New Jersey Baby Boomer

Yesterday was a nice day, not as sunny as it has been here in New Jersey for the past couple weeks, and not quite as warm, but with everything turning green, it is still beautiful. It was a busy day, but we took a little time between stops to unwind at the Ecology Center in Wyckoff which is now called the James A. McFaul Environmental Center. We have visited there during many occasions in our life, when we were dating we had pictures taken there; when our children were young we took them to see the animals and walk the trails; now that they are grown, we just go to walk, remember and enjoy the peaceful environment. Here are a few pictures for you:

These turkeys were so much fun to watch, they couldn’t get enough of strutting their stuff, and the closer we got to the cage, the more they strutted, what a pair!

The Peacocks never did display their tail feathers for us, there were two of them, but looking closely at the tail feathers, you could imagine what it would have looked like. It was amazing to see them run around with their long, beautiful “train” behind them.

Yes, that’s me, and I’ll do my usual female thing of saying it was at the end of a long day, I didn’t have time to fix myself up, I forgot to take of my glasses, yadayadayada, but that’s the real me, no escaping it! Isn’t the tree beautiful?

When it was time to leave, two handsome geese lead the way, a fine end to a beautiful day!

(I just had to come back and take a closer look at this picture, my husband just told me that if you look closely to the left of the goose furthest away, there are two little goslings, I think that’s how you spell it? Can you see them? They are SO tiny right now. We saw another mother goose on her nest quickly pull her little ones under her…you couldn’t see them, but could hear their little “peeps” from under her.)

I just had a telephone call from my husband telling me that he finally saw a Mountain Lion crossing the road on the way to work. I say “finally” because we have been hearing rumors of sightings for a while, even right here in our neighborhood. This is how it started with bears when we first moved here about 24 years ago…we heard people mention seeing tracks now and then, but never did we see bears, they were just talk and rumor. Now we see them every summer, we are on our 3rd bird feeder of the season because the bears LOVE bird seed and I have to get used to bringing in my feeders every night. We don’t have a lot of trouble with our garbage cans, but, well, not to get gross, but if you have baby, and use disposable diapers, you’ll get a LOT more visits to your garbage cans.

The picture in this post is taken off the side of our deck of a younger bear enjoying some of our trash, we took this one about 5 years ago, they don’t seem to bother with our garbage as much, but on occasion they still visit the cans. Maybe looking for the bird feeders on the other side of the house is more interesting. Some get the new bear-proof cans, which are helpful for many (garbage collectors don’t like the screw-off lids but if you get a persistent bear, he/she will just carry it off and try to figure out how to open it, and you have to find the cans.

I love wildlife, and to me, seeing a big black bear lumber across the road, healthy fur shining in the sunlight, there’s nothing quite like it…if it’s a “she” and there are a couple of cubs in tow, all the better!

As for Mountain Lions, they are predators, I’m going to have to do my homework and keep a close eye on my little Yorkshire Terrier, Aspen.

If you love God’s creation and chose to live in an area where there are lots of woodlands and lakes, you have to learn to co-habitate with whatever creatures decide to move in.

Oh, by the way, no Tigers yet