Photo of the Day: Water Fountain and Pond, Pascack Brook County Park, Westwood, NJ

Seeking to enjoy a brisk walk and a brief respite of bright sunshine two days ago, I drove a few towns away from where I live in Bergen County, NJ, to Pascack Brook County Park.

I don’t get there often, but I always enjoy the change of scenery, including a fountain in the middle of its pond. It appealed to me so much that I felt compelled to take the photo accompanying this post.

Song Lyric of the Day (Beth Orton, on Beautiful Weather)

“Almost makes me wanna cry
The weather′s so beautiful outside.” —British singer-songwriter Beth Orton, “Weather Alive," from the Weather Alive CD (2022)

As with all things in life, enjoy it while it lasts.

(I took the image accompanying this post three years ago this month in Pascack Brook County Park, roughly a half hour from where I live in Bergen County, NJ.)

Photo of the Day: Pascack Brook County Park, Westwood NJ

I took the image accompanying this post a week ago while visiting Pascack Brook County Park, about a 20-minute drive from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. 

Though there are picnic areas, pavilions, playgrounds, and athletic facilities, this pond, with its circular walking path, is the centerpiece of the 79-acre park.

Quote of the Day (Henry David Thoreau, on a Pond in Winter)

“Out on the silent pond straightway
The restless ice doth crack,
And pond sprites merry gambols play
Amid the deafening rack.
 
“Eager I hasten to the vale,
As if I heard brave news,
How nature held high festival,
Which it were hard to lose.
 
“I gambol with my neighbor ice,
And sympathizing quake,
As each new crack darts in a trice
Across the gladsome lake.”— American essayist, naturalist and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), “Fair Haven,” in Collected Essays and Poems, edited by Elizabeth Hall Witherell (2001)
 
I took the image accompanying this post during the winter four years ago in Pascack Brook County Park in Bergen County, NJ.

Photo of the Day: Pascack Brook County Park, Bergen County, NJ

Nearly two weeks ago, I drove about 25 minutes from my home in Bergen County, NJ, to Pascack Brook County Park on the border of Westwood and River Vale.

It struck me full force, almost as soon as I parked my car, just how much the “moderate drought” in this area is affecting this 79-acre space. Like other walkers that day, what I saw stretching out in all directions was an expanse of brown rather than green grass. It hasn't improved since.

After a while, I came to a halt and concentrated on the parts of the park that have drawn me up here every once in a while the last few years: not just the reflections in the water that you can see in this picture I took, but also the patient fishermen and water creatures who have made a way of life by this tributary of the Hackensack River.

Photo of the Day: A Break From a Dreary Sky

It doesn’t sound very extreme, but throughout the morning and half this afternoon, my area of northern New Jersey was in the grip of a gray drizzle. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the droplets from the sky ceased, and I waited impatiently for the sun.

When the sky opened at last, I made a break for it. My restless spirit took me on a 20-minute drive to Pascack Brook County Park. As I neared the entrance to the 79-acre park, the combination of the sun and the snow left on the ground produced a white curtain of light rising from the still-icebound pond.

Had the sun come out earlier, I’m sure throngs would have lined the path encircling the pond. Still, I didn’t mind. The few walkers who did turn out made me smile, consisting as they were of parents with very young kids and dog owners with very small pooches. (I mean, small enough to deposit in a handbag, had they wanted.)

Puddles were as deep as they were widespread, but no matter: It was worth it to bolt out the door, take a drive, and come away with this photographic memory of how I seized the day.

Photo of the Day: Mid-October, Pascack Brook County Park, Westwood NJ

I took this photo nearly a month ago at Pascack Brook County Park, on the same day that I snapped this picture. Unlike then, it is now the height of leaf-changing season here in northern New Jersey—a progression only starting to occur when I circled the brook on that wonderful late afternoon. 

(Also, now it would have been far more difficult to obtain a photograph with the right amount of sunlight at the time of day when I circled this waterway—between 4:30 and 5 pm—than it was then, before we had to adjust for Daylight Savings Time.)

The temperatures have been unusually warm for this time of year—otherwise, I suspect that trees would have been shedding their leaves far more rapidly by this point. (I have filled far fewer bags around my house to date than I have in seasons past.)

Photo of the Day: Pascack Brook County Park, Westwood NJ

A week ago, I drove up to Westwood, several miles from where I live in Bergen County, NJ, and walked around Pascack Brook County Park. Besides the waterway at this 79-acre space’s center, I also was taken enough by the way sunlight highlighted the start of leaf-changing season that I took this photo.