This is a reflectory post. Hmm, is that word? If it’s not, it should be. Even though some things in my life are not going according to plan (Sailor), I can’t help but be thankful for all the good things I have going for me. First off, I love living in New Jersey. Spring is particularly sweet in this part of the U.S. Everything is green or blooming. Dogwoods, weeping cherry trees, lilacs, azaleas, and the list goes on and on. Gorgeous. Lush. Paradise. From a “girl” who lived the better part of her life in Colorado, New Jersey is an oasis. So far this year our weather station has recorded 15 inches of moisture. I think that’s more than Colorado gets on a yearly basis. We think nothing here of a day-long rain that amounts to an inch of moisture. The vegetation just drinks it all in, like it’s its normal due. Amazing.

Living in New Jersey we are able to enjoy cheaper gas prices than many other states. And HELLO! I don’t have to pump my own gas. Not only is our gas inexpensive in comparison, I don’t have to pump it. I can be a true Jersey Princess sitting in the throne of my car while someone else does the menial work. What’s not to love? [For those of you not in the know; it’s against the law to pump your own gas in New Jersey.]

Our House. Yes, I used a capital letter on purpose. We only had one week to house-hunt and there were not many houses on the market at that time, so our choices were limited. Plus at the time of our move we had seven dogs to take into consideration for the house we would eventually live in. We knew we could not have a house right next to another. Not with seven dogs! Our search at the time was limited to those with a bit more space.

I had seen this particular house online in my MLS search. We dubbed it “the Chateau” since it looked like a French “chateau” style house. I fell in love at first sight. It was slightly above our comfort zone. When we arrived for our “house-hunting” trip our realtor thought it was too far out and therefore didn’t show it to us until the last day. The setting and acreage were perfect. The inside was plain (as we had seen by photos online) but it had “good bones” and we had renovations in mind (they start in a few weeks!). We put an offer on it immediately. Soon it was ours. It welcomed us with open arms right from the start. I love this house. I love my neighborhood. It fits. We even got a pool in the bargain, which neither of us was interested in. Now I wonder what we would do without it. (Pool opening for the year scheduled for this Friday!) The one and only major downside is that our house in Colorado is still for sale two years later. Bummer.

We have wonderful neighbors. Kim and Mark across the street were the first ones to offer up the olive branch. Since then Kim has led me on many interesting capers. She is a treasure for sure. Being Kim-napped has become something I look forward to. Aileen next-door keeps me supplied in fresh eggs. Her chickens lay the most delicious, oddly-shaped eggs around. She joins Kim and myself on many excursions. Luke, down the street, looks after our cats while we go away and makes certain that I see the local sights. He and I have started taking various hikes around the area, which I will be blogging about soon. In Colorado, we hardly saw our neighbors let alone do anything extracurricular with them. It’s all good.

We miss our cabin in the mountains of Colorado. However, our house here in New Jersey bridges that gap in many ways. We have woods surrounding us that teem with wildlife, we can have wood fires in our fireplace (not allowed along the Front Range of Colorado unless you have a house with a wood-burning fireplace prior to a certain year—no new construction after 1991 or so), we can go for hikes in the woods from our house, and a five minute drive gets our canoe in the waters of Green Turtle Pond. I am a country girl at heart, not a city one, so this suits me just fine. Nothing gives me more peace of soul than standing in my back yard listening to the varied bird song, taking in the breeze, and listening to the wind through the trees.

Rick’s job is another good thing. He loves it. Such a change from the last gasps of Hewlett-Packard-turned-Agilent. wow. Such a wonderful company and exciting business that he now gets to go in to each and every day. I am a tad bit envious. They’ve made us part of the family, and for that, Andy; thank you.

We’ll be here for at least another four years which is just fine by me. Like I said before, we miss our cabin in Colorado (and our “cabin neighbors”), but plan to make yearly treks back there to spend some time. Other than that, after spending so many years in Colorado, I really don’t miss much about it. Sure I miss a few friends, but they have basically all gone on with their own lives (at least I don’t hear much from them) and that’s okay too although it’s sad. We’ve grown apart; done different things with our lives. Rick and I have always been renegades—living in foreign countries and learning different cultures (Germany, the Netherlands and France). We like that about ourselves. Our lives have only been enriched by living where we have. Uh, wait a minute ... that made it sound like New Jersey was like living in a foreign country. It’s not; but culturally it IS very different, but in a good way.

Okay, enough blithering on and on from me for now. I can’t promise I won’t blither on again at some point in the future. I hope you will still be willing to listen.

photos: top; my neighbor’s dogwood tree :  dogwood blossom along my street   :  bleeding hearts in my backyard

This is half of my back yard. The trees have not completely leafed out yet but they are working furiously on it. This is one of my flower beds (or maybe I should call it a rock garden!). [Note: all photos were taken this weekend.]

Above is part of the other half, and my big flower bed which will soon have a large variety of things taking their turn blooming.

With all these trees it figures that we get lots of different birds. Some of them are not residents of our mountain highlands and live a bit further south, while others live here year round. The red-bellied woodpecker is one of those residents. [Please don’t ask why they call it “red-bellied” when it’s obvious that it’s head is the only red thing on this bird.]

This male Rose-Breasted Grosbeak (and the female, next photo) we only see occasionally.

One of my favorites is the Indigo Bunting which we only see coming to the feeder in spring. They are so bright blue you can’t miss them even when they sit in the trees!

Of course we gets lots of these pesky (but cute) creatures.

This is growing in the woods just off the big flower bed. It’s a kind of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. I consider the woods inside our fenced area to be “my yard” as well, so this counts.

Rick found this on Sunday morning as he started to plant the marigolds in the front flower bed. It’s a white morel! More on that story in a different entry ...

And last, but certainly not least, the newest repeat visitor to the front yard. Patch(es). As I drove in the driveway returning from a grocery trip yesterday, there she was laying in the same spot again. I think she likes it here. I managed to catch her on video as she was leaving.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed your tour of things found in my yard!

I had a visitor yesterday afternoon. She made herself quite at home in my front yard.

“Ho, hum, I kind of like just laying here licking up seeds.”

“aahhhh ... time for a little stretch!”

“hey, did I say you could take my picture?”

“well, okay, go ahead then.”

“pretty, aren’t I?’

At first when I saw a tag in each ear and the darkish face of this bear I thought it was Minor, the cub from the year before. But after I looked up the photos of Minor I could see it was a different bear. The ear tags are in different spots. So, a completely new bear, and a young one at that. Probably a cub from last year turned out on her own.

I took these photos from the upstairs window that does not have a screen. She only looked up at me when I opened the window enough to get the telephoto lens of my camera out; she didn’t move an inch. She acted like she was right at home. She stayed until the mailman came by and he spooked her into the woods.

She came back twice more yesterday, the third time being after Rick had come home, so he got to see her. I had told him about the bear visits, so as he drove past the bottom on his way home he was looking for her. He saw her roaming around down there in the woods. Not ten minutes after he walked in the door we got a call from neighbor Kim alerting us to the fact that she was once again laying in front of our windows. We watched her for quite a while, but it soon became obvious she wasn’t in a hurry to move on. She scratched and pawed and found seeds that I think may have been buried all winter.  She did a lot of just laying there like an big, black, overgrown dog. Lazy bear. She reminded me of Doris who was always the lazy one and did the very same thing. I wonder if this is her daughter?

New bears have to be named. This bear had a distinguishing feature (other than the placement of her ear tags): a triangular patch of brown on her chest. So, by the authority vested in me by the black bears of my neighborhood, I hereby name thee “Patch.”

We’re hoping she’s taken up residence in our woods. Come back soon, Patch!

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it! The word is finally out. Leaflets bearing the news are being distributed all across the townships and counties of New Jersey. Aided by the sun, wind, and rain, the leaflets are reaching a rapidly growing audience with their important news.

And what exactly do the leaflets say? Simple!

More...

My sister left yesterday and I accompanied her into NYC on the train. We parted there: she to make her connection to the train that would take her home to North Carolina; while I went on to meet fellow blogger Lettuce, who was visiting from across the pond—London. This was my second trip into the city this week as my sister and I came in to shop on Monday. Now that I am proficient at taking the train I wonder why I haven’t done it by myself before? (Kim, if you are reading I see a day in the city headed our way this summer!)

I’m sure you’ve seen Lettuce’s comments on this blog. I love her photography and her writing style. While she lives in a gorgeous brick mid-late Victorian terrace house in London, I live in a center hall Colonial house on 4 acres in rural, small-town New Jersey. She takes scads of photos of buildings and other other city related subjects, while I focus on nature and countryside. A perfect yin and yang. Plus, we share the mutual grief of us both losing our mothers last year. Tough stuff, that. She had many wonderful words of wisdom to share with me after the death of my mom.

It’s a bit strange meeting a fellow blogger. Strange in a good way, that is. You already “know” them from sharing your separate lives through blogging, so it’s not like meeting a stranger, yet you’ve never met them face-to-face before.  I am not a very out-going sort of person. I probably talk more and share more information about myself through my blog than I do on a daily basis with people I know. I am actually kind of shy. So it was a pretty big leap for me, but I did not want to miss meeting her. Who knew if the opportunity would ever present itself again?

We had arranged to meet at the Penn Station entrance at Madison Square Garden. She actually found me first even though I was looking all around. We decided to walk up to Central Park and chat along the way since she had not been there yet and might not get the opportunity to before she left. I was amazed at what she had seen and done over the two days that she’d been in the city. A food and cultural tour of Greenwich Village, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and viewing the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens,  the Empire State Building (that very morning before she met me.) After our brief visit she was meeting her friend at MOMA and taking the Circle line boat tour of the harbor in the evening. Today she met up with more fellow bloggers and more sights. All of these things I have yet to do!

The weather this week has been absolutely glorious with sunny, warm days. Not a cloud marred the skyline. Just beautiful. A perfect day for walking.

Central Park was lovely. The trees are just coming into leaf with that new “spring green” color. People were out enjoying the above-normal-temperature day. We grabbed a hot dog from a Sabrett vendor and then sat down on some rock outcroppings for a bit.

Funny, I had always thought by her blog name (Lettuce-Eating) that she was vegetarian. Not so at all! If I had read her blog entries from the beginning I would have known where the title came from (sorry, Letty!). Not because she was a vegetarian at all, but because when she started the blog she was having difficulties sleeping and therefore ate LETTUCE for the sleep promoting qualities found in tryptophan. Note: (I have always called her Letty which, of course, is not her real name. I won’t reveal her real name here, but suffice it to say I had a hard time calling her by her “real” name. How silly!)

All too soon it was time for me to head back to catch my off-peak train. We parted with a kiss and a hug. I am so glad we had the chance to meet. Now reading her blog will have so much more meaning having met her in person. I hope she has a wonderful time with the rest of her trip, meeting up with old friends and other fellow bloggers. I can’t wait to read her blog on her return and see all the fab photos she took of everything she saw. I love seeing things through other people’s eyes. It’s fascinating; as is this land of blogdom. How very wonderful.