More Mud.

11-20-11 SHORT HILLS: We’re getting more rain. November is already above average for rain fall, and our very wet year continues. It is still quite warm, in the sixties again, but a colder, seasonal weather is due soon. We go to VT tomorrow.

Warm Spell.

11-27-11 SHORT HILLS: It’s been at or near sixty for the past three days and very pleasant. The yard is still muddy from the rain, but the warm spell has resulted in a bunch of wild strawberry flowers and a dandelion opening up in the lawn and a few, scattered forsythia blooms.

The forsythia are the last ones to dump their leaves, at least in this yard. With all the other deciduous plants bare, I have found lots more dead fall from the storms lying on the shrubs. The town finally got to our street to pick up the huge pile of branches, but we are still waiting for the tree people to get here for the big clean up and pruning.

New blooms: dandelion, wild strawberry, forsythia.


Forsythia always puts out a few after a warm spell in the fall.

Forsythia is one of the last to go bare and demonstrates the yellow pigment in the leaves that it shows in the flowers.

Witchhazel is a late bloomer. These small flowers become noticeable when the leaves are down. It has a cluster of three flowers, each with four petals and four of crepe-paper tentacles.

Times Square.

11-23-11 SHORT HILLS: More rain for the past three days, and it’s pretty soggy in the yard. We are still waiting for the clean-up of the broken branches. All the leaves are down, and the gutter have been blown out. I have done a bit more pruning.

We were in the city Saturday to see “Relatively Speaking”, the show with three one-act plays by Ethan Coen, Elaine May, and Woody Allen. The tunnel gods were in a benign mode, so we flew in and had time to kill in Times Square—a show of its own, including, that night, a wedding.

We enjoyed all three playlets. The Woody Allen was the funniest, a succession of one-liners, starting from the point, in a way, where “The Graduate” stopped, but with a few twists.

I got a few emails about a nice article in the Valley News about the Geology web site, link to the right.


Times Square, NYC. Noisy, Glaring, Garish, Crowded, Glitzy, Vibrant and totally Over the Top.


Perfect Place for a Wedding?

Outbid.

Laurel, a friend from the SC coast, saw my picture of the stag and raised me by three bucks.

Velvet covers the new antlers.

And a pair of bobcat kittens with three deer makes a full house.

Near Deer have no Fear.

11-16-11 SHORT HILLS: Yesterday’s sprinkles have turned into steady rain today with more rain tomorrow. It’s warm, in the fifties, the weather gods seem contrite after inflicting that disastrous storm on us.

Speaking of the storm, we are still waiting for clean up and removal by the tree care folks of the big, huge, branches in the pool, and pruning of the traumatised trees. I have removed all the stuff that I can handle and created, in the process, a huge pile of debris in the street waiting for the town to collect. Many similar piles are waiting for pick up all over town.

Our roses are still turning out red, white and pink flowers, and there are still little yellow flowers of wild strawberry in the lawn. The birds are back at the feeders in full force. We have had lots of deer activity in the yard which keeps the dogs alert.


Copper Beech turned to gold a few days ago, now the leaves are cocoa brown.

This doe was actually lying down and eating ground cover, perhaps ivy.

The stag was in the same area as the doe the next day and appeared to be eating pachysandra which would be very unusual for deer. That night I startled another deer in the same spot, but that one didn't pose for me.

Yard Work-NJ.

11-11-11 SHORT HILLS: I came down on Wednesday and spent yesterday dragging broken branches out of the yard and up to the street. Judy pitched in with the schlepping. We have an immense pile now waiting for the town to pick up or the tree folks to chip up.

But there’s more—now I can continue to cut down broken branches that I can reach and add to the pile. I sliced up a downed medium sized wild cherry yesterday. Each pruning takes broken wood off some smaller tree or shrub that has been bent over and damaged by something bigger leaning on it.

Yesterday was warm and sunny, last night cold and rainy and today cold and sunny and windy.


Burning Bush and Black Chokecherry make and red and orange sandwich.

The row of Burning Bush are quite dramatic, even to Nick.

Yard Work VI.

11-8-11 VERMONT: It was even warmer today, in the sixties. I had windows open and worked in shirt sleeves. We had sun in the morning, but it was overcast by afternoon.

I finished walking the property line and replacing ‘POSTED’ signs, while wearing my red hat. In the woods, there were hundreds of moths, I guess they were moths, that were small, light grayish-brown in color, fluttering around in swarms near the ground and seemed freshly hatched. That’s what a warm day can do. A buttercup was so pleased with the weather that is put out a couple flowers.

After the signs, I worked on the pasture fence, straightening out tired posts. I had previously cut, with the table saw, a pressure treated 2x4 into wedges. With the ground soft from the warm days, I could straighten a leaning post and hammer one of the wedges into the ground next to the post to keep it upright. It worked pretty well. NJ tomorrow.

New blooms: buttercup.


Another attempt to show the trees, fence, road and wall. Imagine that the wall will be between the trees and fence.

Buttercup liked the day.