After Sandy's Visit

Like many people, I was left housebound last Monday by Hurricane Sandy.  By Tuesday morning, the conditions had improved enough to walk around my neighborhood and survey the damage, although for me, like most people, there would be no work.  As I made my way around on foot, I saw pretty much what I had expected.  There were several fallen trees, and limbs were strewn everywhere.  One tree in particular fell across an alley that I usually walked through, and it was lying between two houses on either side of the alley.  It looks like it barely missed the house across the way from the property it formerly stood on.

In one way, however, we were fortunate.  Through it all, we never lost power, although our lights dimmed a few times.   We still had lights and heat, the important things, although our cable and internet service were knocked out for about a day.  Many of my neighbors were not so fortunate.  As soon as I walked out the door, the air was filled with the sound of generators humming.  The 7-11 and the shopping center nearby were also without power, and apparently much of the refrigerated and frozen food in stock had to be discarded.  One of the traffic signals nearby was out, with only portable stop signs to direct traffic. 

Walking past the golf course at the Middletown Country Club, I saw the downed tree that appears in this photo.  Fortunately, this tree was fairly small, and was nowhere near any property it could damage other than the ground.  It certainly wasn’t in anyone’s way, since no would be out golfing on that day.  But there may be more storms like this coming, and I’m hearing it may be the new normal.  Scientists are saying that global warming has changed the weather dynamics for good now, and we will be seeing more of this in the future.  I don’t know what kind of evidence is provided.  I haven’t really researched it.  I hope it’s not true, of course, but I do know there will be more storms from time to time, as there always were, along with the flooding and down trees they bring with them.  

A Day at the Grange Fair

Sheep

Sleeping Pigs

Alpacas

Tractor display

On this particular morning in mid-August, I woke up without any plans for the day, but that changed when I got a text from my brother.  He was going to the annual Middletown Grange Fair with his wife and son, and invited me to come along.  Farm animals are not plentiful in my area, so I jumped at the chance to go with them.  There actually was a time during my childhood when most of the area north of my home was farmland, but that changed with the development boom that hit in the 70s and 80s. Over a fairly short period of time, the acres of cornstalks and pumpkin patches that defined the countryside were transformed into housing developments and shopping centers.  Narrow country roads were widened, and bypasses were soon built to handle the volumes of new daily traffic that soon followed.  Small patches of farmland remained, but the rural to suburban metamorphosis was pulled off fairly quickly.  That is one of the reasons why I was quick to grab my camera go with them.

The grange fair is usually held during the third week of August, in Wrightstown, Pa. and is similar to what I imagine the old county and state fairs were (and still are) like.  Once there, we moved quickly through the covered pavilions that served as temporary homes for the animals on display.  The first thing I noticed approaching the stalls was the noise.  I heard plenty of farm animals, such as cows mooing and roosters crowing.  Although I am quite familiar with those sounds, I only know them from hearing recordings and watching television.  I rarely ever come close enough to these animals to hear them live.  I heard them all, except for the pigs, which were all sleeping.  One other thing I noticed about the animals, especially about the pigs, was the smell.  That is something no audio or video recording could convey. Being around pigs would take some getting used to for me, and building a tolerance to their odor would take a while.  I also got to see the alpacas that were on display there.  I guess some farmers around here find use for these Andean camels, unless they came from a petting zoo.

We didn’t stay there too long, since my little nephew was starting to get antsy.  I would have liked to have stayed around to see a few more things, such as the pig races that were about to begin when we left.  But overall I’m glad simply to have made my way there, and that I brought my camera with me.  I guess if I could define the fair in a nutshell, I would say it’s a celebration of all things rural, and a reminder of the historical roots of this area.  And it is good to celebrate our rural heritage as it fades further back in the rearview mirror.

The Abbreviated Trip to Long Beach Island

This year I knew my annual trip to LBI would be different, since I don’t have PTO benefits where I work, and I had already taken some hours off here and there for my ongoing dental work.  I didn’t usually spend more than a few nights at the shore anyway, but even if I did spend the whole week there, it would be a small sacrifice when it comes to working.  This year’s trip to LBI was a day trip, which I didn’t mind.  I was glad to make the journey to the island, and I had taken day trips there before.

And as I wrote previously, I like the ride to and from the island almost as much as I like spending time at LBI itself.  Once I get past the Burlington and Mt. Holly areas in New Jersey, the rest of the trip is mostly woodlands.  After I get past the Four Mile Circle near Pemberton, the landscape becomes dominated by the famous Atlantic Pygmy Pines that this area of New Jersey is famous for.  It’s not a particularly long stretch, maybe 15-20 miles between the circle and Manahawkin, where route 72 meets the Garden State Parkway, and where the large development known as Ocean Acres is located.  As I make my way through Manahawkin, the road is once again surrounded by the houses and shopping centers that I am familiar with.

This year as I was approaching Manahawkin I noticed something different about the landscape.  It seemed that many of the pine and oak trees were bare and dying.  It may have been the result of the forest fires that are part of the nature cycle there, but to me the trees didn’t look burnt.  It looked to me like the trees were dying a natural death, like there was some kind of disease that had infested them.  I’m not a scientist and I don’t know much about these things, however.  I guess I’ll look up what happened, and see if I could find anything. 

Once I got to the island, I only visited a few places.  There are a lot of places I try to see every time I visit LBI, but this year my time was limited, and I just hit a few spots around Beach Haven, where we stay.  Of course, I wanted to see the ocean, which I captured in the above photo.  If I remember right, it was around 5 or 6 in the evening.  I had taken pictures from that spot before, around that same time in the late afternoon/early evening, but something looked different about the sky this time.  I guess it was the arrangement of the clouds hanging over the ocean.

After having dinner, it was time to leave and head back home.  I wanted to get at least most of the way home before darkness fell, but I was way behind.  The sun was setting behind the tree line across the bay as I was making my way up the main boulevard toward route 72 in Ship Bottom, which carries the only bridge connection to the mainland.  It was getting darker as I made my way through the Pine Barrens, and night had fallen by the time I reached the Four Mile Circle.  By the time I crossed the Burlington Bristol Bridge to Bucks County and got home, it was getting late.

Looking Back to Winter

Although we didn’t see much snow in my area this winter, the first snowfall actually came to us early, in October.  I thought that might have been a sign indicating that we were approaching a long, cold, and snowy winter, but it didn’t happen that way.  We only got a few light snowfalls, and none that I can remember accumulated more than two inches.  One of those rare occasions came in early February, and I was able to get out with my camera and capture it.  It happened overnight, and by rush hour, the sky was clear.  However, the snow was still on the ground, and I wanted to get out and take some pictures before the morning sun melted it all off.  I had a small window of opportunity to get out and make it happen, since I didn’t know if we would get another snowfall this season.

Snow may be difficult to drive through, but it has a way of making everything look nice.  Here, the light snowfall was just perfect for me.  I got out to the park without any real trouble, and most of the snow was still there.  In the meadow, it looks like the snow had already melted off of the trees in the distance.  In the wooded area, the sun had not gotten to the vegetation yet, so the snow cover was still on.  The snow on the cattails and reeds created something that resembled frosted mini-wheats. 

Now we are a week past Memorial Day, and the unofficial summer season is now on.  There are plenty of things I’ll look forward to doing during the next three months.  I’ll look forward to the fall, too, when the time comes.  But now, for no particular reason, I just wanted to post these pictures and take a look back at this past winter.  There are some things I like about the winter, as well, when that season comes around.

A Small Patch of Land

These are pictures of a farm in Newtown, Pa.  I took them from a rural road just off of route 332, near I-95.  It is one of the few farms remaining in the area, since the Newtown area was transformed by the building boom of the eighties.  Until that time, there were plenty of places where horses like these could be seen, as well as cows and sheep.  But the proximity of Newtown and neighboring Yardley to New Jersey and Philadelphia made it a prime area for sprawl coming from those areas.  And during that time, gas prices were not so much an issue, so people were willing to drive an hour each way to and from work.  Especially for those in the metro New York and Princeton areas, Bucks County provided an ideal place to fulfill the American dream of owning a home for those who were willing to drive a little farther (or sometimes a lot farther).

However, if I am correct, the farm pictured here is either on or across route 332 from the proposed site of Aria Hospital’s new Bucks Campus.  Aria’s current location is a few miles away, near Sesame Place.  What is shown in this picture may not be there much longer.  The fairly new houses in the background also show that this farm was larger until recently.  But as of right now, there is still this small patch of farmland.  How much longer it will remain that way, I don’t know.  I may someday be able to show the date on the corner of this picture as evidence of how late this patch of land remained rural.

The small creek seen in these pictures is the Core Creek, which flows a few miles until it is received by the Neshaminy Creek.  Shortly before it reaches the Neshaminy, a park was built around the creek and named after it.  Sometime during the late 1970’s, a dam was constructed and Core Creek was flooded into a lake, known as Lake Luxemburg.  Here it lies in a natural setting.  I have never been out west, or to the plains, but in this picture, the creek looks like the streams I have seen in movies set out in the prairies.  On the East Coast, it seems that most bodies of fresh water are surrounded by trees and other vegetation, while here the Core Creek is just running through grassy ground, without anything big growing on its banks.

Under Construction

Last week, I visited Bucks County Community College last week for the first time in a while, several months at least.  I found things to be quite different this time.  The campus was under construction, which was nothing new, but I found more areas being renovated than before.  Also, some of the areas I thought would be finished by now are still being remodeled.  The first thing I noticed as I was making my way across the campus was the fencing on both sides of the walkway.  The area outside of Pemberton Hall (the administrative building) was now occupied by heavy construction equipment and the beginnings of what will be known as Newtown Commons.  The accompanying picture should give some idea of what it will look like when completed.   I’m guessing it will be ready to open in time for the fall 2012 semester, but I am quite clueless when it comes to guessing on these things.  I didn’t bother asking anyone, and I’ll try to remember next time I’m there.

Next, I made my way to the library, which has also been under construction for quite some time now.  For years after I was a student there, the library looked generally the same, but in the last few years, has been radically altered.  A good part of the lower floor was partitioned off and converted to the bookstore, which moved there from its previous location.  Until a few years ago, it occupied a room in the area where the Newtown Commons is now under construction.  The upstairs, where the book stacks are located, is now entirely closed off due to the construction.  Anyone who needs a book checked out has to give the name and number of the book to one of the student aides, who will then run up and pull the book.  The tutoring lab that was formerly upstairs had been moved downstairs for the construction.  It is unrecognizable to me since the lower floor has been renovated to handle the entire library operation process, except for the books. 

There are other areas being renovated as well.  Construction work in the cafeteria appears to have been completed.  That had also been going on for a while as well.   I thought some of the work being done was only temporary, but the work seems to have stopped there, unless there is another phase planned for later.  I included a photo of the garden.  I didn’t see any workers or equipment there, but the muddy patch with tire tracks all over it indicates that there is work being done there, not to mention the fact that the area is taped off.  Again, I’m not sure how long it will be before everything is done, but at least some parts of the campus will look a lot different from what I remember, even just a few years ago. 

Overlooking the Train Tracks

The track pictured here is part of the Norfolk Southern railroad system.  It’s not far from where I live in Langhorne, Pa.  During my childhood I often hiked along these tracks and through railroad property to the banks of the nearby Neshaminy Creek.  A few things have changed since then, as the rail line changed ownership a few times, and there were previously two tracks there.  The other track was torn up sometime in the eighties or nineties.  The volume and frequency of train traffic has probably dropped somewhat, although I didn’t really notice.  There has also been a lot of development in this area since then, some of it bordering these tracks.  People still brought the houses knowing full well the development bordered railroad property, and most of them probably didn’t mind that.  Some developments were built next to grade crossings, which require the train engineers to sound the horn four times at each crossing, which I heard later did cause some homeowners to protest at township meetings.  But most people either were ok with it, or found a way to live with it or soundproof their homes.

I always wanted to find out where this line went.  I saw on maps that going eastward, a spur splits off and junctions into the CSX owned tracks near the Oxford Valley Mall, and follows that line across the Delaware River into New Jersey.  From there, it cuts across the state until it reaches the terminal in Kearney, outside Newark.  The trains that don’t merge into the CSX line go a few more miles to the U.S. Steel Industrial Park in Fairless Hills.  I don’t know how much business comes from the U.S. Steel Industrial Park today, but I do know that some trains still go there.  There is still some business to be done, and some cargo to be picked up.  Going westward, the line eventually runs alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Southampton, and continues along the highway past Norristown.  It runs near the turnpike for a while, and then apparently junctions in with the Amtrak line going toward Harrisburg.  From there, I don’t know how long it stays with the Amtrak line, but I do know that the trains running near my home eventually make their way across the country and terminate in Pittsburg, California, in the Bay Area.  So I think at least some of the trains running on this track are travelling from coast to coast.

There may be other uses for this line in the future.  About ten to fifteen years ago, I read that SEPTA considered using this part of the line for their proposed Cross County Metro, a commuter line running between Norristown and Trenton.  However, SEPTA has long been financially strapped, going back well before the recession hit.  Construction for this project would probably last several years as it would involve making these tracks ready to handle passenger trains, and to have the passenger and freight traffic co-exist.  For one thing, the line would likely need to be electrified, running a catenary wire overhead to power the passenger trains.  This would affect the freight traffic, since the freight cars are often double-stacked along this line, and there may not be enough clearance with the wire.  For this reason, and also to be able to handle the increased volume of train traffic, the second track may have had to be rebuilt.  Stations would need to be constructed.  It would be convenient for me personally if a station was constructed right near my home, but it’s probably not one of the proposed locations, and it doesn’t look like there is room to construct a parking lot there.  The traffic on route 413 going under the tracks is already heavy, and it doesn’t look like it would handle the incoming and outgoing cars well.  I imagine the closest station to me would probably be somewhere near the Oxford Valley Mall, or maybe in Southampton, a few miles to the west of where I live. 

One thing for sure is that I think it would be a good idea to have the Metro Line constructed.  I’m for anything that will leave fewer cars on the road.  It would also make certain places more directly accessible than if I drove a car there, although those places would be limited.  If I worked somewhere along the line, and I found it affordable to do so, I would take the train there.  However, I don’t know how many other people would take the train to these places.  Transit will help make our society less car-dependent, but of course accessibility would be limited to what could be reached by a train or a bus.  It just simply may not be practical to invest in something like this.  But one thing I’m fairly certain about is that this line will continue to be used.

The Bane of Winter

  It is now early January, and we are just a little past the Christmas season.  The holiday lights and decorations are gone, except for a few lingering reminders.  Soon those few remaining displays will be gone as well. We are now entering the bane of winter, which is why I took the pictures that appear here.  I wanted to go out and get some shots of bare trees to convey the image of this time of year, just past the holiday season, and the winter solstice, and before the thawing of spring comes.  It’s a time of short, cold days although they get progressively and noticeably longer as the winter moves through February.  There is often snow on the ground, although there has been very little of it so far in this area.

  The weather was actually warm on Saturday when I took these pictures.  It was a great day to go outside, especially since there won’t be too many days like it in the months to come.  But the actual weather didn’t matter a whole lot to me when I took these pictures.  The trees will still be bare, and the camera can’t catch the unseasonably warm weather unless there are some visual indicators in the background, like someone wearing shorts or a few crocuses popping up through the grass.  There were boats out on the lake that day, but not at that moment.  What I got was a winter picture, although a frozen lake and snow would have made it look more convincing.

  In the months ahead, we’ll be looking at more cold weather, with a few mild days here and there.  Although there has been very little snow so far, there will likely be some snow days coming.  We have a few snow shovels in our basement, and I expect to be using them before the winter is over.  I’ll be using my camera as well, to capture the images of the fallen snow when it comes.  Right now, I’m still using the heat and defrost in my car.  The cycle of time will turn as it always does, and spring will be here before we realize it.  The weather will get warmer, the days longer, and the trees and bushes will bloom.  But until then, we’ll be going through the bane of winter, as these pictures show.