Day 19.127: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #552

Exile #2 writes...

Woah! It was suddenly summer today. After a long, cold winter, it’s taken until now for us to consider leaving our jackets at home, but today was the day.

Now we’re sitting with the back door open and there is a cacophony of peepers (tiny noisy frogs) singing to us from the woods. We’ve got a couple of even hotter days ahead but then, this being Maine, we’ll be back down to 60 °F/15 °C again.

Our ping-pong week ahead

Day 19.126: Home and hallow

We got home around lunchtime after a hotel breakfast and a busy drive. This afternoon, we took E5N1 into Portland for hear some of his friends who are in a band play. Then, this evening, we went back to Portland for an event called hallow - an hour of ambient guitar and field recordings by candlelight. The performer was local artist David Bruggink. It was a welcome break of calm after the hours of driving. 

Day 19.125: College Grad

Today was Exile #4’s graduation from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). We had a busy day:

Exile #4 is right there - can you spot them?

Graduated!

Friends!

A pre-dinner drink at the hotel bar

Day 19.124: Rainy drive to…line dancing?!

Exile #4 and their friends had arranged a pre-graduation gathering at a line dancing club for visiting family. Exile #3 decided against it but the rest of us went and had.a great time even if the volume of the music was not conducive to actual conversation with the other family members. 

Day 19.123: Second concert of the week

This evening we drove, not into Portland or Boston but north and inland to the small town of Bridgton Maine to see David Wimbish of The Collection and Jesse James DeConto of The Pinkerton Raid play at a small venue (really just someone’s lovely home) called The Dala House. 

Jesse played first:

Then the both did a couple of songs:

And then we had a mix of old familiar songs and new songs from David:

It was a lovely evening. 

Day 19.122: Plants in the woods and birds at brunch

Here are a few more pictures from our Saturday morning nature group gathering at Evergreen Cemetery.

Norway maple in flower

Coltsfoot - not so named because of its dandelion-like seed heads

...nor for its flowers...

...but for the shape of its leaves.

The duck pond 

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Afterwards, we went to one of the home of one of the members where we had brunch together. While we were there we were visited by cedar waxwings and - surprisingly - another Lincoln's sparrow which was even more obliging than the one earlier in the morning.

Cedar waxwing

A bit of waxwing drama

And here is the Lincoln's sparrow (looking very spiffy):

Day 19.121: Silversun Pickups

Exile #2 and I had a lovely evening at the State Theatre to see Silversun Pickups. Our main connection point with them (apart from Lazy Eye - perhaps their biggest hit and the last song tonight) was the album Neck of the Woods which we listened to a lot around the time of its release. We have spent some time reacquainting ourselves of these and other parts of their back catalogue as well as their new album in preparation for tonight and I’m very glad we did. The songs are great and they were wonderful to see and hear live.