Summer Scenes

After defending her thesis in June, Reeti found herself with some free time on her hands, and happily occupied her days for several weeks painting and enjoying other indulgences. At one point she famously proclaimed "I'm too busy to go back to work."

In Minneapolis, waiting to hitch a ride on the lightrail to the airport. Shruti on her way back to NYC. Reeti and me on our way to Singapore to visit Ma and Pa.

Back in Rochester at Oxbow Park with friends Aina and Animesh and an ocean of Black-Eyed Susans...

Another prairie favorite, the Purple Cone Flower...

Reeti with a couple of American bison (or buffalo) -- a male and a calf -- which used to roam the plains of North America by the hundreds of millions before they were nearly hunted to extinction at the turn of the 19th century.

Also taken at Oxbow Park, the haze reminds me about how humid it was at the time. On our way home there was fog forming in the creek beds. Pretty, but best enjoyed from the comfort of an air-conditioned car.

Reeti getting to know my sister's new baby, Grace, who is already adored by everyone in the family.

Reeti looking very picturesque with Gracie's older brother Will, at my Grandmother's funeral a couple weeks ago in Illinois.

Mum is becoming famous

Blueberry picking in Wisconsin

My roommate, Calvin, invited Dan and I to their annual Behling Blueberry Bash.  Their family owns 140 acres (!) of land in Alma Center, Wisconsin, which is about 2.5 hours from Rochester. Part of their land is used to grow corn and part of it is kept woodsy, so they can go hunt deer and ducks.

We arrived on Friday night and camped out on a hill.  At 6 am the next morning we made our way over to a blueberry farm and started picking. Dan and I picked 13 pounds of blueberries just between the two of us - and that doesn't count all the ones we had already eaten!

 Up to 3000 come to this blueberry farm a season

That's Calvin. 

The rest of the day we just lazed around, stuck our feet in a small pond they had made, and read books on their self-made "beach."  It was so remote and quiet we could see the milky way at night! There was no running water or electricity, but Calvin's father made us some baileys, blueberry, ice-cream shakes with a gas powered weed-whacker they had converted into a blender. Delicious.  We sat around a campfire and they put some eerie Montana wood on the fire - it burns blue and green, like something out of a fantasy novel.

Later that night they had all their family over (like 40 people) and we finally got to eat a giant 90-pound pig they had roasted for 11 hours. Yum.  

Apparently people really do put an apple in the pig's mouth.