The immensity of it all still lingers...

Just some updates on what is going on on the Sourlands 8 days after hurricane Sandy.

It is SNOWING.  Many, many centimeters. We are having a freaking snowstorm, another nor'easter storm. I just heard the snowplow go by on the road outside, which is a very good sign.  (Both that it is a plow and that it is on a truck, i.e., trucks can get into the neighborhood now).

Our neighbors have their power back, it was fixed tonight.  We got internet back around the same time, which is pretty amazing.  The power and internet companies must actually have collaborated. Most likely the neighborhood is now accessible by fire trucks and the like.  They weren't this morning, but if they fixed the lines, then now, after 8 days, we can feel safer.  One road is probably still closed, but they are working on that too. Many of our neighbors do not have power yet though, because their powerlines were ripped out of their houses when trees feel on them.  It will take longer for them and I feel really sorry about all their troubles. The township has gotten lots of letters and calls from us about the situation, and it actually made a difference.  Good.

Bad news - Election results show that the two open seats on the township committee were won by the two republicans.  They won with only 50 votes more than the Democratic candidates, out of over 9000 votes cast.  Incredible. So, two more years of republicans running the town.  (Voting results for the Somerset county is here, and yes, Obama won in the county too.)  There is always The Swedish Party as an alternative for disillusioned Americans  :)
Very good news - Obama won the presidency again.  As someone said 'The republicans made sure that Obama would become a 2-term president'.  Presidents here can only be elected for 2 terms, so now he can focus on doing the right thing and not get reelected.  Like, put some bank fraud CEO's in jail, etc. :)  Mitt Romney seems to have disappeared instantaneously.  

The NJ railroad system suffered horrible losses.  Just look at the railroad bridge after the storm in the photo above (more info here).  Apparently they lost 1/3 of their locomotives and 1/4 of their passenger cars in the storm.  Imagine that.  That must be many hundreds of locomotives that are gone, so the commute to New York City will be hell for many months for many people.

I believe that the mental effects of Sandy will live on for decades in New Jersey.  People will try to be more self-sufficient.  Have more gasoline and generators ready. Get water bottles. Take weather reports seriously.  Value friends and family more.  Not trust township administrators and politicians as much.  Friends and relatives of friends of mine have lost everything.  Whole houses that washed away, and all that is left is a foundation.  Some people got their cars flooded.  Trees on roofs that cracked houses.  Horrific storm night memories, with fear of breaking windows in high-rises in NYC.  Children that lost everything.  It is just so incredibly sad, and maybe a fact of life because weather does exist and always have, but it seems so incredibly wasteful and sad.  I am sorry I am harping on on this, the hurricane I mean, but the rest of the world goes on, and we see it and are reminded about Sandy all the time.  Even if electric and internet and gasoline is soon back to normal, the New Jersey world has changed, permanently.  And so have we.

And finally, just some images to really show how big this storm was. 

(Image by NASA - more photos of Sandy from NASA here)

 

(Image by wunderground.com, a weather website)

(Image by NOAA)

The December that didn't become winter, and a historic weather year

Last year, 2011, was weather-wise a not very wise year in New Jersey.

We had snow storms, ice storms, rain storms, hurricanes,

Result: The third warmest year on record, and the wettest year ever (since 1895).  In our township we had 71.92 inches of precipitation, that is 1826.768 mm (for you used to the more smart SI system, and I never really got into the inch-thing anyway). That explains all the horribly flooding, including the water in our basement.

Those of you that don't believe in global warming and that it might be influenced by your cars and living style - how about you spend some time in a flooded or icestuck place for a while?  It is real, it is here, it is happening right now! 

Here are some weather related photos from 2011... lets hope for a more 'lagom' year this year:













Update: here is a good link to the warmest winter so far ever in the northern hemisphere.

Twittering in the forest (the real thing)

This morning I was going for a walk along our rural road on the mountain, watching the bare branches, some broken from the previous storms, and enjoying the clear, frosty air. The iPod in my pocket was playing a podcast of a short Swedish radio program called Tankar för dagen (Thoughts for the Day), where authors, ministers, scientists, physicians, social workers, artists, etc. write short essays, no longer than 5 min, that they then read.  It can be reminiscences and memories, thoughts about religion, ethics, psychology, or just reflections over modern life or times passed.

I was just listening to a short essay about how we often plan for a better life and for things to happen, while life just happens around us.  The author quoted John Lennon: "Life is what happens when you plan other things." (Or something like that.).  Suddenly I saw something and stopped.  Turned off the iPod (which was on a very low volume anyway).  Beside me, in the forest, were thousands of migrating grackles.  And more were coming.  They were on the ground, creating an image of boiling leaves when they where throwing leaves up to look for something to eat.  Some were in the trees.  Some were flying up, some were flying down.  Pitch-black metallic bodies, with metallic blue heads, like dark shadows, just chirping and twittering a bit.  More and more were coming, with no end.  They came between the tree trunks from the north, thousands and thousands.

They got scared and all flew up as one from the ground and a giant swoosh of wing sounds.  Down again.  Over the road.  More grackles coming through the forest, for ten minutes at least. It was impossible to count them, too many.  I think there was about 50-100 crackles per second arriving from the north, and since this happened for many minutes, that are many thousands of crackles.  Giant large flocks, flying seemingly synchronized and random, maybe 50 000 birds?  Where did they come from, in December, and where are they going? The grackles left us months ago, so these must be from the north.

Two cars went by, as did two bicyclists in their silly streamlined spandex suits, but nobody stopped to look.  You couldn't miss the birds, the drivers just weren't interested.  And there is was, life happening, right in the forest, while most of us where busy planning for other things. It was a gorgeous experience, a happy event, something Bob Dylan could have written a song about.  The largest flock of grackles I have ever seen, and it just happened to fly by.

I think this is relevant in many ways these days because so many of us forget to really experience things.  Instead we read about them, watch them on YouTube, hear about them through Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail, but we forget to see the real things right in front of us.  It is like this comment by comedian Louis C K from a YouTube video - what if Jesus would come back to Earth, would people listen to him or just send instant text messages about their experiences? All this instantness is stupidifying and shallow, it makes us forget to think, listen, and reflect on what is really around us. 

For the record, I am not on Facebook, Twitter, I don't text (SMS), I have no cable TV, but I think the internet is good, in the right doses at the right times. But all this electronic, digital media and instant, stressful communication can destroy the real experiences and make us make stupid choices. We forget to see, listen, and think about the real things, since we are just rushing to the next thing online. It worries me profoundly. More on this later...

This dragonfly wasn't heading the warning...

headless dragonfly found on the road, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

.. and lost his head on the mountain one morning. Actually, I found him on the road, without head, but he was still alive for hours... Creepy, indeed.

Winter morning walk, tracing steps

A nightly light snowfall covered the sides of the road like airy powder.  Over by the fields, a fox had crossed the road to walk into the forest, with determined steps in a semi-straight line.  Further down the road, another, or the same, fox had followed the road for a while, equally determined to get wherever he or she was going. Suddenly some new tracks showed up on top of the fox tracks for a few yards - a racoon's longer-fingered paws had left irrationally patterned tracks on top of the fox paw prints and then went back down in the wet ditch again.  On the highest point of the road, near the giant oaks standing tall in the forest, squirrels jumped their 4-steps pace across the road, maybe looking for lost acorns on the other side of the road.  And up near the barn, a barncat (not ours) had created a beaded band of small round prints, with five round shapes in each, swirling its way up to the barn on the hill.  Not a mouse or vole track did I see.  Human tracks - mine and some kids', from front doors to school bus doors on the road - ending in nowhere when they got on the bus.  There were one more kind of pattern in the snow - giant salt crystals from the salt truck that were surrounded by melted areas, a perfect square salt crystal, sometimes even double, with a dark halo in the white snow.  It was all telling stories, hinting at things that had happened when nobody else had been looking, silent life on the Sourland Mountain in New Jersey. And then the sun got up and melted the snow away .

Real winter in New Jersey

The coldest weeks during the year is the last week of January (just started) and the first week of February.  Our thermometer outside showed 7 degrees F this morning, but the reported temperature from down the valley a few miles from us was minus 5 F or so.  Pretty cold, like a deep freezer.  For you in Sweden this is nothing, I know! Or if you are from the Upper Peninsula in Minnesota, the coldest place in the US.  But here, this is COLD.

Water is freezing over, and the snow is staying - so it is gorgeous. When the sun is about to set, the 'blue hour' is a great time for photos.  None of these photos have been color-corrected - this is how blue it was!  The photos are from Rock Brook on the Sourlands during yesterday's walk:

A white day in New Jersey

I woke up to a quiet world in white, just with some windy drifts of snow, but otherwise white, white.  Schools closed, and not many cars out.  Went for a walk down to the old bridge and met a few cars, otherwise just me, bluejays and some woodpeckers, and the sun on the snow and wind shifting snow off tree branches.  Here are some photos of our winter wonderland in New Jersey.

Even the mailboxes were snowed in.

Round barn.

Rock Brook bridge.

Fences and fields.

 

Just plain snow.

And right now, 49 of the 50 states in USA have snow at least in some places, even Hawaii. Over 70% of the land is white. The loner without snow is Florida, so it is an amazing winter.

In Europe, it is hotter, because Etna, the volcano in Italy, decided to start to spout out lava today (EH has web cam photos, hat tip to her for finding out first.)

Fall is flying by, also in New Jersey, USA

The fall colors of the forest are flying by very fast, and will soon be gone.


Our road, a few days ago.


The forest is painted.


I drive by this old, but still standing, barn everyday on my way to work, and some early mornings the sun falls just right to highlight the trees behind it.

Never stop loving

Never stop loving, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

The Sourland Mountain in New Jersey has some interesting street art graffiti. Seen yesterday, on Ridge Road.

A nice view on hot summer days...

Ice crystals, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Remember January? This is what it looked like - ice crystals along a little brook in the Sourlands Preserve in New Jersey.

Things that I don't think were meant to be

I wonder, if paper wasps are good for anything? I mean, they don't pollinate anything, as far as I know they don't eat mosquitos or japanese beetles, and they seem so spend their days just annoying people.  I admit this is a very anthrophosophic viewpoint, but I think I have the right to it, since I got stung three times by the same wasp this morning, and now can barely walk due to a very large, swollen foot. I don't talk about  very useful parasite wasps that kill insect pests, but the ones that build there nests under gas filling lids on trucks (x 2 and two years in a row - ask PP), or inside hot tubs or nice deck lamps.  And then they attack you when you are minding your business just cutting grass in the vegetable garden, aiming for your ankle through the sock.  The one that bit me looked like a European paper wasp, but I don't know if they are in the US.  At least it was yellow and black, not brown. And since they don't die after stinging someone, it is now happily flying someone, while I have a foot like a swollen red club.  Not fair.

(PS.  OK, I so realize that evolutionary speaking nothing is here on earth for the purpose of making the life of humans easier, but in this case I think I am allowed to be a little bit selfish for a change.)

Giant Leopard Moth, Ecpantheria scribonia

Giant Leopard Moth, Ecpantheria scribonia, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Our garden is full of amazing and unexpected things, just look at this 5 cm long moth found by PP last weekend. Who expects something like this? Every year is different in the garden - one year we have japanese beetles invading, another groundhogs, and a third one it is turkey vultures mating on our chimney. This year's common animals seems to be ants, rabbits, and yellow snails. And the ever-present white-tailed deers of course, which seems so desperate they are even eating butterfly bushes (Buddleja) right now. Planting mint, sage and lavender in our borders instead of regular flowers have resulted in that we now really have nice thick borders again, albeit it is mostly mint and other herbs, which is not a bad thing, just unusual.

Very good food and very good food things...

Yesterday a very smelly package arrived in the mail - a Tennessee Smoked Ham from Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams, a small company that is recreating the old-fashioned smoked hams without any modern additives. Our ham was 14 months old and weighed about 15 pounds (that is about 7 kilo for us Swedes, so like a 1-year old or so). Heavy! But the smell. Close your eyes (oh well, you are reading, but imagining that you are closing your eyes and open your nostrils). Breath in - suddenly you are in a old smoky log cabin with bacon cooking on the stove, and the smoky smell is not that kind of annoying smoky flavor when you put wet spruce branches on a little fire in the winter and the smoke burns your eyes, but long-slow good smoke from a burning wood that has penetrated everylittle pore in the log walls of the house. You can't buy anything even remotely similar to this in any store around here. We haven't tasted our ham yet, since it is for Christmas Eve dinner ('julskinka' for 'julbordet'), but I am sure it will be heavenly. Thank you Benton's!

The day before Lucia (Dec 13) I made saffron buns ('lussekatter'), typical for Lucia in Sweden. They turned out great!

The beginning of a braised beef dinner from oxtail and short rib pieces, from our local supplier down the street. We bought a quarter of a calf that had fattening himself up over the summer here in the Sourlands, so now we have about 120 lbs (55 kilo) of grassfed, organic lean beef in our freezer for the rest of the year. And it is cheap to buy it this way. And yummy. Tomorrow we are making Cajun-style meatloaf from some of the ground meat.




I have tried to make Tarte Tatin (an upside down French apple cake) three times now, and everytime the apples stick to the pan at the very end. But it tastes great. Here is the beginning, when you slow-cook apples with butter and sugar for hours so they caramelized. Later you put dough on top, cook it in the oven, and then turn it upside down after it has cooled a bit.




One of my most favorite things in our kitchen is the superduper out-foldable pantry PP custom-built. It looks like two doors, but when you open you have shelves on the doors and inside, and the inside shelves fold out too. You can see every little can, pasta box and pepper jar, and all the spices are accessible and just right there when you need them. It is amazing how much food you can store at a little space with this. It is mouse proof too.

seen in the neighborhood yesterday

Seen about one kilometer from our house yesterday morning - a black bear. Photo by an unknown neighbor. There are more bear facts here. We don't see them often in the Sourlands, maybe once every few years. But they are becoming more common in New Jersey.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all have a great 2009! 2008 turned out to be a year of changes and international travel and food for me. A short recap before the year is gone in less than 24 hours: I made international trips to Costa Rica (monkeys and crocodiles), Ecuador (volcanoes and rainforest), Vancouver (Pacific Ocean and Chinatown), and South Africa (winelands, Cape of Good Hope, and Table Mountain); the long and nervous process before Obama was elected president; growing chili peppers in our garden and burning wood in our furnace for the first time; lots of good food and food writing; some excellent reading; and trips within New Jersey (Sourland Preserve, Cape May, Brigantine, Ellis Island, Willowwood Arboretum, Pine Barrens, Grounds of Sculpture), Pennsylvania (New Hope Auto Show), and of course our big summer trip to Vermont and Maine. I started to use Flickr for my photos, and my most viewed photo is, unpredictably, a wine label with a stinkbug. AREA cut her hair short and colored it red, our cats kept their fluffy tails, my sister (EH) and mom (AnS) visited us, as well as several of our great friends. PP and I discovered the authors James Lee Burke and John Sandford (I know, crime novels and maybe not literature of the Nobel prize kind, but works great for the commute to work). Our favorite NJ restaurant is still Sergeantsville Inn, and our favorite US restaurant is probably TJ Buckleys in Brattleboro, Vermont, but we had many good meals at other places and we cooked lots of good local, organically grown food at home too. The weather was freaky with ice storms, floods, flowering dandelions at Christmas, and droughts in the summer (= no chanterelles in the forests here). The giant alpha male ground refused to be caught in our trap, and the moles ate all our beets (as usual, gardening posed its challenges). In the world and here in New Jersey the financial markets collapsed, Israel bombed Gaza, and no peace in sight in Iraq and Afghanistan either. But I am still hopeful for Peace on Earth, but then I suffer from perpetual hopefulness. After January 20, when Obama takes the reigns, things will be different, finally. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Happy New Year to all of you, and let's hope for the best for the Earth and its people for 2009.

After the ice storm, 2 days ago

Life in New Jersey in 5 images

Sunset towards Sourland mountain, a rare moment captured forever. This photo reminds me of summer nights in Sweden when the sun sets at 11 PM and gets up at 2 AM.
An old motorcycle was parked outside a restaurant (this one is for you AREA). Might have been one like this, I don't remember.
Tools and signs at the Sergeantsville butcher shop. On the sign - Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing, It Wastes Your Time and Annoys the Pig.
Midsummer here still means potatoes cooked with dill, herring, sour creme, and chives, just like at Barking Dog Plaza where I grew up. And after the sill.... I think we had quail ('vaktel'), locally farmed. Next year we are planning on rabbit, groundhog, and raccoon for the midsummer night grilling. (Yes, a stupid raccoon woke us up by sitting on the bird feeder at 4 AM and trying repeatedly to get in to the precious bird food. And today a squirrel tried to chew his way through the steel of the bird feeder. I think these deserve to be midsummer food...)

School graduation, about two weeks later than in Sweden. Here the 8-graders get ready to get their diplomas and to have two months of school vacation. And yes, all the 400+ students looked the same in their rented green gowns.