Lincoln School Thanksgiving.

11-26-19 SHORT HILLS: Today is a blue sky, warm, 60° day, and we did a nice dog walk in shirt sleeves. I did a bit more clean up outside before the walk.

Yesterday was the annual Thanksgiving luncheon offered by Ms. Jo-Ann Catalano, the second grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary School in Newark. Judy and her pet partners, Maizie, Kaley and Gus, have gone there for years to coach reading skills twice a month along with other pet therapy teams. I go to the parties, mostly for the food, but also to take pix.

Jo-Ann makes the food herself and brings it in and feeds the class and several of the other teachers and anyone else who drops in the classroom. The kids were very well behaved, for seven year olds, and a lot of them were dressed up for the party. They made the placemats. The dogs were well behaved also and content with their treats. A little reading practice actually got done after the feast.

I’m already looking forward to the Xmas party next month.


Second graders mobbing Maizie, who loves the attention, almost as much as the kids do.

The desks are turned into a banquet table, and, as you might be able to see, there's fried chicken, mac and cheese, collard greens and cornbread. Does it look like a Pepsi commercial?

The feast is a yearly event prepared by Ms. Jo-Ann Catalano. The placemats on display were made by the kids.

Dressed for a banquet.

The class, pets and reading instructors all in there. Parker, the black dog, is near the center in front.

Smiling faces.

Dark Days of November.

11-24-19 SHORT HILLS: I‘ve been back here for a while as the holidays creep up on us. There’s less than a month until the Winter Solstice, after which the sun slowly begins to come back to the north.

The leaves are mostly down, with beech, oaks, Japan and Norway maples, burning bush all holding on to a few. It’s a cold, dreary, dark rainy day, but not as cold as Vermont was two weeks ago. We have had a few mornings when the temps were in the upper twenties, so we have had a frost or two, but no real freeze, and it’s almost December.

I have done yard clean up of fallen branches a few times. Every stormy day brings a new branch fall. I pruned the junipers, removing a lot of dead branches. They grow so thick that a wet snow weighs them down and breaks branches, so I try to thin them out as much as possible.

We saw Parasite last night, it should be a contender for Best Picture. Bong Joon-ho shows us a dystopian, Dickensian society. I’m not at all sure to whom the title refers.


Mourning Dove foraging under the feeders.

Female Cardinal, is she feeding or just using the umbrella.

We think of her as Claudia, and her mate, usually around the feeders, as José.

Cold Clean Up.

11-16-19 VERMONT: It has been hard to get work done because of the cold. Yesterday was actually OK for the first time in three days, and I did the beds in back of the houses. Because of the frozen snow cover, many of the dead shoots that I would have cut down were buried and other were stuck in the snow. I cut down whatever I could see and raked it all out of the beds. It’s not the job I wanted to do, but I guess it will have to suffice, we will see in the spring.

Today was cold again, but I got out in the afternoon and did the beds around the pond, then I put out the shovels and choppers for clearing the the deck, and the reflectors to guide the driveway plowing. I needed several warm-up breaks, but I’m done with fall clean up. This week has felt more like January than November. NJ tomorrow.


Does it look cold? It is.

New game cam location. This buck is browsing at almost 11 PM.

Looking red with thousands of apples. Birds will get most of them.

Wet and Cold.

11-12-19 VERMONT: All the boats are stowed. The rowboat is in the little barn, I had to break it out of the icy grip of the pond and break up the ice inside the boat to drain the water in the boat. The canoe is in the big barn in a spot where it won’t slow the repair work.

Yesterday was in the thirties and I got a lot done before the snow started at about 3 PM. I cleared the front of both houses from the driveway to the lower lawn, including some of the terrace beds. Lots of cuttings were dragged out to the pasture on a tarp and piled behind the little barn where it’s always wet.

Last night and this morning we got about three inches of icy snow so I’m not outside and hoping for some warming to soften the new snow, the forecast doesn’t look good. We’ll see.


Should have been migrating before now.

The turkey flock a few weeks ago, from the game cam.


Apple tree has an Xmas-y look.

Mt. Lafayette and Lincoln looking very white in the White Mountains.

This morning has a wet and cold look.

Frozen in November.

11-9-19 VERMONT: Wow, what a difference from a few days ago in Naples, FL. Last night the low was 11°F. This cold is very unseasonal, usually it’s in the 40’s during the day and 30’s at night. I can’t do much outside in this weather.

The new pond is almost half full, but frozen now. The barn work is progressing, but won’t be done soon. I put the old buggy in the shelter and will do the same with the canoe. The rowboat is frozen in the pond and filled with ice. I guess we should have pulled in out in October.

Hoping for a warm up.


Frozen rowboat, frozen pond.

Frozen canoe.

New pond is almost half full, of ice.

The pond had a little ice in the upper corner last night, but now...

Some of the gardens that need cleaning up, too cold now for me to be out there for long.

Apple tree covered with little red apples

Barn work is progressing...

Naples Town Pier.

11-7-19 SHORT HILLS: We’re back in NJ. The flight home was trouble free and actually got in early. The morning before we left Naples, we went to the Botanical Garden, but it was closed for a fund raiser, bummer.

Instead we went to the town pier, which is huge, extending at least 100 yards into the Gulf of Mexico. There were dozen of fishermen catching mackerel, I think.The birds were everywhere, on the pier, on the beach and in the air—terns, sandpipers, pelicans, cormorants, gulls, crows, turnstones. Under the pier, there were millions, literally millions, of 2-3 inch fish schooling around all the pilings. The fish were the draw for the birds. Three of four dolphins also went through the area while we were there.

We had lunch back at the apartment before catching a taxi for the airport.


Brown pelican.

Gaggle of shore birds.

Sandwich tern, many were in the air and diving for fish.

Ruddy turnstones patrolling the pier.

Millions of shiners swimming around under the pier.

Double crested cormorant.

Naples, Florida.

11-5-19 NAPLES, FLORIDA: Judy and I came south yesterday to visit Ken and Carol. This morning we all went to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. We have been there before and always seen lots of birds. There were less than usual today, but we were still pleased. There has been a lot of rain here and the water level is high, which disperses the waders, and it’s early in the season and many migrants are still en route. The alligators were in hiding, but the raccoons were busy feeding off the bottom of the swamp.

It’s so hot that we were out at 7:30 AM and back by noon. Then, after lunch we toured the area by car and saw loads of new construction of gigantic houses, many on knock-down lots.

We had two great dinners and thank Ken and Carol for their hospitality. Tomorrow we fly back to chilly NJ.


Little blue heron.

Anhinga.

Little blue heron, might be the same one as above.

Black and white warbler.

Raccoon digging something up from the bottom.

Sunset.

Turandot.

11-1-19 SHORT HILLS: We were at the Met last night for a performance of Turandot, Puccini’s final opera. Actually, it was finished by Franco Alfano in 1926, two years after Puccini’s death, it lacked the last few minutes of Act III. In the debut, conductor Arturo Toscanini stopped the performance with the last notes Puccini wrote.

The Met’s production is one of Franco Zeffirelli’s, with gorgeous sets and costumes, beautiful lighting, tons of extras and dancers. It’s what opera should be, a magnificent spectacle, a sumptuous eyeful, a dazzling extravaganza. Lately the new Met productions have been austere, often dark and optically challenging—hated them.

Alejandro Roy made his Met debut as Calàf and got a huge ovation for Nessun dorma, the big aria. Christine Goerke was Turandot, Elconora Buratto was Liù, and Marco Armiliato conducted.

Otherwise, we had another rain and wind storm last night and got another 1.4 inches for almost 5 inches in week.


At the end of Turandot, stage set with palace, extras, principals, costumes, raining gold glitter and getting a wild ovation.

Josie Robertson plaza before the opera.

The Met filling up with operagoers.

The ceiling always makes me think of lilypads.

Final bows for the cast.