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i woke up early to go next door to buy some groceries to make sandwiches for lunch. bruce and i were going naturing at world's end in hingham, a place that i've often heard renata raving about and figured i'd like to see it for myself. bruce came by around 10am, and we drove down south on the I-93-of-death. our big concern was the weather, after several days of rain, we were worried that maybe it'd start pouring again. although quite visible on a map, world's end is nearly hidden, no signs tell you about its location until you actually get there. admission for non-members is $4.50/person, we paid our way in and found parking.

we walked around admiring the scenery, from tree-lined walking paths, to ocean views (with boston in the far distance), to green pastures, and rocky shores. because it was a weekday and because the sky threatened rain, there weren't a lot of people around, we only saw a handful, including a woman jogger and an old man with a fishing pole. at one point a red-tailed hawk flew right above us a few feet away, gracefully swooping across the sky and then disappearing.


tree-lined paths

ocean view

boston in
the distance

green fields

rocky shores...

...lined with
seashells

like in the woods of vermont, there were a lot of mushrooms to see. having spent all of last weekend photographing fungi though, i was pretty jaded, and only stopped to admire the truly impressive specimens.


mushroom button

(finger comparison)

silver-bordered
fritillary

spider crab (legs)

dalmation moths

treehopper

the shores were lined with broken mussel shells. occasionally we'd find small grey crabs underneath rocks, and one time we saw the siphon of a buried clam poking out of the beach mud. we also saw cracked shells of bigger crabs, even the shell of a horseshoe crab. a large fishing lure floated by the water, i tried imagining the fisherman who used and what kind of big fish s/he was trying to catch.


spider crab
(carapace)

wood nympth

netwing

juniper

the most interesting insect we saw all day was the hummingbird moth. insect mimicry is amazing, whether it's when they look like inanimated objects to blend into the background through camouflage, or when one insect mimic another insect, but how often do you see an insect mimic a completely different animal outside of its own phylum, in this case a hummingbird? i think it's probably a result of convergent evolution than some sort of survival benefit to pretending to be a hummingbird.

hummingbird moth

we had lunch on a park bench on top of a hill overlooking the ocean with a nice view of boston. there was a bit of drizzle, but it soon disappeared. we walked down to the shore and looked around some more, before trekking uphill through dense forest growth, trying to find the trail we were on before. bruce was afraid of all the poison ivy, i was afraid of stepping on snakes (even though i didn't see any). eventually we broke our way out of the thicket and back onto the path. that when i noticed my umbrella, previously hanging from my bag, was missing. i headed back into the forest to try and find out but soon gave up, nature claims another one of my material possessions (like it did when i was in southern turkey, the sea took my snorkeling mask).

we ran into a patch of milkweed, which bruce inspected quickly before spotting a very small monarch caterpillar. we pulled off the leave it was living on so i could bring it home and have my own monarch butterfly growing kit. we walked back to the car, and returned via I-93-of-death, getting a cheap thrill when we went under boston traveling on the liberty tunnel. when we made it back to cambridge, i grabbed an empty jar from my house and bruce helped me to nail breathing holes into the lid. we put some water in the bottom of the jar (not too much, or the caterpillar could drown in it, the water's to keep the leaf from wilting) and then put the leaf with the caterpillar into its new home. i checked up on junior jr., now a fatty caterpillar, days away from chrysalis stage.

later in the evening i went over to susan and dennis' place, just having returned the previous day from a vacation in hawaii. bruce and jack were invited as well, we were treated to some food and drinks, as well as gift hawaiian shirts. after 2 hours worth of conversation, i went back home, where andrew and maura were already there. i made some soup from a can for dinner and ate in my bedroom watching boy meets boy and queer eye.

the pixies - gigantic


tree-lined paths

ocean view

boston in
the distance

green fields

rocky shores...

...lined with
seashells

hummingbird moth

the pixies - gigantic