Time Travel.

4-22-24 SHORT HILLS: I’ve had the sensation of time travel before going from VT to NJ during the spring. We left VT on a cold morning with snow in the forecast for next week, and came back to NJ with flowers open, trees with new leaves, bees in the apple blossoms, birds busy in the yard, the grass mowed. It’s morning in early spring and afternoon in mid-May. 

In VT we put away the snow shovels. Uncovered Judy’s florist cart and moved it up to the deck, and put the tarp away, met with the solar people, had dinner at Cloudland Farm with Shari and Dave, also had dinner with Cousin John at a tapas place in Woodstock [not great].  

Here, I took a load of bamboo cuttings to the dump, cleaned the driveway drain, wound the clocks, filled the feeders. There is much yard work to do. 

New blooms: VT forsythia, NJ Kwansan cherry, red bud, sweet woodruff, Korean spice viburnum, nannyberry viburnum.

Noah Kahan gear for sale at Coburn's General Store.

Tees and Sweats both available.

The Cusp of Spring.

4-18-24 VERMONT: There’s been melting here. The ice is gone. The snow is gone except for the piles under the eaves, which will probably last until May. The grass is green in a few spots. Perennials, some of them, are visible and a inch or two tall. Maple trees, hellebores, snowdrops, crocus are in bloom. The rose bushes have buds and a few very small leaves.

I saw two robins working the lawn, and a Phoebe catching some bug over the pond A pair of common mergansers were on the pond when we arrived, but the dogs chased them away. . 

Yesterday was in the fifties, but today we had intermittent, light rain. Next week, it may snow.  

Same Sun people will be here tomorrow AM for some final instructions.

The leading edge of spring has a foot in the door of April and will burst into the yard with warmth, color, aroma and bird song soon.

New blooms: hellebore, crocus. 

One of a pair of robins so it must be spring.

Common mergansers, the male is white with a dark green head, and the female grey with a red-brown head, both wear mullets.

Still snow to go, a good long, warm rain will do the job.

Hellebores just out from under the snow.

I saw this Pro-Choice ad in the New Yorker and was struck that the woman in Jail is also a uterus, Fallopian tubes and ovaries. Brilliant.

New Grill, New Blooms.

4-15-24 SHORT HILLS: The Weber Grill has been used a few times and has not caught fire, so we are reassured that steaks and chops lie in the future. 

Yesterday we had brunch in the city with Roger and Helaine, Paul was not available, but we spoke this morning. The day before we were in the city and saw Gardner, Anna and Emmett, now almost six months old. 

If yesterday was May, today is June, before these last two, it was March. There has been plenty of rain, and everything is opening and greening on schedule. I spent a little time outside today taking dead fall off shrubs.

The birds have paired up, are in song all day, and are gobbling up everything I put out. Vermont later this week.  

New blooms: apple, barberry, blueberry, Chinese snowball viburnum, dogwood. 

The daffodils keep coming out.

Me and Emmett, each of us curious about the other.

Red bird in the southern magnolia.

Valerie and her friend Nancy were at the Vermont house for the eclipse. Nancy, who is an excellent photographer, took this sunrise. The ice is gone and the snow is going.

Another one of Nancy's the upper pond. [Thanks Nancy and Val.]

Eclipse and Magnolia.

4-9-24 SHORT HILLS: Yesterday was the big solar eclipse, which went by our neighborhood in the afternoon. We were in the 90% range, so we got a toenail paring, but no darkness, no stars, the birds and dogs behaved normally. The dogs slept, the birds were at the feeders. It got dusky and cool, the temp dropped 10°. After a few hours, we were back to normal. 

Valerie went to Vermont for a taste of totally in Burlington. She and Nancy drove up in the morning and went to the airport for viewing, music, food, bathrooms after strolling the city. 

Today was close to 80°, June-like in early April, the flowers seem way ahead of schedule. The Yoshino cherry and saucer magnolia are out. [I just checked and last year they were out at the same time.]   

Today we bought a new outdoor grill, a Weber, to replace the one that replaced the previous one that was burnt up in a fire. Yesterday the new one caught fire, on first use, so it’s going on the garbage heap.

New blooms: saucer magnolia, clatonia, more daffodils. 

About max for us that grin at the bottom of the solar disc slowly moved to the right. It was dark and cool at this point.

A little of the magnolia.

More of the magnolia.

Yoshino cherry tree makes a lot of fruit that the birds eat.

Red Bird visits often, usually with the missus.

Earthquake Shakes Thing Up.

4-6-24 SHORT HILLS: I forgot to mention our earthquake yesterday. It lasted about ten seconds. I was walking upstairs, and the second floor of the house was moving much more than the first. After it settled down, I walked around an found that nothing had so much as fallen off a shelf. At first we weren’t sure that if was an earthquake and not just a heavy truck rumbling by.

An earthquake was confirmed by news media and the local PD. The epicenter was in Whitehouse Station, NJ—magnitude 4.8, 2.9 miles below the surface, 23 miles west of us at 10:23 AM.

The epicenter of the quake in red and our house in blue.

The Ramapo Fault system runs near the epicenter, although that fault system has not been well-connected to earthquakes that have occurred near by. The quake was felt from Baltimore to Boston. An aftershock early this morning at 6 AM was of 2.5 magnitude, but we didn’t feel it. Dozens of minor aftershocks of magnitude 1-2 have occurred. Yesterday evening a larger aftershock, magnitude 3-4, occurred at about 6 PM. Wikipedia has excellent discussions of the Geology of this area.

Otherwise we had a visit from Lily and Danna this morning after they dropped Danna’s family at Newark Airport. Yesterday we had dinner with Alan. And tomorrow we have brunch in NYC with Richard and Elaine. 

NJ-NY showing the Ramapo Fault and sub-faults.

NJ-NY earthquake locations and the Ramapo Fault in green. Both these illustrations are from Wikipedia.

Soggy cold April.

4-5-24 SHORT HILLS: The weather has been rainy and cool, daily highs about 50, but the parade of flowers continues. The yard is littered with branches and gum balls again.

I had an cardiac ablation for the tachycardias a week ago with no recurrences since. I’m off the beta-blocker and back on an ARB for the blood pressure control. Judy is getting a two week cardiac rhythm monitoring because she had an episode of fast heart beats that woke her up a few mornings ago. There have been none since the first episode.

Judy has been filling holes and bald spots in the lawn and seeding them, the birds are interested.

New blooms: Yoshino cherry, pear, pulmonaria, purple lamium, violet, early azalea.

Judy's new bed array. Every night I look forward to a warm, toasty nap.

Snow, Solar, Crocus.

3-27-24 SHORT HILLS: Our trip home last Friday was uneventful. It did storm here on Saturday and Sunday. We got a ton of rain, but Thetford and the Connecticut Valley got almost two feet of snow. Our cautious decision was the right one.

The solar panels were installed while we were there. Same Sun of VT put them up and connected them to Green Mountain Power, and we are running on sun power and send excess to the grid.

NJ is way ahead of VT in spring openings. The grass is green, all the early plants are flowering. The gardeners were here to do the clean up, but a new crop of sweet gum balls has fallen.

We hung the pocket watch trade sign in the pantry entry. It looks great. 

The birds have been very active and emptied the feeders over night.

New blooms: forsythia, Andromeda, daffodil, pachysandra, vinca, pussy willow, marsh marigold, cherry, quince.  

The time is corrrect twice a day.

From neighbors Steve and Diana during the storm.

New solar panels on the roof. The goldens seem pleased.

No snow here, as yet, but we have crocus.

Red Maple is why I'm sneezing all day.

New Storms.

3-21-24 VERMONT: I have always said that March is a winter month in Vermont. Last night we got about three inches of new snow. Today the sun is out and some of the new snow will melt. The upper pond has melted a lot of its ice cover. 

But another storm is predicted for Friday night to Saturday, and it may deliver 9 - 12 inches of new snow. We were planning to come back to NJ on Saturday, but will now travel on Friday to avoid the storm. 

Here's how things look this morning.

More new snow and the opening upper pond.

Chilly Vermont.

3-19-24 VERMONT: We came up on Saturday. It was a fairly pleasant day, but has gotten progressively colder since. Today there was a snow flurry early, and now we have sun and 30° temps and wind. The snow is largely gone, what remains are the piles under the eaves and the plowed and shoveled piles. The ponds are still frozen, but the upper pond had melted around the edges as of yesterday, but is re-frozen today. Snowdrops are in bloom in several spots, daffodil shoots and day lilies are up about an inch. Spring is arriving, but very slowly.

Same Sun of VT is here today installing the solar panels on the roof of the old house. The panels were delivered yesterday, 23, 2 X 4 foot panels, which will cover that roof except for the spot where the bathroom vent exits the roof. 

We also have to have more work done on the furnaces—an ongoing project. 

Diana and Steve are coming for dinner tonight, and we have dinners out scheduled with John and with Shari and Dave. All before we go back to NJ this weekend. 

I rescued one of the game cams from the pasture where it had been since last summer. It was busy taking pics of deer, turkeys, foxes, horses, a couple neighborhood dogs since last August but no bears, moose or wildcats.

New blooms: snowdrops, maple trees. 

It's sugar season, and Steve has buckets on all the maples.

Turkeys in February out for a snowy walk.

Foxy friend on a hazy day.

A big patch of snow drops. The yellow stalks have just melted out from the snow.

Blanca was in the pond for a short swim. Both the air and water temps are in the thirties. This little pond always melts out early.

Judy walking the dogs.

Solar panels getting an install.

A Taste of May.

3-14-24 SHORT HILLS: It’s Pi Day, and Judy informs me, Albert Einstein’s birthday. I started the day with an attack of vertigo, a first for me. Is it the first sign of some new, dread disease or just because I’ve got a stuffy nose?   Time will tell, I guess. It happened just after I awoke, but was still lying on my back in bed. I felt like the bed was suddenly standing on end and I was sliding off onto my head. I knew I wasn’t moving and after several seconds it was gone, but recurred when I sat up and again when I stood up. There were a couple brief further episodes, but nothing for several hours. Is that the end, or will it be back?

We were in NYC to visit Emmett on Sunday. He is Growing and Developing. His parents were there also. We had dinner with Bill, and he was here to visit a couple of days ago in the afternoon. We sat outside in the sun. Last night we had dinner with Bette and Lonnie. This weekend we go to VT for the week and for the solar panels installation.

This week the weather has been like May. Daffodils and crocuses are open, the elm trees and maple trees are in bloom, a cherry tree has huge pink buds. Vinca is in flower. Next week though is forecast to be back in February.   

The birds have been eating tons of sunflower seeds and suet blocks. We have lots of house sparrows and house finches this spring, but not so many grackles. The juncos have moved on.

Vinca minor flower cluster.

Emmett learning to point.

March First.

3-2-24 SHORT HILLS: It’s cold and rainy today. The snow is gone. The early shrubs show the beginnings of leaves. I always feel that March 1 is the end of winter even though we have had huge snow storms in March and even in April. There are less than three weeks until the Equinox, and next weekend is the start of Daylight Savings Time. 

I drove to The Home Depot a few days ago to get bird seed and suet feeders. I used the shopping cart instead of my cane, which worked out well. It’s a big store, and I did more walking than I anticipated, but that’s good. 

We are both still very despondent about the loss of Maizie, but struggle on. Keeping busy is the best diversion. We had dinner at Bill and Lynn’s yesterday.

At the feeders, grackles and red-winged blackbirds have arrived. Robins are patrolling the yard. Finches are developing summer plumage. They are all eating a lot of seeds. 

I saw this dove, and a second one, a few mornings ago in the elm tree out of the bedroom window. They looked huge up in the tree, far higher than my window. I couldn't tell what species they were until I got pix to enlarge.

The second dove.

Maizie.

2-20-24 SHORT HILLS: Maizie died today. 

Two days ago she was frolicking in the snow with Blue looking like a puppy. She was the alpha from the moment she walked into our house eleven years ago. Whenever I came home, she was at the front door to welcome me back, pressing against my leg and howling for joy. Nobody else ever showed a drop of that kind of enthusiasm for me.

For ten years she was a therapy dog working with Judy visiting hospitals and schools. She met hundreds, maybe thousands, of people and left each of them feeling a little happier.  

We have had many dogs and many favorites over the years, but Maizie was at the top of the list.

We are very sad.

White and Cold II.

2-13-24 SHORT HILLS: Just when we thought winter was over, we got a ton of wet snow. They predicted this almost to the last flake, but I discounted the prediction as ‘forecaster-hysteria’. It has stopped by mid-afternoon, and the trees are starting to shed the snow. 

Yesterday I got the pool cover pump going to drain a big load of rain water, and I saw snowdrops about to open and snowflakes coming up, it was in the fifties. Today it’s in the twenties with a load of white stuff. Winter is back.

Judy was outside with the dogs a few times taking pix. There’s eight inches of wet snow and it’s cold, but there very little wind. I don’t see any damage at this point, but the problems may show up later. 

On Sunday we were in Brooklyn to see Lily and Danna’s new apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It’s just beautiful—roomy, bright, light, airy. Valerie’s fam was there along with Alison, Anna, Gardner and Emmett.   

Maizie taking a snow break.

Blue and Maizie checking out the snow depth on the table.

Maizie napping.

All four dogs trying out the snow.

Maizie on a visit to a Seton Hall pap rally.

Snowdrops open early, before the snow.

Anna and Emmett in sweaters that she knitted!

Me and Emmett.