Back in NJ and Brooklyn.

9-2-19 SHORT HILLS: We’ve been back in NJ for a few days. There’s a lot of weeding and trimming to be done, but I’m limping around on a cane because of a pulled leg muscle, so I won’t get to it soon.

The weather has been lovely, and today we’re getting some needed rain.

Yesterday we were in Brooklyn Heights for lunch with Val and Steve, Alison and Dan and Anna and Gardner. There are a family of American Kestrels that hang out around Val’s deck and the small green space behind the building that make up her block. The iPhone pix aren’t very good.

Afterwards we walked down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park to see the newly completed Pier Three. There are six unused, commercial piers, I think, converted to recreation areas with gardens, a marina, sports facilities, picnic areas, a beach, biking and running paths and lots of benches to watch the river traffic and harbor.

New blooms: crape myrtle, caryopteris, hydrangea, rose-of-Sharon, roses, lamium, white-star clematis, tree hydrangea.


Rose-of-Sharon is everywhere in the yard.

Another Rose-of-Sharon. It comes in two flavors-strawberry and vanilla.

Caryopteris being molested by a bumble bee. It's a fall bloomer just getting started.

Crape myrtle. This is our only surviving bush in its third season.

In Brooklyn, Val and Steve have a family of American Kestrels that hang around their and their neighbor's decks. It's an iPhone pic, like those below.

Brooklyn Bridge Park with the Statue of Liberty on the left horizon Governors Island in the middle.

Lower Manhattan across the East River. Brooklyn Bridge Park picnic area and marina in the foreground.