Will he ever stop getting more handsome?
😉
I take a picture of the monster each month on the third (or thereabouts) with the idea of reminding myself how little he used to be and just how cute. But gosh.. the cuteness just never stops!
I went looking for snow buntings this afternoon and instead found this handsome red fox, leaping and pouncing at something unseen among the winter brown grasses at the base of the gun battery at North Beach on Sandy Hook.
Red foxes are easily seen there and even in my own neighborhood – I once ushered a family with youngish kits out of the way of oncoming traffic just up the road from my house, but to see one actively hunting, rather than skulking along the edges of a field or scavenging for leftovers near a garbage bin, was a rare treat. I’m always impressed with just how slight they are; at first from a distance I mistook it for an overfed tabby. (Yes… I do need to wear my glasses more often!)
As handsome as they may be, foxes are bird killers; more specifically at Sandy Hook, endangered nesting shorebird killers. Because Sandy Hook lacks any larger predators to keep them in check, red foxes have a serious impact on the survival rates for piping plovers. While (some) humans may be dissuaded by the fences erected each March to protect the plovers, the sly fox will learn to dig under even the caged exclosures meant to protect the birds and their eggs.
Due to Sandy Hook’s geography, it’s not exactly clear how red foxes have found their way onto the pennisula. I found an article in the NY Times from 1880 that mentioned the possibility that they walked across the ice on the Shrew
sbury River at some point or across a frozen Sandy Hook Bay. I don’t guess that much matters anyway, but the idea was on my mind because of a conversation earlier in the day with a couple fishermen who stopped in to the bird observatory.
Birders and fishermen, at the Hook at least, have a relationship based, for one thing, on our acknowledgement of the other’s nuttiness. We’re often the only ones out there in the worst weather or at the most ungodly hour or at the farthest distance from anyplace comfortable. Oftentimes, I think, we read some of the same clues to find our quarry.
I mentioned this to the one guy today, who, incidentally, was shopping for a scope to ‘spot’ fish (?) and he agreed that both groups do indeed have a screw loose, albeit a different screw. He’d asked me if I’d even seen a coyote at Sandy Hook or thought it possible that they might be there without anyone knowing it (or admitting to it). I said no, of course, and mentioned that there were no deer there, even, to which he corrected me with a glut of ‘deer swimming across the bay’ stories which sounded suspiciously like ‘fish stories’ to me. At any rate I was glad for the chance to chat with these two and have a peek at some of what they notice about Sandy Hook besides the good fishing there.
A bit more spring yellow… while I still like seeing it. Yellow gets old fast, I think. Anyway, these flowers remind me of something… I can never think of what it is they look like though.
Jonquils (aka Daffodils to us more Northern folks) sent by a friend from a place where Spring sounds to be making a bit more headway.
😉
Thanks J. for this peak at what’s to come. Spring will arrive and it’ll be more beautiful than we remember. Can there be anything sweeter than unexpected flowers from far away?
Can anyone guess the story?
😉
I wasted a few perfectly good hours this morning (and enlisted my husband in the project, too) looking for the grown-up version of this pic – I know it’s around here somewhere; can see it even in my mind – but I’ll be damned if I can put my fingers on it. It’s Kevin and I at the beach, me in a bikini looking amused, he up to his knees in the sand, building something to keep that amused grin on my face. I was twenty or so. He thirty or so. Grown-ups. Building sandcastles.
What’s the matter with us?
I heard from him the other day, for the first time since.. oh Christmas, and what did he do? He complimented me on my snowman. The one I built with the five-year-olds from the neighborhood. He told me about the snowman/igloo combination he built; you got to crawl into the snowman’s belly and hide out. Maybe have a nap there. Or a cup of cocoa.
What’s the matter with us?
My brothers and I… we’re a little off. But then, isn’t everyone, in one way or another? Of course I know there’s nothing wrong with us, at least nothing seriously wrong, but I wonder where this sense of whimsy comes from. Why do some of us still have it long past the time when others have grown up?
Not everyone sees the value in our foolishness either. Certain relatives just roll their eyes at us when we get laughing together and planning our next bit of imaginary mischief. Clearly, we are not to be trusted with the trappings of adulthood: the car keys, the checkbook, the children.
Sitting down to write this today, I thought of so many stories that point to our immaturity, but really I’m hoping some of you might share some stories of your own with me, from your families. Are you as *off* as we are?
Guess who finally got to play today?
😉
Mr. Bean ATB 2/21/04–William Cowper
You don’t know me, but might recognize me from the neighborhood. I walk by your house with the silly black Lab puppy in the early evenings; sometimes we wave to one another while you’re out to bring in the garbage cans from the street.
Maybe you saw me this afternoon on my knees in my good clothes in the middle of your front garden. I had the camera with me on the way in from work and couldn’t resist stopping to take some pics, even though I worried you might think me a little nutty for doing it.
You see, those snowdrops you’ve planted have been drawing my eye for the last week or so; in fact, I look for them there every winter around this time. Last year, their blooms were suspended in ice, but my winter weary eyes were reassured at the sight of them.
If you’d noticed my pausing as I drove by earlier this month, it was just so that I might catch a glimpse of the green shoots poking the way through their bed of ivy. That was magic enough the morning I finally spotted them, but last week their blooms lifted my heart some on a day when it was otherwise heavy.
I can see from your carefully-tended garden that you’re as much a lover of the most delicate flowers as I am. But snowdrops aren’t delicate and they’re as generous with themselves as we gardeners te
nd to be. Yours are slowly monopolizing the small space you’ve allotted them and before too long will be blooming down along the sidewalk. When that happens, I hope you’ll forgive me if you should find me there one afternoon with a small spade in place of my camera.
I’d be happy to return the favor, if only you’d knock at my door sometime and introduce yourself. I think I saw you out there one spring day at the edge of the garden with an eye on my patch of lily-of-the-valley. It’s quietly covering the ground beneath the dogwood trees and making its way towards the street.
If we wait long enough, your plot of snowdrops may meet my patch of lily-of-the-valley, and then our flowers will be neighbors too and we’ll not have to steal glances from one another’s garden any longer.
“We are formed and molded by our thoughts.
Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act.
Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.” — Buddha
Dear Mary sent an award my way, as did Trixie a while back, and I’m just now getting around to saying thanks here. Thanks girls! Just goes to show you how behind I am that I’m only now acknowledging nice things said about my blog.
Trixie said this: Laura at Somewhere in New Jersey — This is one of the most polished blogs. Her writing is always thoughtful and considered.
Mary had this to say (and which I think is probably closer to the truth!): Laura at Somewhere in NJ — You can feel her softness and charm in her writing. Now and then, she rants and curses a little bit and we all love it.
A few of my closest blog buddies have said the same and I find it a little curious. Just ask someone who lives with me or has to work with me – that ranting and cursing happens a little too frequently. I recover pretty quickly, though.
😉
Back to the ranting in a minute. First I want to mention a new blog that’s been making my day lately. It’s a collaborative photo blog called Shutter Sisters – lots of creativity and inspiration there for the photography buffs among us. Check it out! I’ll post a few other favorite *make my day* blogs in the next couple days.
Today’s rant: Phones. What else? I’d been away from the office since last Thursday and had 11 messages waiting this morning. No big deal. Wrote them down and planned on returning the calls late this afternoon. In an effort to maintain my (semblance) of sanity I try to get actual work done during… oh say, 6 hours of the day. Talking on the phone doesn’t count as actual *work* as far as I’m concerned because none of the piles on my desk get any smaller that way.
I also tend to screen my calls when I’m there at my desk and won’t answer the phone unless it’s either a call I’m expecting and know to be an urgent issue or the person is a pain in the ass and calls the secretary to put the call through to me. Otherwise I let the calls go to voicemail with the idea that I’ll return them in the afternoon when I’m brain-dead anyway and can’t get any other more useful work done.
So… today between 9 am and 2 pm I had an additional 14 messages to return. The kicker is that 11 of those were from the same frickin’ person! She called me over and over and over and left the same ridiculous long-winded message 11 times! In a row! And guess what? When I called her back – she wasn’t home. No answering machine either… lucky for her …cause you know how I’d have spent the last couple hours of my work day.
😉
