A Day at the Museum.

3-30-17 SHORT HILLS: Yesterday we went back to the Met Museum to catch up with new exhibits. It was rainy here, and I needed a break from all the clean up work. The first show we went to was the ‘Golden Kingdoms…Ancient Americas’ that featured mostly pre-Columbian artifacts, lots of them in gold, others in jade, ceramic, stone.

To get there we walked through the atrium with the Greek and Roman statues and busts, and I was struck by how inviting the Met’s big open spaces are, filled with art and visitors. While the individual works are spectacular, the big, sky-lit room is the real attraction. The atrium in the American Wing was full of people sitting, talking, eating, taking pix, drawing and copying exhibits. The atrium at the ‘Public Parks, Private Gardens…’ is filled with plants and people.

I mentioned the ‘Public Parks, Private Gardens…’ exhibit which includes lots of Impressionists, a lot from the Met’s own collection, botanicals and lots of live plants.

We also walked through ‘Thomas Cole’s Journey…’, which had painting by American and British artists of landscapes, several Hudson River School and English countryside art.

We exited through the African Art section, which had great wood-carvings and some huge pieces.


From the Greco-Roman, lots of heads, mostly marble. More heads and faces below.

The next five pix are from the 'Golden Kingdoms of Ancient Americas'. This is a mask.

Pitcher, ceramic.

Gold ?mask.

Gold pendant.

Jade mask.

From Africa, another head, this one of carved wood.

Atrium in the center of 'Public Parks, Private Gardens.'


French watering cans from 'Public Parks....'. The one at the top has a candle, I guess, so you can water at night.

Atrium in the American Wing.

Weeks of Work Ahead.

3-28-17 SHORT HILLS: We’ve been back in NJ for a few days. Winter and the snow are reluctantly in retreat as spring slowly grows stronger. It’s still below freezing at night, but the afternoons are in the forties, and a sixty is predicted for later in the week. The last two days have been a bit rainy. I am continuing to do clean up as the snow gives up it’s secrets. Almost all the shrubs are now free of the snow.

I have been adding sticks and branches to a huge pile in the street. We await the return of the tree people to do major pruning and clean up of the big branches. Next week the fence repairman will come to the yard and give us an estimate. I cut up one large ash tree branch for firewood and split the thicker pieces. The town is literally littered with broken trees.

New blooms: crocus.


First crocus here, there have been others around town in sunnier spots.

Tufted titmouse.

Eastern white-breasted nuthatch, probably female.

Sugar Season.

3-23-17 VERMONT: The dishwasher arrived at 8 AM yesterday, and I had it installed by 2 PM, a pro would have done it in a fraction of the time.

We have had mostly sunny days in the forties. The snow is crunchy or soft depending its sun exposure. Snowshoes are a must to keep us on top of the snow.

We had dinner with Shari and Dave last night and Ken and Jane are on for tonight.

Kaley has learned the Invisible Fence system and is also fully integrated into the pack.

Last year’s crab apples are still on the trees, as I mentioned in the previous post. They are a big food source for birds, especially the non-feeder birds. A mixed flock of cedar waxwings and robins has been in those trees for the past few days.

Our neighbor Steve has been sugaring for a few weeks. Lots of our sugar maples are wearing silver buckets, and there are tractor tracks in the pasture from when the collecting is done.


Cedar Waxwing, one of a flock eating last years apples. Catch the orange on the wing and the yellow on the tail and the mask.

A few robins are also eating apples.

From the back the waxwings show those two white streaks.

Waxwing, female or immature.

Kaley, facing us, has fit into the pack, with Gus, Maizie and Bally.

Sap buckets on sugar maples are a sure sign of spring out there somewhere.

Turkey Visit.

3-21-17 VERMONT: We came north yesterday, running away from today’s Nor’easter in NJ. The sky was totally blue when we arrived. It was in the thirties, and there was almost no wind. Today it’s overcast, but no precip. We have plenty of snow on the ground, a lot more than was here when we left in February.

Yesterday and this morning we taught Kaley the Canine Invisible Fence, we think she gets it.

The big excitement this morning was a flock of turkeys that came to visit an apple tree. The tree is still loaded with fruit, even if it’s a bit shriveled up and freeze dried. I got some pix through the window, but they dashed off when the door creaked open.

New dishwasher arrives tomorrow.


One of about eight turkeys going for apples.

Two more turkeys.

Going directly to the source. The apples look a little shriveled.

Another, posing for a pic.

Maizie, I think, caught by the Game Cam on the last visit on a snowy night.

Me and Maizie today.

Yesterday, total blue sky.

First day of spring in Vermont. It'll all be gone by July.

Bruce and Josh.

3-19-17 SHORT HILLS: The fourth Nor’easter arrives tomorrow and Wednesday to mark the start of Spring. I am still doing clean up from the big one that did all the damage here. The black pine stump is at grade level and ready for a new planting after the fence is repaired. Big piles of broken branches have been moved to the street and off the shrubs. Lots of shrubs are still covered in snow and so of unknown status regarding damage.

A fifth storm is a possible for Sunday, and that’s not Fake News. We will miss the start of the next storm by being in Vermont, unless it catches us there.

We had a nice dinner in NYC with Ina and Marcel and with new NYC residents, Mark and Susan, at Arte Cafe. It was nice to see everyone and the food was great.

Saturday we went to ‘Springsteen on Broadway’. We bought tickets on line for a bundle and sat in the first row of the balcony, there are only two rows in the balcony of the Walter Kerr Theatre. Before the show, my nose started to run, but it wasn’t blood. Actually the seats were fine. We both loved the show, he is not only a great musician, but a great poet as well. Bruce’s wife Patti had a cameo. The Boss talked and sang for more than two hours without a break.

Sunday we were at NJPAC for an equally good concert with Joshua Bell and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. They did works by two composers we were unfamiliar with, Edgar Meyer and Henryk Wieniawski, and two we knew, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Both concerts were nice breaks from the big clean up.


The Walter Kerr Theatre.

We're high up in the balcony, next to the last row. We could touch the ceiling. but the seats were fine.

Before the show.

Pix from 'Springsteen on Broadway' above and below.

Bruce and Patti.

Pix at the end of the show were allowed.

Threepeat, Another Nor'easter.

3-13-17 SHORT HILLS: Today was the third Nor’easter in the past few weeks, but this one wasn’t so bad. There was only about three inches of wet, slushy white stuff that half melted by afternoon when I used a pond scrapper to clear it from the driveway.

The previous storm left so much snow that we still have to ‘thread the needle’ around the plow piles to get the cars out of the garage. The tree people were here yesterday to chip and take away the brush piles that Judy and I had made in the driveway. These branches were from small trees and shrubs, magnolias, redbuds, apples, pears, burning bush, which I could reach to prune.

The maples, elms, pines, spruce, sweet gum, ash, walnut have broken branches hanging from the trees and large branches on the ground that are too big and/or too high in the trees for me to get. The tree company will be back when the snow is gone to prune and remove that big stuff. The utility company was here to remove a big ash tree branch that was leaning on the wires. The firemen were here to remove a small branch from the wires and cut down another pine that was blocking the street, and then the town crews could clear the snow and open the road.

I put in about four days pruning, dragging, trimming, clearing the things that I could handle. It’s hard work in the deep snow. There are, however, still many shrubs covered in snow and bent over with an unknown amount of damage that will need work when the snow is gone. I went to Home Depot and bought a cordless pole saw, a small chain saw on the end of a nine-foot pole. It lets me reach things I couldn’t get to before. I use any excuse to buy a new tool.

I also got a big bag of bird seed. The birds have repeatedly drained the feeders. We have the winter birds and a lot of spring migrants caught by the storms.

New blooms: red maple.


That big pile of broken branches was from shrubs and small trees that Judy and I dragged out to the driveway. The trunk of the pine tree is pointing at the camera.

Another pile in the driveway is mostly the pine tree branches. On the left, I used a piece of the tree trunk as a crutch for a cracked juniper bush. The tree guys were here yesterday and chipped and removed the two piles.

The cardinals stand out so well against the white snow, I can't resist more pix. There have been four or five males at the feeders.

Today's Nor'easter, only about three inches of slushy snow.

Driveway with new snow, but no brush/branch piles at the moment.

Another photogenic cardinal.

Goldfinches at the nyjer seed feeder.

Soggy Maizie slogging through the snow.

There are several large broken branches like this one in a maple still hanging. Some have broken off and fallen, but these make it dangerous to walk around the yard. The tree people will cut them down when the snow has melted. If you look closely, the orange tinge on the left is from the elm flowers, and the reddish tinge on the right is from maple flowers.

Disastrous Snow Storm.

3-8-17 SHORT HILLS: What a disaster! We have two trees down, and several others with severe damage, including magnolias, elm, locust, ash, hemlocks and arborvitae. Under the broken trees and branches, there are damaged shrubs that I can’t assess because of the snow accumulation.

We probably had about 18 inches of the worst thick, wet and heavy glop. It struck just as the winter seemed to be winding down and is clearly the worst storm of the last few years. We have power while thousands do not. Our street is closed by downed trees, some of them ours.

A huge black pine that I planted in the seventies fell across the driveway, blocking us in. I cut out part of the trunk so we could get plowed. Trees that I planted and nurtured have been severely injured.


A black pine fell across the driveway and completely blocked us in. I had planted it in the '70's.

After I cut the center of the trunk out so we could get plowed. There were 18" of snow-heavy, dense, wet snow. The pine tree took out a bunch of shrubs, but I don't know which ones or how badly they're damaged because of the snow cover.

Birds perching on the pine pile.

The back yard with snow sticking to everything.

The flagpole is snow covered on the north side.

The root ball of the pine in the driveway after the driveway was plowed.

Another Nor'easter.

3-7-17 SHORT HILLS: We have another Nor’easter. This one has a lot of snow, so far, but little wind and temps just above freezing. The previous storm had high winds, but not so much snow. Either way, I’m ready for some Spring. This Sunday, BTW, starts Daylight Savings Time, and in two weeks we have the Equinox and the first day of Spring.

The goldfinches are back and showing a hint of gold among the grey feathers. On stormy days like this one, the squirrels, usually trying to monopolize the feeders, are nowhere to be seen. But the birds are here in droves. At one point this afternoon there were five male cardinals here, loads of grackles and RWB’s, goldfinches and red finches, chickadees, juncos, nuthatches, titmouse, woodpeckers, sparrows, doves, blue jays and I’m sure I forgot someone.


Goldfinches, just developing summer colors, mobbing the nyjer seed feeder. There are actually eight birds visible in this pic, two are partials only.

Elm tree with flowers opening, before the current storm.

Here we are again, white wonderland.

I'm ready for green, take the white away.

He doesn't look pleased with the snow.