It’s time for some new pictures on this blog. We were supposed to get hit by a big snowstorm coming up the coast, which has Washington DC under two feet of snow. So, I was going to take some ‘winter wonderland’ pics during the storm and post them today.

HOWEVER, the storm got pushed south unexpectedly, and we had hardly a flurry. So I got out of bed and went to a 7am memorial Catholic mass for my mother (who passed last October), at her old neighborhood parish in Passaic. On the way back, I pulled into a little vest-pocket park along Broad Street in Clifton, called the Morris Canal Historic Park. I had often seen the signs for it, but never stopped; didn’t look like much from the roadway. It turned out to be a cute little park, down a hillside wedged between a high-voltage electrical power line and the Garden State Parkway. Some local people really cared about it, as it was nicely maintained. Despite the glum clouds and 25 degree weather, I got out and snapped a few pix.

There’s actually a small stretch of the original canal there, complete with frozen water and towpath along side.

They put up a modern plastic canal post with good wishes for the world, next to the usual bronze historic plaque.

They also have a little duck pond near the canal. Here we see a bit of duck commotion going on in the freezing (for humans) weather.

This is a nice little find. I’ll have to go back in a month or so, once the greenery is returning and the sun is out and the temps are more pleasant.

We’re having the usual “January thaw” here right now. Yesterday it was sunny and warm, up around 50 degrees. I went out for an afternoon walk and saw people running around without jackets. It was a nice little break from the past 4 weeks of cold and snow, and from the next 6 or 7. For those of you old fogies like me who no longer enjoy windy 15 degree mornings (or worse, depending on where you are), and perilous road conditions that linger after a snow or ice storm: here is a reminder of what awaits us in another month or two. Even the most boring and blaze suburban scenes in northern New Jersey look pretty good during those magic months of spring.

It was a nice day today and I wanted to do a little bit of hiking. I decided to try out a nature preserve along the Passaic River (the upper part, above Paterson and Passaic). I got lost trying to find the place, and when I finally did find it, it was too wet for any serious hiking. But I did get some pix of the low winter sun casting long shadows across the swamps. Kind-of interesting, a nice consolation prize.

My parents grew up in urban factory neighborhoods, but they took advantage of the growing economy of the 1950s and 1960s to raise their own kids in the suburbs. They figured that is was nicer, more backyard space, less crowding, a better place to raise kids.

I pretty much took the suburbs for granted as a kid. Never knew anything else. Interestingly enough, one day I used the cheap little camera that my parents gave me to take a picture that kind-of sums up the suburban experience. It’s a car driving past a typical suburban house (typical, back when I was a kid, anyway). This could be the scene just outside any major industrial city in the USA, circa 1962. A family car and a house.

I don’t know why I took this picture. I never thought much of it, after it was developed and printed. But now I do. It does in fact capture something of the essence of where I grew up.

Thanksgiving usually marks the unofficial beginning of the winter season where I live. It can snow any time now (although for the next 2 or 3 weeks, it would not be much). Most of the trees are bare and the summer vegetation is just about gone. The morning glory plants near my parking spot are also turning brown and dying. But one vine is dying hard. It tried to put out one last flower today, given the relatively mild temps over the past few days (in the lower 50s). There isn’t enough life left in the vine to push the flower to full bloom. But it still got pretty far, despite all of the brown leaves and yellowing vine stems surrounding it. So here’s a pic, with much admiration for those stubborn elements of nature that keep pushing for life even in the midst of decline and death.

Nothing much here, just some mid-autumn sun on the porch at my homestead. Soon it will be December, with plenty of short, cold gray days. That makes a nice sunny morning like this all the more precious. It’s nothing much – but in January, it will seem like everything!

Just another Friday night: moonrise over the Cozy End.

We’ve all heard that phrase kicked about over the past six months, regarding the effect that the financial crisis and economic recession has had on the vast majority of people. I decided to take a drive over to a local Main Street (actually called Broad Street, in Bloomfield NJ), to see how it was doing. Here’s what I saw:

A nice old card store, calling it quits.

Chinese food and bankruptcy appear to be doing well.

Looks like Maria is hanging up the tape measure.

Prayers for downtown.

How much is that doggie in the window . . .

Bill, Mike and Ariel still have their parking spots.

Lots of space available.

Protecting our way of life.

And everything looks worse in black and white . . . or does it?

One of my resolutions for 2009 is to get some good pix of a full moon rising. There’s a nearby park with an overlook that’s just about perfect, with a good south-east view of an urban horizon. The full moon usually rises around 9PM, a convenient time. So, for the past two months, I’ve been trying to get some shots of a big yellow moon bubbling up over the city lights. But guess what? The weather was lousy both times. So, I’ve got to try again in another month or two.

Last night, there was just too much smog and cloud cover on the horizon. But there appeared to be some breaks at around 30 or 40 degrees up. So I decided to wait it out, hoping that some interesting shots could still be had. The moon did eventually poke through for a few minutes, and I managed to get a few shots.

I find it interesting that the major western religions, which for many centuries have denigrated the ancient nature-worshipping pagans that preceded them, still base their most important celebrations around the rising of the full moon. For Moslems, that would be Ramadan. For Jews, Passover. And for Christians, Easter (although they don’t talk about it much).

Well, I’m not into nature worship, but I do enjoy nature photography, so here are my shots from yesterday night. I didn’t see any Wiccans building fires and dancing; but the Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t allow that anyway.