Does my timing stink?

So yesterday I had a glorious sleep-in (until 10:00, amazingly late for me) while Ber and JJ went to the park. It was not the gray, dreary it had been the day before, but a sunny beautiful one. So of course, Ber came back with tales of park events - a snowman, dogs and children romping in the snow, downed trees and branches, a sign at our usual entrance claiming the park was closed, but with lots of people going in and out. He doesn't take pictures. But when he came back, we checked on Ditmas Park Blog, which did claim also that the park was closed. What nonsense!

So today we went together, in the hope that I hadn't missed all the good stuff. Well, I missed the snowman, but did take a picture of the large snowball that remained of it. But there were some other great things. the downed trees and branches are still there - two on the Lullwater path were especially nice. And 1/2 the Nethermead has a nice snow blanket on top, especially around the preparations for the Halloween activities that were supposed to happen on Sunday, but were cancelled.

I got a nice shot of the hawk sitting on a lamppost in the Parade Ground. Couldn't see if he/she was red-tailed or not, but it seemed to be enjoying the weather and the view a lot.

Another cooperative park event - Tony had a flat tire and we all helped him change it. I was tempted to put up only the photo of the woman turning the jack while the men stood around and watch, but decided to me more fair - we all took turns. Good thing too - the lugs and tools were a little old and rusty and needed a communal effort. Fanny is still moving around and seems happy but a bit more quiet than usual.

Feels like winter already

Just a short walk to the park today - it was cold and lightly raining. Thought it would be better to go home in the bad weather. The lake was gray and choppy and quite pretty in a fall-coming-in way. But of course, the weather later in the day made the morning look like a summer vacation. Snow while the green leaves are still on all the deciduous trees. Global weirding, as they say.

Brooklyn College in the afternoon, to see the Chinese acrobats. They are the official national troupe, and absolutely fantastic, breathtaking, impossible, etc. Costumes were as beautiful and inspirational as the performers. Definitely put the sunshine back in the day.

Beautiful golden sunshine

And the title indicates the main thing in the park this morning, The light was actually sparkling through the trees. I didn't even try to take a picture because I knew it wouldn't come out anything like the reality. We took the path that sort of goes up and around Lookout Hill - a nice change from all the steps. A lot of downed trees have been cut up into logs on that side - I guess it's a nice sweep up from the road, and gets pretty windy.

Had to stop in several places, just to be still and enjoy the beauty. All 10 swans out and enjoying the perfect fall day, but not that many dogs today. I wonder why.

Below is a link to woot.com. I'm not starting to take advertising, but this is one of my absolute favorite shopping sites. They have one sale per day. Just one. Great deals. I got this new computer through it. Have also bought 3 vacuum cleaners (1 Roomba), memory foam mattress, flash drives, cedar BBQ planks, flexible BBQ skewers, a keyboard, and much more.,

Too Many People!!

We saw the trucks bringing in equipment for a 5 mile run in the park yesterday. Look: pictures of trucks. Well, it was a really, really big run. The park road was surrounded by people, several feet deep, urging people on. We could hear one excited woman screaming - from our house, which is about a mile from the actual park! Very nice to see the park being so well used, but I WANT MY QUIET PARK BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cooperative medical care - for dogs

Fanny is a 15 year old service dog belonging to Tony, the head of FIDO. Poor Fanny has had a great life and given a lot of people much joy and happiness, but she is not now in great shape. Old, heart problems, and now kidney problems. Now, she needs to have liquids dripped in under her skin every other day to insure that she is okay. Not so easy to do - dogs don't understand "just stay in one place for a half hour while I put a needle in your back and drip medication in. " Funny about that - they understand so many other things. So it was very nice today that we could help out Fanny and Tony by being a cooperative medical support group. 5 - 10 people altogether, holding the medication bag up high, putting the needle in, holding it in place, keeping Fanny still, comforting the dog, keeping the other dogs slightly apart from her, stopping any roughhousing nearby, and doing some documentation. One of the group is a nurse, and made sure everything was done right. Fanny got her treatment, trotted off quite briskly, looking back at us with a VERY accusing look. We were so glad that we could help them out.

In other news: two photos of "taken care of trees" on our walk - grotesque large stumps uglifying our beautiful park. Both are in locations where people don't walk right under or near them. Makes me want to cry.

Big brown dog "standing guard" at the walk up Lookout Hill. We think this is the dog that either lives on his own in the park, or is released every morning and picked up every evening, as a free doggie day care. The dog seems quite peaceful, not aggressive or angry, although he ran off when we approached. JJ didn't even bother to bark.

blue spot (and green spot) mystery solved

It turns out that the blue (and green, which I hadn't yet mentioned) spots are marking the trees that are to be trimmed/pruned/tended to in some way. The parks Dept. contracts with an outside company to do this work. Sounds reasonable, but I am very concerned. How far will this pruning go? Are these trees, which all seem to be big, marvelous, possibly old ones, to be "taken care of" - aka killed? Or will they cut off all the nice branches, the ones that we walkers like to look at, stand under when there's a little rain, enjoy the shade, etc.

And aren't there better things to do with the Park's budget than cut down trees? How about that bathroom in the Wellhouse that's been promised for years? How about dredging the lake so as to clean it up a bit? How about restoring some of the classes at the Boat House that have been taken away due to budget cuts?

There was a lot of rain and storms this summer, and the park lost a lot of trees. Too many. But the ones that didn't fall seem to be healthy and solid. Why are we attacking them by trimming them? Maybe they stopped killing animals and are starting on plants? We should be nurturing the remaining trees, truly taking care of them, helping them to stay healthy. For example, there's one in the Peninsula that got blown partway over. There's a picture of it in my blog a couple of weeks ago. Someone put a stump next to it to prop it up, then attached ropes to the trunk to straighten it, and it looks like the roots are regrowing. The tree will, I think, be saved. That's the kind of tree care that should be happening.

In other news - they've started to put up the tennis house - guess fall is here. And a very clever podiatrist is advertising in the park. I actually find that the more I walk the BETTER my feet are, but maybe that's just me.

We saw a dead opossum on the walk up Lookout Hill yesterday - at about 7:30. Had no idea there were opossums in Prospect Park. By 9:00 we were coming back by the Wellhouse, saw some Park people in a truck, and told them about the poor thing. They had already picked it up!! Amazing efficiency. They said it would be analyzed to see why it died.

And I had a lovely time with my favorite small dog, Mo, a hairy chihuahua, the other day. I have to say that generally I am not a fan of small dogs, especially chihuahuas. But this one is absolutely wonderful - sweet and cute and friendly and very distinctive looking.

Mystery of the Blue Dots

We noticed that a bunch of trees, especially near the Well House, have blue dots painted on them. At first, we were unconcerned, assuming they marked trees that had been counted, perhaps, or checked, or identified, something like that. But now, with the "taking care" of the trees (aka killing) we are quite concerned. Are these beautiful, majestic, remarkable trees about to come down, to look the tree trunk of last week's beautiful old tree? I certainly hope not. Inquiring minds want to know, and to stop any such arboricide. ...So many unsettling thoughts on what was a lovely fall day with a very light drizzle and a small flock of migratory geese coming in for a coffee break or some such thing.

Also spotted a bunch of tree branches and limbs near the Nethermead that have been "taken care of," and are ready to be ground to bits. We actually liked it, since we pulled out sticks for JJ to chase. Have I mentioned that JJ is great at chasing sticks, but will not let us have them again. We need a steady supply to keep her happy.

Another mystery: the duckweed is almost gone by the boathouse, so I actually did some research on why. I never thought there was poison, but still wondered why the pond is now clear and beautiful, except in a few corners. Cool weather? The weed-whacker boat? REALLY hungry ducks? None of the above. Duckweed has a life cycle. When it ages (or becomes senescent as my research calls it, it produced fronds and then dies. It is actually a good idea to skim it off at this point, or the fronds eventually sink, decay, and use up too much oxygen in the process. We don't know it it sank or was skimmed, but it is really gone. Until next year. There's still a lot of it along the Lullwater, but even there it's getting thinner and streakier.


The Times today had an article on eyebrow toupees that seem to be making their mark on the political scene, No wonder I prefer Prospect Park world. Even when I disagree with some thought or action,m there is some kind of at least semi-logical reason behind it. Unlike eyebrow toupees.

I am off to visit Occupy Wall St. this afternoon. They will be cleaning Liberty/Zuccotti park, and I want to see if that "cleaning' is anything like "taking care of" the trees. Hope not.

Migrating geese and computer angst

Here are some beautiful migratory geese flying over the lake the other day. There were actually several flocks about this size, flying around and around and making happy, busy noises on their way to Florida or wherever. The third picture is of Prospect park's own residential geese, happily sitting in the weater and wondering what the fuss is all about.

We've been going to the park regularly the past few days, enjoying this beautiful weather, keeping Lookout Hill clean, doing actual running around the Nethermead to try to get myself into a little better shape, talking to many fellow dog owners. Haven't written because I am starting to use a new computer and have been a mite terrified. The one I'd been using, a nice little Dell Inspiron that's been in the family maybe 10 years, maybe more, was starting to do weird things, like stop working. So we decided to get a new one while I could get all the data off the Inspiron and put it into it. We love woot.com, a great sale-a-day website, where we found a refurbished HP Pavilion for a very reasonable price.

In this family, husband and daughter are the computer people. They are my Technical Assistance Committee. And I've gotten pretty lazy about getting daughter to do things for me. You know how they love to teach mom things. But the other day she said it would be better to teach me how to fish than give me a fish. So I've been using the new one without her. SUCCESS!!!

R. I. P. Beautiful old tree and Steve Jobs

Well, the tree was taken care of yesterday. It was pretty hollow, but I still think it should have been left up. It occupied a VERY un-utilized corner of the Nethermead. Today, a tractor was starting to remove the pieces when we were there.

Otherwise, a beautiful day. Migratory geese seeing actually migrating.

Keep thinking about Steve Jobs - the man was an era. In 1975 B. and I went to Atlantic City for a computer convention,. This was before gambling - A.C. was pretty run down. B. had a brand new thing - a computer called an Imsai, small enough to own and keep in one's home. No printer, no screen, no keyboard. You had to flick switches to get programming into it.

I went horseback riding on the beach and popped into the convention. So many nerds! It was fun, but I couldn't imagine why anyone would ever want a computer in their home. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were there - 2 teenager nerds among about 4,000 - and Gates took the stage at one point to yell at everybody for not sending him money when they used Basic (a computer language).

I look back and marvel at the incredible changes in the world since then. We have about 5 computers in the house now, and I cannot imagine life without one. And I'm not particularly computer literate. And we owe so much of it to Steve Jobs!! He changed the world. He will be missed.

Tree stories

So nice that it hasn't been hot and humid and muggy for days! Beautiful fall weather - some rain, just enough so that I can't seem to get the lawn mowed, but not enough to make me miserable. We just may have to put the furnace on in a week or so!

Lookout Hill had been seriously barricaded this past week. A tree had fallen to an angle over the path. The park, I guess was afraid it would fall and put up more than one barricade and some yellow tape to stop people from walking/running underneath it. So now - the tree has fallen! Barricades still there, but the path is no longer dangerous, so various Brooklynites have cleared the way. I wonder what will happen next - the tree is 1/2way up the hill, and I don't think any truck will make it up or down the stairs to remove it. For us, not runners, it makes a nice seat halfway up.

Other tree event - large truck driving up to a beautiful old tree on the edge of the Nethermead. I took photos, along with someone else who said he was from a Brooklyn Paper, and said that they were going to take care of the tree. How nice, I thought. I think I am becoming very old-fashioned. I asked him later - apparently "taking care" means killing it and cutting it down, not making sure it has appropriate nutrition, pruning, etc. I certainly hope my kids don't "take care" of me like that when I'm old and little sick.

The 5 cygnets born this spring are about 1/3 white already - seems to have happened so fast!