Vermont Spring.

4-29-23 VERMONT: Yesterday when we arrived, it was in the sixties and sunny. We walked around and found—no snow. Some of the early flowers are out. Snowdrops and crocus are almost done. The ponds are full and draining, the waterfall is splashing and babbling. Frog eggs are abundant in both ponds, and the frog opera is playing nightly. Today is rainy and in the fifties.

I put away the reflectors that guide the driveway snow plowers and the snow shoveling gear. I repaired a small section of collapsed stone wall in the middle terrace bed. If you don’t do it now, it doesn’t get done because everything starts to grow. The lawn guys did the yard clean up, but not the beds. There is a lot of pruning to do around the house, shrubs damaged by snow falling off the roof. 

We walked around the pasture with the dogs. There’s standing water in all the hollows. We can walk anywhere because it was mowed in the fall, and nothing has grown more than an inch of so.

The usual customers swarmed the feeders after I filled them, including a very golden goldfinch. I thought I saw a hummingbird, so I made the sugar-water and put their feeders out. Robins are busy on the lawn.

New blooms: daffodil, wild ginger, vinca, blood root, forsythia, pulmonaria, hellebore, primrose.

The waterfall in action.

Foxy friend is still around.

Forsythia has finished in NJ, but is at peak here.

Hellebore is a reliable early bloomer and thrives in the shade.

A mid-April pic of the pond with no ice and two turtles sunning on a flat rock.

Spring Again.

4-26-23 SHORT HILLS: Spring is in full swing, except that it’s cool. The heat is off, and we’re in AC mode because of the hot days about two weeks ago. I know if I switch back to heat, the temps will soar into the nineties.

I have been doing yard work, a little bit at a time. With Judy’s help, I  pulled a huge clematis off from shrubs that were getting overwhelmed by the vines. The clematis will be back, but much smaller. I have been pruning shrubs that were damaged by the drought last summer, but cautiously to give anything that might recover a full chance.

New blooms: azalea, horse chestnut, Korean spice viburnum, nannyberry viburnum, sweet woodruff, wood hyacinth, clatonia, wild strawberry, yellow lamium, ajuga.

It's hard to find anything more vivid than azaleas.

Maybe redbud?

Or Kwansan cherry?

Or even dogwood?

Or a viburnum like this Korean spice viburnum, very sweet aroma.

Naples, Florida.

4-20-23 NAPLES, FLORIDA: Our second, separate trip south two weeks is for a memorial service for Judy’s brother Ken. His children and some long-time friends and co-workers spoke. It was very heartfelt. 

We arrived yesterday. This morning we went to the Corkscrew Wildlife Sanctuary. We haven’t been there for a few years. It’s very dry. The big lake has dried up into several small, neighboring lakes. This drought forces the water birds to congregate, and forces the alligators into the remaining water. We saw three adult alligators and two babies. There were egrets, blue herons, anhingas and some feeder birds.

After the field trip we visited Carol’s beautiful new apartment. In the late afternoon we gathered for the service at the Poinciana Golf Club and afterwards had dinner at the Naples Yacht Club.

An indigo bunting at the feeder.

Anhinga and baby alligator.

Adult alligator and a nerrvous blue heron, who was edging away.

Limpkin looks like a heron.

Baby raccoon.

Quick Update.

4-18-23 SHORT HILLS: While we were away, it was in the eighties here. Now we’re back and it’s in the fifties. I did a lot of pruning and trimming today. I haven’t forgotten about Charleston, but not today. Tomorrow we go to Naples, FL for Judy’s brother Ken’s Memorial Service. 

New blooms: blueberry, Chinese snowball viburnum, bleeding heart, apple, redbud, barberry, dogwood, violet, Kwansan cherry.

"The Last Road Trip"

4-17-23 SHORT HILLS: I know I promised more Charleston, but there is breaking news. We went to CHS for our morning flight home to Newark, EWR, on Saturday. There were delays, mechanical, weather in NY/NJ, more mechanical, then a ‘Ground Stop’ at EWR. More than once they had us line up for boarding and then aborted. Late in the evening they canceled the flight. 

Everybody tried to find alternate flights to EWR, LGA, JFK, Washington, Philly—nothing, anywhere, even on Monday. So we ran to get a car. There was a line of forty people at Avis, the only open agency. After an hour or so we rented a car, and after another hour or so, four of us, me Judy, Bill and Roger got the luggage in the trunk and started out on “The Last Road Trip”, alas, there were no six-packs with us.

Bill was driving as we headed west to I-95 North. After we crossed into North Carolina, we started looking for a motel, but found only No Vacancy’s. Near Fayetteville, around 3 AM, we found a no name place with vacant ‘smoking rooms’. They stank like ashtrays, were dirty and greasy, fixtures were loose and wobbling. I didn’t dare take my socks off in the room. Judy and I fell into bed, slept and both woke up at 7 AM, roused Bill and Roger, and we all had breakfast at Mickey D’s, and gassed up. 

We were back on the road at 8:15 AM, Judy driving and heading north on I-95 to Union Station, Washington DC. Roger wanted to take the train back to NYC. We got there a little after 2 PM, having had severe traffic delays in VA, especially after Richmond. 

The three of us drove on through the afternoon, through traffic, through Maryland, through Delaware, stopping only for fast food, I think, in Maryland. The mother of all traffic jams cost us an hour getting across the Delaware Bridge to NJ. After that it was smooth sailing up the NJ Turnpike, then to the Garden State, to NJ-24 to Short Hills with only one fuel up. We arrived before 8:15 PM. 

It was 826 miles. Waze led us the whole way. We all slept well at home that night.

The rental lot at Avis/CHS.

Morning in Fayetteville.

Ready to drool, I mean roll.

Safe at last in NJ.

Charleston, SC.

4-14-23 CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: We’ve been here a few days as part of a 85^th Birthday Celebration for my college class. We’ve had a lot of meeting and remembering over dinners, but I want to talk about the city—it’s gorgeous. There are many houses, beautifully restored and preserved, a zillion churches, ancient government buildings of 18^th and 19^th centuries lovingly maintained. We walked around the city for two days and were very impressed with the beauty, the parks, the architecture, the huge, mossy trees, the cobblestones, the shuttle buses, the iron work and more.

It’s late so I will stop here, but will do more next post, but a few pix today.  

Not a classmate-a Black crowned night heron. There were several in the park at the harbor end of the city. I picked this pic to start because Facebook won't cut the bird in half.

The Charleston style house with the fancy front door on the side opening onto the porch. The porch ceilings are usually painted blue so that the ghosts will think that the ceiling is sky and won't hang around the house, so I am informed.

One of the many steeples around the city.

A live oak with passengers and another house with a porch.

First Plantings.

4-10-23 SHORT HILLS: I trimmed and pruned the junipers that border the driveway today and tidied up the rest of the driveway. I think the pink clematis is dead or mostly dead. Yesterday I replanted the small bed next to the driveway that had been used as access to the yard by the tree company. A flowering viburnum and a yew were lost in that process.

I planted an Okema cherry, two azaleas, and a PJM Rhode. I used a big bag of top soil to compensate for the compaction caused by the machinery. The plants were Prunus ‘Okame’, Rhododendron PJM Group, R. ‘Hershey Red’, R. ‘Blaauw’s Pink’. The PJM is in flower, but the others are not open yet.

New blooms: pink daffodil, trout lily. 

One of the male cardinals.

Pink daffodil.

Mourning Dove posing on the roof.

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times.

4-7-23 SHORT HILLS: A total of 16 ash trees came down. They have been cut up, chipped and the trunks, too big to chip, have been trucked away. The machinery is out of the yard. That section of the yard needs grading, top soil, grass seed and water.

Meanwhile spring is happening. Blooms are blooming. Flowers are flowering.

New blooms: pear tree, Yoshino cherry, quince, pulmonaria, saucer magnolia.

Yoshino Cherry in white with the faintest tinge of pink.

More Yoshino.

Yoshino flowers and a pinkish bud.

Quince flower looks a lot like the cherry flowers.

Saucer magnolia might be my favorite spring tree.

The big crane in the middle of the yard.

The crane moving a tree trunk.

What the yard looks like now. Mazie is not pleased.

What the yard looked like a year ago. Apologies to Dickens about the title I used.

Ash Trees Dying.

4-3-23 SHORT HILLS: We came south on Saturday, escaping another snow storm in VT. Twenty miles down the highway there was much less snow, and after VT, it was progressively more springish.

In NJ, Frank’s Tree has been here taking down several huge, dying white ash trees. They have been afflicted with borers and slowly dying. They had some leaves last summer, but this winter there were a few episodes of dropped branches, big branches that could have killed anyone underneath when they fell. We decided that it was too dangerous to leave the trees standing. A dozen trees, all probably 100 years old, have come down. There are more that may need to go later. It’s very sad, and it’s very expensive.

Otherwise flowers are opening weeks ahead of their usual, expected times.

New blooms: pachysandra, spice bush, daffodil, pussy willow.  

This is what VT looked like when we left.

Here's what NJ looked like when we arrived.

Lots of yellow.

Pachysandra flower.

Purple lamium has taken advantage of the warm foundation to bloom in April.

The ash trees piled up, there's a larger pile in back.

The pile in back.

Big trees on the ground.