Mon-

On the other hand, I looked around the yard carefully yesterday and all the buds are advancing rapidly.  The forsythia are showing green shoots, the maples have red tips, the roses _ well, the ones not totally dark from freezes _ are ready to leaf out.  Perhaps this will be the week _ but I’ve been hoping that for a while.
Tue-

Snow quickly melted, cold morning remains, and this old standby is ready to go.  Crocuses are circus performers, always doing the magical and unexpected, popping up anywhere, surprising and astonishing.  I too easily overlook them because they are tiny and _ well _ being crocuses they are common.  And not native.

The whole debate on native species is a bit weird.  The world has gone global, everything has been imported everywhere, including us.  What astonishes now are any plants or animals who can survive and thrive on their own in modern environments, no matter what their origin.  That’s why ragweed has to be admired as much as some rare bog dweller I will never encounter.
Wed-

Speak of the devil _ here are shoots of ragweed getting a jump on the rest of the plant world.  This joins the bright sun, continuous and noisy birdsong, and mating frolics of waterfowl to lift my mood a bit, even if the temperature remains a bit low and the sky is often overcast.

In no time at all I will probably be complaining about yard chores and keeping up with life bursting its bounds _ why must dandelions pick my lawn, or garlic grow in my flowerbeds, or ragweed and poison ivy colonize forgotten corners?  Sometimes we say we want nature, but only on our own terms.  Nature has other plans.

Thu-

Willows are about two weeks behind.  Even from a distance, you can see the branches brightening into a brownish green, and close up green shoots are starting to form the leaves for the year.  Even the perennials along the little stream here at Hecksher park have some green tinges at their roots.  Overall, even in this picture, the world seems brown and sleeping, but the alarm clock has gone off.

I sat here on a bench and ate a peanut butter sandwich as two fat ducks with obvious experience waddled over for a handout.  It’s nice to rest here _ even with the temperature just near fifty _ without freezing, and anticipate what is coming or absorb what already is.

Fri-

  

Might still look like winter, but that’s because of what mere photographs leave out.  The ground is no longer frozen beneath my feet _ that’s good thick spring mud down there.  Off to the left in the reeds red-winged blackbirds are screeching constantly.  The wind has no bite so a lighter jacket and cap have replaced the heavier garments of March. 

Not to be discounted is the intangible mood that envelops us this season.  Grey skies and rain seem temporary, we look forward to a long period of the world becoming paradise, swimming and barbecue and vacation.  In some ways the anticipation is better than the real thing when it arrives, always tinged with regret that it is going away almost as soon as it arrives.  But now _ ah now, all is hope.
Sat-

 

In a few weeks, brambles such as these will be completely clothed in verdant new green.  They begin the full transformation of the landscape from one palette to another, until by May except to our jaded eyes the world has become completely transformed.  We busily scurry about doing important things until forced to look up and out for one reason or another.

Dire consequences are predicted almost daily as the result of “human activities,” and we may study and tremble for the future.  But all anyone every really has or had is their present, and we are even more negligent to ignore the day before us than to heedlessly ruin the future.

Sun-

Patches of true spring are appearing everywhere now, although some of the more interesting ones may be hard to find.  This view, for example, is hidden behind a low wall on East Shore Drive.  Crocuses tend to colonize wherever they have been planted over the years, even though the use of the ground changes, and they remain blooming long after their original gardener has moved on or died.

In a few months, from this exact spot, you would not be able to see the water and boats.  Those innocuous looking vines draping picturesquely about fill in with thick leaves and form a verdant wall.  Being aware of what has been and what will be, expectations and fulfilment and surprise, is one of the essential joys of hiking the same trails throughout the seasons.

 

  

Mon-

Tue-

Thirty degrees, fifty miles an hour near the end of the harbor here, and it looks and feels like the North Atlantic in bad times.  Even the seagulls are having such a bad time they are mostly grounded.

The only good psychic thing about a day like this is that if you really dress warmly and get out and walk anyway, listening to the rushing trees and the crashing waves and all the other sounds of nature drowning out the usual hums and whines of civilizations, you can feel virtuous.  Actually, I feel quite happily wrapped in my little shell, in spite of the dust and gravel occasionally whipping into my face.

Thu –

As a comment on this year’s harshness, it’s hard to beat this clump of wild garlic.  I’ve seen more verdant _ and much more abundant _ clumps in mid January.   This one seems struggling against doom itself.  Making it worse, this was about the only patch I found.

When you get down to looking hard for weeds to prove spring is on its way, you know you are getting pretty desperate for some hopeful signs.  Often by April I am scornfully pulling such things out of my flower beds.  It’s all relative.

Fri-

Just about a final look at the relatively clear view across Knutson’s marina before the boats start coming out of storage.  The sky and sea have radically changed since the gales and hard cold of earlier, and the seagull seems to appreciate it as much as I do.  Still look in vain for any hopeful buds or leaf clusters on vine and branch.

Any water is infinitely beautiful and mysterious to me with reflections, permutations, distortions and the endless interplay of wave and wind. Besides which, right now, is when the water is the most pure top to bottom and the most unsullied on the surface with no debris or slicks of various kinds.  I simply need to adjust my internal expectations to be able to grasp other aspects of perceptual magnificence.

Sat-

There we are _ a few small shoots somehow making it through the blasts in the wind shadow of a trunk down near the beach.  All we really need is a week of “average” weather without any “record setting lows for the date” and things will be exploding.  Even today, the birds are going crazy, flying and chattering everywhere.

I’m a little tired of small signs _ I want some big dramatic stuff now.  Lawns turning green and becoming ragged, hillsides covered with small flowers, crowns of trees glowing in fresh crimson and green which cannot be easily ignored, or too easily imagined.  Fortunately, these few leaves indicate I may be in luck.

Sun-

Perhaps a fitting end to a month that has been memorable for all the wrong reasons.  A combination fog/drizzle hangs over the cold surface, steeping everything in water, bright and dark at the same time, exactly what you might to expect to encounter in the vestibule of Hell.  Even birdsong is subdued.

Humans have been forced into necessary rhythms against their better judgment.  It’s Sunday in spring, so many people are jogging and walking and trying to assure themselves that this is a good thing.  It’s the first week in April, come a day, which calendar-drives many out to boat clubs and docks to tidy up and inspect their craft for the coming season.  I’ve done most of the hard days through the winter, I plan to just sit this one out.

 

  

Mon-

Surprising mystery is the most enduring and endearing thing about the real world, as opposed to the logical patterns and rhythms and meanings our minds are always veiling it with.  No matter what we expect, we are mistaken in general or in detail.  You can let that make you angry, or unsettled, or you can use the wonderful gift we have been given to deal with such moments _ just laugh and move on.

Skunk cabbage flowers are reliably out by now, being endothermic which means they generate their own heat.  I guess the idea is to entrance any insects crazily ambitious to get an early start.  In any case, I always know they are there, usually in mud somewhere, by mid-March.  It’s just a matter of me getting up enough gumption to go take a look and get my feet dirty.

Soon the luscious green leaves will be unfolding.  They were certainly tempting to the early colonists after a hard winter living on dried beans, ground grain, and salted meat or fish.  Unfortunately, the name is there for a reason, and they are totally inedible, even by the relaxed standards of starvation country local specialties.  One of the few plants for which humans have yet found no use but beauty, and even that is somewhat an acquired taste.

Wed-

Pussy willows are the cheap watches of seasonal indicators.  I’ve seen them breaking out after the first cold following December solstice, and any warm spell can get one or two to show up.  Often by the time they are everywhere, everything else is completely bursting with vitality.  Since they are hardly gigantic, only people on foot would really notice, anyway.

I’ve had trouble making dramatic shots of certain things.  There can be an open question about that, because some of nature is beautiful in its own right but hardly dramatic.  Our society loves the bold and grand and attention-grabbing no matter what is required to obtain it.  A blade of grass or a pussy willow bud are quiet and almost shy, but just as amazing as fierce gale or me.
Thu-

A Joker?  No sign of spring here.  Oh, the brambles may have a bit of red, but otherwise budless, leafless, brown, dry, dormant and desolate.  If you could hear, you would encounter little if any birdsong.  If you were here, you would feel the constant bitterly cold North wind off the harbor.  Finding spring in this scene is a Sherlock Holmes puzzle.  Hint: equinox.

What’s missing is ice on the fresh water pond.  In spite of all the fronts and vortexes the evil international conspiracy in Canada keeps sending our way, the day is now as long as the night and the rays of the sun at midday are more at right angles to the earth.  The brown muck on the bottom and the dust on the snow worked together to clear the water no matter how frigid it may get overnight.  Ah, spring indeed _ this is what is known as cold comfort.

Fri –

That this sailboat is afloat is actually a sign of spring.  Hard to tell from the picture, but it is covered with several years of dried muck that attach when it is submerged.  Every winter, it reliably sinks in one of the storms.  Every spring, in some Sisyphean effort, it is raised again, undoubtedly in the continuing hope that this is the yearwhen it can be cleaned up and sold or at least used.  Until, of course, next winter comes along.

Seasonal rhythms are not relegated to what we term “nature.”  Spring’s effect on young men and women is well known.  These days herds of people migrate north and south like parasites on jetliners.  And, yes, I hope that this will be the year I finally do … whatever.

Sat-

 

Toilers of the Sea sowing boat seeds in Puppy Cove.  In a month the fleet will return, almost magically overnight, and it will be hard to recall pristine open waters. 

Everyone for weeks has been reassuring each other that “spring is on the way.”  While a good deal of nature obviously agrees, and as human seasonal preparations and rituals continue, the weather refuses to go along, with another snowstorm possible next week.  We all seem to get this way every year about this time _ March is usually nasty and April disappointing.   Unless you just accept it for what it is, which is endless promises.

 

  

Mon-

People with enough money to own expensive craft have their own peculiarities.  One of them, as far as I can tell from casual observation, is that they demand immediate use of their craft at first sign of warmth, as if it were medicine to cure their hypochondriac cabin fever.  Then they often seem to let their boats rest unused the rest of the spring and summer until they insist on one final fling as the last warmth fades from the autumn.  Of course, a lot of us are like that, who hasn’t rushed off to the beach as soon as there was a warm or hot day, and then been too busy to spend any time there until the next year?
Tue-

Sand, dock, and cove as free of people and their objects as they ever will be.  The water is amazingly clear and transparent.  Migrating waterfowl seem a bit delayed, and I think the local overwinterers have been thinned out a bit by the brutal cold.  It’s too early yet to say that everything is ready to leap toward growth, but the icy hand of death and dormancy seems to be lifting.

I doubt any of our surface doings mean much to those creatures living beneath the surface.  Oysters, clams, worms, fish, eels, horseshoe crabs and other denizens of the shallows go about their business oblivious to what happens above, except for maybe the lengthening of days, which somehow suggests to them the necessary reproduction cycles.  Countless microscopic life cares even less.  Since I am not one of those fellow inhabitants of our biosphere, I can waste time hoping for warmer weather soon.
Wed-

Much warmer day, many varieties of birds singing strongly over the percussion of the woodpeckers.  Snow on south-facing slopes is vanishing rapidly.  I fondly bid these fragments of harbor ice goodbye, as they float out with the tide. 

Unfortunately, with the better weather, construction and yard crews also come out of hibernation, and already there is competition for who can be loudest.  These days it seems that to get anything done requires power tools, and to prove you are actually doing something important it must be the noisiest piece of crap ever invented.  Since everything has been professionalized and turned over to third parties, instead of all the lawns being cut and leafs blown and whatnot on Saturday, as I remember from my wee youth, it is a constant round of activity from dawn to dusk, every day.  I half suspect that soon it will be edging into the nighttime with LED illumination.  Ah, anyway, still happy to have the first intimations of the coming seasons.
Thu-

A flicker of green leaves _ probably a plantain _ revealed nestled in leaves as snow finally departs for a while. 
I can only hope that it is not destroyed by the 19 degree temperatures today.  Anyway, weeds are immensely hardy, as anyone trying to get rid of them finds out quickly.  Weeds are the very definition of hardiness. Like cockroaches, they’ll be here after we are gone, if anything is.

There are tiny signs everywhere now.  Reddish swellings indicate buds on the wild roses and other briars, an almost imagined blush of crimson haloes some of the trees.  Grass which is absolutely desiccated brown when uncovered one day suddenly sprouts emerald highlights overnight.  And of course the birds are in full courtship mode, males chasing desired mates all over the water, singing to attract attention, even starting on nests.  Hang on _ if you’ve made it through this far towards next summer, you’re within sight of the finish line!

Sat –

Old camera at low resolution setting cannot pick up whitecaps on the harbor, but they are there, flitting along the crests of the waves.  It is some indication of the fury of the northwest wind that there are such waves at all in a totally protected area.  This is a good idea of why photographs lie with incompleteness _ this could have happened almost any time of year, but happened to be in a near zero wind chill which made walking around a bit of an adventure.

The ducks don’t seem upset at all.  And there we have two anthropomorphisms already _ and conventional ones at that.  Wind has no “fury”, ducks don’t get upset.  Yet we find it useful to so describe the world, even knowing that we are using a kind of lie to do so.  Falsehoods everywhere! 

Sat-

Sat –

Old “Painkiller” looks to be a casualty of the wind.  Either the mooring pulled loose or a rope snapped, presumably the damage, if any, is minimal.  An unhappy surprise for the owner, when he or she comes by, no doubt.  Surely there is more damage around, less visible on the surface.

No matter how shipshape we keep our boats, or build up our bulkheads, or prettify our waterfront, the cosmic certainty of entropy keeps intruding and trying to turn concrete to dust, or pulverize boats.  It things are not maintained, they automatically become ruins sooner or later.  Old grumps like me would add that with the lousy way they build most things lately, that day is likely to be sooner.

Sun –

Looking down and out over this end of the harbor _ it may be hard to see in a tiny picture _ are countless spherical white buoys now being set everywhere by barge and winch in anticipation of the rush of pleasure boats that will soon be cascading in as quickly as spring rains.  A surprisingly careful placement is involved, as the tides go up and down more or less changing the length of the chains mooring them to the bottom. Spacing must allow tethered craft of various sizes to drift around in eccentric uncoordinated motions depending on the random pull of tides and push of winds.

At this time of year, I always think of these as “boat seeds” that will soon sprout larger aquatic inorganic flowers.  Some will be beautiful, some will be ugly, and all will be vanish once again come the cold gales of November. 

Mon-

Tue-

Yet the brighter sun and the rest of the warming world are working their way along.  There’s open water here already, in spite of low temperatures, and I am pretty sure that a few minutes or so after the final snow melts there will be green annuals sprouting and hardy perennials trying to shoot up for whatever advantage they can gain from a quick start.  When seasons seem to delay, as spring has this year, it often means that they simply occur in what is almost an overnight rush

Wed-

This year, Coindre Hall could have hosted some of the Olympic events.  Well, except for the quick-frozen dog droppings that litter the top of the hill by the parking lot.  These north-facing slopes never melt until the temperature advances pretty well.

Very little seems as hopeless as a scene like this in March, which around here is typically beginning to burst.  Not even the various thorn bushes like wild roses have begun to green up _ sometimes they are leafing out mid February.  Buds on trees have not noticeably swelled.  Birds are beginning to starve from lack of open thawed ground.  We assume it will all work out, but this is all a slap in the face of how little of the important things in the grand scheme of things we actually control.

  Thu-

A witch’s nest of poison ivy on top of a post demonstrates how it can rapidly become an impenetrable wall _ given its toxins _ wherever it grows freely.  The amazing contradiction about evolution is that it somehow leads to diversity rather than to a few dominant species overrunning the planet and crowding out everything else.  At least until humans came along.

You can’t hear the bird calls, and my camera won’t even attempt to capture their flight, but they are everywhere now, and somewhat confused by the impenetrable ground cover.  Most are frantically seeking thawed areas for food and materials for nesting.  We are promised temperature relief in the near future, but this year all predictions come with a lot of reservations.
Fri-

Soon the damage will become apparent in gardens and ecology.  Some ornamentals and invasive species will not survive through spring, and some marginal natives, primarily the youngest and oldest, will also be destroyed.  It has been intensely cold, but there was also a severe drought in the fall and heavy wind/snow damage to add t
o the stress.  The landscape will eventually be just as green and colorful, but the individual notes may have changed significantly.

Ducks, seagulls and crows _ like people _ seem not to pay much attention to the vagaries of daily weather nor the extremes of seasons themselves.  They always seem to find something to eat, and always have their own particular concerns which supersede mere temperature, humidity, and light.
Sat-

Ice floes appear and vanish mysteriously and literally overnight depending on temperature, tides and wind.  Clear water one day can become filled with chunks and patches of smooth glass the next.  It would be much more interesting if we didn’t keep expecting the trend at this point to be less and less frozen.

This time of year is particularly one of microclimates.  We are scarcely tracking the reported daily highs of nearby New York, for example.  Because of the intense snow cover, deeper than in many other places, we are running some ten degrees below even spots on the island a few miles away.  Places down in hollows may be even colder.  Can’t complain, because the same basic pattern moderates us in the hottest summer weather which we still believe will be arriving eventually.

Sun-

By this time last year, Hecksher park was bursting with life and activity.  Probably, under the waters and in the ground, through the trees and hidden within bulbs, the same mysterious processes are starting up and have just decided to hit snooze for a while.  But to a casual observer, it looks pretty hopeless.

As temperatures approach normal over the next week, barring a big snowstorm, the ground may finally clear.  Birds may finally find places to land and eat and begin their nests.  And people may finally shed their depressed feeling of eternal hibernation and smile once again.

  

Mon-

Probably a reflection of how warm the oceans are becoming that in spite of what seems to be a brutally cold winter the “Huntington harbor icepack” is still basically nonexistent.  There were never polar bears nor walruses sunning themselves here, but even twenty years ago thick plates of frozen snow and water would jam all the way to the inlet from shore to shore.  In the real old days, my wife claims, people would walk from one side to the other.

Well, all I can do today is to appreciate what is.  There is wonderful beauty in the blue sky, buffleheads float and dive chaotically out near the channel, trees have withstood the storms magnificently.  Warmly wrapped, I can appreciate the near silence and solitude until another angry driver, driven nearly mad by the narrow lanes and magically appearing potholes, careens around the corner paying no heed to me nor anything else in frantic need to get wherever they must go.

Wed

The Huntington Town Glacier usually appears sometime in December at the Mill Dam parking lot, and sometimes lasts through the end of April.  All the snow from our increasingly paved environs has to go somewhere, after all, and some misguided soul in some environmental agency has probably decided it is wrong to just dump it into the harbor _ even though it all goes right there when it melts anyway.

Another example of how dependent we are on energy.  Trucks run all day carrying loads scooped up by other trucks.  Loaders run sporadically lifting the dumped mass as high as possible.  I’m sure the ospreys don’t quite know what to make of it.  Maybe it was better in the olden days _ yet I don’t hear anyone clamoring to be cooped up inside for weeks at a time _ heck, the brickbats start to fly if anyone’s tight hourly schedule is messed up a bit.

Thu-

A fresh dusting of snow obscures the horizon and coats the ice.  The reeds somehow have remained fluffy-looking through all of this and are only more attractive when frosted.  I stand here in my extremely warm clothes and marvel at how a change of a mere forty or so degrees Fahrenheit can so completely change the surface appearance of our world.

Science claims to be discovering other watery planets around other stars, and we immediately think they would be like Earth.  After many years of enjoying science fiction and speculation, I have come to believe that our planet is unique, not just because of water but from the moon, tides, and seasons.  I may grudgingly concede some form of life elsewhere is possible, but I think we are alone in intelligence.  The tragedy is that we are unheedingly squandering it all.

Fri-

Abstract patterns can create beauty anywhere.  I always enjoy watching new photographers and painters who suddenly discover how much there is to see when they take the time to look.  We usually have so much on our mind that we ignore the commonplace an
d quickly label things as “brush by side of road” if, in fact, we notice it at all in our constant haste to be elsewhere.

It’s not necessary for beauty to claim to be perfect, the most, the best.  The charms of these tangled branches against frozen snow are unique to this time and place, a visual treat only if we are in the right mood.  The plant itself is simply responding to historic Darwinian imperative, growing as best it can in the margins left to it by civilization.  The snow doesn’t even have that rationale.  It takes consciousness to put it all together into some alternative, pleasurable pattern or narrative that we label beauty.
Sat-

There’s a quiet beauty many days from certain hidden vantage points, especially if you can ignore the ten degree wind sweeping down the harbor behind me.  You’d expect the natural world to somehow react more dramatically to cold _ and immediate ice freeze up, trees freezing and exploding, dead birds dropping from the sky from exposure.  None of that happens.  We generate hysteria within.

The blues interlaced with bare brown branches are marvelous.  Harbor water is for once crystal clear.  Usually it can all be enjoyed in what has become very unusual quiet _ no leaf blowers, no chain saws, no dogs barking on the beach.  I’m not foolish enough to claim I like it better than other seasons, but I strive to experience winter as more than a hiatus and contrast to the rest of the year.

Sun-

A brief colorful digression to the lovely camellia greenhouses of the Planting Fields Arboretum state park in Oyster Bay.  All in bloom in February and early March _ although somewhat behind schedule this year along with everything else.  The girder framework of the greenhouse is fascinating in itself, redolent of fabled English structures like the Crystal Palace or New York Penn Station, destroyed by the capitalist barbarian hordes.

Some of the families of great wealth in olden times were truly in love with their creations, and took pains to preserve it and pass it on to future generations to be enjoyed.  Many of the wonderful places on Long Island  were created in that way.  Today it seems all wealth is to be cascaded and piled and burned in a great potlatch with no concern for anyone except the fortunate egoists who have accumulated it.  Does anyone believe any of the “great houses” in, for example, the Hamptons will please or inspire anyone fifty years from now?  Well, for the moment, at least, we all have this, and for the moment it is more than enough.

Mon-

Sunset looking backward, which seems appropriate.  Being active outdoors at the beginning and end of the day is the main reason to head to a warm climate when the weather at home is bad.  We live completely normal lives in winter now, thanks to technology, but usually huddled in artificial warm caves.  It has been relaxing to again greet the sun and bid it goodbye.

The deserted appearance of the sand is a bit deceptive.  Sanibel at this time of year is stuffed to the gills with people, utterly overloading the infrastructure.  Traffic jams on the only road begin at dawn and don’t let up until near midnight.  You cannot walk anywhere in meditation without being on the alert for some wobbling newbie bicyclist to knock you down, or a jogger on paths that are too narrow, or streets that _ even when dead end _ are always filled with cars going somewhere and groups of people striding briskly.  The standard price of success, I suppose.

Wed-

 

Minor delays, but home by midnight.  Islip didn’t look all that bad, but as we got closer and closer to Huntington the snow deepened until the roads resembled an old Russian fable.  We half expected wolves to be jumping out from behind snowbanks.

Today it still looks pretty bleak, but we still have fresh perspective so it remains picturesque.  Anything can be picturesque for a few days, I guess.  Glad to be back, but also happy at having missed the enervating sameness of cold and wet and grey for day after day.

Thu-

First things first.  Couldn’t walk anywhere until I got the cars dug out.  Well, it’s another chance to be in the great outdoors, relatively muted.  Two days of warmth and rain while I dug have actually cut the original drifts to half their original size _ at first it was hard to find the cars at all.

I suppose, under all this, the bulbs are still pushing up.  Don’t see many tree buds swelling, but I’m sure they are getting ready as well.  The days continue to lengthen and the sun progressively strengthen, even though it is hard for mere people to notice.  If I wanted to be Pollyanna, I would say that we will appreciate spring all the more when it finally does start to show _ but my back refuses to go along at the moment.

Fri-

Through the cold, the snow, the endless gloom, an andromeda gets ready to bloom anyway.  The first real warm sunny day will probably start to open some of the small flowers.  In a few weeks, it will be fully open with white bunches that last for the duration of colder spring.

I am lucky to have electricity and distractions _ an andromeda is all very well to contemplate, but one needs to be more of a monk than I am to practice it all day.  I enjoy books and music and even the chance to go to the supermarket.  I’ve never claimed to be a back to nature survivalist, just someone who appreciates the natural world which should be preserved better than we seem to be doing.
Sat-

The other night I expected wolves, this afternoon it looks more like Hollywood vampire effects.  The rest of the world is warmer than normal _ in France fruit trees are blooming a month early.  I don’t see any sign of that here _ in this fog I don’t see any sign of anything much at all.

The weather is obviously changing.  Some claim that is true, but it is not our fault, just coincidence with sunspots or cosmic rays or supernatural will.  It seems to me that is like drunks complaining about a headache the next day and blaming it on a tumor, bad water, or stress rather than having anything to do with how much they were imbibing the night before.  And not willing to modify behavior for a while to find out.

Sun –

Since water has been around for us and our ancestors forever, we tend to take the drama it provides for granted.  A snowstorm can, in a few hours or a day, completely change the landscape and the infrastructure by which we live.  Heavy rain can cause all kinds of incredible damage.  Ice has its own tragedies.  Drought, although taking longer, may be the worst of all, especially when accompanied by fire.

More than that, water is rapidly fickle.  A clear sky changes into something else.  A heavy snowfall may shut road to one lane.  Yet, especially at this time of year, the sun and a warm front can in a day reduce a four foot snow pile to two feet, a two foot cover to nothing at all.  All the snow here was at least twice as high a few days ago.  Of course, our industrialization can build snow mountains in parking lots that rival anything in the Sierra Nevada, and which may not go away until mid-spring.

Mon-

My problem has been that I get extremely attached to wherever I actually live.  My philosophy has always been something like that old song “love the one you’re with.”  Huntington, New York, Long Island _ I get quite chauvinistic, and bored when I am gone for very long.  I admit I have been this way before anywhere I happened to be _ and surely I would be the same if I lived here.  I think that is an admirable trait _ or at least one that keeps me happy most of the time _ but it makes me a somewhat jaded travel writer.
Tue –

Along this coastline, units are limited to two or three stories.  That should not prevent them from having charm, but in fact the coastal architecture has all the pizzazz of soviet-era blockhouse construction.  Well, folks come here for the beach and nature, not the magnificent housing.

This time our window faces east over the bay and for the second day in a row I have watched the large red ball hurriedly float up into the clear air.  It’s been a while since I watched sunrise, since I am at least civilized (and old) enough to not leave my house before coffee and shower and breakfast.  For those of you who have not enjoyed the experience recently, sunrise is just like sunset in reverse.  Both phenomena are free for those who have the will (well, free in this case if you can spring for a place on the beach…)
Wed-

 

   

A pathway through preserved vegetation at the lighthouse.  Sanibel is half nature preserve, so many of the old swamps and thickets remain undeveloped.  If you wander some down the thick black mud trails, filled with fallen palm trunks that might be alligators, watching an occasional snake frantically slither away, you get some idea of how far islands like this were from paradise in their “natural state.”  And that is even without remembering the clouds of mosquitoes and other noxious pets that were wonderful for the ecological balance.

My problem is that I expect paradise to be fashioned for people.  That has been true since my childhood tales of Eden (lion lying down with the lamb, no mention of mosquitoes) right through adulthood.  I want nature in comfortable doses.  I want to get to beaches or canyons in hours without effort; I want food and water when I arrive; I expect to be able to easily wander around and appreciate the wonders.   I do not think I vary that much from everyone else_ what the world now works on is how to balance our needs with the non-human requirements of all the places that are far from paradise and always should be.

Thu-

Looks enough like a tropical paradise, deserted beach stretching away under a palm tree.  Just like all the photos I take, however, this is hardly the whole picture.  What you cannot sense nor hear nor experience is the roar of traffic overhead _ this is from under the causeway link to mainland Fort Myers.  Streams of cars and trucks in both directions never cease.  And those deserted beaches stretching into the distance are actually walled off mostly from the public by carefully guarded resorts and estates.

Sanibel prides itself on being a nature preserve _ and a huge percentage of the island is indeed undeveloped.  Unfortunately, that means there is one road in, one road out.  With lots of tourists and residents and sightseers  that means infinite automobiles, and that makes for dead-stop traffic jams almost all day long in each direction on the only road that goes anywhere.  And doubled prices for anything you buy.  If you ignore all that,
ride the beautifully maintained bike paths, walk the wide sand beaches, just give up and spend whatever is necessary to eat _ well, then it is all beautiful and perfect. 

Fri-

A large part of Sanibel Island and its surrounding waters is kept as a nature preserve.  This is Tarpon Bay, which can be explored by taking boat tours or rentals of pontoon boats or kayaks.  It is a constant that we can only appreciate nature these days by using some form of modern machinery, and powered vehicles to get there.

It got “cold” here overnight _ below fifty! _ everyone is dressed like the snowstorm hitting New York will arrive any minute.  We have purposely isolated whatever hemisphere of the brain worries about tomorrow so that we do not think much about whether or not our fight will make it back tomorrow night.  Living for the moment and enjoying it fully is truly one of the things we should learn from experiencing the rest of the natural world, wilderness or not.

Sat –

Shells thrown up after a storm a feature of any sandy beach.  People come here expecting to find exotic treasures, and they are often filing out along the surf before dawn.  This is just the common debris, the stuff nobody cares about because it is abundant, although each piece was surely as important to its inhabitant as any of our homes are to us.

I find myself getting as grumpy as any old nineteenth century traveler, for example Mark Twain, mostly because of the way things are oversold.  “You’ll love Sanibel” cried everyone.  We imagined a beach like a shell store, lined with exotic and magnificent beauties, leaving no room for the sand.  This is _ well, there are shells.  But there are shells at Caumsett as well, and to my eye more variety than here.  But nobody has tried to convince me that Long Island is a shell collector’s paradise, so whether there are any or not does not really engage my cynicism.
Sun-

Like all lighthouses, Sanibel Light has a story to tell.  As do we, unexpectedly still here for a few more days after a last minute snowstorm canceled our expected flight yesterday.  But you can read the public story of the 1884 structure on your own, and our tale is more one of the joys of the internet and easy communication than of anything else.  It is so easy now to find out what is being predicted, what an airline is doing, finding numbers to rearrange things.  What could have been a nasty stay in a bleak airport became a lovely, if expensive, extension to our stay in the warmth.

We were rewarded today by a score or so of dolphins playing close inshore only tens of yards from the sand.  Almost as if they had been paid to put on a performance, they dove and chased fish for hours, as crowds lined the shore and snapped pictures.  The sad note is that a sight once so common as to be unworthy of notice along any seacoast has become rare enough to merit hysteria whenever it now occurs.