky tide pools by the ocean and photographing the profusion of wildflowers and colorful ground cover - buttercups, geraniums, flowering berry shrubs, and carpets of delicate bluets and bright red sorrel. After a relaxing hotel evening in Rockport, we catch sunrise at the harbor before returning to the city.

Massachusetts: Scenes of Spring

After an unexpected injury lead us to cancel our plans to hike the west coast of Vancouver Island, Jane and I find ourselves with an unexpected week of free time here at the height of spring in Massachusetts. In the middle of my foot-related rehab, we take a quick morning trip out to Worcester County to visit Moore State Park. We walk down the flower-lined lanes beside Eames Pond, stopping to admire the many-colored azaleas and rhododendrons. By the pond, a fellow walker and botany enthusiasts points out several pink lady’s slippers growing in the brush; we stoop down low to photograph this showy and rare wild orchid. After a pleasant, short stroll, we take a brief walk in the Trout Brook Conservation Area before getting lunch in Worcester and returning home.