It’s cold outside, the trees are mostly bare, and as much as I can’t take the cold I can’t take sitting indoors when the sky is a brilliant blue and the sun is shining! I grabbed the camera, put on my convertible mittens that allow for my fingers to push the shutter, and off I went! Come along with me….
One of my nieces comes to spend a weekend almost every year with us, usually the Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. It gives us a chance to spend some time together and go shopping of course. What are Aunts for if not to treat their nieces to something special and spend some quality time with them away from their other siblings? We try to take a photo every year, and it seemed perfect for the Weekly Photo Challenge this week as when she started coming she was only 7, and is now 14. We missed a few years, but you get the idea
I pulled up my kitchen shade this morning to find fog had blanketed the entire sky. It is fairly warm for the end of November here in the Northeast and I assume the cold overnight now mixing with the warmth of morning brought all the fog. I liked that it enveloped the trees, the yellow leaves still clinging to one tree is contrast with the gray mist.
The moon in the Western sky shrouded by the fog before making its disappearance.
There is an email listserve in the town where I live where people can post messages looking for rides, making community announcements, selling things they no longer need, getting recommendations for where to buy things or what repairman they can call to fix something. There are about 3000 people who subscribe to it, and I have used it many times myself, both on the receiving end, and the giving end. A few weeks ago someone in town posted they were having their annual Vegan Thanksgiving Brunch and inviting anyone who wanted to join. It happened I knew the people who posted the message from town, and seeing as my husband and I had no plans we thought it would be fun to go. I emailed the hosts and said we were in and told them what I’d bring. We were told there would be about 15-18 people coming.
We arrived to find the hostess in her kitchen adding the finishing touches to something she had whipped up to add to the spread that had been laid out on the kitchen island.
She had baked all the bread herself
The buffet held a delicious kale salad, quinoa salad, pasta, cranberry apple oatmeal crisp and assorted other salads. Some of the people who came knew each other, but some did not. It turned out we did know some of the people who attended. The conversation was interesting and varied, and I was happy to reconnect with a friend I hadn’t caught up with in a few years. Fortunately Facebook has kept us connected but there is nothing like sitting down and having a real conversation. People moved around, one of the benefits of a buffet, and no “assigned” seats- with a large crowd it offers the opportunity to talk to different people. Two and half hours later we all said our good byes, many moving on to visiting their families, some staying close to home others setting out for long drives, all saying “hope to see you here again next year!.” And no one missed the Turkey.
I took an early morning walk today even though the temperature was just below freezing. Frost could be seen on the leaves and the leftover flowers.
I wore lots of layers and two pair of gloves, though my hands still managed to get cold. I walked down to my favorite pond, and as I entered the trail there were two deer standing there looking at me. I only had my phone with me so the photo is not that clear and the deer blends in too well with the foliage. The second deer was behind the first.
I figured they would turn and trot back onto the trail towards the woods, but instead they started walking towards me, and at a good pace. I slowly started backing up while facing them, afraid to break out into a run for fear they would chase me. I kept backing up and they kept coming toward me, ears standing up, looking straight at me like they were happy to have found someone to play with. I walked up a hill in a direction diagonally away from them, and they continued on straight, but watching me the entire time. They headed on forward to another part of the park, but kept stopping to look my way. It was the craziest thing. They were beautiful, one with a longer tail than the other, maybe my friend John over at VegasValleyPhoto can tell me about that.
Once they were out of sight I made my way back onto the trail but did not go all the way around the pond, still spooked that I might encounter more “friendly” deer along the way!
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Tent City in Ocean Grove New Jersey
A Violin-on the diagonal
A bird on a rock-on the diagonal
#wordless Wednesday
It’s the last week for Festival of Leaves, nearly all the trees are bare, ready for winter to descend. 
Jennifer Nichole Wells says: If you want to share a literal image of the actual word, do that. But if you’d rather play with word association, post something that reminds you of the specific word, or something you use the word for, do so.
I’ll use the Homonym for Ant: Aunt
My Aunt and I meet for lunch in New York City at least once a year.
We always take a selfie -these are from 2011 through 2015
My husband and I went out for brunch this Sunday with our Aunt & Uncle, who are 88 and 91, and my husband’s step sister and brother in law who are in their early 80’s. His sister was in visiting from Israel, we have not seen her in 2 years, and our Aunt and Uncle live about an hour away, but we don’t get to see them too often either. We consider ourselves fortunate to have relatives that are still active at their ages, and to be able to spend time with them. That being said it is quite the experience going to a fairly noisy restaurant with a group of people who have a hard time hearing when there is no noise. We sat in a corner in the hope it would cut some of the background noise, which it did, and what background noise there was helped drown out all of our shouting at each other in order to be heard.
My Aunt is a big bread eater, with butter of course, and polished off the first basket in no time, then asked for another. It made me laugh as it wouldn’t even occur to me to eat bread slathered with butter, but obviously it has not brought any undesirable consequence on her as she has been doing it her entire life. My husband commented on how the onions in his salad would be coming back to haunt him the rest of the day, to which she replied she makes sure to eat at least one raw onion everyday. Maybe there is something to that. We all caught up on family happenings, trying to stay away from health and ailment discussions which can easily become a topic of discussion.
As we wrapped up our lunch we all agreed it had been a perfect get together. As my Aunt kissed my husband’s sister good bye they hugged extra tight and it occurred to me that neither knew if they would see one another again. It gave me pause to let the thought enter, but in reality when someone reaches a certain age the future must often seem less certain. None of us can predict what the years ahead will bring, but I certainly hope we have the opportunity to all meet again for another Sunday brunch.
The minute I saw the theme for Ailsa’s challenge this week I thought of this photo. My BFF ran a half marathon last month, for the first time in her life. That’s 13.2 miles. (she is in all black with white headphones on the left)The last mile was tough for her, and as she came into view from where her friends and I were standing at the finish line, we all went down the road to meet her and accompany her to the finish line. To my mind that is camaraderie.
Spotted in New York City
A beautiful lamp on a building on Central Park
The French Building on Fifth Avenue
A Fountain in Bryant Park
This trio of photographers waiting for the moment when the waterfall is turned on 
My husband and I took a walk Sunday in a local nature preserve, taking advantage of the beautiful November day. The leaves were mostly gone from the trees, forcing me to realize winter was truly approaching. I thought I saw movement within the trees we were walking through, it was hard to tell for sure as the sun was causing glare just where I thought I had seen something move. I zoomed in with my camera and saw what I thought was a deer, though he blended right in with the foliage. 
So I zoomed in again
Yes, most definitely a deer standing like a statue looking at me. A little farther ahead there was another
Adding beauty to the leafless trees and empty forest.
Thanksgiving is fast approaching here in the United States, magazines filled with recipes and many newspapers articles and the internet bemoaning the opening of stores on Thanksgiving day at 6PM, rather than waiting until “Black Friday” to open their doors.
Growing up we always had “traditional” family gatherings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. We alternated years between our home and my Aunt and Uncle’s. As we grew older and both my parents and my aunt and uncle divorced it became a smaller event, but we still made the effort to get together. Then some of us moved too far to travel, and once again the crowd changed and the traditions slipped away. For many years now my husband and I spend the day at home together, and that has become the new “tradition.” This year a neighbor of ours is getting a group of people together for a “Vegan Pot Luck Thanksgiving Brunch” from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, leaving time for people to go wherever they may be going for Thanksgiving “dinner.” It should prove to be an interesting time and certainly something different! My contribution will be a Gluten Free Cranberry Apple Crisp.
Looking through the recipes in a newspaper today I came upon one for mashed potatoes and was immediately transported back in time to my childhood kitchen where my father was always in charge of the mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. His secret ingredient that made them so light and fluffy and amazing? Mayonnaise. He would add in a few tablespoons and whip the potatoes like crazy by hand. I hadn’t thought of that in years and smiled at the memory. Happy to remember, though feeling a twinge of melancholy knowing the Thanksgivings of my adult years no longer held those same traditions but for the occasional gathering here and there. Life moves on.
Patterns Found in Nature
“That face, that face, that wonderful face
It shines, it glows all over the place.
And how I love to watch it change expressions
Each look becomes the prize of my possessions”
My grandson was having trouble smiling for photos, so my husband told him to hum, and the smile would come. These photos were the result of the two of them humming. Two of my favorite faces.
Ailsa’s Travel Theme
Mostly bare branches, but some remaining leaves and berries
and a feathered friend
These five-foot diameter concrete “monoliths” are drainage pipes left over from construction of the NJ Turnpike. In 2008 muralist Eduardo Alexander Rabel lead school children and volunteers in creating a pictorial history and future vision of a local park. The five pipes were designated to represent historic eras: prehistory, European colonization during the 18th Century, industrialization of the 19th Century, the 20th Century, and the Future. The inside of the pipes depicted the human aspects of each era and the outside represented the environmental features or degradation associated with each time period. An amazing use of leftover concrete pipes.
The pond I frequently walk around feeds into a river that people come to fish in. Some sit on the pond side, others on the river side. 
I pass them and say hello, and occasionally will see a fish in one of their pails. I have asked some of the people fishing if they eat what they catch and the answer is always yes. I have mentioned that I thought the river was polluted, but no one seemed bothered by it. Recently I read in a local paper that the Federal Environmental Protection Agency said that after a recent study it has seen evidence of pollution posing potential harm to human health and the environment and found elevated levels of cadmium, lead, mercury, cancer-causing dioxin and PCBs, and other contaminants in the sediment of the river.
I am a lover of nature and animals, but I am not a vegetarian, I eat chicken and fish and never really think about how it ended up in the package I pick up at the store. I view it as just a part of the cycle of life, it is what it is. I had also never really thought about what it really means to “go fishing” or what was really going on as the people I pass sit patiently with their rods, until this morning.
I passed a man who had set up fishing poles in 2 locations, the rods set into a stand so he would not have to stand there waiting and watching. 
As I passed one I noticed it bending and moving and mentioned it to him. I watched as he reeled in the line, only to see to my horror and enormous Carp, caught on the line, flailing and struggling as he was pulled out of the water.
My reaction: I burst into tears.
The poor fish was suffocating I realized- and for what? So he could be this man’s lunch? Instead of continuing on his journey in that (poison filled) river minding his own business, where he should be. Needless to say the man was more than a little shocked at my reaction and I quickly turned and walked away- not being able to rid my mind of the image I had just seen.
Better not to know how the Salmon I ate for dinner last night came to rest on my plate, or where those chicken cutlets lived before they entered my refrigerator. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, and fishing is certainly not a hobby to be taken up by me!
Luminous: shedding light; bright or shining, especially in the dark
As I walked the trail around my favorite pond yesterday, on the West side I encountered a carpet of Oak leaves in shades of brown before me
around on the East side the carpet changed to Maple yellows
and then the beautiful mix of a little of everything
Festival of Leaves
A Day In The Life 
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