Beach day, sorta

I'm not one to sit on a beach.  They give me headaches - too much sun.

But doggo needs to get some beach experience.  Not so simple, in NJ in the summer.  Beaches are mostly off limits to doggos in the summer, here.  That never made much sense to me, so don't ask.

However.  My neighbor told me about a beach on the bay that allows doggos anytime.  It's not a huge beach, and it's not the easiest place on earth to get to from here, especially when you take into account all the road work that's going on right now.  More detours than normal roads.  Very scenic, yes.  But annoying, and lots of extra traffic.

The place is called Popamora Point, and it's in Highlands, right at the south end of the Henry Hudson Trail.  Small beach, and like a lot of bay beaches, kind of strewn with rocks and shells and sea glass (!!! but mostly green), so not the softest sandy circumstances.  Still, nice breeze, and gentle waves lapping on the shore, all the beachy things you look for.  Even some shade, which I noticed because of a tank top on someone at the dog park the other day that said "nobody likes a shady beach."

Since doggo hasn't had any previous beach- water edge experience, we tried it.  First, he wouldn't go anywhere near the water.  Then, when he saw other dogs in the water, he got closer.  What ensued really required a second person to do a video....he barked at the waves, charging at them, till they came towards him, at which point he backed away furiously.  If I hadn't needed to hang onto his leash, I might have done a video.  Alas, I only have two hands, and he's very strong.  And I was laughing too hard to hold a camera still, anyhow.

And no, he didn't end up going into the water.  Maybe another time.

Then we took a walk up the Henry Hudson Trail.  It's nice.  It has sea smells.  Like rocks and salt water and leftover crab shells and stuff like that.  Smelly stuff that dogs love.  And the land side of the trail has a sort of drainage indentation where the water lands when it comes off the hill above, before joining the bay.  Which doggo assures me contains all sorts of living creatures, like frogs!  I didn't see any frogs.   But he actually set foot, or feet, into that water, chasing his imagination, and having a nice cool drink.  Considering we had almost 4 inches of rain yesterday, I'm pretty sure it's mostly clean rainwater.

This is from the trail, at the north (or west) end of the beach.  Directions are odd in this part of the world.  It's the water.

Looking south (or east) from the trail.  It continues along the water like this, for a couple/few miles.  At some point, it turns inland a tad, to pass behind the huge marina in Atlantic Highlands.  We tried walking it once from that end, but the part behind the marina is deathly boring and not cool (temperature or otherwise), so we gave up.  It was a hot day that time, and today isn't particularly hot.

Nice thing is, there's some shade on the trail.  And the water ditch, which is apparently tasty if you're a dog.

There's a huge hill along the trail - or rather, the trail is at the foot of a huge hill.  Huge houses at the top of the hill, stuff I could never dream of affording.  Nevermind the probability that at some time in the not so distant future, those houses stand a good chance of landing at the bottom of the hill, due to the climate things that are going on.

Be that as it may, one house stood out to me, enough so I got a picture of it.  I particularly like the method for getting down from the house to the trail, and thence the beach....kind of medieval.  Let down the drawbridge....

Right.  The last flight of steps can be raised or lowered via a set of pulley type mechanisms.  Pretty ingenious.  Scary (for me) if you're at the top.  It's a long way down.

Next time, I may try climbing these steps to see where they come from....they look like a public thing, rather than a private house access.  Pretty, in any case.  But I'm curious.  I just didn't quite have the energy to climb them today.

Doggo thought about it too, and declined.  So there's more exploring yet to do.  Which is always a good thing, especially on trails that don't loop.  And next time, I'm taking the real camera.  The phone isn't as good as they claim it to be.

Old homestead

Not mine, of course.  My house is nothing special, and in fact, is rather blah.

This is a house near here, old, and not terribly well maintained.  As far as I can tell, only a very lovely older gentleman lives there, anymore.  I could only wish to be able to afford to buy the place, when he is done with it.  Little chance of that, it will go for a lot more money than I could ever dream of.  And will be knocked down, and the acreage sold off, and a whole passel of McMansions built in its place.  I hope I'm no longer here when that happens.

Anyhow, the front entrance:

And part of the patio out the back:

The patio is multi-level. and I think there's a creek at the bottom, tho I can't get close enough to tell for sure.

It could be a nice place to do an opera.  But that won't happen.  It's a cultural wasteland around here.

Sundries from a hot week

Too hot to trot, IMO.  However, doggo is ready for anything.  As usual.  So today we spent 3 hours at the dog park, catching up on his wrestling and socializing, and I got caught up with the people I usually see there, and did some free counseling.  Interesting, the things people will talk about at the dog park.

In the hot hot time of the last few days, we stayed close to home.  Wonder doggo had a couple of notable moments....

Saturday evening, when it was starting to cool down enuf to walk, we went out for a stroll.  He saw a neighbor coming out of her house to get into her car, going somewhere or other.  Usually he barks at such things.  This time he said, "hurrooo."  Walk was temporarily suspended while I laughed my butt off.

One day last week, we were sitting in the back yard trying to not over exert me, when some sort of emergency vehicle went by with siren on.  I didn't bother to get up to see what it was, but Bandit ran to the fence and, for the first time ever, howled.  Funny thing was, he matched pitch with the siren.  I know professional singers who can't match pitch to save themselves.

And Sunday, we accidentally let a fly into the house.  That provided several hours of amusement of the search and destroy sort.  And Bandit honed his obstacle course, moving furniture so he could get around (or over, or under) in his pursuit.  I'm not sure if he actually caught the fly, but I haven't seen it since about 1 pm Sunday.  And I know I didn't get it, even tho I'm a master fly swatter.

And when he's tired....

The doggo has a way with pillows.  Usually he pushes them onto the floor, but this is HIS pillow, so I suppose it's sacred or something.

Stuff and stuff

Sad day today, one of the singers who worked with On Site Opera has died from cancer.  It's hard to know what to do or say, I only met him the one time we had him create a role in a new opera.  He was a lovely man, with a great voice and character.  I didn't know he had cancer till last week. 

So no, I can't "own" it.  But I still feel the loss, and can only imagine how his family must feel.  So probably best to keep my mouth shut, right?

This is #4 for me in 2019.  Two clients, one former client, and now one of our singers.  Our singers are family. 

Which I suppose is why some part of me wants to own this, but it's not mine.

Going back to the birds, as an antidote.

Carolina Wren, I think.  That's what Merlin thinks, too.  Little guy with a big voice....yeah, there I go.  I'll call him the Bob Wren, as a memorial.

Wildlife and stuff

Aside from the dog, who is tame and normal one day and wild the next, we've had some encounters with real wildlife here lately.  Well, not encounters, precisely, but sightings, I suppose.  So, supposing that, here are a couple.

First, the morning of the fawns.  Their Mama was nearby, but I didn't get a pic of her.  The babies just kind of sat there and looked at us as I scrambled to get close enuf for a pic, fiddled with the camera in the phone, and made sure the dog didn't do anything that would scare them off.  All with just two hands!

They're so cute, yet I know, next spring when my Asiatic lilies start to emerge, these little tykes will be out on my front lawn munching on the buds before they have a chance to open.

Balance, right?

And then my fave bird has been visiting.  He makes a racket, particularly if I've not kept up with refilling the feeders.  But he does like his suet with berries in it just fine.

He's a real character.  Always a lot to say, and he loves chasing off the littler guys.

And, our furry chipmunkbird is back.  So I know a lot of the bird seed is finding its way into wherever his secret stash is this year.

I think it's kind of funny that the birds just treat him as though he was one of theirs.  What's the old saying, birds of a feather flock together?  Maybe I can make him a headdress out of feathers, so he blends in better.

Like having a 2 year old child

This doggo....is driving me insane.  After three days of impeccable behaviour, the last two days have been sheer havoc.  Yesterday he landed me on my butt in the park, everything is kind of sore today, but I don't think there's any real damage.  My ego no longer exists as such, and there were no witnesses.  And he didn't catch whatever it was he took off after, spinning me around, snapping my left shoulder (it made a weird noise, but nothing doesn't work now, so I think it's ok), and he landing on his back, mainly because I outweigh him by a factor of 5 or so.

The good thing is, we were already past the muddy section when this all happened.  Yes, it's still muddy, even tho the rain has mostly stopped.  I think the water table is so high it won't dry out until we get a full-fledged drought.

Then this morning on our walk, he tried again to spin me, but failed.  I was more or less on to him this time.  And just an hour or so ago, he decided to try to play with Lucy, a tiny Shitzu up the block, who would mostly like to remove his face.  When he calmed down a bit, she did as well.  She's actually adorable, and soft, and silky.  But initial impressions are rough.  And she has a height advantage, her house is up a bigger hill, so she's got an impressive array of stairs to charge down in order to mount her offensive.  Kind of reminds me of the Imperial Palace in Beijing.

Did I mention inter-dog relations are fun and fascinating?  Must be some reason I didn't.

Speaking of silky, here's a pic I took right after his bath on Friday.  He got so mucked up from the dog parks, he really needed a good cleaning,  He actually left muddy prints on my bathroom mat after he hopped out of the tub. 

On Thursday, we did our first ever major-ish excursion, driving up to Union City to visit a friend.  Said friend lives in a huge apartment building on the hill overlooking Hoboken and NYC.  So, in addition to the long car ride and mucho traffic, we had the first ever experiences of an elevator.  He kind of got the idea, more or less.  And he started exploring the maze of stuff in my friend's apt, which is sort of random because there is work being done on the exterior of the building, and the dust is spectacular, so nothing is in its right place at the moment. 

Fortunately, there's a nice dog park across the street from the building, and we went over there for a while.  Not a lot of dogs; in fact, only two, one at a time, who he played with voraciously.  They had fun.

Unlike the dog park we go to near home, this one had no grass, it was filled with a sort of coarse sandy gravel stuff, like you might expect at a kid's playground.  Of course it absorbs smells of whoever has been there before, so that was a fun thing for the great tracking hound.  And the thing I like the most, which we could really use in our dog park, but I understand the myriad of reasons we don't have one, it has a fountain, with a human height spout as well as a dog height one, which is human operated - so the dogs can't run it themselves, and flood out the whole park.  This is an excellent idea, especially after having had to get accustomed to lugging a water supply and bowl with us to our DP all the time.  One of the benefits of being urban as opposed to suburban. 

I still think every DP needs a taco truck, tho.  Watching dogs play is hungry business.  But yeah, I know, you don't really want food in there, it gets too complicated.  Dogs and food, not so perfect together.

And next time we go up there, I really want to get out somewhere and do some pics of the NYC skyline.  It's pretty dramatic.  But it was very hot, and the dog was in unfamiliar territory, and it wasn't possible on this trip.  Maybe in the fall.  Maybe the traffic won't be quite so bad then.

First sandy nose ever!

Running errands this afternoon, we stopped by Grandma's place, and since she wasn't home yet, we took a little walk by the beach.  Yes, no dogs on the beach in summer, but that's ok, it's too hot today anyhow, but we took a look, and on the way back, stopped to rest under the bridge, because shade.  He discovered sand.  And how lovely it is to dig holes in sand, and to stick your snout in it.  Now we can't wait for cooler weather!  Next time we might even get near the water, and maybe try that if we're feeling bold.

Keep in mind that Bandit is a dog who thinks his backyard doggie pool is a very large water bowl. 

Learning new things is fun!

Red lilies have opened!

These are the ones that never got a chance to bloom, when they were in the front yard.  Moved them to the back yard when the roses went in, and voila!

And as a bonus, the daylilies are starting to open.  We're just full of lilies this week. 

To balance, something came along last night and ate the flowers off the orange ones in front.  Hope they enjoyed the snack!

I guess the saying is right - if something isn't eating your landscape, it's not part of the ecosystem.

That flowery time of year

Must be all the rain, I have flowers all over the place.  Everything is blooming, even the stuff that the deer usually eat before the flowers get a chance. 

Yeah, I like dandelions, too.  And my yard full of clover, which has a lovely scent to it.  And I just laugh at the landscaper types who want to remove the moss from between my patio stones.  Leave my moss alone!

Flower power!

Bandit missed this one!

Bandit is a hunter, or so he thinks.  He always scopes out the yard before he goes down the stairs, to see what's out there that he can chase.  I'm glad that so far, he hasn't actually caught anything.

But he follows his nose everywhere, searching for scents to things he thinks he'd like to chase, and maybe even catch.

We went to the nature trail at our local park, the park where Pablo loved to go, because of the smells.  And the wildlife.  It was Pablo's favorite park, so we'll call it Pablo's Park, or PP.  Apt description, I'm sure a lot of the smells are from pee, of various critters.

A lot of the squeamish people I know would never set foot outdoors if they ever thought about who and what pees and poops on the outdoors.  A lot of them live near me.

Anyhow, the one that bandit missed.  We had just squished through a very muddy section of the trail, and I was making noise at the dog because he barely missed landing me head first in the deepest part of the mud, when we came around a corner and guess who's looking at us?

 
She, I think it's a she, was just standing there, giving us the eye.  Very still.  Very quiet.  She never moved, just stood there.  I got a couple of pics, not very good ones, because I'm still not in sufficient control of the dog to use a real camera when I'm walking him, so I took them with the phone, which, truth be told, takes lousy pictures.  Good enuf for small applications, but they really suck if you look at them full screen, and don't even waste ink trying to print them.  Samsung S9, I highly dis-recommend it if you like to use your phone for pictures.

I know she was real, she did turn her head at one point.  And I spoke to her, very softly, so she wouldn't run away (which likely would have resulted in Bandit making chase, and dragging me thru all sorts of muddy stuff). 

All this, and doggo, the great hunter, didn't see or smell the deer.  Amazing.  So I now know that not only is there no retriever of any sort in him, he's also faking the great hunter thing.  Cheaper than a DNA test.

She's probably out in the park, still laughing about it.