Nothing new under the sun

 Except all the smoke.  Yeah, it's here, in NJ.  The smoke from those fires out in the western states.  It smells like fire, and everything is hazy.  It's not good to breathe, and makes my eyes itch and water.  And the sun is sort of muffled, like you're seeing it through lace curtains.  Or smoke.

Don't believe those articles that are saying there's no low level atmospheric effect, don't worry, etc, etc.  Where I live, it's about as low level as you can get without getting wet.  And the smoke is down here, fouling the air we're trying to breathe.  

So we're walking as much as usual, just taking more naps between, and washing out my eyes every hour or couple of hours.  Plain water, thanks. I have eye drops for this, but those burn worse than the smoke.

Went to Pablo's Park for our midday walk today.  Nice in the woods.  And we learned that, because the whole park is "Greenacres," we can walk anywhere, they can't keep dogs out.  So we also walked about half the jogging trail, between the tennis courts and sports fields.  It's kind of spongy, covered with fine gravel, and there's nothing much I can trip over, which is always a plus.  Of course, there's almost no shade on the jogging part and sports areas, so depending on the day, good or bad idea.  Today, not bad, because of the smoke toning down the sun a bit.

I thought this was kind of funny, these signs are next to the little bleachers that are by any of the sports fields.  Baseball, soccer, whatever else they play.

 

I don't pretend to understand the thinking behind this.  But maybe it makes sense if you're a sports fan, which I'm most definitely not.

The other thing, which I didn't get a picture of, was the sign saying that the tennis courts are only for tennis or "pickle ball."  Never heard of that, I can't imagine what it might be.  I wonder if I'm missing something in my life by not knowing?

I much prefer the natural area, over the sports areas.  Though I might like to play tennis someday, I used to play, but have noone to play with anymore, and I lost my racket in the divorce, 22 years ago.  Along with my sewing machine and vacuum cleaner, if you can imagine that.  These things were so important to him.

Be that as it may.  The pond looked nice, even in the smoke.  While the leaves are still green.  

Lots of little froggie things, but no turtles.  With the dog, I can't get close enough to get a picture of the frogs, they jump into the water when they hear him coming.  Can't say I blame them.

Anyhow.  It's nap time.  

People are moving "back home"

More and more people I know are moving "back home" due to the pandemic, and how impossible it has become to have an actual life in a city under the present circumstances.  A lot of them are abandoning their former (pre-pandemic) lives, many in NYC, and moving on to other things.  But an awful lot are doing it in a going "back home" way.

Since I really don't like it where I am living now, there is no life for me here, I sat down and gave it a hard think.  While I have some family in the area, I have no friends here, no job, and no activities that interest me.  The local "culture" doesn't register as a culture at all, in my opinion, probably because the local "culture" is money, and that's something I don't have a whole lot of, particularly since I no longer have a job of any sort.  Here, people have connection only as long as they have kids in the schools, and I have none.  There's only the people I say hello to when I walk my dog, and those wouldn't give me the time of day if I didn't say something first, and if I wasn't walking past their houses with my dog, they wouldn't know I exist.

And some of the people I pass on the street are actively hostile.  I recently had a woman accuse my dog of biting her - he didn't even touch her - and try to follow me home, to find out where I live.  She's still stalking the neighborhood, trying to figure it out.  She made a huge fuss on Nextdoor about it.  Even put up a picture of her "bite," which looks more like a self-inflicted fingernail scratch, or maybe a mosquito bite that she'd been scratching at.  The cops, who I called because she was chasing me, said there was no bite.  The animal control officer said I have a nice dog, and there's no problem.  But still, this woman is stalking the neighborhood, looking for me.

Do I feel safe here?  No.  And it's not just this one woman.  There are more weird things that have gone on, which make me feel very uncomfortable.

So where can I go?

I looked on Zillow at the place where I grew up.  Wow, it looks nothing at all like it did when I was a kid.  It used to have street trees in front of every house.  There's only one tree left on the whole block.

This used to be an empty lot, with a very large mulberry tree in the middle of it.  It was a slight hill, and we used to ride our sleds on it.  Even the hill seems to be gone.

This was our house:

Doesn't look anything at all like it did.  Granted, that is probably a good thing, looks like the people who own it now are taking good care of it.  The window with the a/c in it was my half of a bedroom during high school.  It had just enough space for a twin sized bed and a tiny desk.  That was the whole room. 

I remember we had to measure how wide a car was before we could consider buying it, to make sure it would fit up the driveway.  It's skinny as it is, but then it has two drainpipes with concrete bases directly across from each other, so if you weren't really good at backing up straight, you'd get holes in the sides of your car. 

My grandmother and uncle lived downstairs, and we were upstairs.  Most of the back yard was garden, and we had a mulberry tree, too.  I doubt those are there anymore.  I know, trees die, and lately, it seems nobody bothers to replace them. 

So no, I'm not going "back home."  I've been away too long, and it's moved on without me. 

I've also thought about other places I've lived, and really, none of them are worth going back to.  So I'm kind of feeling adrift.  It's not a nice feeling.

Another face in the crowd?

Well ok, not exactly in a crowd of any sort.  This face is on a large tree.  It's not anywhere near the other trees with faces, and I think it's a different kind of tree than those, but I wasn't looking at it with that in mind.  I was just surprised to find another tree face.  This tree is in someone's yard, facing the street I was walking down.  The yard is attached to a house that appears to be occupied by friendly folk with a sense of humour, something that is hard to find these days.  I haven't met the occupants, but I might like to, one day.

Meanwhile, here's the tree face.

Enough with this weather, already

So after the storm I wrote about the other day, this week just ending, we had a tropical storm named something like Isaias.  I don't know where they get these weird names from, and I really suspect the whole naming thing is just so people get more worried about the weather, because once something has a name that resembles a human name, they take it more personally.

But I was thinking, as I sometimes do.  And having just been engrossed in another book by Haruki Murakami, which, if you haven't read his works, you really ought to....

Anyway, I was thinking.  Weird weather, all of a sudden.  What changed to make this happen? 

Well....It's been YEARS since I bought ice cream.  Years.  I don't normally eat ice cream.  I vividly remember my Uncle Joe always saying, don't eat ice cream, it's not good for you.

Guess what?  I bought ice cream last week.  I was having a thing where I needed something nice, and something different, because Covid, and boredom, and all that jazz.  I got myself a container of Friendly's Black Cherry Chocolate Chunk ice cream.

I wonder if that's what caused all the weather ruckus?  Did I open a portal to something nasty by buying ice cream for the first time in recent memory?  If I were living in a Murakami book, it would be entirely possible.

I finished off the ice cream while the power was out, the other evening.  So it wouldn't melt and make a mess all over the freezer.  I'm hoping that by finishing it, and throwing out the container, the portal will close, and the bad weather will go back to something more closely resembling normal.

I guess maybe Uncle Joe was right? 

Trees keep falling (but so far, not on my head)

A few days ago, we had a wicked bad line of storms come through here.  Some might even decide that there were tornadoes, or mini-cyclones, or whatever you'd like to call them, imbedded in the front, or the rear, or wherever in a storm line those twisters tend to hang out.  It's been 23 years since I lived in big time tornado territory, so I'm losing my grasp of the details, but I have seen them up close and personal.  Based on some of the trees, or what's left of them, I think there were tornadoes here.

Several were in almost a straight line, pointing to the coast.  One guy I talked to told me there was another one, further along the route, and, since he lives on the water, he saw waterspouts or funnels or twisters out there, too.

I also find it interesting that each tree, as it fell, is pointing in the same direction.

So here's the first I found, in geographical sequence.  Luckily, it missed the house, and the cars that were parked in the area.

Next, this one is a particularly hard type of hardwood tree.  Or, it was.  So far, they've left the trunk standing, after removing the fallen top of the tree.  This one took down the power lines, so I wasn't able to get in to get a picture until later in the day.

Next, a kind of conifer that is in the park near our local middle school.  It also missed anything vital, and the top actually landed just beyond the end of the fence.

And then the biggie, which is out of the straight line, but also obviously subjected to severe twisting to get it to fall.  It's in a graveyard, next to a church that to me looks like the stage set for Verdi's Stiffelio.  I took the laying down picture the other day, and today got around the end to see what actually happened.  Whole lotta twisting going on.  Again, it didn't take out anything vital, and I suppose the folks buried where it fell didn't even notice.

Meanwhile, in other areas, a lot of power lines were knocked down, and in some areas, the cable lines came down, while the electric stayed up.  Crazy business, these storms lately.  Climate change, indeed.

Nothing much happened at my house.  Couple of small branches landed in the yard, and the doggo took care of those.  He considers them crunchy veggies.  And my gutters need to be cleaned out, but try and get someone to come do that.  They're all too busy with real work to be bothered.  So that will have to wait.

Today it's rainy, in instalments.  We're expecting some kind of tropical storm coming up the coast in the next few days, but that's not where today's rain is coming from.  And it's finally a bit cooler, but you'd really never notice, because the humidity is so high.  We're turning tropical, or sub-tropical, at least.  Yuck.  Maybe I ought to move to Canada, if that's ever allowed again.  Something to consider.

A view from the bridge

Well, not a bridge, exactly.  The creek goes under the busy street via a culvert.  There are railings along the sides of the sidewalks on both sides of the street, so you don't just fall off and into the water.  They're practical, around here.

I don't know where the creek begins.  But from here, and we're looking downstream at it, from this side of the street, it meanders thru a lot of residential areas, crosses under another busy street, then joins a marsh, which broadens and becomes a bigger creek, until it looks like a river, and actually empties into a tidal river, which is an estuary, if you want to get technical about things. Then the estuary goes into the bay, and the bay connects to the ocean.

This water just happens to take the long way around, to get to the ocean.  If it could hop into a car, it could be at the ocean much quicker.

In a particular place, some distance from this spot, this stream is joined by the other stream, the one that just suddenly appears out of nowhere, that I probably talked about some number of posts prior to this one.  They meet up in the marsh, sort of.

I kind of figured out that the other stream, the one that just suddenly appears out of nowhere, is part of the storm sewer system around here.  So the water that falls from the skies and goes into the sewer grates along the streets ends up becoming a stream, which then joins the bigger creek, and on into the really big water.

It's all connected.  Which is how, when you throw something dirty and polluting into the street, it ends up fouling the ocean. And a lot of territory betwixt and between.

We are all connected.  All of us who inhabit this planet.  Which is why it's so important to look out for one another, and take care of each other.  All of us.

It's hot

Sure, not hot hot, like some places are having.  But hot by my definition.  Probably because of the humidity, which is hanging somewhere near or above the temperature, you can sweat even if you're not doing anything.  That kind of hot I have trouble with.

There's occasionally a breeze.  And last evening, a big thunderstorm passed right by here, without stopping or dropping a drop of rain, or even cooling things down at all.  I had hopes for it, but all for naught.

We usually don't get this until early August.  It's still June.

So, trying not to exert myself.  Trying to stay away from bugs.  Something bit me on the knee a couple of days ago, and while it's not swollen or anything, I can see the bite mark, and it itches like mad.  Mosquito.  I guess the neighbors' mosquito control spray isn't working this year.  They all get their yards sprayed.  I don't, because of the dog, and because I have a reaction to the spray.  Nasty stuff.

So here we are.  We've altered our walkies, cut it down to three a day from our usual four, by eliminating the before dinner walk.  So we go out pretty much at 7am, noonish, and after dinner.  Last couple of days, we've been having our usual noonish route for the early morning tour, and the other two walks in the neighborhood across the busy street.  More trees there, so it's a tad cooler.  Or at least, shadier.

And sometimes we go to Pablo's Park, it's open again, and if we get there at just the right time, it's not too busy.  Not heading for the bigger park, because that one is always busy.

Meanwhile, my nopales are blooming, I think they're early.  I have tomatoes on my tomato plants, and I have peppers on my pepper plant (a first for me, I've never had any success with peppers).  And I just noticed this morning that the butterfly bush out front has started to show purple blooms.

Things progress whether I'm out there sweating or not.

I'll be happy when summer is over.  It's never been my favorite season.  Except for the flowers.  Those are always nice.

They're back!

In the neighborhood across the busy street, where you wind up after going thru the rabbit hole, there's a white house with red shutters that has been for sale for a long time.  I've been sorely tempted to look at it, but really, the price was a bit beyond what I could manage, so I didn't go look.  No point in wanting something I can't have.

Anyway, in the last couple of weeks, the house sold.  Someone was there, throwing out old stuff.  I got the feeling that it was owned by an older person, and the stuff left behind was just old stuff, due to be thrown out.  I hope whoever cleaned the place out put anything good to good use, but that's not for me to know.

Seems like now the new owners have moved in, or are in process of moving in.  They've done a ton of trimming up of the overgrown yard, the piles of trimmed out branches and such are tremendous.  And someone has been digging thru old stuff in the garage.  Which brings me to my point, here.

Back a few years ago, when I had just moved to this area, and had Pablo to take on walks, we found the rabbit hole, and liked to explore the neighborhood on the other side.  The white house with the red shutters wasn't for sale then.

That part of that street has a line of huge sycamore trees along the street - that's why it's nice to walk there, they have shade, which doesn't exist on my side of the busy street.  On my side, all the street trees were torn down when the town put in sidewalks.  Which is a whole other discussion, and we're not going there right now.

So, near the house in question, there are three of these huge sycamores, right in a row.  And, walking with Pablo, I noticed that those three trees had faces.  Maybe silly, maybe a tad creepy.  And one of the faces only had one eye. 

And then, one day, the faces were gone.  I have no idea where they went, or why.

But I bet you anything the faces were taken off and put in a box and stashed in the garage of the white house with red shutters.

Because they're back! 

On our morning walk on Monday, I was looking at the huge piles of trimmed out branches, and happened to look up a bit, and voila!  The tree has a face!  And so does the next one!  And the one after that, but it's face is missing one eye!

That made me ridiculously happy.  So of course, I had to take pictures of them.  And here they are.

I don't know if they have names.  I'll see if I can ask the new owner of the house.  But I'm very glad to have the faces back.

Finally!

My red roses are finally open!  There are literally zillions of them!  And the apricot ones are all over the place as well.  I'm frankly amazed that the wild thunderstorms we've had the last few days haven't knocked the blooms all to pieces.  It's been kind of like monsoon season with flash bang effects thrown in for "fun."

At least Bandit doesn't appear to be bothered by the noisy weather.  As long as he's not out in it, getting wet, he's ok with it.  Pablo used to be scared any time there were loud noises going on outside.

Now, if it would kindly be a bit less hot, I can maybe get outside and do some cleanup in the gardens.  But I can't if it's as hot as the last couple of days have been.  And I still have a few things I need to move/replant out there. 

We've walked a bit less, the last couple of days, between the heat and dodging downpours.  Got caught in a shower this afternoon, my hair is still damp from it.  And Bandit is laying out in the back yard, taking in the late in the day sun.  He loves just being out there.  I guess that goes back to his having been a street puppy before the rescue picked him up.

I've always been more of an indoor type.  So it's nice that he doesn't mind being out in the yard by himself.  And he knows I check on him thru the back windows, and sometimes talk to him (usually to tell him to not chase squirrels) thru the windows.  More surprisingly, he even listens, tho he doesn't consistently act on what he hears.  Kind of like having a kid, I guess.

Are pinecones like acorns?

Do tons of pinecones mean a harsh winter, similar to how tons of acorns indicate that?  If so, we're going to be in for a doozy.  Look at the pinecones on this tree!

I'm also wondering if there is any way to turn them into food.  Marinate and barbecue?

Meanwhile, on the next block, the white roses have opened.  Kind of looks like a wedding or something.

Lots of lavender around the area, too.  I'm surprised it really doesn't smell like anything, tho.  Ornamental lavender?  Is there such a thing?

It's nice that the irises match.  Everybody's irises are blooming like crazy this year.  Except for mine, which have done almost nothing.  I think I had two flowers, and they're long gone.  Not sure what the problem is.

These are (maybe) Siberian Irises....or some related variety.  There are some that I know to be Siberian Irises on the next block, but they are a lot shorter than these.  Same flowers, tho.

People around here do pretty gardens.  Or more likely, they have their services do pretty gardens.  I doubt many of the homeowners actually have much to do with it. 

Which is probably why I'm not up to speed with a lot of them.  I have to do it all myself, and honestly, a lot of the time I hurt too much to do much outdoor stuff that involves bending and kneeling and lifting heavy things.  So it mostly doesn't get done.

But I can still enjoy the fruits or flowers of other people's labor.  Best thing is, it's all free to look at.

A mystical being

Ok, so maybe not quite so mystical, but...

First walk this morning.  We encountered a guy who we run into once in a while, walking his dog, who we also run into once in a while.  He's turning around, and taking pictures of something with his phone.  It's a deer.  Seems it's been following him for a while.  A deer following a dog.

Deer sees a second dog, mine, and decides to take a short cut thru someone's yard.  When we get to the next corner, we see the deer crossing the street, diving into another yard.  Then it comes out right in front of us.  And stands there, looking at us. 

Bandit is barking, intermittently.  More of a 'what are you' bark, rather than a threatening bark.  The bark he uses on people who he'd like to approach.  Deer just stands there, looking at us.  We're in the middle of the street, deer is on the sidewalk.  So maybe 30 feet apart, it's a narrow, residential street.

 Apologies for the photo quality, or lack thereof.  I was using my phone, which has days like this, for no apparent reason.  I need to go back to carrying a real camera, now that we're in critter season.

I took a couple more pictures of her, I think it's a her, as we tried to keep walking, and she just kind of stood there. 

Then, as we walked away, she started following us.  She followed us for a couple more blocks, then we turned a corner, and when I looked back, she wasn't there anymore.  She might have been just standing in the street, or who knows. 

I'm wondering if this is the Mom deer who belongs to the fawn we saw yesterday.  I thought at first the fawn was a fox, it was about the size of a fox, a bit smaller than my dog.  But no tail, and those spindly legs...definitely a baby deer.  Didn't get close enough to get a picture.  That's where I again need a real camera.  I do get tired of carrying a lot of stuff, tho, and warmer weather clothes don't have enough pockets, and all my jeans are so loose they might fall off if I load too much stuff in the pockets.

Or maybe it's a young buck, whose antlers haven't sprouted yet.  Because if it's Mom deer, where's the fawn?  Of course, we do have a whole herd of them around here, so it's possible the baby was with the sitter, or this Mom isn't a Mom at the moment, or any number of other possibilities. 

I fear for my Asiatic lilies, tho.  The ones whose buds are so tasty.  Something has already eaten or otherwise killed off the marigolds I planted to protect the lilies.  Gotta go get more marigolds, maybe tomorrow.

The upshot of the deer thing, tho, is that Bandit was so excited that he almost forgot to poop.  It took him till almost the end of our 2 mile walk to remember that little detail.  That's why it's mystical. 

I feel like I need to write

But I truly am at a loss for words.  I just can't deal with all that's going on here. 

So I'm out looking for roses.  Yeah, escapism.  Maybe marginally better than hiding in my house, drinking, or something.  I'm not a big drinker to begin with, I don't think that's going to change much.  It makes me feel worse, not better.  So I'm not going to do it.

Today the little roses, the drift roses, have begun to open.  Little because the bushes are small, and because the flowers are small, too.

I found this, one of my apricot ones, opened, but it's hiding, along the steps up to the front door.  Can't say I blame it.

I know, it's got reddish spots on it.  This is a new feature?  Last year they were more pinkish, with sort of a yellowish center.  Maybe it's something in the soil, or the weird weather we've been having. 

Now this one is on the next block.  This particular house has a bunch of bushes, similar to mine, on the sloped part of the front yard.  The flowers are white.  Except this one also is showing reddish spots.  I don't know why that is happening.

The white bushes have more flowers ready to open, and those also have reddish tinges on them.  It's odd. 

My red bushes (I have red and apricot mixed together) are not quite there yet.  Should start opening any day now.

Maybe the roses are reflecting all the wrong that is happening, and showing blood stains.  Scary thought.  I just don't know, anymore.

 

Yes, yes, yes, I'm obsessed

With roses, of course.  What did you think I was going to say?

More roses from our morning walk:

And yes, I am noticing that most of the roses around here are either pink or red.  I'm dying to find some yellow, but no luck so far.

Noticing that the pinks photograph better than the reds.  You get more detail in the pinks.  Much more shading of the petals.  

My little roses are just about to open, I can see touches of colour showing in the buds.  I actually hope they won't unfurl until the next couple of days of bad weather pass, because the heavy rain and wind could wreck them before I get a chance to adore them.  We'll see how it goes.

Mine are apricot and red.  And a house on the next block from here has white!  Which are also not open quite yet.  These are what they call drift roses.  Smaller blooms, and they bloom all summer, and the plants spread sort of like a groundcover, rather than growing into tall bushes. 

Still, I need to find a nice space to put a couple of yellow rose bushes.  Because I want yellow.  This may be my next project.  Adding it to my list.  Fingers crossed.

A rose by any other name

...still has no scent, because it's another hybrid.  Oh well.  Pretty, nevertheless. 

From yesterday's morning walk, between the rains. 

I had thought this one might have a scent, as it's an older bush in a front yard that is overgrown with older all sorts of bushes, but alas, no. 

And my own roses, which also have no scent, are still all in bud but not bloom.  The wait continues.

I wonder what people might think, when they see me sniffing various plants on my walks with doggo.  Maybe they think I caught the sniffing habit from the dog?  We've found some nice scents, lately.  There are a pair of small lilac bushes in one yard that you can smell from quite a distance.  But so far, no smelly roses. 

We'll keep looking.

This does remind me of a time, when I was in high school, when I used to walk there and back, since I don't do so well on buses.  I always loved the spring, because there were a lot of roses on my route.  Every once in a while, when noone was looking, I'd snatch a flower and bring it with me to school.

The walk was just under 3 miles, one way, from my house.  I'd "pick up" a couple of classmates on my way, so by the time we arrived at school, there would be a small group of us.  Maybe that's where my enjoyment of longish walks started.

The roses are coming

The weather is still being crazy, last week we had a thunderhail storm on Monday, and 85 degrees on Tuesday, and then up and down the rest of the week, with high winds.  The weekend was nice, on the cool side, which is how I like it.

Today is cool also, but the wind is horrible, cuts through you like a knife that's been kept in the freezer, while you're sweating in your windbreaker because it's in the upper 60s temp-wise. 

All the fluctuations give me a headache, among other issues.  Like my eyes and nose running like faucets any time I step outdoors.

BUT...even tho it's still May, the roses are coming!

Mine are just starting to bud, but I found a bush on our walk the other afternoon that is in full bloom.

Pretty in pink, but like Mimi's embroidered flowers, there is no scent. 

I really prefer the scented ones over the hybrids.  I remember having a Mr Lincoln, which was growing tall next to a window on our porch.  So when I opened the window, the scent would waft inside.  One of the very few things I miss about the big house. 

And here, in the neighborhood, people are even more acting as if there is no Corona virus, and they are spending their money on tearing out old trees and bushes, with no thought to replacing them.  It makes me very sad to see this wanton destruction going on around me.

But yesterday in the morning we saw the fox again.  He or she was just sitting in the street, a very quiet street with very little traffic, and watching us.  When Bandit finally showed signs of wanting to go greet the fox, it ran off, stopping a few times to make sure the running off was really necessary.  It wasn't, but the fox wasn't listening to me.

So, mixed bag all around.  This week I do feel better than I did last week, so there's a good thing.  But still not great, I wish someone could shut off the wind, or at least turn it down from the 30-40 mph we're having, to something gentle.  But that's unlikely, as there is a pair of storms approaching from different directions, and they are probably going to merge right here, and make a mess, if not a disaster. 

C'est la vie? 

When we walk

I like to find pretty or unusual things when we walk.  While I don't often take a camera with me (my hands are full with the dog and the poopie bag and all that jazz), I always have the mobile with me.  The camera in it is not too shabby, as long as you don't want zoomed in pics or something too up close.

I've been posting a lot of pics to Facebook, with the thought that seeing something pretty might help someone feel better about their day.  I'm also trying to do that here, maybe a bit less, because here I feel like I need to actually say something to go with the pics, and some days I don't feel like saying anything to anyone.

But we are walking something between 7 and 9 miles a day.  Mostly local, because the parks have been closed due to the virus and the probability that if they were open, too many people would go there.  If and when anything normalizes around here, we'll go back to parks and hiking.  We're off the beaches for the duration, because generally dogs aren't allowed on the beaches in the summer, which seems counter-intuitive.

That being said, I've been trying for a couple of weeks to get a good angle on this one yard we pass every day, because the plantings are just so beautiful, but they're spread over a rather large area, so it's not easy to find the perfect view.  And I generally try not to include anyone's house in my pics, because I feel kind of icky when people take pics of my house, which they sometimes do, and I see them doing it, because of the daffys and the roses in the front yard.

Anyway.  Here's the pic.  I kind of like it, and a friend thought it might make a good jigsaw puzzle, so if I find a place to get jigsaw puzzles made, I might do that for her.  I don't do puzzles of that sort, I haven't got the patience for it.  This is just one corner of the yard at this particular place, but it holds all of the elements that make it look beautiful to my eye.

Then the other thing, which is just up the block from where I live, and I'm jealous, in a way, because my irises in the back yard didn't do much of anything this year.  These are in the front yard of a house on a hill, so even if I took a pic straight on, you'd never see the house, it's way up above where the irises live.  At first there were just the deep purple ones, then one day, a batch of white ones popped up in the middle.  If only they could stay all summer; but they've already faded.  Glad I got the pic when I did.

Today it's cold and windy, so I'm trying to stay inside more than out.  But we'll still fit in our walking, only with my winter coat and hat on again, after we've had some really lovely warm weather.  I hope the weather is ok wherever you are.  We've had so much bad everything lately, we really need something nice.

I need to stop being amazed

when I see how stupid people really are.  The busy street is being repaved, yes, even in the rain, it seems.  It's a good time to do it, since traffic is somewhat less now than it normally is, because of the Covid-19 mess.  So yesterday sometime, orange barrels appeared along the side of the street, in sets of two, waiting to be deployed.

This morning, the barrels were out in the street, two by two, at about half-block intervals, indicating (to me, anyway) that one lane of the two lane street is closed to traffic.  At the starting point of the closure, on the end we walk by on our first walk of the day, there's a barricade with a large sign that says "Road Closed."  Ahead of that, at the side of the street, is a "Detour" sign.

Ok, so I get that, the road is closed, and I, if I'm driving a vehicle, need to turn off and go another way.  Seems pretty self-evident and obvious.

Not to some people. 

While we were walking, a car drove around the barrier, and played dodge-em with the pairs of orange barrels, diving in behind them when something was coming in the opposite direction, on the side of the road that is still open.  By the time we made it home, a few more vehicles were doing the same thing.  I saw several service vehicles - lawn care, plumbers, that sort of thing - coming down the street on the closed side, bopping in and out to get around the barrels and duck when opposing traffic appeared.

Someone misjudged, and booted one of the barrels to the sidewalk.  Hope they made a good dent in their car.

How fucking stupid are people?  Or do they just think they are SO important, no rules apply to them?  Probably both, I know. 

I'd love to have a franchise from the local po-lice dept to hand out tickets to stupid people.  I'll keep 10% of the fines as my commission, thank you. 

They should just close the whole street completely, in both directions.  It would be easier and faster.  But no, can't do that.

And god forbid they should put signs up after the first detour signs, to tell people where to go next. You never get told when it's ok to go back to where you thought you should be going.  But no, that seems to cost too much, or they don't own enough signs, or pick your poor excuse of the day.  The people doing the paving are idiots, too.  But we knew that.  

Down the rabbit hole

There is a gravel road, across the busy street from here, that only runs about 3 houses deep, and ends with a "Dead End" sign.  If you're in a car, the sign is for you.  If you're walking, or on a bike, not so much.

This path takes you thru to another world, it seems.  The houses are nice, maybe on bigger lots than on this side (except for the ones on the gravel road, which are HUGE), and because of the way the streets only connect to busy streets at a couple of points, there's very little traffic.  And what traffic there is, is usually going much slower than it does out here in the regular world. 

And trees!  Huge, old trees.  Lots of them.

We walk this way most mornings, and often on our last walk of the day, because there are fewer people out, down the rabbit hole, than there are on this side.  It's peaceful, it's mostly quiet, and the people you do encounter are generally rather friendly, as opposed to a lot of the ones on this side. 

And then there are the creatures.  Usually we see some deer, sometimes a whole herd of them.  But the last few days, we've been seeing a fox.  It's reddish, and has a big, bushy tail, but is actually somewhat smaller than Bandit.  I keep telling him we don't really want to meet the fox, up close and personal.  I suspect he'd lose any battle that ensued.

Of course, regardless of what I say, he gets very excited at spotting this creature, and wants to check it out.  So I have to act like Mom the Anchor, and hang on so he doesn't get away to chase the fox.  (This is a pretty good upper body workout, btw.  I highly recommend it.)

Sometimes, the fox comes over to our side of the busy street.  We can hear it, it makes noises almost like a cat but maybe more like a smallish dog.  And Bandit will sense it, at night, outside our fence, he knows there's a creature out there, but I can't see it, and frankly, it kind of scares me a little to know there's something out there, just beyond my fence, that I can't see, but the dog is very interested in handling for me.

This morning we also got a whiff of skunk out there, on the other side.  So far we've not come face to face with one, and I hope our luck holds.  And the other day, there was a racoon sitting on the porch of the house across the street from mine.  This is not a rural area, btw.  And it's always been like this, chock full of creatures.  It's not only since the Corona virus has taken hold.  Tho it is nice to have less traffic, due to the virus, so we can cross over to the other side more quickly, and more safely.

The sun also rises

Deep breath.  Listen to the birds. 

Change is in the air

Or, nothing is normal anymore.  Which is maybe not a bad thing.  Normal wasn't going very well, anyway.

So maybe change is going to be, in the long term, a good thing.  I hope.

For a depressive person like me, hope is an odd thing.  Yet I always - or usually - have hope of one sort or another.

Trying very hard to not get this virus thing.  It's all around, and the people around here are on the rich side of things, so they apparently think the virus doesn't apply to them.  They ignore the social distancing recommendations.  Earlier today, when we were taking our second walk, the entire police dept and the EMTs were assembled in front of the local morning to lunchtime restaurant, which is offering curbside pickup of whatever it is they make (I've never eaten there, so I don't know).  Not sure why, I wasn't about to approach the gendarme and ask what was going on.  Can't be anything good, tho.  Maybe someone tried to pick up their lunch without a mask on.  We took a detour through a bank parking lot, and a strip mall parking lot, then resumed our regular route without getting involved.  I did notice, tho, the cops were not wearing masks.  I guess it doesn't apply to them.

We have various routes, in varying lengths, whereby we rarely run into other people, and manage to get our distance done.  We've been walking between 7 and 8 miles a day, the last several weeks.  This has gotten bigger and bigger, but I think it has to stop growing, there's only so much I can do.  And don't worry, we do it in four walks, not all at once.

Yesterday it was almost summer.  Today it's trying to be winter, even to the extent that it has been trying to snow (not that I would recognize snow anymore, we only had one tiny snow all season).  Cold and WINDY.  Makes it hard to walk, and I'm always worrying one of the old trees is going to drop something on my head.  Hard to remember, we've had so much of the high winds thing this year, most of the self-pruning is already done for the year.  I hope.  And the tree on the corner that is literally falling apart just dropped a big chunk a week or so ago, it's still laying all over the sidewalk and into the street.  The homeowner doesn't care and his lawn company won't touch it if they don't get paid extra for it.  C'est la vie.

In fact, it's hard to remember much of anything from BEFORE.  

Going back to trying to file a stimulus return for a friend....hang in there.  The light at the end of the tunnel might not be an oncoming train.  

Spring has sprung, I suppose

Because these guys don't come around in the winter.  At least they haven't in past years.  Then again, we haven't really had winter here this year.

I was looking at him thru my front window.  He was looking back at me.  Not sure if he saw movement, or if he actually might have heard the camera making camera noises.  The window is one of those that have fixed panes, so there's no way to open it, and also no screen to muddy the shot.  Which is why I suspect he might have heard the camera.  This house is far from soundproof in either direction.

His lady friend stopped by for a moment, but flew off before I could get a shot of her.  I would've like to catch both of them together, but I'm not that good, or that lucky.

Crocus run amok

At least, I think they're crocus.  Crocuses?  The yellow ones, and there are yellow ones in there, don't show up too great against the weird yellowish grass.  This is on the front lawn of a house on the next block.  In random places around the neighborhood, these tiny flowers crop up in the middle of people's lawns.  I have some, in the back yard, but just the one under my electric meter is blooming so far. 

Folks, it's February, in NJ.  This is not normal. 

Welcome to New California. 

Some observations

1.  Morning walk with Bandit is rather difficult on trash days.  On our usual first walk route, we straddle two towns.  One has trash day Mondays and Thursdays, the other on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Both have recycling on alternate Wednesdays.  While it's nice to have a lot of easy access to places to drop off our poop bags (but never on recycling days!), Bandit is rather intensely nose-orientated, so it's a slow walk, from trash bin to trash bin. 

2.  After breakfast, I heard a very loud bird in the yard.  It's the one who seems to say "we need you, we need you."  He was right.  The feeders were both empty.  I filled them.  He's quiet, now.  And everyone is munching away.

3.  Yesterday it was warmish, and we went to the beach, since it's afternoon low tide this week.  Sometimes, odd things wash up on the beach. 

Yes, it's a red pepper.  And a bunch of sea grass, I suppose as garnish.  Don't ask.

Yucky, soggy, rainy day

After two kind of nice days, we're being pelted with heavy rain.  I know, it's better than snow.  But still.

Nothing to do.  Don't want to go out, second walk is a washout (but we did get in a nice first walk), and I'm feeling my PTSD acting up as I listen to the rain banging on my windows, and the wind driving it hard.

So what's on the radio?  A used La Boheme, which I recall was nothing notable at the time it was fresh, back a few months.  I'd much prefer the actual matinee performance today, which happens to be Damnation of Faust, but for some unknowable reason, the big house is replaying a not so stellar performance from the recent past.

I notice, looking out the kitchen window, that the big construction project that went on all week is not having any positive effect.  For reasons also unknowable, the town decided to install a large storm drain type receptacle in the street a couple of blocks from here, which is at the bottom of a hill.  Runoff from the hill causes a large amount of water to flood the very busy street at the foot of the hill.  So I can see why someone thought a drain might alleviate the problem.

Guess what?  It's not working.  The very busy street is still flooded.  And due to the disruption of the street and area around the new drain, the flood is mostly mud.  Charming.  My tax dollars at work.

In the course of the construction project, I had opportunity to notice that most of the gendarme around here are late middle aged and very overweight.  And how much do they get paid to stand around, or sit on their butts, all day while people are digging up the street?  And why is it necessary to have a rather large SUV parked ON the sidewalk, with the motor running, spewing exhaust fumes, all day? 

One morning the attendant gendarme insisted on "helping" us cross the street on our way home from our first walk.  Ok, so big whooppee, he stopped a couple of cars that would have stopped anyway.  Then we had to creep past his SUV, parked on the sidewalk, with its motor running, spewing exhaust fumes, by climbing up the neighbor's 45-degree sloped front lawn.  This is not helpful.  Besides, we're pretty good at getting across all by ourselves.  After all, I lived on a state highway for 18 years.  This very busy street is a piece of cake, compared to that.

I need sunshine.  I need less wind.  And I need a second walk.  And a third, and a fourth.

Failing that, here's a shot of a couple of shore birds taking a walk the other day.  Apparently you don't have to be birds of a feather to walk together. 

Ok, so, Patterns

No, I didn't find the list.  What I did was go through a whole lot of pictures, and found some that sort of fit the subject matter.  These are all from a visit to Plum Island back in November.

This is not the Plum Island made notorious by some novelist (Nelson DeMille, in fact) a few years back.  It's not in Suffolk County, NY, for starters.  There's nothing at all sinister or mysterious about it.  And it's not really an island at all, tho it might once have been, presumably, which got it that name.  I never realized it even had a name, until a couple of weeks ago, when I was watching a video about Sandy Hook's history. 

This is the usual place we go, where you cross the road to get to the bay side of the Hook.  At high tide, there's not much there, it's mostly under water.  So the first thing is to check the tide charts before making the drive out there. 

Then, you can never quite count on it being the way it was the last time you saw it.  Depending on the weather and the tides, the configuration is different every time.  Some days there are interesting patterns, other days, not.

These are some of the ones I liked.

I imagine someone could explain how the water does that, shapes the sand differently in different places or at different times.  I'm not that person, however.  All I can do it look at it, and marvel at what nature can do when it's in a reasonably good mood.

Thank goodness that's over and done with

I really don't care much for the holidays.  Too much of the same people, over and over and over.  I need a new cast of characters.  Or to move Thanksgiving to August, to make more space between it and Christmas.

Before the holiday thing took over my life, I was working on a set of photos of patterns.  I'm kind of a pattern person, my brain sees patterns everywhere.  And the broken patterns, like those screens full of O's, with one Q stuck in the (not literally) middle.  I can pick out the wrong letter in a snap, without even looking.  Also, for that matter, the one missed note in a symphony.  It's not just my eyes, my ears do it, too.

It's going to take some time to backtrack, and find the pictures I was intending to post, so I'm not doing that now.  The list is on one of these post it notes that are laying all over my desk, I just have to find the right list.  Not now.

What I will put here is a photo I finally got a chance to take, tho I've been walking over and past it for months now.  I think it happened in the fall, when the leaves were first coming down.  And I always meant to stop and shoot it, but I'm usually attached to the dog at this point, who is dragging me down the street because something out there requires his attention.  Besides, it really doesn't look like much in the sun.  Or in the non-sun.  It's invisible at night, too. 

The perfect lighting is when it's raining in daylight, and the light is muted and soft, and there's enough wet to let it show up well.  We had a day like that, very recently, so after I brought the dog back home, I grabbed my camera and went out to get the shot.

I never really noticed, until I was looking at the picture, how interesting the texture of the sidewalk is, too.  You'd think concrete is just concrete colored, wouldn't you?