The Road to Morocco.

3-22-14 CASABLANCA, MOROCCO: We flew in this morning via Paris with almost no issues, connected with our National Geographic guides at Le Sofitel Casablanca and immediately after checking in set out in our bus for a sea-side lunch on the Atlantic coast at a beautiful restaurant, Le Mer. Debussy was not given any credit for the name.

We finished in time for a tour of the Hassan II Mosque. It is said to be the third biggest in the world, and we believe it after seeing the gigantic space. People at one end of the prayer hall look like ants from the other end. It was built in the Twentieth Century on the Atlantic shore by the then king of Morocco and carries his name. It also has the world’s tallest minaret.

After the mosque we had a tour of the part of town that the French built for their bureaucrats, the Habous district, but is now the upscale section of town. We saw the Royal Palace and a nearby market where we sampled olives and pastries. The French were booted out in the fifties, but left their language behind, making it slightly easier for us to communicate. Back at the hotel we crashed until dinner.

Casablanca has a population of four million or so and is huge, with lots of cars and traffic. Giant flocks of satellite dishes have landed on the roofs of the city. It’s a European looking city and the people dress like Europeans except for some women in traditional Islamic gear. There are more headscarves than in Istanbul. The surrounding land is mostly flat and near sea level. The fields are all green with young crops, pastures have cattle, sheep and goats, and we saw one horse farm.

We leave in the morning for Marrakech.


The Atlantic shore and limestone bedrock for Casablanca, that's a French lighthouse on the right.

The Hassan II Mosque is built on the shore line in the 20th Century. It is the third largest in the world.

The central prayer hall has a moveable roof.

Marketplace-shoppers and arches.

Olives sell for about a dollar a pound.

There are surfers in the Atlantic by the mosque.

The aliens have landed and look just like satellite dishes. The dishes are for TV not internet.

Judy gets a henna tat.

Flash-Crocus Flower Rumored.

3-18-14 SHORT HILLS: There are still huge snow piles in the driveway and still snow cover in the yard. In places where the snow is gone the yard is turning muddy. The last few days I have been cutting down broken bamboo and hauling them to the dump. The weight of the heavy snow bent the bamboo stalks over and many snapped. I have taken away two Subaru loads and have many more to cut and haul. Fortunately there’s not a lot of other stuff to do now.

We have daffodil stalks and crocus stalks showing, and I heard a rumor of an actual crocus flower open somewhere in town.


The sunset location on the horizon is creeping northwest.

In three days, on the equinox, the set sets due west and rises due east.

Cold and Sunny.

3-16-14 SHORT HILLS: The snow continues to slowly retreat on the warmer days, of which today isn’t one. The north facing slopes are the last to melt out, getting the least sun. We have had little precip lately, which means we’ve missed the last few snowstorms. They have all slid by to our south. It has remained colder than normal for most of the month and is still wintery, and, of course, still winter for another five days.

I have been prowling around the yard, anxious for the gardening season to start, clearing deadfall from trees and shrubs, pruning broken branches and assessing the damage from this nasty winter. There’s lots of pruning to be done, especially of broken bamboo. There are broken fence rails, weighed down be snow and shrubs. I replaced two broken cellar window covers. They were probably broken by the weight of the snow load.


Red-wing blackbird, male with some brownish feathers on his back indicating that he's just becoming an adult. There's just a hint of red on the yellow epaulet.

Another male RWB hanging with a fierce looking grackle.

Young male shrub eater.

Is It Spring Yet?

3-12-14 SHORT HILLS: Three days of skiing were great. That last day it was warm, and the Dartmouth Skiway had more cars in the parking lots than I had ever seen there, but the lift lines were minimal.

The warm days were enough to get the neighbors out in the pasture and out on the road hanging sap buckets on the maple trees.
Sweetness begins.

Back in NJ the snow has been slowly retreating in the face of warm days and warm nights. Today it started raining which accelerates the melting, but tonight it gets cold again, and we get a little new snow. Vermont gets as much as a foot of new snow, but only a dusting is predicted for NJ.

While Spring is officially more than a week away, I consider it begun—we have snowdrops up! Never before have I been so glad to see the first flower.

New blooms: snowdrop.


The maple sap buckets are out. That yellow thing is a 'posted' sign.

Buckets distributors at work.

Here's that Red-wing Blackbird, an immature and/or female, showing no red and little black.

Ta-Da! Snowdrops.

Skiing.

3-6-14 VERMONT: I came north when the forecast promised warmer weather in hopes of getting in some skiing before the end of the season. Vermont is snowy again with snow in the pasture up to the bottom rail of the three-rail fence. Today was cloudless, windless and in the low twenties after a sub-zero night.

I went to the Dartmouth Skiway after some errands in the morning. The Skiway was groomed to perfection except for the trails allowed to form moguls. I was there for two hours today and hope to do more tomorrow. I was again reminded how much I enjoy sliding downhill on the snow. I can’t tolerate weather colder than today’s any more, and I am not the first one on the lift in the morning any more, and I’m not looking for steeps, powder or bumps any more, but carving turns on groomed trails is still fun.

The neighbors are getting ready for sugaring, spring must be just over the horizon.


The Dartmouth Skiway on a blue sky day.

iPhone selfie.

After Midnight.

3-3-14 SHORT HILLS: We were predicted to get another big snowstorm, but it veered off to the south, hitting Philadelphia and Washington, and leaving us with a dusting of fluff. I’m OK with no new snow.

The red-wing blackbirds must have been reading the blog because they appeared at the feeders this morning. There were three or four showing only yellow epaulets but no red.

Saturday we saw After Midnight. It’s a rollicking jazz revue featuring “The Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars”, a sixteen-member band, heavy with brass, on the stage on a bandstand that rolls out almost into the audience at some points. The band is backed up by a troupe of young singers and dancers performing about two-dozen jazz standards, mostly by Duke Ellington and Harold Arlen. The trick is to recognize the song from the verse, before the song starts. The ‘guest star’, because shows need a big name headliner, is k. d. lang, who was excellent.


Brooks Atkinson Theatre-another old theatre with gilded moldings, chandeliers and murals hidden by lights, speakers and mikes.



Dancin '

Singin'

Grackles on their Commute.

Common grackle looks like a blackbird in the shade.

But in the sun, they have an iridescence. Can you see the tongue in this shot?

All that color shows up in the light. They have a noisy raucous call and hang out in flocks, all yakking at the same time.

These birds visit in the spring and fall and are usually followed by red-winged black birds.

Female cardinal has been here all winter.