11-9-25 VERMONT: I woke up early this morning, before the sun, and yet things seemed very bright. A glance outside showed me a November surprise—an inch of snow. It’s in the mid-thirties and raining now, so the snow will be melting soon. The first snow is beautiful. By January, it’s not beautiful, it’s a pain. We go back to NJ tomorrow and normal November weather.
11-7-25 VERMONT: We’re back in VT, and it’s noticeably colder, down to 23° last night. The leaves are almost all down, the grass is still green and the little pond was ice covered this morning. That pond, the upper one, is now back to half full, the lower pond is full and not yet frozen.
Lafayette is snow covered, and Moosilauke has snow on the north peak. Today it’s in the forties and the high winds from yesterday are gone. The sky is overcast. The horses are getting furry.
I have been doing more chores. The last hose is put away, the outside water is off. Bed borders are put away. The furnace intake is winterized. The plumber was here this morning and repaired several faucets and snaked the slow drains.
We have dinner with cousin John tonight, and tomorrow with Shari and Dave.
In bloom: last aster, witch hazel, forget-me-not, fever few.
11-5-25: SHORT HILLS: Wow!! Election Day was yesterday, and we were very, very pleased with the results. If anyone is not aware, the Dems cleaned up, electing Spanberger, Sherrill, and Mamdani and winning many smaller races, including the California proposition to redo their Congressional districts. In NJ the Assembly will be more than two/thirds Democratic.
It was a repudiation of Trump’s policies and actions over the past year. His administration is sexist, racist, bullying, abusive, mendacious, viciously retributive, disregarding of the Constitution, extortive, features thievery and thuggery. He has torn up the White House. He has murdered people in boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, all that in less than one year. I haven’t forgotten about the tariffs, the bailout of Argentina. Do you think that he has some big investment in Argentina, a golf course, maybe?
I can’t wait for the mid-terms next year. Millions of Americans are being hurt by the inflation and soaring health care expenses that he has ignored, as he has ignored the government shut-down.
10-30-25 SHORT HILLS: It’s another Nor’easter. The rain started during the night and, we have had two inches so far. The wind hasn’t been an issue, so far, and it’s not cold. The weather map shows plenty of storm left even though the rain has stopped for the moment.
The feeders are seeing lots of bird action including the first swarm of grackles. They travel in large packs of fifty or one hundred and descend on the feeders like a street gang and drain them in no time at all. They chase all the other birds away like a pack of bullies. I suppose I should let the birds work it out, but the grackles are too much.
Emmett’s birthday party happened last Saturday, his second BD. It was attended by many local rug rats and family from near and far. There was music, singing, dancing, painting, eating and cake decorated with train tracks and trains. There was very tasty blue icing.
I took some pix of color in the neighborhood.
10-23-25 SHORT HILLS: We did have more rain, 0.6 inches, now it’s 40° at night and 70° in the afternoon, everyday. Last weekend we had dinner with Lonnie and Bette and brunch with Elaine and Richard. We are caught up with med visits, but are still waiting for the dryer repair to be finished. Both cars have been to the car doctor.
I sat out front watching the feeders today and took new bird pix, including a flicker, who is probably passing through on his commute.
10-17-25 SHORT HILLS: The first Nor’easter has come and gone. We got a bit more than an inch of rain with some gusty wind that brought down a few branches, but was no problem for us. The coastal areas had flooding and damage. Slowly we are getting cooler, but no frost in site.
The parts for the dyer repair have arrived, and it is being fixed as I write, but not usable til next week. The water sprinklers have been shut down for the season.
We had dinner with Trina and Jeffrey earlier in the week.
As I drive around on errands, I see the fall color is getting pretty good in NJ. The exciting thing here was this afternoon, I sat down on the porch to watch the feeders and saw something white on top of a spruce tree across the street. The tree is about a hundred yards away. When I zoomed in, the white thing was a hawk. After a ton of pix, it flew away, revealing a red tail.
10-10-25 SHORT HILLS: We came back here to the chaos of failed appliances. The refrigerator had a bad piece of insulation for the freezer door. We knew about this and had tried to get a replacement, but it was a discontinued model and no parts could be found on the secondary market. It turned out to be 14 years old, but was otherwise OK. We bought a new one at Home Depot.
The clothes dryer popped a fan belt on the first run back here. So we had four repair people here on Tuesday, dryer repair, new frig installers, furnace servicing, and the sunroom window replacement. The sunroom window had rotted sills. Everybody did their jobs and by noon it was done, except for the dryer part, which is still pending, but available, we are assured.
Otherwise we have had warm weather here, sunny and in the eighties, until a recent storm that delivered a half inch of much needed rain. Since the storm it is cooler with seasonal temps, or what used to be seasonal temps. The indoor plants are all safely back inside, including the succulents and herbs.
The quince has given us two fruits, we're not sure what to do with them. The holly berries turned red almost overnight.
Anna, Gardner and Emmett were here on Sunday for their second annual trip to NJ for pumpkins to decorate their stoop back in the Village. They bought many, many pumpkins of all sizes and colors as well as squashes and mums. The visit included a petting zoo stop. The stoop looks very gorgeous and gourdy.
We had dinner with cousins Alice, Stu and Louise, and then with Bebe and Ronny.
New blooms: rosemary.
