... and Yesterday's Storm

... and this was before it really got started. Then it was time to shut the door, tight, and stay away from the windows.
Well-washed wetlands just before sunset... thunder still rumbling, rain still falling, but a few breaks here-and-there.

There are trees and branches down all over Mastic Beach. Lots of tree and electricity crews around today. Two big willows down close by: one near the bay, one at the end of this street. That one is now a big pile of woodchips in my driveway; it will become the pathways through my little woods. Sad to see such a big tree fall.

Weathered

These were sunset, a few days ago. I liked the way the pink sky was reflected in the creek and wetland ponds.

The morning after a storm

I have never seen a storm like that

They recorded winds at over 55 mph at Shirley airport half an hour ago. Ten minutes before that, I was in the garden, collecting a couple of green tomatoes that had fallen from the plants. Now the plants are all tumbled and blown/thundered over. The sound-and-light show was continuous: loud, shockingly close. Part of the storm Fury and I went to sit at the bottom of the stairs, like my grandma used to: she was afraid of storms, I'm not but this did seem like an incredibly sensible place to go and sit, far away from the windows and the roof, while nature was hurling herself all around us.

The street outside, and my front yard--the part that is lower than the rest--is a fast-flowing stream right now.

I had planned to go for a bike ride about ten minutes before this all started, but decided to wait-and-see if the distant thunder would do anything other than grumble. It did. Am glad I stayed home.

A minor leak in front door. Not surprising, the force of the water that was thrown at it for about forty minutes.

And a very very mysterious and annoying leak in ceiling of downstairs living room. How the heck did any water get in there???????? Again, water finding its lowest point: again, around the recessed-lighting can in the lowest part of the ceiling, where the pipes and things-you-want-hidden-from-view are. I don't think there could be so much of a coincidence that part of the plumbing magically starts leaking at the same time as the worst thunderstorm in my lifetime... somehow water must have forced its way through the siding and into the house. Maybe. This will need serious investigation. This will need serious dollars. Again. Aarrrghhh.

And now it seems like the storm has passed... birds start to sing again, skies are just grey, not black. Thunder grumbles.

First tomato!

We Have Weather

Storms yesterday, all night, and today. A front of storms passing over New York state, moving south to north, thunderstorm after thunderstrorm, lots of lightning, lots of water.

Saw something creepy on TV

Well... when your long-faithful pet passes away, you don't have to bury him or her, nor do you have to resort to cremation. You might even consider taxidermy to keep the memory of your pet present in a physical form... but there is something even "better" available.

You can have them freeze dried. It takes about nine months.

I found out about this on a "People's Court". I don't know how the judge kept a straight face while the poor plaintiff cried over how the freeze drier guy had done a bad job with her poor cat. But he awarded her the judgement, even though the defendant had brought in several examples of well-preseved dogs and cats.

They just looked like dead animals to me.

Maybe it's Aunt Hilda's turn next? You could pose her in her favourite seat by the window, looking out at what the people next door are up to. Or Uncle Bert, leaning on his walking stick and dragging on his pipe.

Well if you start with cats and dogs, where do you finish?

Sunday pics

Egret at the wetlands beach

A gaggle of geese
Egret and heron meeting... or is it Gandalf the Grey, and Gandalf the White?

Yard sale for our village-to-be! Donate and be there!

GIANT COMMUNITY YARD SALE

Date: Saturday, August 16, 2008
Place: Ducky Lane, Mastic Beach
Time: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm

All proceeds will be donated to the Mastic Beach Village Exploratory Committee.

Your donated yard sale items are greatly needed. You may drop off your items between August 1st and August 15th at 12 Ducky Lane, Mastic Beach. You may call (631) 487-0595 or email norton2526@peoplepc.com for more information. Together we can make a difference in our community!

Let’s break our last yard sale record together!

Wanderin' 'round

Went out to see where all the geese were headed--fifteen or more had just sailed down the creek towards the bay, and more flew overhead--but I missed them. Wandered around and found these instead...

Raccoon prints dried hard where the house used-to-be, at the corner of Park Drive.

Before-sunset from No. 1 Beach
Bird on a Wire
... and the undergrowth beside the drainage ditches, lush, green: ferns and virginia creeper and honeysuckle and grape vines and poison ivy and more.

Big bird needs big branch to perch on

It's an egret, in a tree, right across the wetlands.

What a nice surprise!

The hibiscus I planted at the end of the pond is blooming: the flowers are huge, six inches across, magnificent! I had no idea the flowers would be so impressive: the label showed a deep, wine-red flower, but I expected them to be half this size.

My iguana would have loved them...

Words of Wisdom from Monty Don

http://books.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2282286,00.html#article_continue

If you've never read his books, READ THEM. Yes he's a television personality too, in the UK, but his genius is in his garden and in his writing.

And he's cute, too. In a married middle-aged English gardener sort of way.

And cicadas, definitely

Gentle, high-pitched cicadas last night. No machine-gun rattlers... yet. Just a gentle background noise, so gentle it's like it was always there.

All those trees!

Back from a couple of days up the coast in Boston, MA (where I saw little more than the airport, the concrete walls of the freeway and tunnel, the inside of a very-nice hotel, a nice restaurant, good people, and then back again). Flew to-and-from Islip, nice, quiet and handy airport (just be careful when walking round to the US Airways gates, if you're daydreaming you'll end up back in the lobby and have to go through security all over again... I speak from experience!)

Flying back in a small propellor-powered plane, looking down at Long Island from Orient Point all the way to Islip, I was surprised at how many trees there are. Dumb observation. But you see them better from "up there", out of a clear blue sky. There are lots and lots and lots of trees: houses nestled between them, farmland scraped out, wetlands the only really clear areas.

A lot of water, too.

Trees and water and sand and wetlands. That is this end of Long Island.

Misty sunrise

Egret dance

Early evening, clouds arrive after a beautiful summer's day. The egrets playing, three together, over and in the wetlands.

We went to Smith Point beach today. Lizarding in the sun. But the beach kept shrinking: big waves from tropical storm Bertha, pushing all the people into a narrower and narrower strip of sand up against the dunes. Fun watching people scramble as the waves reached their towels laid out on the warm sand... and being half-asleep when a big wave claimed the territory under my feet. Came home when the concentration of people-to-sand was too intense.

The lifeguards have eyes like egrets: they spot someone in trouble, or likely to get into trouble, and before you hear the whistle blow, they are down off the high seat, in the water, helping someone stand up out of the surf or out onto dry land. They are good.

No gas? Good!

Seeing more and more sailboats out on the bay. So tranquil...

And more and more bicycles on the streets.

Maybe an oil price crisis isn't so bad for everything, after all.

First fruits!

Vine tomatoes growing on the trellis behind the garden deck

"Hot Banana" peppers


... and snap peas.

More busy bees

I am suffering the mosquitos: and yes they do bite me, often, luckily not too badly, but suffering them gladly when I see the happy bees and other insects.

All the mosquito stuff kills not only mosquitos but everything else as well. Crickets even. Why would you want to kill crickets????

The bees love the clover in the lawn. And it needs watering much less often than pure grass. (Not that I have ever managed to keep a lawn of green grass. I have to import some real cricket-field outfield daisies one day.)

The lavender is buzzing with them and the coneflowers are heavy.

Rediscovering yellow

The last few years my gardens have always been blue, lavender, purple, pink, red, white... this year, the garden has decided it wants yellow. And orange. But mostly yellow.

Black-eyed susans (the daisy-like black-eyed susans) have appeared beneath the sunflowers. I don't know where they came from. I am sure I didn't plant them. And they were not there last year, I'm sure! They are very cheerful. And the smaller sunflowers (those I did plant, I remember that!) are very yellow too. And some of the perennials that were already established in the borders: yellow. All of them.

And they look good.

You have to listen when your garden tells you something.

Waspy

The blue thistle plants are this morning swarmed in wasps: tiny wasps up to over one inch blue-and-black wasps. At least I think they are wasps: they have a waspy shape. Very very busy, frantically flying from flower to flower. Some with stripes, some without; there's something about this flower, this morning, that has them all a-buzz.

Mastic Beach Village

Mastic Beach can become a village. This will mean better, local control over the place where we live: making this an even-nicer place to live.

To become a village, there are several steps, including a census and a petition. More details can be found on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_New_York#Village

A "village" in New York state is more-or-less the equivalent of a "town" in England--and in many other states. Mastic Beach is definitely Village-sized, with Village-sized challenges, huge opportunites (see Neighborhood Road and the improvements made in the past year alone), and a long, magnificent waterfront.

If you want to express your opinion during the incorporation process, you must be a registered voter in Mastic Beach. If you have forgotten to register, do it now! Be ready!

I believe this is the right thing to do. I will add links to information about the Village incorporation work as it arrives.

More summer flowers

Tall-and-gangly white phlox, and some beautiful-blue "volunteer" flax (that means they snuck in and volunteered their services in making the garden nice.. AKA weeds if you don't want them where they volunteer, but I like them very much... also, flax was the main agriculture of the William Floyd Estate in the years way-back-when, when it was a working farm).

Lots and lots of purple coneflowers...

... sunflowers like blood oranges...
... and the gourd vines. I don't know if these are the bird's nesting box gourds, or the snake gourds, or a couple of each. I planted both in the pots. We'll see when the gourds arrive: they have just started to flower: large, white, calling the bees.

Summer night

Still no cicadas. Maybe the ones we heard last year go to sleep for seventeen years? Some do, then emerge from the earth to surprise everyone again. I have become used to cicadas in summer: in France, they accompanied me on walks up the paths to the Vercors.

Drifted in and out of sleep last night.

Birds were singing in the dark. Quiet trilling, gentle, like a lullaby.

There are no nightingales here--and they did not sound like nightjars.

May have been the Northern Mockingbirds having a late night?

Early morning, and the biggest egrets are one-legged sleeping around a pond in the wetlands. Sometimes they wake up there: sometimes, perched in one of the old, empty-leaved trees.

And then I heard a rattle... one maraca...

Maybe we wil have cicadas this year after all.

Pollination

Bumble bees, carrying pollen all over their hairy backs...

... honey bees, with furry legs that start to look like yellow jodhpurs as they pick up pollen while gathering nectar...

... the skinny black blue-winged wasp prefers allium to lavendar...

... a bumble bee works his way around the coneflower, stamen by stamen...

... Disco Bees!!!!! (Now where did they come from?) Flourescent green.... wow!