Yep, still winter.

Mon-

Often by now there are snowdrops and crocuses blooming in this bed.  Wild garlic would be all over the place, and chickweed would be starting its creep to cover everything.  I suspect little is happening under this mound, however.  Anyway, what I can’t see can’t affect my mood.

I did see a robin yesterday.  But, as the saying goes, one robin does not make a spring.  One warm day won’t let me put away the mittens and snow shovel.  On the other hand, equinox is less than a month off, and the sun is definitely stronger.  With the snow pack reducing rapidly to melt and sublimation, I hope to start back into normal walking routine along the water early this week.

Tue-

Probably a reflection of how warm the oceans are becoming that in spite of what seems to be a brutally cold winter the “Huntington harbor icepack” is still basically nonexistent.  There were never polar bears nor walruses sunning themselves here, but even twenty years ago thick plates of frozen snow and water would jam all the way to the inlet from shore to shore.  In the real old days, my wife claims, people would walk from one side to the other.

Well, all I can do today is to appreciate what is.  There is wonderful beauty in the blue sky, buffleheads float and dive chaotically out near the channel, trees have withstood the storms magnificently.  Warmly wrapped, I can appreciate the near silence and solitude until another angry driver, driven nearly mad by the narrow lanes and magically appearing potholes, careens around the corner paying no heed to me nor anything else in frantic need to get wherever they must go.

Wed

The Huntington Town Glacier usually appears sometime in December at the Mill Dam parking lot, and sometimes lasts through the end of April.  All the snow from our increasingly paved environs has to go somewhere, after all, and some misguided soul in some environmental agency has probably decided it is wrong to just dump it into the harbor _ even though it all goes right there when it melts anyway.

Another example of how dependent we are on energy.  Trucks run all day carrying loads scooped up by other trucks.  Loaders run sporadically lifting the dumped mass as high as possible.  I’m sure the ospreys don’t quite know what to make of it.  Maybe it was better in the olden days _ yet I don’t hear anyone clamoring to be cooped up inside for weeks at a time _ heck, the brickbats start to fly if anyone’s tight hourly schedule is messed up a bit.

Thu-

A fresh dusting of snow obscures the horizon and coats the ice.  The reeds somehow have remained fluffy-looking through all of this and are only more attractive when frosted.  I stand here in my extremely warm clothes and marvel at how a change of a mere forty or so degrees Fahrenheit can so completely change the surface appearance of our world.

Science claims to be discovering other watery planets around other stars, and we immediately think they would be like Earth.  After many years of enjoying science fiction and speculation, I have come to believe that our planet is unique, not just because of water but from the moon, tides, and seasons.  I may grudgingly concede some form of life elsewhere is possible, but I think we are alone in intelligence.  The tragedy is that we are unheedingly squandering it all.

Fri-

Abstract patterns can create beauty anywhere.  I always enjoy watching new photographers and painters who suddenly discover how much there is to see when they take the time to look.  We usually have so much on our mind that we ignore the commonplace and quickly label things as “brush by side of road” if, in fact, we notice it at all in our constant haste to be elsewhere.

It’s not necessary for beauty to claim to be perfect, the most, the best.  The charms of these tangled branches against frozen snow are unique to this time and place, a visual treat only if we are in the right mood.  The plant itself is simply responding to historic Darwinian imperative, growing as best it can in the margins left to it by civilization.  The snow doesn’t even have that rationale.  It takes consciousness to put it all together into some alternative, pleasurable pattern or narrative that we label beauty.
Sat-

There’s a quiet beauty many days from certain hidden vantage points, especially if you can ignore the ten degree wind sweeping down the harbor behind me.  You’d expect the natural world to somehow react more dramatically to cold _ and immediate ice freeze up, trees freezing and exploding, dead birds dropping from the sky from exposure.  None of that happens.  We generate hysteria within.

The blues interlaced with bare brown branches are marvelous.  Harbor water is for once crystal clear.  Usually it can all be enjoyed in what has become very unusual quiet _ no leaf blowers, no chain saws, no dogs barking on the beach.  I’m not foolish enough to claim I like it better than other seasons, but I strive to experience winter as more than a hiatus and contrast to the rest of the year.

Sun-

A brief colorful digression to the lovely camellia greenhouses of the Planting Fields Arboretum state park in Oyster Bay.  All in bloom in February and early March _ although somewhat behind schedule this year along with everything else.  The girder framework of the greenhouse is fascinating in itself, redolent of fabled English structures like the Crystal Palace or New York Penn Station, destroyed by the capitalist barbarian hordes.

Some of the families of great wealth in olden times were truly in love with their creations, and took pains to preserve it and pass it on to future generations to be enjoyed.  Many of the wonderful places on Long Island  were created in that way.  Today it seems all wealth is to be cascaded and piled and burned in a great potlatch with no concern for anyone except the fortunate egoists who have accumulated it.  Does anyone believe any of the “great houses” in, for example, the Hamptons will please or inspire anyone fifty years from now?  Well, for the moment, at least, we all have this, and for the moment it is more than enough.

Island Hostage

Mon-

Probably just a hostage here today, leaving tomorrow unless the predicted “light dusting” turns magically into another “historic northeaster” on Tuesday.  In any case, this time we will take our chances camping out at the airport even if there are problems.  Good place to be  a hostage, of course.

These fuzzy blobs are white pelicans, crowded in the Darling National Wildlife Preserve _ another in the chain that includes Target Rock _ which the guides were assuring people usually were not available in such numbers.  They and the other birds were quite beautiful, and by far the most wildlife we have seen in any park down here so far.  I have a new appreciation for how jammed with waterfowl Huntington really is.  Anyway, the people around us, most loaded with high end telescopic super cameras, no doubt could provide you with a detailed set of portraits.  I’m not sure I get quite so enthused over the difference between the brown pelican and the white.  It may be the “second largest native bird in North America” but it still seem significantly smaller, and less dramatic, than the swans gliding majestically in familiar waters.

Tue-

Sunset looking backward, which seems appropriate.  Being active outdoors at the beginning and end of the day is the main reason to head to a warm climate when the weather at home is bad.  We live completely normal lives in winter now, thanks to technology, but usually huddled in artificial warm caves.  It has been relaxing to again greet the sun and bid it goodbye.

The deserted appearance of the sand is a bit deceptive.  Sanibel at this time of year is stuffed to the gills with people, utterly overloading the infrastructure.  Traffic jams on the only road begin at dawn and don’t let up until near midnight.  You cannot walk anywhere in meditation without being on the alert for some wobbling newbie bicyclist to knock you down, or a jogger on paths that are too narrow, or streets that _ even when dead end _ are always filled with cars going somewhere and groups of people striding briskly.  The standard price of success, I suppose.

Wed-

 

Minor delays, but home by midnight.  Islip didn’t look all that bad, but as we got closer and closer to Huntington the snow deepened until the roads resembled an old Russian fable.  We half expected wolves to be jumping out from behind snowbanks.

Today it still looks pretty bleak, but we still have fresh perspective so it remains picturesque.  Anything can be picturesque for a few days, I guess.  Glad to be back, but also happy at having missed the enervating sameness of cold and wet and grey for day after day.

Thu-

First things first.  Couldn’t walk anywhere until I got the cars dug out.  Well, it’s another chance to be in the great outdoors, relatively muted.  Two days of warmth and rain while I dug have actually cut the original drifts to half their original size _ at first it was hard to find the cars at all.

I suppose, under all this, the bulbs are still pushing up.  Don’t see many tree buds swelling, but I’m sure they are getting ready as well.  The days continue to lengthen and the sun progressively strengthen, even though it is hard for mere people to notice.  If I wanted to be Pollyanna, I would say that we will appreciate spring all the more when it finally does start to show _ but my back refuses to go along at the moment.

Fri-

Through the cold, the snow, the endless gloom, an andromeda gets ready to bloom anyway.  The first real warm sunny day will probably start to open some of the small flowers.  In a few weeks, it will be fully open with white bunches that last for the duration of colder spring.

I am lucky to have electricity and distractions _ an andromeda is all very well to contemplate, but one needs to be more of a monk than I am to practice it all day.  I enjoy books and music and even the chance to go to the supermarket.  I’ve never claimed to be a back to nature survivalist, just someone who appreciates the natural world which should be preserved better than we seem to be doing.
Sat-

The other night I expected wolves, this afternoon it looks more like Hollywood vampire effects.  The rest of the world is warmer than normal _ in France fruit trees are blooming a month early.  I don’t see any sign of that here _ in this fog I don’t see any sign of anything much at all.

The weather is obviously changing.  Some claim that is true, but it is not our fault, just coincidence with sunspots or cosmic rays or supernatural will.  It seems to me that is like drunks complaining about a headache the next day and blaming it on a tumor, bad water, or stress rather than having anything to do with how much they were imbibing the night before.  And not willing to modify behavior for a while to find out.

Sun -

Since water has been around for us and our ancestors forever, we tend to take the drama it provides for granted.  A snowstorm can, in a few hours or a day, completely change the landscape and the infrastructure by which we live.  Heavy rain can cause all kinds of incredible damage.  Ice has its own tragedies.  Drought, although taking longer, may be the worst of all, especially when accompanied by fire.

More than that, water is rapidly fickle.  A clear sky changes into something else.  A heavy snowfall may shut road to one lane.  Yet, especially at this time of year, the sun and a warm front can in a day reduce a four foot snow pile to two feet, a two foot cover to nothing at all.  All the snow here was at least twice as high a few days ago.  Of course, our industrialization can build snow mountains in parking lots that rival anything in the Sierra Nevada, and which may not go away until mid-spring.

Sanibel Island

Mon-

Further down Florida, in a standard resort, room facing east so I could watch the sun rise out of the bay this morning.  Fort Myers lines the opposite shore, but here it is all quiet and even the “guests” are subdued.  It is warm, and lovely, and if we get bored there are bike paths everywhere.

My problem has been that I get extremely attached to wherever I actually live.  My philosophy has always been something like that old song “love the one you’re with.”  Huntington, New York, Long Island _ I get quite chauvinistic, and bored when I am gone for very long.  I admit I have been this way before anywhere I happened to be _ and surely I would be the same if I lived here.  I think that is an admirable trait _ or at least one that keeps me happy most of the time _ but it makes me a somewhat jaded travel writer.
Tue -

Along this coastline, units are limited to two or three stories.  That should not prevent them from having charm, but in fact the coastal architecture has all the pizzazz of soviet-era blockhouse construction.  Well, folks come here for the beach and nature, not the magnificent housing.

This time our window faces east over the bay and for the second day in a row I have watched the large red ball hurriedly float up into the clear air.  It’s been a while since I watched sunrise, since I am at least civilized (and old) enough to not leave my house before coffee and shower and breakfast.  For those of you who have not enjoyed the experience recently, sunrise is just like sunset in reverse.  Both phenomena are free for those who have the will (well, free in this case if you can spring for a place on the beach…)
Wed-

 

   

A pathway through preserved vegetation at the lighthouse.  Sanibel is half nature preserve, so many of the old swamps and thickets remain undeveloped.  If you wander some down the thick black mud trails, filled with fallen palm trunks that might be alligators, watching an occasional snake frantically slither away, you get some idea of how far islands like this were from paradise in their “natural state.”  And that is even without remembering the clouds of mosquitoes and other noxious pets that were wonderful for the ecological balance.

My problem is that I expect paradise to be fashioned for people.  That has been true since my childhood tales of Eden (lion lying down with the lamb, no mention of mosquitoes) right through adulthood.  I want nature in comfortable doses.  I want to get to beaches or canyons in hours without effort; I want food and water when I arrive; I expect to be able to easily wander around and appreciate the wonders.   I do not think I vary that much from everyone else_ what the world now works on is how to balance our needs with the non-human requirements of all the places that are far from paradise and always should be.

Thu-

Looks enough like a tropical paradise, deserted beach stretching away under a palm tree.  Just like all the photos I take, however, this is hardly the whole picture.  What you cannot sense nor hear nor experience is the roar of traffic overhead _ this is from under the causeway link to mainland Fort Myers.  Streams of cars and trucks in both directions never cease.  And those deserted beaches stretching into the distance are actually walled off mostly from the public by carefully guarded resorts and estates.

Sanibel prides itself on being a nature preserve _ and a huge percentage of the island is indeed undeveloped.  Unfortunately, that means there is one road in, one road out.  With lots of tourists and residents and sightseers  that means infinite automobiles, and that makes for dead-stop traffic jams almost all day long in each direction on the only road that goes anywhere.  And doubled prices for anything you buy.  If you ignore all that, ride the beautifully maintained bike paths, walk the wide sand beaches, just give up and spend whatever is necessary to eat _ well, then it is all beautiful and perfect. 

Fri-

A large part of Sanibel Island and its surrounding waters is kept as a nature preserve.  This is Tarpon Bay, which can be explored by taking boat tours or rentals of pontoon boats or kayaks.  It is a constant that we can only appreciate nature these days by using some form of modern machinery, and powered vehicles to get there.

It got “cold” here overnight _ below fifty! _ everyone is dressed like the snowstorm hitting New York will arrive any minute.  We have purposely isolated whatever hemisphere of the brain worries about tomorrow so that we do not think much about whether or not our fight will make it back tomorrow night.  Living for the moment and enjoying it fully is truly one of the things we should learn from experiencing the rest of the natural world, wilderness or not.

Sat -

Shells thrown up after a storm a feature of any sandy beach.  People come here expecting to find exotic treasures, and they are often filing out along the surf before dawn.  This is just the common debris, the stuff nobody cares about because it is abundant, although each piece was surely as important to its inhabitant as any of our homes are to us.

I find myself getting as grumpy as any old nineteenth century traveler, for example Mark Twain, mostly because of the way things are oversold.  “You’ll love Sanibel” cried everyone.  We imagined a beach like a shell store, lined with exotic and magnificent beauties, leaving no room for the sand.  This is _ well, there are shells.  But there are shells at Caumsett as well, and to my eye more variety than here.  But nobody has tried to convince me that Long Island is a shell collector’s paradise, so whether there are any or not does not really engage my cynicism.
Sun-

Like all lighthouses, Sanibel Light has a story to tell.  As do we, unexpectedly still here for a few more days after a last minute snowstorm canceled our expected flight yesterday.  But you can read the public story of the 1884 structure on your own, and our tale is more one of the joys of the internet and easy communication than of anything else.  It is so easy now to find out what is being predicted, what an airline is doing, finding numbers to rearrange things.  What could have been a nasty stay in a bleak airport became a lovely, if expensive, extension to our stay in the warmth.

We were rewarded today by a score or so of dolphins playing close inshore only tens of yards from the sand.  Almost as if they had been paid to put on a performance, they dove and chased fish for hours, as crowds lined the shore and snapped pictures.  The sad note is that a sight once so common as to be unworthy of notice along any seacoast has become rare enough to merit hysteria whenever it now occurs.

  

  

Siesta Key

Sun

Breaking all the rules of the blog, here.  Not one week, not one day at a time, obviously did not walk here from my house, not about Huntington harbor.  Joan desperately wanted to look forward to a break, and I reluctantly agreed back in September, and in fact it worked out well.  The other thing is that for the last two weeks I have been getting over a bad cold and faced an awful internet connection.  So this is catchup.

Drove from Tampa airport totally wiped out, little sleep, coughing like a smoking addict, desperate to arrive yet afraid of what we might find.  After all, on the internet every hovel is a castle; each new friend a prince or princess.  But it all worked out, nice fifties-style room right on the beach, looking out on the Gulf.  I sit here on the porch and (between coughs) hear the surf breaking endlessly on soft white sand.

Mon

Mid Florida need not be warm and sunny in January.  In fact, it was in the forties and threatening rain.  Embarrassed, I felt like a tuberculosis patient spreading plague to the neighbors.

Human nature being what it is, many ignore reality and will sit in shorts and even bathing suits no matter what the actual conditions because _ hey!_ we paid for this.  By gosh it is Florida and we mean to get our money’s worth, even if it means shivering in the chair in shorts.  Bah.  Illusions.

Tue

People stream along Crescent Beach (#1 beach in the USA, proclaim the signs) constantly from foggy dawn until darkness after sunset.  From the porch it looks like an old film of war refugees _ particularly since the average age of the sloggers is maybe seventy or more.  The loop goes along the water line from the public access two miles away to the dead end of Point of Rocks, where it crashes into private property and reverses going back.

I admit that on occasion I have joined the long conga line and quite enjoyed it.  The gentle break of the waves and constant rush of the wind with cries of gulls drowns out the intrusions of man and is very meditative.  Of course, from another perspective, it is simply another endlessly boring grey moment at the vestibule of Hell.

Wed

John Ringling started a circus, lived on Fifth Avenue, and in his spare winter months built a Venetian palace in Sarasota.  Joan pretty much hates the long, and usually boring, house tours, where guides always end up telling you more than you really want to know, more slowly than you would believe possible.

Yet this was a great day to spend a rainy day, even if I did scare guards and visitors with my ongoing hacks.  An Art museum of old paintings is included, but the real star is the miniature circus, which I am really happy that I got to see.  Look it up if you’re interested.  My main question is what kind of obsession is required to bring such an exhibit into being.

Thu

Joan took this picture from near our porch on one of the few clear days.  Yeah, we faced due west.  Every night a gang of folks would gather outside at the picnic tables and drink wine and compare their mostly tiny dogs.  Very convivial.

It’s not that we don’t have magnificent sunsets in Huntington.  I can see them from the windows of our house in winter, and a short walk away the sun goes over puppy cove from our dock.  Yet, you know, you’re paying for vacation so you pay more attention as well.

Fri

Two miles along the powder white sand is the public Siesta Beach, separated from the road by this wild grass and vegetation.  The parking lot fills quickly on hot days, and over this rise you can make out the countless umbrellas, although you are spared the screams of the young children and the sight of people who think they look better than they do exposing vast amounts of ancient flesh.

Nevertheless it is all a happy and harmless celebration of being alive, hurts nobody and nothing, and perhaps represents what we should all strive more to attain.  I’m not one to shrug off wisdom no matter how it may arrive.

Sat

Various back roads represent the old days before the march of progress constructed huge apartments lining the beach.  One woman along this road said she had lived here for forty five years.  I don’t know what kind of changes might have happened in that time.

Still, the fifties and sixties were not the true “old times.”  One article claimed that originally Siesta Key was famous for being natively inhabited by every species of venomous snake in the continental US.  And that’s not even taking into account infinite mosquitoes ….

Sun

All along Florida the back side of coastal islands are connected by the watery “intracoastal”, a canal used by countless pleasure craft.  Originally built after world war one, to protect shipping from German U-Boats.  I don’t think there was ever an enemy submarine within sight of Tampa but, well, I haven’t searched all of Wikipedia nor alternate web sources.

The main thing about the intracoastal now is that it has to justify its existence to the rich yacht owners.  So drawbridges on crowded highways (including this one on Stickney Road) are raised every few hours tying up a heck of a lot of motorists while one rich bastard in a little boat with a big mast proudly sails from one end of the island to the other.

Mon

Obligatory shot of brown pelicans, almost as common as gulls.  I think the locals are as amused at tourists  taking their pictures as I am at visitors gleefully snapping shots of squirrels in central park.

On the other hand, they are big, graceful, fun to watch, and do dive into the waves to catch fish.  I still find it hard to understand how they can they take off again from a floating position on the water.  We are lucky to still have wildlife to protect.  I am grateful to have been able to have seen it still holding its own in the world.

Tue

A ”pass” around here is any channel between islands that lets you navigate from the true gulf to the back bay, which is what is shown here.  At the end of this picture and to the right is “Midnight Pass,” which leads to the otherwise incomprehensibly named “Midnight Pass Road” which is _ logically _ the road that takes you to that dead end inlet.

All water shots are inevitably beautiful.  It’s hard to mess them up, here or in Huntington, or probably in the Arc tic.  That, of course, is why a dumb amateur like me likes to concentrate on them.  Water forgives a lot of lack of technique.

Wed

Florida has state parks, from what I have seen (and I haven’t gone to the everglades) none as grand as those we enjoy in the northeast.  This is a sandy scrub, really second growth on what was a cattle ranch until the early fifties.

There is something fun about walking down desolate tracks like this, especially if you know exactly where you are because there are easy blue markers all along the way.  On the other hand, I saw no wildlife other than a few grasshoppers and tiny butterflies.  Joan and I enjoyed the respite from traffic and humanity.

Thu

On the other hand, the nanny state is a bit less intrusive here.  Although, the last time I was at Niagara Falls, there were no fences preventing people from swimming in the river right about the falls _ and people and their children were wading right out having a grand old time.  Idiocy is not confined to one region or another.

You can’t make it out, but there are people in the water, and, yes, it is a designated area with floats around.  On the other hand, the “lake” is the size of a large hotel swimming pool.  Maybe the sign is just here to give people a thrill _ I know I might do something like that if I were a bored ranger….

Fri

Point of Rocks is _ a point of rocks.  The maps and brochures say it is great for snorkeling and wading to find shells.  That assumes you can get to it, because the public tide-line beach ends at the bulkhead, and you have to wade almost chest deep to reach to rocks themselves.

There is always controversy about public/private ownership of shoreline.  On the one hand, I know I like to be able to sneak in anywhere.  On the other hand, I am often grateful when the rest of the stupid idiots like me are excluded.  That makes it a problem that has no rational absolute answer _ like Einstein’s universe, the flat fabric of human rights is distorted by the presence of large amounts of wealth. 

Sat

The dunes support (seasonally) dry dead grass and occasional flowers like this one.  I love finding little patches like this, even if the flowers end up being as common as dandelions, even if they  turn out to be invasive species.  I have no idea how this falls, but it is beautiful anyway.

The interaction of man and nature is our proper study.  Ignoring nature for our own desires and dreams and internal considerations is folly. Ignoring our vast emotional and logical human existence to pay homage only to raw environment is an affront to the universe that endowed us with our infinite capabilities.

Sun

Fittingly, a last near-sunset through the clouds as we move on to the next week.   This may not be a classic sunset, but it is surely typical.  How many typical ones have I ignored over the last year?

One reason I take pictures and try to write is for the discipline.  Knowing, or thinking, I must do this forces me to confront each day and each moment in each day.  So, I apologize for digressing from the pure form I have tried to follow, and hope you enjoyed this digression.