The other things

Amongst the rest, there are still the small fall things that remind us that this is November, scene and site of disaster for many, and also month-before-winter, for the things that grow, those that cannot think and feel no guilt, and do what their genes and the length of days tell them. I think those are woodland asters, above: Aster cordifolius.

And turning to seed, visited by the sweetest little birds called kinglets, with a bright yellow bar in the middle of their heads, another aster. Perhaps white woodland aster? Aster divaricartus.

These leaves with flowers gone to seed perplexed me for a good half hour, until I saw the light on a mulched path a little later and barked, SOLIDAGO! Golden rod.

Earlier, I had rubbed the leaves between my fingers and had been transfixed by the strong and very attractive scent. A cross between camphor and something else resinous. I had no idea it was fragrant. I also do not know what species it is. There is a golden rod known commonly as "fragrant" - Solidago odora -  and people say it smells like anise. I did not pick up fennelish tones, here. That golden rod was used by Native Americans in medicinal teas.

We came upon an enormous tree whose falling had felled, in turn, a neighboring and enormous osage orange.  The fruit lay like marbles on the grass. Big, very heavy marbles. A stippled thunder in that night amidst the tossing and cracking and perilous bending of branches.

It's been a long time since I saw a real marble. I think they are beautiful.

The perfect omelet

Making a good - yes, alright, a perfect! - omelet...or omelette...still gives me a thrill. Because it is still new.

Three good eggs, a splash of milk, salt and pepper, whisk. A hot pan (my mistake had been a gentle pan, tsk) with plenty of butter swirled up the edges.

I like a very simple omelet. Or omelette. Cheese, chives, field garlic. You can see, above, that I was sloppy and did not pull out the one dry yellow leaf. Bother.

The magic part. Sliding a long, rounded knife along the edges to lift them, then sliding it underneath the sharply tilted pan to fold the top one half over the other. The inside of the omelet is barely set (a state described by Julia Childe, as Stephen Orr recently told me, as pleureuse - weeping).

Exactly...

I have no idea how Selina makes perfect omelettes (they are not omelets) for three people, at once.

Michigan forestry crews in Prospect Park?

Prospect Park. I stopped counting fallen trees. I have seen the park after a tornado, after storms, after a freak snowfall. The park has lost a lot of trees in the last two years, and now this.

Yesterday there were too many downed trees to count.

But crews were sawing away.

They seemed to come from Michigan.

Michigan!***

They meant business.

They worked. 

They left neat piles.

They laid neat branch hedges flanking paths

They made me want lots of logs.

Their trucks and eighteen wheeler and a camper were parked on the southern part of the drive around the park. 

Thank you, Michigan. 

Funny how New York can't get organized help to parts of Staten Island and Long Island but Michigan can get exert crews to Prospect Park. 

If I find out more, I'll post more. I can't find anything online. Yet.

We saw the southern and eastern and western sides of the park. All edges and roads are being cleared.

But this is the Midwood, where the Litter Mob worked for a year, and where it was business as usual as far as the cruising trade was concerned. A handful of patrons stood around thumbing its smart phones.  

The crews have not reached this part yet.

And so it goes.

*** The Prospect Park Alliance says that the crews were from the US Forestry Service.

A walk

We really need bicycles.

Manhattan is generally a five minute hop on the subway. It's now a two mile hike from our front door, over the Brooklyn Bridge. That is Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1, above, site of many summer picnics...

I took a walk.

Foot and bike traffic seemed normal. There were still plenty of tourists - perhaps some early marathoners in town, whose journey was for naught. The marathon has been canceled.

The unicyclist. This does not seem to be an easy way to travel. 

Once I had done my tour of the Financial District and Battery Park, I made my way north again, passing the helipad that feeds Wall Street, usually a hive of commercial chopper traffic, where the only aircraft were silent - two military choppers. Beyond them, on the far side of the mud-coloured water, is the Brooklyn Promenade, where I walked in Monday's gale, before the worst of the storm hit.

On a whim I abandoned my plan to walk back across the bridge, and boarded a water taxi. It was an aquatic yellow miracle, churning the water into beige bubbles, the only normal thing in sight. 

The first Staten Island ferry had just docked, due to leave with passengers for the first time the following day. The ferry terminal was tight shut. Aboard the taxi we were not allowed out on deck.The water is too contaminated, said the young guy taking my $5 bill for a one way ride past the Statue of Liberty to Ikea, in Red Hook. 

Unable to stand outside in the wind, I actually leaned back in my comfortable seat, and closed my eyes for two seconds. The harbor was choppy, the boat strong, the rhythm calm, the captain capable. I could have rocked there, riding back and forth, all day. Part of something that was working properly.

Here is Red Hook, already, trying to dry out. You can see the normal high tide mark. 

The red vessel that had chopped through the Buttermilk Channel earlier (we had met it as we rounded Governor's Island) also rested with us in the calm water behind Ikea.

Behind Ikea, there is an unexpected park of grasses. It was pristine. Two workers were bagging trash very neatly, laying the black plastic bags in precise rows, re-aligning dislodged cobble stones. In the slip next door, on the left, above, two tiny tugboats had puttered to life and were reversing, about to go and straighten out - I supposed - the unholy mess of water taxis that we had seen a day or two earlier. Or perhaps they were just getting the hell out of Dodge.

I walked down the empty back streets.

On Van Brunt my camera fell silent again. Fort Defiance was being cleared out. The owner did not have flood insurance, I heard him tell WNYC, later. The little restaurant we enjoyed so much in the summer has been trashed.

The sidewalks further on were now piled higher with discarded belongings, fuel still ran in rainbows on top of the water pumping without end into the streets. The lights were still off. People worked. I walked.

Google Maps

All the way home.

Later I realized what the song was in my head. The video is awful, but Johnny Cash is as good as he ever was, the religious underpinnings notwithstanding...

Battery Park

I don't know what to write. Or post. I have lots of pictures of delicious food. The lovely storm food we enjoyed in our lovely storm. Cosy in our lovely, tiny, dry apartment. With drinks. Wine. On our lovely hill.

But I can't post those.

I am glad the marathon has been canceled. That was just too much.

The southern tip

In the battery Park Bosque, amsonia has survived the salt water flood. Grasses did well, too, but most of the plants are toast.

Bear in mind that salt water has soaked into the soil. This is Tricyrtis - toad lily. Curious to see who they look in a week.

Flattened and salted heuchera.

The topsoil has been washed away, too.

The first, test ferry arriving. Service may resume today.

The harbor.

The closed subway.

The flooded, four lane underpass.

Callery pears - just say no

There were plenty of downed-pear pictures I did not take. But every collapsed tree on the streets of Cobble Hill and points south - with one willow exception - was a callery pear (Pyrus calleryana, also called Bradford pear).

On this blog I have gone on (and on, and on) about the weak crotches - titter - of callery pears. 

They split. They fall. They crash. 

Yet a new callery pear sapling has just been planted by the city, around the corner (replacing, incidentally, a dead stump where a nice batch of oyster mushrooms grew every year). I am not sure how many pears are responsible for damage to power lines at the moment but I'm guessing quite a few.

I love their blossoms, too. 

But how much are the blossoms worth?

Sidebar: the prettiness of spring pears.
Or perhaps, this time, last year? Snow!