I am at a loss for blogging at the moment, so I would like to redirect you to hubby Rick’s site and his stunning photo of an immature bald eagle we saw on our walk two weeks ago near Monksville, Reservoir.
Follow this link.

My neighbor Aileen’s pig, Ollie, that is. You remember meeting him last month, right? He’s so darned cute! Her little granddaughter made this sign for Ollie’s summer house. See the little curled-up pig tail on the “O”? Trouble is, Ollie doesn’t have your normal curled-up pig tail—his is straight as can be and it wags all the time like a dog’s.

I took Rick over to meet him two weeks ago so he’d stop making jokes about getting both eggs & bacon from our neighbors. He understands now how special Ollie is.

He comes running when Aileen calls him, grunting and making little piggy oinking noises the whole way. Just don’t try to pick him up. He squeals, well, like a pig!

Mary-Anne the sheep shares Ollie’s summer home and doesn’t understand why all the fuss over a stupid pig! Look at me, she says, at least you get wool from me! What does he do to deserve all this attention?

Aileen’s chickens lay wonderful eggs and I am totally spoiled getting fresh eggs when she has them. She recently “weeded” out the old chickens and the roosters so one chicken house is empty now. Ollie will move in there for the winter so he can have a heat lamp. I’m thinking Mary-Anne is saying “good-riddance to that hammy pig!” (multiple puns intended)

Although we had roosters right next door we hardly ever heard them. Not so with our neighbors two houses down from us. They have chickens too. And very noisy roosters. It starts at 4:00 a.m. and goes until 6:00 a.m. Right now we still have the bedroom window open some so there’s no avoiding him. It’s not your normal cock-a-doodle-do. If it was it might not be so bad. But this rooster sounds like it either has a sore throat or something stuck in it. Every few minutes it lets out a croaky rendition of the old cock-a-doodle-do. It’s not pleasant at that hour of the morning and it makes me cranky. I keep threatening to go down there and make coq au vin out of him.

We may have been cheated on the most of the trees’ autumn foliage, but the burning bushes didn’t get the same message to tone it down this year. I’ve taken photos here before of them, but this year they just seemed to be everywhere, and spectacularly so! All the following photos were taken on Thursday of this week.

These trees all seem to be wearing bright pink tutus.

 

 

A few of the maples didn’t get the message about toning it down either.

Underneath the big red maple that stands so majestically by the road.

And this one by the old falling-down house.

 

The Ironworks park is not only a very beautiful place, but interesting as well because of the old houses and outbuildings they rescued from the destruction of the old community that used to be here when the ironworks were still in operation. The whole area has a strange feel to it, as if there are still people living there. It can be eerie. They still use them as a backdrop for their re-enactments of the Civil War that they put on every year. (Follow the link for photos of the re-enactments that I took in 2008.)

Some of the outbuildings are in a sad state of repair, like this old shed. I liked it though. I tried several different angles to capture its air of neglect.

Looking out its only window.

And this old chair left sitting forlornly on the front porch of the big white house.

The shadows are deep and strong this time of year because of the angle of the sun. Here, a tree imprints itself on this old house.

More shadows.

This is my favorite of all the houses. I love the location where it sits and the big old sycamore tree that frames it. I love the stonework!

The old outdoor fireplace on the house grounds. As you can see, plenty of autumn color here!

The house’s location is enhanced even more by a small branch of the Wanaque River that now flows freely past it and down in to Monksville Reservoir instead of being harnessed to power the ironworks. A serene and beautiful spot in which to imagine living, don’t you agree?

And, so concludes our little walk to Long Pond. I’ll leave you in a ‘reflective’ mood with reflections in the reservoir.

Note: A little snippet of local history! The name “Long Pond” does not refer at all to Monksville Reservoir which was constructed back in the 1970’s, but to Greenwood Lake, a little further away. Long Pond came from the word the native americans used to refer to what is now called Greenwood Lake.

 

 

... but close! Mine look more like chile relleno popsicles because the chilies were small and the cheese sticks stuck out quite a bit on their own. But at least everything was encased in batter and they were delicious! The batter needed to be a teensy bit thicker, but all in all we were pretty pleased.

Misty early morning sunbeams through my nearly naked trees this morning.

Let me preface this post by first saying that we have had amazing weather for the past few days. Sunny, warm (60’s and yesterday 70!) and low humidity. Just glorious! It’s hard to imagine that we had 19 inches of snow a week and a half ago!

The time change is wreacking havoc with our inner clocks. The dogs too. Mia is not happy either as Rick realized when he took her to work with him on Monday that she doesn’t like driving in the dark. We’ll still take her out on nice weekend days, but she’ll have to stay home at night now, tucked into her cozy warm garage.

Autumn is usually so beautiful here in New Jersey. That’s why it’s such a let-down this year. In the 5 1/2 years since we’ve lived here, this has been the worst autumn in the way of color. As you can see by the photo above, our trees are pretty much done. Whatever they had left in them before the big snow (and it wasn’t much) is gone now.

They never really changed this year. The leaves curled up and fell off. Some trees did try but their colors were not vibrant, just dull and rusty looking. It must have been all that rain we had. Like a house plant that’s been over-watered the leaves just fell off.

The two big oak trees are putting on a brave show in the front yard now. Still, you can see how spotted the leaves are.

The burning bush hedge is pretty showy too despite the fact that many of its branches were bent to the ground with snow not that long ago.

I love it when the sun is shining through the leaves. It also cheers me up, like it’s saying, “C’mon Lynne, autumn hasn’t been so bad—look at me!”

Our yard needs attention this weekend in getting all the leaves picked up. Johnny is back now from the Deere Hospital. I hope he rested up. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him! After some rain showers tomorrow, the weekend looks bright and beautiful.