Now It's Warm Again.

12-4-12 SHORT HILLS: We came back to NJ on Sunday, driving through dense fog that gradually lightened up as we got further and further south. By mid afternoon, we were back here and the sun was out and it was warm enough to hose the Vermont mud off the Subaru.

Yesterday it was in the sixties and pleasant outside in shirtsleeves. That last snow was completely gone, and I did the clean up. A few bamboo stalks were broken by the storm, and I cut down a sprawling dead yew tree and the remnant of a dead rhododendron. All of it went to the dump in one big carload. Today is another warm one as we close in on the winter solstice. The xmas tree, a balsam fir, seems happy in the living room.

The NYT reported yesterday that the atmospheric CO2 levels were up significantly in 2011 and will also be so for 2012.


How to deal with temps in the teens, the hood is off only for the pic by phototog Judy.

Mt. Moosilauke looking quite white on top.

Flurries.

12-1-12 VERMONT: It has been snowing almost continuously since we’ve been here, but no more than a couple inches of actual accumulation. It was quite cold, but is warming up tonight and tomorrow is supposed to be way above freezing with rain. We will be on the road back to NJ.

Last night we saw an excellent performance of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ at Thetford Academy, with a neighbor in the cast. Today, after a dump run, we went to a cut-yer-own xmas tree farm in Lyme, NH and cut our own holiday tree. It’s tied to the top of the Subaru for the run to NJ. Tonight we had dinner at Salubre in a very, very quiet Hanover.


Lafayette and Lincoln the White Mts, looking very white.

Ducks, enjoying the snow, on the unfrozen Connecticut River near Lyme, NH.

The Cold Returns.

11-29-12 VERMONT: We arrived yesterday afternoon under overcast skies with temps in the thirties. All the ponds on the road are frozen. There were pockets of snow in the hollows of the pasture, and more now since we had a dusting of snow late last night. Today is quite wintry with a puffy breeze, glimpses of the sun, and the thermometer edging up from the teens to just above freezing. More snow is predicted for tonight.

The dogs are having fun running around the pasture, sniffing the deer poop and playing ball-toss. We walked around with them but were glad to get back inside to huddle by the fire. It takes some exposure to the cold to get used to it as each new winter season starts. I seem to be less tolerant of it than I once was.

The house was in a bit of disarray when we arrived—gremlins or hobbits or students had been here and left the heat on in part of the house and a few lights lit.


We hadn't been here for a month or so, and the neighbors were curious when we arrived.

The mid-afternoon sun is already near the horizon.

Wet Snow.

11-27-12 SHORT HILLS: More weather today. We’re getting a couple inches of wet snow, the temp is just above freezing and there is no wind at all, only silent snow. Snow is a nuisance, injures shrubs and trees, needs shoveling and plowing, causes accidents and makes walking treacherous. Nevertheless, it is beautiful when freshly fallen.

Vermont tomorrow.


A little red in the white.

More of the white.

Clinging wet snow coats every branch.

Beware of the Ball, Gustavo.

11-25-12 SHORT HILLS: It’s cold again and windy, and we have a nightly frost. There are still a couple tattered looking roses hanging on.

Judy, Alan and I went to the opera last night. After a excellent feed at Café Fiorello, we crossed Lincoln Square to the Met and heard the new production of ‘Un Ballo in Maschera’ by Verdi. The new production, modern dress with images of Icarus, falling from the sky with melting wings, shown in almost every scene has had mixed reviews. I liked it, Judy didn’t. The orchestra and singers were excellent, no controversy there. Conductor Fabio Luisi and soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, as Amelia, we thought, were especially deserving of the standing O that they got.

More on the Storm.

11-21-12 SHORT HILLS: Our clean up from TS Sandy is done, but many in town are still working on it. The sides of the streets are still littered with cut up trees and broken utility poles. The shore areas are still disaster zones.

The beachfront towns are, for the most part, built on barrier islands. These islands are constructed by tidal action and made out of the beach sand. Their continued existence depends on a stable sea level, but the sea level is rising because of the continuing climate change. The carbon dioxide [CO2] atmospheric concentration is going to rise further and cause greater increases in global warming and higher sea levels unless the increased consumption of fossil fuels is frozen immediately. Good luck with that.

This catastrophic storm offers a preview of what will ultimately happen to the shoreline in the future. The barrier island will be taken down, rebuilt off the new shoreline, and then re-moved and rebuilt again and again. This environment is not going to be stable, and building there is a high-risk undertaking. Society will not be willing to subsidize those risks very long. It is a financial loss for the second-home folks, but disaster for the full-time people.

Typically, there is a shallow bay behind the barrier islands. During this last storm, and others, the ocean and bay, in various places, were connected by the high water.

The pix below were posted on the web, and I got them in an email. They are from Wildwood, NJ, a southern coastal resort near Ocean City, NJ.


Shark swimming near porch during Sandy, Wildwood, NJ.
Another view of shark in town.

Attempt at a closer look. The photo, taken from an email, isn't big enough to get much detail.

More Clean Up.

11-18-12 SHORT HILLS: There was a frost this morning, but by midday it was in the fifties. I was outside for the first time in two days after a nasty, but short cold. I continue to turn big sticks into little ones by breaking them up. If they lie flat on the ground, the grass covers the sticks, and they slowly disintegrate, adding to the organic layer of the soil. The large ones go off to the dump.

The largest of the branches we lost was about eight inches in diameter and a couple others were not quite as big. Those I cut up and left where they were after freeing anything they had pinned down. There’s only one more load to go to the dump tomorrow, and then we are officially cleaned up. That will happen just in time for me to bake a pecan pie for Thanksgiving.


This photo came in an email, two albino moose, wow.