Early this morning, Jeanine spotted a raccoon climbing the oak tree next to our house. Given their ubiquity, it is odd that we see them so rarely. Nestled 30 feet up in the tree, he viewed me as a curiosity rather than a threat, allowing me to take a rather nice portrait.

For the fourth time, Nico will captain the US National Amputee Soccer team at the Amputee World Cup. Once the young buck, he played his first World Cup in 2014. Now among the older members of the just-named 2026 squad, he brings a wealth of experience and maturity to the role. There is no doubt that this is the strongest team that the US has ever fielded. It remains to be seen, however, if they have gained ground on the rest of the world when they take the pitch this November in Mexico.

Our neighborhood features common ground and amenities that are shared by all. Today, Dave, a new neighbor, and I volunteered to replace the backboard and height-adjustable mounting bracket for our basketball court. The project took just over 2 hours and was complicated by the fact that the mounting system was designed to attach to a 3 1/2″ round pole rather than the existing 4″ square pole. We figured out an adaptation that required some machining of the existing bracket, necessitating a return home to utilize my drill press. Despite several other challenges along the way, we were quite pleased with the finished result. We set the height to an intermediate level since most of the kids in the neighborhood are still quite young. Too low, and we figured it would be a temptation for teenagers to hang from.

Nicolai is an assistant coach for the Lexington High School Men’s Varsity Soccer Team, and I photographed the team today at his request. Having done this last year, I applied the lessons I learned and set up something of a production line to speed up the process and achieve better consistency. Gusting winds wreaked havoc with my light stand-mounted softboxes, and I had to use athletic tape to keep them from pivoting off-axis. If asked to do this again next year, I will use a more robust stand. All things considered, I am happy with the results. The full set can be found here.

Astronomically, today is the last full day of summer with cool nights and brisk mornings already upon us. It is the start of my favorite time of year, and I am looking forward to fall color. On the subject of color, I found these flowers in our front yard, just screaming for attention and was happy to oblige them with a photo.

On an unrelated note, I came across the graphic below, which shows the distribution of street orientations relative to compass headings across various cities. Of this group, only Charlotte has a less chaotic street orientation than Boston. For years, I believed the myth that the layout of Boston streets could be traced to early cow paths that later became horse paths and then carriage paths and so on. Recently, I learned that Boston’s street tangle actually traces back to the first settlers claiming where they wanted to live and treating street planning as an afterthought, hilly topography, and the merging of old towns. Personally, I think the cow path theory paints a more vivid picture.

I was up at 5 am this morning to begin my pre-soccer-match ritual for an 8:30 am away game kick-off in Medfield, a good 45-minute drive from here. I was treated to a sublime sunrise for my effort. The match was our most challenging so far this season, but we still managed a 2-0 win. I had 3 shots on goal, all on frame, but none were good enough to beat the keeper. After our aprés at the Noon Hill Grill, I passed by and then stopped to photograph the Peak House, a town of Medfield historical gem, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

When I returned home, I collapsed for a 2-hour nap, took a long, hot shower, and spent the rest of the day in my bathrobe doing little else except wondering why a near-68-year-old man still thinks playing soccer is a good idea.

The Men’s National Amputee Soccer Team is in town for an exhibition match at Gillette Stadium this evening. We hosted a breakfast for the team this morning, timed to coincide with the Arsenal vs. Brighton Premier League soccer match. Unfortunately, Nico will not be playing due to an injury he sustained while playing in Guatemala.

Last winter, I had to climb up onto the roof after a heavy snowfall to repair the exhaust vent for our kitchen cooktop. The weight of the snow had begun to push it over. Today, I fashioned and installed a permanent solution using aluminum tubes and special cleats designed for clamping to an aluminum standing-seam roof. I am confident that this configuration will stand up to any amount of snowfall. With every passing year, I am less enamored with climbing onto the roof and wisely elected to have Jeanine steady the ladder for me.

It has been several years since I played tennis, and I can’t believe how much the rackets have changed. I gotta say, I am feeling pretty confident about my next match.

This morning, Jeanine spotted a trio of deer feeding across the river from our house. One was unique in appearance, and we later learned that it is a piebald deer. These deer are affected by a rare, inherited genetic condition that causes a patchwork of white and brown fur instead of a normal solid brown coat. This unique coloring results from a lack of pigment cells in specific areas of the deer’s skin and hair during development. Unlike true albinos, piebald deer typically retain normally colored brown eyes, dark noses, and dark hooves. In addition to their distinct markings, the underlying genetic mutation can sometimes lead to structural abnormalities, such as short legs or a curved spine.

When Jeanine left the house for a morning walk, she encountered a charming guest traversing our driveway. The security system for our house includes seven surveillance cameras, which may one day serve their intended purpose. To date, they act as our network of nature cams, and I was able to quickly locate our morning visitor.

A few days ago, a neighbor posted a nighttime video of a bobcat on her property. Perhaps one day, it will visit us as well.

Built in our little town of Concord over 350 years ago is the Orchard House, so named for the 40 apple trees that once grew on the property. It was home to the Alcott family, who lived here from 1858 to 1877. One of the daughters, Louisa May Alcott, sat in one of the rooms of the home at a half-moon desk where she wrote the famous novel Little Women, a semi-autobiographical tale of her childhood with her sisters. The home played a large part in the American philosophy of transcendentalism. Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a philosopher and educator who joined the transcendental movement with scholars like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In 1879, Bronson Alcott helped fulfill his progressive education goals by founding the Concord Summer School of Philosophy and Literature and constructing a dedicated wooden building for the school on the Orchard House property.

It has been more than twenty years since I last visited, and I was wondering if I would find any changes. I did not, which I suppose is the whole point of historical preservation.

Last night, I drove back from Schenectady, NY, after my high school reunion, arriving home just after midnight and racking up a total of 7 hours of driving for the day. Completion of the journey required a significant infusion of caffeine in the form of Coca-Cola. While this allowed me to stay awake for the drive, it also caused me to wake up at 3 am, not the best way to start the morning on a match day. I reported to the field at 7:30 am and managed to keep my sleep deprivation from affecting my play. We managed to secure a 3-0 win over Raynham who we defeated in last season’s championship match. I had planned to take a team photo after the game, but rain thwarted that plan. Instead, I am posting the team photo I took after last year’s final.

When it became obvious that taking a class photo inside the venue for our Mont Pleasant High School Class of 1976 50th reunion would be impossible, everyone moved outside. Even then, a photo taken from ground level would have left anyone not in the front row mostly obscured. It occurred to me that an aerial photo might offer the best option. I grabbed my drone from the car, only to discover that it is impossible to get 50+ people to look into the sky at the same time when they would rather be catching up with friends they have not seen in 50 years. I took several photos and a video, hoping that at least one would flatter everyone.

There was a time when this trio of former high school wrestlers struck fear in the hearts of opposing teams. To my left is John Conway, AKA “Chopper,” whom I have not seen in 50 years, and to his left, my good friend Tom Metzold. I drove to Schenectady, NY, this morning ahead of my 50-year high school reunion, and Tom drove down from Lake George to meet with John and his sister, Cathy, who arranged the gathering. We spent hours strolling down memory lane. Between the three of us, we were able to pool our recollections to reconstruct events that would otherwise be lost to time. John, now retired, spent much of his career as a distinguished wrestling coach and referee.

After our visit, I had about an hour to kill before the reunion, so I made a quick tour of the Empire State Aerosciences Museum which was in the vicinity.

I will leave it as an exercise in imagination as to how I captured the Concorde Airliner pictured above in mid-flight.