Quote of the Day (Carl Safina, on February, ‘The Deepest, Sparest Part of Winter’)

“To animals whose food stopped breeding last summer, February makes no promises. For those of us accustomed to supermarket shelves that endlessly get restocked, it may seem like news to remind ourselves that winter is a race against time in a season getting hungrier. February becomes the deepest, sparest part of winter.

“But lengthening days mean the sky is about to draw a deep breath.”—American ecologist, nature writer—and MacArthur “genius” Fellow—Dr. Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World (2011)

I took the accompanying image four years ago this month in Overpeck County Park, a few miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ.

Quote of the Day (Hal Borland, on Why December ‘Is Neither Bleak Nor Colorless’)

“True, December can be raw and cold and its days sometimes are dark, but it is neither bleak nor colorless. Go outdoors soon after sun-up, which now comes late, and even on a lowering day you probably will find a frosty scene of dazzling beauty. If the day is clear it can be a world transformed by frost or snow, newly created, fragile as spun glass, ephemeral as the passing hour.”— American writer, journalist and naturalist Hal Borland (1900-1978), Twelve Moons of the Year, edited by Barbara Dodge Borland (1979)

Though the sun had not yet come up, I awoke this morning to see a thin layer of snow on the ground. Quite a contrast with last winter, when, a local weatherman said last night, snow did not arrive in New York City until February 1.

Let’s see what happens this winter. Unlike when I was a kid, I don’t look forward to snow—I have to shovel it and drive in it, rather than digging out my sled and sliding down a hill in my neighborhood. But I also know that a year with little to no snow in this part of the country is a sign of something wrong.

(I took the image accompanying this post exactly four years ago today, in Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. That December really was bleak, but for reasons unrelated to the landscape. It was, you might recall, when COVID-19 raged and fear stalked the land.)

Photo of the Day: The Flames of Autumn, Overpeck County Park, NJ

The other day, when I stepped out the door of my house, I couldn’t believe how fast and so much the leaves on a nearby tree were coming down.

Further confirmation that autumn was here at last came as I walked around Overpeck County Park, a few miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. The tree you see here had not really changed since summer, but the sudden change I noticed on Wednesday led me to take this photograph.

Quote of the Day (Robert Frost, on ‘Bare November Days’)

“Not yesterday I learned to know
     The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
     And they are better for her praise.”— Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), “My November Guest,” in A Boy's Will (1915)
 
I took this photo in Overpeck Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ, three years ago this month.

Photo of the Day: Overpeck Creek Kayakers, Bergen County, NJ

 

I took the photo accompanying this post late yesterday morning while walking in Overpeck Park, a couple of miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. 

As you can see, not too many people were out on adjacent Overpeck Creek at that hour of the day—partly because the forecast called for rain by early to mid afternoon (which arrived as predicted).

I imagine, however, that with summer arriving, people will have more free time to venture out on this calm stream.

Photo of the Day: ‘Nothing is So Beautiful As Spring’

“Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.”—English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), “Spring,” in Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (1985)
 
Yesterday, I took the image accompanying this post in Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ.

Quote of the Day (Poet Norman Nicholson, As a New Year—and Winter—Kicks In)

“The stars wheel past the windows
Like flocks of winter sparrows;
The bell clangs out the hours,
And frost sparkles like stars.”—English poet Norman Nicholson (1914-1987), “For the New Year,” in Five Rivers (1945)

I heard these and the remaining verses from this poem recited on a BBC Radio classical music show yesterday morning. I fell in love with the beautiful imagery, and thought that, before the first week of the new year ended, there was still time to celebrate the time of the year it’s evoking.

I took the photo accompanying this post in Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ, just before Christmas 2020.

Photo of the Day: Ice in Pools

“Before the ice is in the pools,
      Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
      Is tarnished by the snow,
 
Before the fields have finished,
      Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
      Will arrive to me!”—American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), “XLV [Before the ice is in the pools]”
 
This afternoon, temperatures rose to just below the freezing mark—a marked change since this past Friday, when they dropped 50 degrees within a few hours (and felt worse with the wind chill factor).
 
I took the opportunity to walk around Overpeck County Park, a few miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. 

Though it felt more inviting to walk around, even in the half hour just before sunset, the ground still felt crunch rather than soggy—and, as seen in this photo I took, the 10 or so other walkers in the park and I have to be careful in spots, where the water from last week’s dense rainstorm had collected to form a Dickinson-style ice pool, just in time for Christmas.

Photo of the Day: Cherry Blossom Time

“The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.  
In one whole year I haven’t learned  
A blessed thing they pay you for.  
The blossoms snow down in my hair;  
The trees and I will soon be bare.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet W.D. Snodgrass (1926–2009), “April Inventory,” from Selected Poems, 1957-1987 (1987)
 
I took the image accompanying this post nearly two weeks ago while walking in Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ.

By the way: Happy Earth Day.  

Photo of the Day: Frozen Over: Overpeck Creek, Leonia, NJ

Late yesterday afternoon, when I stepped out for a walk of only a couple of blocks, I was half sorry about my decision: for all the abundant sunlight, temperatures stubbornly refused to climb over 21 degrees and the gusts were strong enough to put the wind-chill factor (a measure that I have always felt was invented to make us feel even worse than we already did) in the mid-teens. I could not answer or get a grip on my iPhone without taking off my gloves, but leaving my hands exposed put me in danger of frostbite.

Twenty-four hours later, it was a different story at Overpeck Park, a couple of miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. At 30 degrees, the temperature was just south of the freezing mark and there were no large gusts of air—an effective difference of 15 degrees between the two days in the wind-chill factor.

The somewhat warmer temperatures beckoned a number of walkers like me to step out for some brisk exercise. I also took the opportunity to photograph the Hackensack River tributary that gives its name to the park, Overpeck Creek, which was covered by ice for about three-quarters of the expanse from where I stood.

(Thanks to my friend Emil for the photography advice.)

Photo of the Day: Sunset, Overpeck Creek, Bergen County NJ

These days, with the hours of daylight dwindling—and the cold of late fall held haphazardly at bay—I take every opportunity to walk, including in Overpeck County Park, a few miles from where I live in Northern New Jersey.

I was especially anxious to get my walking in earlier this week, before the onset of three days of rain, in whole or in part. This sunset on the adjoining Overpeck Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River, filled me with such a sense of longing for what I knew was about to pass that I took this photo to memorialize the moment.

Photo of the Day: Lingering Leaves, Overpeck County Park Extension, Bergen County NJ

I took the attached photo while walking around late in the afternoon a couple of days ago in the extension of Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County, NJ.

Photo of the Day: ‘Tranquil Restoration’ in Overpeck County Park Extension, NJ

“These beauteous forms,

 Through a long absence, have not been to me

 As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

 But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

 Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

 In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

 Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

 And passing even into my purer mind,

 With tranquil restoration: - feelings too

 Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

 As have no slight or trivial influence

 On that best portion of a good man's life,

 His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

 Of kindness and of love.”— English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850), “Tintern Abbey” (1798)

Whenever I require “tranquil restoration,” I often head to the Overpeck County Park Extension not far from where I live, in Bergen County, NJ. I took this particular image there five years ago

Photo of the Day: Remains of the Rain, Overpeck Park, Leonia, NJ

Over a week ago, when I was walking not too far from where I live in Overpeck County Park in New Jersey, the evidence of recent downpours was still everywhere. It might have abated slightly since I snapped this picture, but I don’t know how significantly.

Photo of the Day: Early Spring Break, Overpeck County Park, Leonia, NJ

The way we’ve been getting rain in the Northeast the last week or so, I’d be surprised if my state, New Jersey, gets a drought warning this summer. (The downpour last Friday, for instance, was particularly terrible—and wouldn’t you know it, that’s when, on my way home from work, I had to get out of my bus when it broke down on the New Jersey Turnpike!)

That might account for why so many people were out in force this past Sunday at Overpeck County Park, not far from where I live in Bergen County. I snapped this picture in mid-afternoon, when the stir-crazy crowd was still dying to feel the sunshine on their faces while they still could.