When I named my earlier blog post the other day I’m sure you noticed that I had “normal” in quotes. It seems like things haven’t been “normal” here for quite some time. We had an earthquake, then Hurricane Irene. After Irene we had tropical depression Lee who dropped just as much rain on us as Irene had the week before! Roads are still washed out with gaping swathes where the pavement used to be.
Then we went to Colorado to the cabin. After being home for not quite two weeks we went to New Mexico. Then the big freak October snow storm comes along and dumps 19 inches of snow on our fair township and we are without power for four days. What’s normal about any of that?
Now we are finally feeling like we can settle down to normal New Jersey life again. I’ve been in the West so much lately that I am having a little trouble adjusting. But maybe that’s due to the power outage. It was strange, I have to tell you. But now at least we know what it’s like and that we can survive just fine on our own for a while. Any longer than four days might be pushing the limit. Especially in the dead of winter. If that happens and we know something is coming we’ll be sure and blow up the air bed beforehand so we can sleep downstairs in front of the fire. Just in case ...
Before we left we made sure to get up most of the leaves that had fallen. I’m glad we did because now we have more than ever. Too bad Johnny is in the shop—again. The belt on the deck broke again but this time there was a pulley that was broken as well. So, back to the John Deere hospital Johnny went on Wednesday. He’s due back mid-week but rain is expected by then. I’m sure the leaves will be taken care of eventually, but I hate to see them blanketing and stifling the grass.
This morning we will head off to the farmer’s market at Warwick in search of really good bread for our cheese fondue tonight. The market is looking very sad this year due to all the crop loss with Irene and Lee. All the squash and pumpkins were lost along with the other late season crops. It’s pretty slim pickins’. Usually we would take Mia but it’s pretty chilly out there. We’d have to bundle up for sure. Even our seat heaters and Mia’s adjustable temperature controls wouldn’t make a dent. Maybe we’ll give it a go anyway.
We should get out the chain saw and take care of some huge limbs but I don’t think either one of us feels much like it this weekend. Our beautiful big oak tree in the back yard suffered the most damage. A whole part of the upper trunk broke off plus a huge limb. It’s sad but we can’t see the damage too much from this side of the tree. A few other trees in the front yard lost significant portions of their tops, most of which ended up straddling the fence on neighbor Aileen’s side. Poor trees.
I did so enjoy spending alone time with my in-laws. I’ve never done that before and I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. We kept busy with lots of little drives around the area and eating great Mexican food. I’ll be sharing some photos very soon. We also had a special day where we drove to meet up again with Rick to the tiny town of Cloudcroft at an elevation that equals that of the cabin (over 8,600 feet) where it had snowed the night before. We ate a wonderful lunch sitting by the window watching the fog roll in and blanket everything in soft white and grey. Very magical.
on the way up to Cloudcroft
Rick and I then drove back together, stopping at White Sands (more pics coming of that too!) and Aguirre Spring.
Aguirre Spring is right at the foot of the Organ Mountains, but on the opposite side from the town of Las Cruces. Here are the Organ Mountains as seen from Las Cruces.
And a shot of them with the late afternoon sun on the opposite side.
The following two photos were taken at Aquirre Spring. It’s a beautiful place!
I rambled a lot more in this post than I expected too and was just going to talk a bit. Instead I ended up doing photos of my trip to New Mexico! Oh well. Sometimes it just goes like that. I hope you enjoyed both the rambling and the photos! More coming soon!
OOPS! I almost forgot! Did I ever tell you that my mother-in-law makes THE BEST Chile Rellenos in the world? Yum!!!!!!!
I don’t know what got in to the trees but all of a sudden they are changing like crazy. In two days they’ve gone from looking blah to looking like autumn. I drove up to Warwick to return something and I couldn’t believe the amount of color just since Sunday when we were last there. So pretty! I needed a camera in my forehead to snap photos as I drove by.
It’s been drizzling all morning, and after I came home I decided the dogs needed a walk since they were bouncing off the walls. A little rain wouldn’t hurt us! I’ve been taking all three together instead of just Alex and Hailey and then coming back and doing it all over again with Bella. Bella pulls so hard! But somehow when I have all three Bella is much better. It works, much to my surprise.
Some of the leaves in the road caught my attention, so after putting the dogs in the house I grabbed the camera and headed back out. The black “canvas” of the street sets off their colors.
I thought this one looked like a red chili pepper!
And this one like the feather of a tropical bird.
Raindrops caught plunking into puddles.
I’m still not sure about this autumn and its show of colors. We are supposed to get heavy rains tonight so that will certainly not help. Then, this weekend we are expecting very windy weather. I don’t think the poor trees have much of a chance of attending the autumn masquerade ball in full regalia.
Don’t cry little burning bush, there’s always next year!
We arrived home in the very same kind of weather we left in. Rain. It rained nearly all the way through the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, again. We haven’t seen rain since the very first day we arrived in Laramie to do our shopping on the way in to the cabin. Two weeks without rain! The temperature upon arrival was a chilly and damp 50 degrees F which feels so much colder than the dry-almost-non-existent humidity of Colorado.
The dogs somehow knew we were home the minute we pulled in to the driveway and all three erupted into a frenzied joyful barking. We let them out of the truck and they ran around, barking of course, in the front yard. I’m sure the neighbors at the opposite end of the street knew we were home after that racket. The kitties once let out of their crates in the house roamed the rooms with tails straight up and eyes round. The house was chilly, so on went the heat for the first time this year. It smelled good; comforting. We unpacked the truck in the light drizzle, put some things away and then finally sat down to a well deserved glass of wine. We heated up the leftover chicken pot pie we had brought home with us from the cabin because we couldn’t bear to throw it out and had that for our dinner while we watched the TiVo’d premiere of Terra Nova.
Our neighbors called and told us to be on the look out as a big bear was getting into the trash down the street and we had just put our trash out for pickup in the morning. They said they’d had a bear in their garage three times over the past week. Welcome back to the wilds of New Jersey! Rick turned on our outside lights at the street thinking that might deter him.
Too tired to do anything else, we went to bed. As I lay in bed listening to the soft patter of rain outside I thought not for the first time how good it was to be home. We both love the cabin but now it’s somewhere we go on vacation and not home. At least “not home” in the sense of where we live. When we are at the cabin, we are home. Hmmm ... does that make sense? It’s hard to explain. I know I’ve said it again and again on my blog, but when we are there we are home and when we are here we are home. I think you get the idea. I am starting to come around to the idea of a trial year at the cabin, winter and all, once we retire. What a blog that would make!
This morning as I type it’s raining. The sky is gray and dark. So different from the brilliant blue that we had for the past two weeks. When I look out the window I see a wall of trees crowding the yard instead of an open meadow and golden aspens glowing in the morning light. Our trees here are just starting to change but I don’t think they will be very pretty this year. They look soggy and defeated. But they are oh so beautiful with their many colors when they do change. We shall see if all the rain has made a difference in our normally gorgeous fall.
I have much to do today as you can imagine. Grocery shopping is #1 on my list, then laundry. My new machine will certainly be getting a workout over the next few days!
I’ll leave you with a photo I took last week.
That’s the way I felt this morning. We’ve had rain for two days now. Last night it seemed like every time I dropped off to sleep another thunderstorm rolled through with thunder to wake me up and lightning to flash at my closed eyelids. It poured! We got 2.80 inches just since midnight. Add that to the 2.47 inches we got on Tuesday, the .59 inches yesterday and you get a grand total of 6.94 inches. That’s just about the same amount Irene left us with only one week ago! Enough already!
It’s standing room only in our little creek before it makes its first cascade down the little falls.
The second falls.
My feet were going squish squish squish as I was dodging large puddles of standing water while taking these photos. It’s really saturated in the lower part of our yard. Thank goodness our house is situated uphill from all this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much moisture around since we’ve lived here.
Our un-split stack of wood likes to grow fungi in rain like this. I love the ruffly look of them.
Here is a coral mushroom that I found growing near the road. Actually there were quite a few of them all in the same spot. They are rather odd looking.
This butterfly found a nice place to rest after the storm on my butterfly bush. I cut my butterfly bush back too late this spring, so it is just now blooming. Better late than never!
I’m hoping this rainy trend stops soon.
