Back from Baltimore

Back from a terrific 3-day mini-vacation in Baltimore, where there were leaves on the trees, warmth in the air, and Spring had definitely arrived. Three days of visionary art, crabcakes, and water taxi rides across the bay. There were some Canada geese in the harbor. I tried to persuade a pair to come back to Brooklyn with me, but they said absolutely not - seems that word of the Killing Fields of Brooklyn has made it as far south as Baltimore.

I do feel as if I brought spring back with me, since we now have leaves and flowers on the trees, turtles sunning themselves on every possible rock and twig, and tons of trash all about. Come on people, pick up after yourself!! Although Candleman's corner has no candles or any trash at all now. even my little sign has been cleared away.

Only about a dozen geese in the lake these days. Interesting, since there are many news reports about how they're going to oil the eggs and see what happens to keep the population down. Down to what? I don't think 12 are nearly enough. Okay, maybe 300-400 was too many, but it's a big lake. I think we can accommodate about 100 geese in all. that's the number we should be making plans for, instead of making plans to kill and destroy and reduce the population. Parks Dept: Write 1,000 times NATURE IS GOOD, NATURE IS GOOD, NATURE IS GOOD.

I'm sure I'm getting very repetitive and boring, going on and on about how important wildlife is in city parks, but B'berg went on the other day about making the city greener. How can he order the mass killing of wildlife and want a "green" city. The man has no clue. "Green" means more than energy efficient lightbulbs. He says he wants more parks - smaller ones - that no wildlife would find inviting. His ideal park is a concrete square with two trees. Such a far cry from the beautiful vision of Olmstead and Vaux, who gave us the gems that are PP and CP!

We have our own visionary art in PP - see the beautiful silver angel in the pine tree! The haze is smoke from someone starting up a fire in BBQ Plaza.

Year Two

So, I've been blogging a whole year, and this is the start of year 2. I can't help but wonder if this will be a repeat of last year's observations. So far, absolutely not. A year ago, the Lake was just thawed, there were 10 swans, with a lot of people feeding them. Trash was everywhere, including dead, headless chickens and other disgusting things. Now, we have 6 swans, all in one family, and we know exactly who they are. The lake's been clear for a while, and no one is feeding them.
spring is really here. I have to say that B and I were very snarky on Groundhog Day, when Staten Island Chuck came out of his hole during an overcast rainy day and didn't see his shadow and didn't bite the mayor. But it looks like Chuck was right!

Two egrets today! One larger, one smaller. The big one was spreading his wings and showing his stuff to all the ducks and the second egret- mating behavior? Also, very loud bird noises on the way to the park, with two grey birds circling and circling each other - more mating behavior.

I started my trash collection again today, going up Lookout Hill. Only 3 crack bags, but a bunch of cans, bottles, mittens, cardboard. And we saw another person with a trash collection bag at the top of the hill! Lovely to see. And we ran into (not literally) my yoga instructor jogging over the hill. Oh well, he's young and far more energetic than us.

I think JJ managed to find the only bit of snow left in the park - in a shady spot near the Nethermead. We came back along the Lullwater - water completely melted. And there was some wood that yesterday's artiste left to dry. Very artistically arranged, I must say. Can you see the head on one of the pieces of wood? I did.