Autumn 2015

It is the time of year when the green starts to fade out of the tree leaves, letting us see the colors beneath.

It is the time of year when we start to worry about whether the birds will have enough stored for the winter, so we start to feed them again.

It is the time of year when we are a little surprised to see that flowers still flower, or that funghi still thrive, and perhaps we don't take them quite for granted.

It is a time of year when the lake shows the colors of the sky and trees

when reflections in the still water can look even more intense than the the trees themselves

when, if we look closely, we see beauty in the water that looks as much like gemstones beneath as reflections from above.

The loon still patrols

the skies show their majesty

strange cabals begin to gather

and then even stranger gatherings.

For a brief time, everything seems incandescent.  I rolled down my car window north of Durham, took a picture with my cell phone, and drove home.

Irene Hochheimer's Spring Flowers

My grandmother Irene Wormser Hochheimer was born 112 years ago on May 1.  She died in 1994, but every spring we have the joy of seeing the blooming plants she gave us from her garden.  The purple flowers above are a hardy primrose that she said a friend of hers collected from Siberia.

The winter aconite come up even before the primroses - we often see them as the snow is melting.  Irene gave us just a few of the aconite, and it has spread like crazy all around our garden and yard.

Irene (yes, even as little children we knew her by her first name) called the plant below a "white forsythia" -- its blooms come out on the stem like a forsythia, before the leaves, but it's not actually a true forsythia - it's a relative called Abeiliophyllum distichum, and the best things about it are how early in the year it blooms (a couple weeks before forsythia) and its sweet perfume smell.

The "bleeding heart" (dicentra spectabilis) spreads itself all around the yard - we never know where we'll see it from year to year.

On the other hand, the wood anemone (anemone nemerosa) happily comes back every year in its shaded patch at the edge of our woods.

We used to have a few epimedium but I only saw one blooming at the edge of the woods this spring. The yellow flowers are great, but the leaves are truly gorgeous.  I'm not sure which variety this is - there are a lot of them.  I think she may have told me, but I can't remember.

Irene had weird daffodils spread throughout her woods in Norwalk, and periodically (when there were lots of green leaves but not many flowers) she would dig them up in the fall, separate the bulbs, and re-plant them so that they could grow strong and flower again.  In the process, she would give some away.  Maybe because she grew them for so many years, they seemed to randomly hybridize themselves, and many of them are these strangely disorganized "double" flowers.

I would miss Irene even without the annual flowering reminders; her love, humor, and dedication to her family and her community inspired many of us.  But the flowers are a particularly nice way to be reminded !

Vote for Sarah's photos ! (if you like them...)

Two of Sarah's photos have been chosen as finalists in a photo contest.
The deadline is Tuesday April 21.
If you like them, and want to vote for Sarah, go to this website:
http://www.haverford.edu/studyabroad/after_study_abroad/photo_contest.php

You'll find Sarah's two photos:
* Brickmaker
* Rooftop Kite Flyer.

After you vote, please consider forwarding to others !

Thanks !!

Winter Is Coming

We had a lot of snow this winter.  It started in earnest with a surprise snow squall during a morning commute in January.  I generally listen to podcasts as I drive around the state, but that morning I turned on Glenn Gould's iconic 1955 recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations, and felt the music flow around me as I drove through the snow.

By February, the snow from weekly (often Monday) storms was piling up in our driveway.  For the most part we shoveled the driveway ourselves.  We are registered for a half-marathon in April -- neither Amy nor I have ever run that far -- so the exercise was welcome (although the winter conditions made road running a little complicated.)

We had an extraordinary number of weeks when we could cross-country ski in the woods behind our house.  We continue to extend our apologies to all of you who were unhappy with all the snow; some of us really enjoyed it.

Amy was particularly vigilant about using the roof rake to take the snow load off the house, and minimize ice dams.  But almost every home owner we know had water coming in the house at some point.  (Jon and Alice, we hope your bedroom ceiling gets fixed soon !)

Finally, last week, most of the snow melted away in a series of warm days and rainstorms.  The winter aconite, started from a few plants given us over 20 years ago by my grandmother, bloomed all over our back garden.

The deer had a tough time finding food this winter, with so much snow cover;  by last week they seemed quite happy to forage in our back yard.

Today I slept late.  When I woke up, came downstairs, and greeted Amy, I had to ask:  "Did I sleep until December ??"

Still Spring persists and will have its day.  Even on cold mornings there are flocks of birds loudly calling to each other in preparation for nest-building and mating.  Ah, well ... this last bit of white will soon melt, not to be seen again until next December !