Today's visitors: Mr. Cardinal

See how he cracks the seed, drops the seed case without letting go of the tender kernal, and then looks very proud of himself?

Handbags and laptops!

www.hp.com.sg/beyondthebag

I'm a green drawstring bag. What are you?

Lilac is planted

It's in the middle of the front garden. I don't know how well it will do there, as the water table is very high and the groundwater is probably brackish (a mix of salt and fresh). If it starts to look poorly, I'll move it somewhere else.

It's a congo lilac, Syringa vulgaris "Congo", should have nice purple flowers and a great scent. Good for butterflies too!

Sunday colour

Today's colour is grey... windy, layers of cloud, not cold, just grey, grey, grey.

Images seem to be working again. I guess they were just a little tired/

Image upload is broken

Looks like there are Blogger problems. Cannot upload images any more. Have logged the problem with Blogger support--as have other users--but no response/no fix yet.

Darn...

Return of the native :-)

The egrets are back!

At least one... he just glided across the sky from the south-west, legs trailing, and landed in the centre of the wetlands. After a few moments, he fluttered across a channel and settled in the grass.

This is my first spring here. I do not know if this year's egret absense has been long, short, or the usual thing. But I'm happy to see them return.

In the garden :-)

Couldn't resist a trip to Home Depot in Shirley to see what they had in the garden center. It is now full of things to plant.

I am greedy and want them all.

Managed to ignore the Old Man's Walking Stick (Salix matsudana Tortuosa) because it had a label on it saying 99$. Nice specimen though. I'm sure if somehow a cutting made its way home, it would root in some water...

Brought home a Royal Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata Royal Star) with its sandy rootball wrapped in sacking/burlap and twine. It was heavy, healthy, and much larger than the little twig I planted at the top of the hill in the Fair Oaks garden. This one is beginning to bud. It's now planted towards the front of the front garden, and a lot more of the (now dead) brush has been cleared away (two more bins full this afternoon). Deer are supposed to dislike Magnolias. We will see.

A few others--including a Lilac "Congo"--are going to have to wait until tomorrow in their pots. After clearing the sticks/wild rose canes/dead wood/hopefully-dead poison ivy vines, energy ran out. Needed a cuppa tea. (Always remember to save a little energy for cleaning up and putting things away. Note to self.)

More plants and bulbs are nosing their way through the warming earth. It all smells good.

The Great Brookhaven Cleanup--today!

There are several hours to go. Put your boots on, grab some bags, don't forget your gloves--and GET OUT THERE AND DO YOUR BIT! Every little helps. You look after your small corner of the world, and it becomes a better world for everyone.

(Taking a coffee break. We--neighbours and I, each taking various patches (and yet another example of Flavio's "organic organization", with no-one giving orders, it's just obvious who does what), we've tidied the south part of Park Drive, around no. 1 beach, and the streets in this segment. Still more to do.)

Amazing what you find.

A beer-bottle stash (all empty of beer but some containing swamp water and algae in various stages of growth), must have been either a major party dumping-ground or someone's place to hide the evidence of their intake from the spouse. (Cool idea: nip into the undergrowth, drink a beer, leave the glass bottle behind and No One Will Know I've had a beer.)

To whoever left the glass bottles (single or in a heap): when a deer appears in the middle of the road when you turn the corner and won't get out of the way and you end up with your nice shiny car all smashed up and sunk into one of the mosquito ditches, understand that it was the deer's revenge for the cut foot he suffered from your broken bottles. You're lucky he doesn't bring the herd to poop on your doorstep. Every night.

I have discovered this morning that there are more brands of condoms than I knew existed.

People: the wrappers that you put into the open-lidded bin by number one beach blow out and away into the undergrowth and onto the beach, because that's what wind does with light little things like condom wrappers. As for their used contents, I heard a rumour that they are setting up DNA testing as part of a new anti-litter program. You may want to change your disposal habits.

And for those of you who think number one beach is a nice, private place to have a bit of nooky away from the prying eyes of Mom/Dad/his or her spouse/your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend, you might want to read the posting on this blog from September 3rd last year, before one of the neighbourhood dogs or raccoons bites you on the behind. Hard.

Mother!! Fathers!!! Those "disposable" diapers? "Disposable" doesn't mean "dispose anywhere", it just means throw them away in the garbage and don't wash/dry/use again and again. "Disposable" doesn't mean "biodegradable". Haven't you noticed? They have plastic all over them. To keep the pee in. That's why you put them on your kiddies. And that's why, when you toss them all nicely packaged out of the car window into the reeds, they remain little swollen packages that fester in the undergrowth. Yummy.

Beer cans. Soda/pop cans. They look cool when the weather and sand has shined off all the paint. They look even better in a recycling bin ready to be made into something more useful instead.

Did you know that cigarette butts take 51 years to disintegrate? Birds mistake them for food, or they get blown into the water (rather easy round here) and end up in the stomachs of fish and even whales. If your own cancer doesn't worry you, maybe a dead whale in your backyard will. They tend to be a little smelly and quite difficult to move.

OK enough of the rant. Cleaning up our town, and keeping it clean, isn't a one-day thing. We need to look after it every day. So you didn't drop that bit of litter blowing down the street? Not important. You can still pick it up. Maybe your neighbour is doing the same for the Dunkin' Donuts Styrofoam Cup that blew down the street from your house when the raccoons ripped open your garbage bag last week.

Every little helps.

Just take it home, or seal it up and put it in one of the garbage bins. There's a whole set of them beside the marina.

Thank you :-)

All washed up

There's a lot of sand being washed up onto beach number one, and the wetlands beach, right now. Part of the annual cycle of storm, erosion, rebuilding?

Fury found this little guy on the wetlands beach. Tiny, perfect, but no longer swimming.

The Great Brookhaven Cleanup

From April 5th to May 31st. Everyone, join in and help!

More information here: http://www.brookhaven.org/

Volunteer sign-up form here: http://www.brookhaven.org/Brookhaven/KeepBrookhavenBeautiful/tabid/477/Default.aspx

April 5th and 12th are cleanup days. May 17th will be the Great Brookhaven Plant-in.

If we all do a little, it adds up to huge.

Strange boat

The tug-like boat was pushing the raft with crane on it. I guess some dredging is planned?

Quote of the day: battlefield boob?

"Eighteen is certainly an age where we're putting men and women in uniform on a battlefield," he said. "I think they can decide if they want larger breasts."

From an article about the increase in the number of young women/girls having "cosmetic" surgery.

Well, Mister Plastic Surgeon, maybe BOTH are wrong.

Full article here: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lisurg0327,0,3741500.story

Very seedy

Went to Home Depot yesterday evening to buy some more weedblock fabric to put down in front garden before wheel-barrowing more of the pile of woodchip, leaving spaces for the plants-and-trees-discovered-under-the-strangling-vines-and-poison-ivy. Found the fabric, and some staples... and also the seeds. All those pretty packets of flower seeds. And each packet is so cheap!

Came away with herbs: cilantro (really Coriander), two sorts of basil, "common" chives (what did they do???), vulgar oregano (not putting origano next to chives, might end up censored), spearmint (to grow in a bucket), garlic chives, curly parsley and lemon balm (will buy thyme and rosemary as baby plants, already have some lavender). Flowers: poppies (of course), (did I really buy four more packets???), four sorts of sunflower, lots of sweet peas, giant columbine, some crimson morning glory just to be different, and several varieties of nasturtium (if the turtle is still around, he will find them). And a set of those little peat pellets to start them off indoors.

Must resist temptation to plant seeds before soil is warm enough. Resist, resist....

Two-by-two

The birds are all aligning two-by-two today.

Two ducks going bottoms-up in the creek opposite the bedroom windows. I don't know if they are having fun or sending a message.

Two swans on the wetlands beach.

Two grebes floating serenelyon the bay.

And two beige doves, sitting on my deck railing, peeping through the window and eating from the bowl of seeds. I think they are Mourning Doves (http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/163/_/Mourning_Dove.aspx) but am not sure. They are about half the size of town pigeons, but pigeon/dove shape, very cute.

I hope they are all two-by-two because it is spring. And not because they are expecting Noah.

Numbers game

Woke up at four a.m. with a head full of numbers. Bills, birthdays, estimates; dates, train times, blocks of streets. Went to kitchen, drank water by the orange street-light coming through the window. Back to bed, back to sleep to the sound of the village siren (fire? ambulance? they are all volunteers and summoned by siren). Alarm went off at six-thirty. A little light seeping in, but a cloudy dawn, not bright. Switched on the lamp... nothing. Switched on the overhead light... nothing.

Immediate thought: another problem with the electricity, another electrician's visit, another oversized bill to pay.

Looked out of windows. Street lamp was off, but that says nothing, as the sun was on its way up. Neighbour's lights were off, but that says nothing, they leave for work before six-thirty or get home later. Checked the fuse/trip switches: everything looked fine.

Wondered if I'd need to drive to Melville or Manhattan to find an office with power and internet for work....

Called the power company. Recorded message: "outage in Mastic Beach, a crew has been despatched, estimated fix time 8 a.m." Cool. In time for first meeting of the day.

Decided to drive to Shirley and buy coffee at Dunkin' and take it to beach and watch sun come up. As that thought appeared, so did the dog. Most unusual. She usually sleeps until at least nine. Thought that dog plus coffee wouldn't mix, don't have enough hands. Decided to do dog-walking first, then coffee on beach.

Just as we were walking out the door, the power came back on.

Walked the dog, paid the bills, found the street directions, decided what to do about estimate and birthdays, and made coffee... all before eight.

Good start to the day :-) And no numbers in head tonight :-)

Easter Sunday, early but springing

Been a busy weekend. The sun was shining, the air calm and clear, and it was time for the garden. Started by cleaning up that-what-the-dog-had-left-behind. Yuck. Once that was out of the way, did some major tidy-up: trimmed the pampas grass down ready for new year's growth (I don't know if now is the right time or not--some people did it early in the winter, some later, and some still have last year's grass all brown and dead--maybe there isn't a right time?) Pulled weeds, trying not to disturb the bulbs (it is almost a joy to weed here, after Sacramento, where every tiny root was concreted inside heavy clay; here the earth is sandy and light and easy and probably lacking in vegetable matter, that can be fixed).

Then, carried away by the loppers, started trimming all the dead stuff from the bushy/rambling/vinelike bushes at the end of the pond. Found that they were entangled in a chainlink fence, whose support posts had rotted, and which was only kept from splashing into the pond and giving the fish a heart attack by the way the bushes had wriggled through the mesh. It's gone now. Three large plastic bins-full of "brush" and several black bagsfull too. Two reels of rusting chainlink and three rotten four-by-fours. All out-of-the-way. The bush will grow back, I had to trim it nearly every week last summer, and it has roots all over the garden. Wouldn't be surprised if it's the reason the pond is leaking.

Planted some pansies: pink, purple, blue and white. In the "upstairs" garden, where deer don't go. And some new roses: "Rose de Rescht", a pink shrub rose; "Intrigue", a purple-plum flowering, everblooming floribunda; "La Reine", a large-flowered, pink bourbon rose, and two "Climbing Coral Dawn" everblooming climbers (these two in the "downstairs" garden, against the east-side trellis where they will see the afternoon sun.

The roses were bare-root from Home Depot. As usual with HD, these dry-rooted plants had been kept somewhere wet. They were already budding and needed to be planted immediately. Sometimes I think you don't so much buy roses from Home Depot, but rescue them, but that's a rather presumptuous thought. The prices are good and the roses have always "worked" for me. There are two Lady Banksia ramblers probably flowering all over the top of the hillside in a garden in Sacramento about now that were once dying in too-small pots at the end of the summer in Carmichael Home Depot. Sold off for a couple of dollars each, and eighteen months later they were huge and beautiful.

I used to think roses were boring, difficult and not worth bothering with. Then I saw the climbers and ramblers, old-fashioned and fragrant, at the Priory in Manton, and realised what roses really could be.

All the roses in florists here are pretty, perfect, scrolled buds, with absolutely zero perfume. I'd rather have ugly, petal-dropping, inconsistent blooms that smell like roses are meant to smell. Or a flamboyant coat of colour all over a trellis or fence for two or three weeks a year before being replaced by shiny, clean leaves. That's what roses should be.

Gave the pond some more water, the pump and filter running all weekend to clear some of the winter debris and give the fish some oxygen.

Watched the fish for ages. No sign of the big guy, my koi. All the baby black fish seem to be turning orange--pond guy was right when he said most goldfish are born black. This is good feng shui, apparently: goldfish represent riches. (Send by PayPal please.)

Watching the water like Ahab, waiting for the white whale.

And then, around three o'clock, there he was. Rising out of the murky depths, like a silver ghost, he showed himself and then disappeared under a floating water hyacinth. Moby! He survived the winter! (Looks like he now has a golden streak along his flank--and he has grown.)

Queequeg, no harpoon needed here, OK?

No, THIS is the full moon

It is now shyly hiding behind a veil of cloud.

Can anyone explain why I seem to get a red circle around the moon? Was using 300mm zoom...

Full moon?

Almost... just a little nibble gone from bottom left corner. Or maybe that's cloud.

The moon rises over the water and lays down a path of silver for itself to travel over. The geese fly by, singing in the dark.

And then someone drives screechingly-fast down the road, misses a turn, skids and fishtails and almost, but not quite, ends up in the creek... then drives away with the car making embarrassed clunking noises.

Quick walk-on-the-beach

Looking west towards the pavilion and the TWA memorial. Can't walk that way with a dog.

A little different to summer, when it's crowded with people sunbathing, and the lifeguards sit on their tall chairs and have rowing races round the beach buoys.

It was a fast walk, because the wind is bitter! Beautiful late afternoon though... huge waves, sand in patterns, driftwood, shells.

Looking north across the bay from Smith Point towards Mastic Beach. Home is somewhere on the right of the picture, across the water.

And today's birdsong is American Robin

4 p.m., and the wetlands are back to their usual state. Floodwater gone. Amazingly fast.

The Drifting Deck (or is it a lost dock?) has turned up again in the small channel. I'd go and grab it and use it in the garden somewhere, but that channel is wider and deeper than it appears.

The American Robins are singing and singing today: they are bigger, brasher and more in-your-face than European robins... and they are late for Christmas.

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/212/overview/American_Robin.aspx