Greetings from Tougas in the Rain

My Wednesday was all pre-travel chores interspersed with a couple of online chats -- two of my high school friends in the early afternoon, and Cel and Laurie in the late afternoon, with the latter of whom I finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (hamster wheel!). 

The only other things I watched were sports around visiting with our cat-sitter, hunting down my travel chargers, and sorting my clothes. The football season has officially started but the Seahawks already have too many injuries! Animals and apples in the rain at Tougas Farm:

Greetings from Tougas Farm

We went in late morning to meet Adam and Haley at Tougas Family Farm to pick apples. We went to see the goats and guineafowl, then we rode one of the tractors out to the orchard, where we picked honeycrisps and had just arrived at the ginger golds when it started to rain very heavily. We ran for the information tent along with about 50 other people until the rain let up, picked some more apples, and walked back to the center of the farm, which is having a Jimmy Buffet tribute weekend with music and nautical decorations for the end of summer.

 

We stopped at Shaw's on the way home -- it was very cold in the store because we were wet from the rain -- and put on some college football around various chores, though the main game I cared about was later (the Terps won 62-0, though that game wasn't televised here on anything we can watch). Paul made apple cider chick'n for dinner, then we watched the Red Sox-Orioles before 9 to 5, which Disney+ put into the lineup after airing it on ABC last week; I hadn't seen it since it was in the theater in the 80s and remembered none of the details!

Greetings from Phillipston

We had absolutely perfect weather on Saturday. We thought we were going to Gloucester for a festival and to meet a friend I haven't seen since high school, but it turned out he had relatives visiting and I had the wrong day for the event, so instead of the long drive east, we went to Red Apple Farm for their sunflower festival. There were, as expected, two big fields of sunflowers, and also early apples and pumpkins, live music on multiple stages, local craft tents, apple cider donut sundaes, bees and finches in the flowers, and goats, donkeys, and bunnies out greeting visitors while begging for food.

 

We stopped at Shaw's on the way home, then switched back and forth between the Orioles and Red Sox around dinner (they both won, though it was a near thing for the Orioles and the Sox were only up by one until the ninth). Then we watched Office Romance, the Jennifer Lopez-Brett Goldstein rom-com with a cast (Bradley Whitford, Tony Hale, Amy Sedaris, Edward James Olmos, Michelle Hurd) that's vastly better than the screenplay, but it's worth watching to hear Betty Gilpin (playing very on type) and Jodie Whittaker (very not on type) snark at everyone they come into contact with; not good if you hate cringe though!

Greetings from Goats

We had nice coolish weather on Thursday with no rain. I did exciting things like dyeing my roots and uploading photos from our 2022 Delaware beach trip that I realized from my Facebook memories never got posted when we got back. In the afternoon I watched the Good Omens third season movie with Cel and Laurie, and we ate a quick dinner so we could take a longer walk. 

Only three of us made it to my Thursday night chat group but we had a nice conversation, after which we watched another episode of Ride or Die and the start of the new season of Strange New Worlds (many fun pulp sci-fi elements and a great guest star, also in fabulous retro costume). Here are goats and their babies at Tougas Family Farm last weekend:

Greetings from Northborough

The air quality was moderate-to-fair in Worcester on Sunday, so we went out late morning to Tougas Family Farm for the blueberries we missed out on in the bad weather Saturday. We also got to see the alpaca, guineafowl, and many goats, including some of the growing babies from last time and a new one hiding in the shade in the rocks. On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods for vegan beef strips and at Shaw's for food for the week -- they already have Halloween candy on shelves.

 

We missed most of the Orioles game (another win!) but got home for nearly the entire World Cup final, including the all-over-the-place halftime show; I was rooting for Argentina, well, for Messi, but that was an exciting game. After dinner we talked to Daniel and watched the season finale of The Vampire Lestat, which apart from way too many commercials did not disappoint! The entire cast is excellent, the abuse storylines are addressed as such more than in the books, and I'll always love the love story.

Greetings from Hollis Hills

After two days of rain, Wednesday was a warm day. I did chores in the morning, then after lunch my usual chat with my high school friends got canceled because all the rest of them were busy with family stuff so I did some reading and wrote what was supposed to be a short Facebook post that turned into a longer blog rant. 

Kristen and Laurie and I watched some second season Good Omens, including the whole episode with Job and then Aziraphale thinking he's a fallen angel, which is my favorite of the whole series. Then we took a walk in the late afternoon and had frozen pizza for dinner during the unfortunate end of the Orioles game. 

We've been spending the evening watching the rest of the second season of The Agency, which has been excellent, although I wanted more Fassbender and Turner-Smith; the cast is all superb, it's surprisingly emotional for a spy story, there's no contemporary BS politics. From last weekend, animals and scenery at Hollis Hills Farms:

Greetings from Tougas Farm

It was hot but gorgeous out on Saturday, so after some chores and lunch, we went to Tougas Family Farm in Northborough because we had seen online that they had some animals and strawberry picking. It was hard to tell from the web site how big the farm is -- it also has a big farm store, a beer garden, hayrides to the orchard -- and there's a huge goat area that straddles the playground with an overhead walkway, goat hobbit hole enclosures, and a barn where six newborn goats were hanging out with their moms. They also have apple cider donuts, which we got in a sundae with caramel, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. 

 

We stopped at Trader Joe's and Shaw's on the way home to get various things for the week, had Mediterranean food for dinner, and watched the Orioles' not-great game against the Padres (I don't care that they lost, but there was some ugly HBP tit for tat). We took a late walk when the temperature was finally cooler, which perhaps is why we saw nine bunnies -- they've been hiding during the heat of the day -- and we've been spending the evening watching the end of Discovery season two; I thought it was just sexism making the internet say that Burnham cries every episode, but boy, they weren't kidding. I don't hate it but it feels like fan fiction.