Yesterday’s “sunrise” through the fog bank.

(P.S. This is only one photo, not two. My window bisects the view!)

Rose hip “spider”

I guess I haven’t had a lot to say lately. Not much to take photos of either at this time of year. Although this quote out of my photography class book does hit home:

“Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform them by photographing them.”

That obviously takes a bit more work! Work that I am sometimes uninspired to find. You either have to be in the mood to take good photographs, or you’re not.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday. The weather was perfection and very much like remembered Thanksgivings of my childhood: sunny, a little brisk.

The turkey was phenomenal! This year I splurged and instead of getting our “free” turkey after earning points at our Shop Rite I placed an order for a fresh turkey from Pennings Farm Stand in Warwick, NY. I got the idea when we had lunch there a few weeks back and people kept coming up to the counter to put in their turkey order.

When I went to pick up the turkey on Tuesday there was a white duck wandering around their parking lot. This wasn’t too strange since they have a “petting zoo” on the premises with chickens, goats and etc. I walked in and said “Did you know you have someone loose in your parking lot?” One of the women behind the counter looked up at me and said “Does it say AFLAC?” (Note: those of you who don’t live in the States will not get this reference to a commercial on TV for insurance that uses a white duck. The insurance company name is Aflac and the duck is constantly shouting the word.) She went on to tell me that someone just dumped the duck at their store and they have no idea where he came from. They can’t put him in with their chickens because they tear each other apart. She’s said but he’s the friendliest duck. He just hangs out and greets people.

My “Thanksgiving” cacti are going all out this year. Fuchsia, white, red and salmon colors decorate the sun room. The cactus shown below is only one of the four that I have. Beautiful, no?

The turkeys came to visit us on Turkey Day. Brave souls! Not the most attractive birds up close but they are so ugly that I find them cute.

This tom had his tail feathers spread until I grabbed the camera. You can see the sacs on his neck are still inflated.

Up close their feathers are prismatic and quite lovely.

I think they are getting ready to breed. This morning I had a flock of 13 in the front yard and the toms were chasing the hens around. It won’t be the first time we’ve witnessed turkey sex in the front yard! Ah, country life.

Rick has a bad cold that he is trying to shake so our plans for taking Mia out today (it’s supposed to warm and beautiful) will have to be changed to taking it easy and watching movies. Let’s hope they are better than the one we chose to watch last night called “The Grey.” If you like movies where no one makes it out alive, I can recommend it. We recorded “The Poseidon Adventure” yesterday and at least some of them make it out in the end.

I really am quite boring lately and for that I apologize! I just can’t wrap my head around Christmas in a month. Where does the time go?

Sunset last night.

Was it really just one week ago today that we got our power restored? It seems like such a long time ago. If not for the closed gas stations, all the downed trees and all the leftovers from Sandy it might seem like just a bad dream. It certainly has been a strange couple of weeks here in New Jersey.

We finally have someone lined up to take care of our clogged-with-trees driveway. After getting three different estimates we finally narrowed it down to this: the cheapest! Our insurance company will pay $500 towards the clean up, but with estimates coming in anywhere from $1500 to $3500, we can’t go with our normal tree service people.

Strangely enough, the insurance will also reimburse us for the gas we used in our generator if we give them a tally of all the food items in our fridge and freezer that was saved by running the generator. I think that’s weird. And, they have suspended the deductible which is kind of nice.

“My” turkeys heading out of the yard.

Temperatures today were in the 50’s and most of the snow has disappeared. The weekend promises to be lovely with temps in the 60’s! From snow boots to nearly sandals in one fell swoop. I think we just might have to have a day trip in Mia.

Junco in the snow.

At 3:18 this morning I woke up to a strange noise. I couldn’t figure it out at first. Was it the wind kicking back up? As the sound grew closer I realized what I was hearing. The snow plow. The scraping of the blade on the road combined with the clank of the chained-up tires was a sound I was not familiar with. Yet.

The Nasty Nor’easter was nice enough to pass by further out in the ocean so that we were not greatly impacted. We got about four inches of sticky, heavy wet snow and some wind, but the wind was not terrible. The worst part of the storm was, of course, during Rick’s commute home. It took him 1.45 hours. Many roads are still closed from Sandy, and if they are open some don’t have power and the traffic lights are not working. Loads of fun!

The lights flickered on and off a couple of times and I thought oh no, here we go, but we did not lose power. whew. So many people are still without power. My mailman, Dennis, is still without power but he has a generator. The Fed-Ex guy (who is sweet enough to always put our wine delivery inside the house for me) is still out of power down by Wayne and is living with his parents for the duration. So. Many. People. I’m not sure how we got lucky enough to get our restored so quickly. I am thankful for that every day.

I hate to waste the gas so I haven’t really been anywhere in a week except for just locally to the grocery, the library (which at the time could not check in or out books while their system was down) and the feed store. I really need to go down to Wayne but I think I will give it until Monday before I venture out into the great unknown since Rick is still having difficulties getting to and from work. When I do finally go down I will make it as efficient a trip as I possibly can given the gas situation.

And that’s about all I have for you today!

Bella enjoying the snow.