I really should be shredding

It's that time of year.  Another season worth of files can be shredded.  But if I do that, it will make a lot of noise.  And at the moment, doggo is sleeping, and I don't want to wake him up.  We just did a 3 mile hike at Thompson Park, including a section of ups and downs on the Reservoir Loop that we haven't done before, and another trail that got me a little bit lost, on the way back.

All that to say, doggo is tired.  So am I, but if I take a nap now, it will be hard to get to sleep tonite.  Besides, doggo is sprawled across my part of the bed.

So.  We met this little guy on the trail today.  He had just found something tasty to eat, and wasn't interested in moving aside to let the big scary dog and his attached human go by.  Eventually he moved enough for me to get doggo to walk on by, but he really wanted to get up close and personal with the little guy.  I reminded doggo about the "no hunting" signs that are all over the park.

It's mostly leafless now, but...with all the leaves on the ground, it's somewhat harder to follow the trails, as it isn't always apparent where the trail is as opposed to the not-trail.

Some areas get wind-cleared, but then in other places, it's up to doggo's nose to tell us where to go.  Lucky for me, he has a good nose.

I figured we'd go to Thompson today, because this week has afternoon high tides at the beach, which reduces the amount of places available to walk.  We were at Sea Bright yesterday, and noticed there has been a lot of beach erosion on the ocean side, and a big flooded area at the corner where I used to live, which NEVER flooded while I lived there.  I'm not taking either as a good sign.  The place where my Mom lives just rebuilt their bulkhead on the river, last year, which is lucky.  There's pretty much no beach on the river side anymore (there used to be a nice one), and I think the parking lot and eventually the building would be threatened by the higher waters in the not so distant future.  The bulkhead will put off the inevitable for a few years, at least.  Mom is 93, and she's not moving.  So I hope it all holds off a while yet.

Last time we were at Sandy Hook, one day last week, we got to explore an area new to us, where we had previously turned back due in part to a higher tide, and a plethora of birders, who are horrified that anyone would dare to take a dog out in nature.  So I got a pic of some Brant Geese, but I think the pic is more notable for the texture of the water than for the geese.  Wild geese (ie, not Canadas) seem to be camera shy.  (also keeping in mind I'm doing all this with a dog attached to one arm)

My recent favorite, tho, was this guy giving us a WTF look.

He had a bunch of friends nearby, so we prudently decided to go another way.

Gets exciting around here, some days.

Too busy lately. Or something.

Probably or something.  I've been out all over the place, taking lots of pictures, but just not in a mood to write and post or any of that share kind of thing.  Lots going on, not all of it good, but this, too, shall pass.

However, here I am now, and I'm going to go back to a day in October (the 26th, to be precise), when I figured we'd go to Pablo's Park for a short walk, and no, I didn't need to drag the camera, it's really overkill for the little park, and we're there all the time, yadda, yadda.

So what happens, I end up getting some really super pics on my phone, which, as long as I don't try to do anything with too much small detail or too zoomed in, really does ok pics, for a phone. 

We haven't had very much of what I'd call "fall color" around here.  And things like the ginkgo trees didn't even bother to turn golden, they just all of a sudden dropped ALL their leaves, still bright green, on the same day.  So it's kind of been a bust of a fall, imo. 

I don't have any mountains near here.  And our weather has been weird, to put it mildly.  It even snowed two days ago - Monday we had 65 and sunny, Tuesday it was low 30s and snow.  No accumulation, but plenty of shock and dismay.

But, going back to October 26, Pablo's Park.  Here you go.  The park has a pond in it, I think it's called Derry's Pond (there's a marker with the name on it, on the bank at one end).  The park used to, back in the days when I was a kid, be a Christmas tree farm, a fact I learned one day from a woman who I met walking there, back when Pablo was still with me.  She told me that when she was a kid, and we are around the same age, in the winter the pond would freeze over, and there would be ice skating.  Kind of like Kearny Park, up in north Jersey, where I grew up.

So I guess the pond isn't very deep, but it has frogs and turtles and snakes, all doing the pond kind of thing.  I'm good with that.  Pablo being a warm weather doggo, we never got there in the deep of winter to see if anyone still skates on it.  Of course, it hasn't been awfully cold to actually freeze much over, in recent years.  So who knows?

My point, tho, is that the shallowness of the pond makes the water look black, which in turn makes it act as a big mirror.  Which is the best part, aside from the turtles.  So here are my four favorite pics from that walk without a camera, and pretty much the best fall color I found this year.  Hope you like!