Winter dandelion

The edges of the petals have been cauterized by the recent frigid nights. There are no bees around. Even if the flower should go to seed, the ground is too hard to accept them.

And yet there it is, bright yellow, still living, still growing, still being.

A January dandelion flower

Early in spring I will rip a leaf here and there, to nibble during the weeks when there is little to nibble, a week or two after the peas have been planted, months before we’ll see beans and tomatoes.

Its persistence seems to annoy most. Few folks forage, and no one makes dandelion wine anymore. Perhaps the dandelion’s reminder of who we once were, of what we once valued, is why its abundance angers us. I do not know.

A few weeks after flowering, the yellow gives way to a white soft globe, soft as baby hair, each tuft carrying a seed. Make a wish and blow the pods away.

The dandelion’s roots delve deep into the earth, snorting in water, sniffing out trace elements we have no idea we need (but we do), feasting on the feces left by an earthworm.

Some of the dandelions on our yard have been here over a decade, gathering sunlight, feeding the bees, feeding me.

I spent a wasted lifetime killing them.

On Beerworld and bald eagles

Last week we weathered a polar vortex, tucked inside our homes, cussing the anticipated heating bills, keeping the water in the pipes moving, getting a little stir crazy.

A bald eagle off Beach Avenue–it was within a few feet before we got a camera out. Photo by Leslie Doyle.

Outside near the bay a bald eagle did what it could to survive. The bay was crusting over with ice, and this animal, like most who opted to stick around here for the winter, was in trouble.

Yesterday we decided to take a walk in Beerworld (or Ponderlodge or the Villas WMA–whatever you call it, a wonderful place to walk in the dead of winter). We usually come in from the Delview Avenue entrance, and we took a short detour to peek at the bay.

As we crept up Beach Drive on our way to Beerworld, marveling at the waves pushed by the stiff northwest breeze, a large bird slowly rose up from behind the dune, hanging at our eye level, no more than 10 yards away.

I thought it was the largest black-back gull I’d ever seen. I was wrong.

It was a bald eagle riding the wind as it was deflected upward by the dunes. By the time we got our phones out, well, it did what animals do, and we were left shooting shots of its backside.

Schmidt’s pool frog pond, via ACP

Beerworld used to be a golf course owned by Billy Plaumer, a man who made a fortune distributing beer, ultimately owning Schmidt’s. One of his pools had the Schmidt’s logo engraved on the bottom. The last time I saw the pool it had been taken over by large bullfrogs and a few turtles.

Plaumer made a lot of money, but should have made a little less–the Feds caught him, and Beerworld eventually went belly-up.

The greens have gone to cedar, but the ponds are still there. The main pond, the site of a recent rescue, held three swans and multiple ducks. The reeds along its edge wore crystal ice collars, just forming as the sun dropped lower in the sky. A fisherman in full camouflage sat at the edge. A large snapping turtle poked its baseball-sized head out of the water, took a peek at us, then headed back under, an unexpected treat in February.

Photo by Leslie Doyle, February 9, 2019

Winter is lovely–the ticks, the mosquitoes, and (for those among us who mind these kind of things) the black snakes hanging from the trees were all either hibernating or dead.

February 9, 2019, Lincoln Avenue–apparently the cold makes me hold a camera cock-eyed.

We went home, gobbled down dinner, then headed back out again, this time to catch the sunset. We do not venture out every time it’s a clear evening, but we’re never disappointed when we do. The sun has been setting on the bay a long, long time, and people on the Jersey side have been watching it a long, long time.