Winter Is Coming.

11-10-18 VERMONT: Anticipating bad weather, I did a long day yesterday and finished clearing the beds around the house. Shortly after dark it began to snow, we got about an inch, and now it's raining and in the forties. The twenties are predicted for tomorrow—a classic New England sequence, snow-rain-freeze-ice. I’ll go out for supplies and provisions later.


Overnight surprise.

Two red squirrels and a chickadee.

Here's how those beds looked before clean up.

Fog, rain and snow, freezing tomorrow.

Vermont Clean Up.

11-8-18 VERMONT: I’m here to do the garden clean up, I arrived on Tuesday, Election Day, I voted by mail weeks ago. Notice that I capitalized Election Day, I was very pleased with the Blue Wave, could have been better in Florida, but maybe the re-counts will help. Let the hearings begin!

The trip up in the rain was hard and slow, but the weather has been nice since. Yesterday was windy and today colder, but good working days. I did several winterizing chores yesterday before starting the clean up and continued the clean up today.

I have finished the beds between the house and the pond. Removing all the dormant stalks exposes the stonework for a visual window between now and winter. It will soon be covered with snow, and in the spring the flowers will be growing as the snow melts.

If I don’t do the clean up, the dead stalks and debris get compacted by the snow and ice, which creates a barrier for the new growth. Also some perennials, peonies and phlox for instance, get mildewed over the summer, and the dead stalks need to be removed to get rid of the fungus.

I have dumped four cartloads of debris behind the little barn in the pasture to cover a wet area. I do the same thing every year, but all the debris disappears over the winter and the spot stays wet. I think I have another three days of work, weather permitting.


The garden beds behind the house before clean up, above and below.



After clean up. I'm always surprised by the stone work, which is largely hidden by the plants in the summer and by the snow in the winter.

This window in the fall shows the walls and stairs. In the spring the plants are growing as the snow melts.

Red squirrel enjoys the bird seed that falls to the ground. He/she is very brazen, but can't get on the feeder. Pretty cute.

The Epitome of Red.

11-4-18 SHORT HILLS: November has started with afternoons in the seventies. We did have a night of rain and wind, but nothing to stop our dog walks. The foliage color here developed over night at the beginning of the month, but the windstorm has stripped many trees of the leaves. The burning bushes are the epitome of red.

A flock of, maybe, a hundred grackles has been hanging around the neighborhood and draining our feeders in record time. I hope they move on to soon where ever they go in winter.

Last night we were at NJ PAC for The Marlinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg, directed by Valery Gergliev. They did Debussy, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, and then Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op. 43 with Denis Matsuev on piano. After intermission, came Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Judy liked the first half of the program, but I preferred the Mahler, especially Part I. We ran into old friends Ivan and Puppe after the program.


Burning bush.

Maple window.

Chokecherry and burning bush provide mix of red and orange.

Elm, Norway maple and sweet gum from L to R.

A Committee of Vultures.

10-31-18 SHORT HILLS: Today was warm and sunny, but before it warmed up, early this morning, I saw two raptors in the bright blue sky. They landed in a tree top down the block. I got pix from the bedroom window. Yesterday Judy saw one in a different tree near the driveway and got an iPhone pic. All the vultures might mean that Trump is back at his golf course in Bernardsville.

The ash trees are all bare, and the black walnuts are almost there too. Some maples are in good color. The burning bushes are bright red.

New blooms: African violet [thanks, Donna].


A pair of turkey vultures in a tree about a block away from us early this morning. The lower one on the left has a dark face and the black-tipped beak of an immature bird.

A black vulture that Judy caught yesterday with her iPhone. This one was on our corner. The vultures must mean that Trump is nearby.
 
Burning bush on a sunny afternoon.

Here's the cyclamen in the sun room that I meant to post last time.

Nor'easter and Philharmonic.

10-28-18 SHORT HILLS: Last night we went to the NY Philharmonic performance as the Nor’easter was winding down. Here we got 1.4 inches of rain and gusty winds, but only small branches down in the yard. We are west of the local mountains, hills actually, but they shelter us from easterly storms.

The Phil did an all-Russian program that was very well received by the crowd that had many Russians in attendance. They did Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia from 1880, Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.1 from 1917, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4 from 1878. The Russian guest conductor, Tugan Sokhiev, is animated and enthusiastic. The violin soloist, Gil Shaham, is a New Yorker and did an encore after many curtain calls, very unusual for the NY Phil.

Today we did a dog walk with Ron and Bebe, and last week we had dinner with Mike and Marjorie.

It seems to me that there are more crazies, shooters and bombers, loose out there than ever. Has something or someone given them a sense of permission?

If you thought you were a prominent Democrat, but you didn’t get a mail bomb, you’re not on the A-list.

New blooms: cyclamen [in the sun room].


Cyclamen are blooming in the sun room. They seem to have enjoyed the outdoor summer.

We were at the NY Philharmonic last night as the Nor'easter was winding down. Here's the Met Opera with the Chagalls showing up pretty well.

Geffen Hall, née Fisher Hall, is the NY Phil hangout.

The Josie Robertson Plaza fountain between Geffen Hall and Koch Theatre. Trump doesn't have his name on any public buildings, only his commercial properties.

Nice color here on the morning dog walk.

Social Swirl.

10-21-18 SHORT HILLS: Today was another windy and cold one. Next Tuesday night in Boston looks to be cold and maybe wet for the start of the World Series.

Yesterday we drove ‘down the shore’, a Jerseyism for going to the beach, to Seaside Park to visit friends Bob and Chris, the F Street Band, and we were joined by Jo-Ann, part of the Lincoln Brigade, for dinner. Today we had brunch in NYC with Leeza and Roger. It’s been very social—last Tuesday night we had dinner with Paul and Helene, also in NYC, and Wednesday Bill and Lynn joined us at the usual place. And, next Tuesday we will see Ron and Bebe.

In the yard, all the windy weather has, predictably, caused a rain of branches to fall on the shrubs and grass. I have been picking them off the shrubs and  breaking them all into one-D pieces so they will more quickly deteriorate and become part of the organic layer of the soil. It’s also important to get them off the shrubs because the weight of the branches and the additional array acts to hold more snow on top the shrub, causing more trauma. Today it feels like snow isn’t that far away.

When it was warmer last week, the forsythia gave us a few flowers, and the roses are still making buds.

New blooms: forsythia.


Forsythia always pop open a few buds on a warm fall day after some cold weather.

We were 'down the shore' to visit friends in Seaside Park.

An immature Great Black-Backed Gull. The mature adults have a black, not brown, back and yellow beak.

Little States/Big States.

10-18-18 SHORT HILLS: At the beginning of the month, I thought October wanted to be August, but now I think she wants to be November. Today is windy and cold, but sunny for a change. The heat is on, and it’s time for the storm doors to replace the screens. Usually I do that at the end of October.

I was thinking about the Kavanaugh confirmation vote that the Yes votes won 50-48, as everyone remembers. I wondered how many people the yesses represented as compared to the noes. I looked up how each Senator voted, and what the population of each state is. If the Senators voted alike, I put the whole state population in the appropriate column. If they voted differently, I put half of the population figure on each list. I ignored the non-voting Senators. The Senators from 38 states voted together, while 12 states’ Senators split their votes.

The fifty Yes votes represented 142.97 million people, but the forty-eight No votes represented 180.98 million. As in the Electoral College, small states have more influence per capita than states with large populations.

New blooms: witch-hazel.


Witch-hazel is a delicate little flower with four ribbon-like petal and four stamens in the center. This one in NJ is just like the one that I showed a few weeks ago from VT. At the beginning of the growing season, VT lags behind NJ, but by the end VT is ahead. The plants know what to do. They learn from photo-period and/or temperature changes.

Witch-hazel back lit by the afternoon sun.

This is a real sign for a real Congressional candidate. At first I thought it was a joke. He, first name Richard, is running, not as a Dem. or Rep. or Lib., but as a fourth candidate, apparently without a party affiliation. The list of possible wisecracks if virtually endless, make up your own.