Week in pictures – December 31-January 6, 2012

Barker Reservoir Trail

I have gotten in the habit of making excessively long posts, which often leads to equally excessively long breaks between posts. To get myself in the habit of posting more often, I’m going to try to do a year of “week in pictures” sort of posts, since, well, I tend to take a lot of pictures. Fair warning, there’s probably going to be a disproportionate amount of nature pictures. It’s sort of how I roll.

I started last week with a short couple of end-of-the-year hikes in the reservoirs and parks near our home. It was a nice way to round out the year.

Images from Barker Reservoir and Bear Creek Park: Winter Color, Wormwood, Seed Pods, Leaf Detail

I spent a lot of time during the week editing pictures from our Christmas stay in the Catskills and Rochester areas of New York, or at least what time was left in a hectic work week. We didn’t have much snow to speak of, but great memories as usual. We don’t have a large social network here, so time with family is well worth the travel.[i]

Images from our New York Christmas: Wyeth-style Outbuilding, Catskills sunset, Rama farmstead, Ring-billed Gulls at Charlotte, Moorings at Summerville Pier, Christmas Dawn!, Rama Peacock, Fieldstone Farmscape, Wood and Water in the Delaware, Winter Branch, Morning Light on the Mountain, Winter Sunset in the Catskills.

I turned 36 this week. It didn’t feel like much[ii]. We had a beautiful dinner at our local Brazilian steakhouse/fusion restaurant sort of place, at which I broke my usual resolve to stop eating when I’m full. The full meal was plantain chips, black bean soup in a bread bowl with creme fraishe, Ceviche, and a mixed grill platter that consisted of 5 meats representing four animals (I sometimes will argue the measure of a meal is the sheer number of species consumed at one sitting.) When we were already lolling around like beached whales in our seats, the waiter arrived with a birthday surprise…tres leches with flaming Grand Marnier. Exquisite. [iii]. Other than that, I added a few birds to the list of species we’d seen at the new house.

New Yard Species: American Goldfinch(transitional winter plumage), Cedar Waxwing

Notes

---

[i] Even though in this case it involved two dead sprints across airports to make connecting flights, coming and going.

[ii] Other than the inevitable passing moment of panic, realizing this means I’ve completed my 36^th year, not that I’m starting it. Every year this realization fills me with a momentary sense of panicked loss. I’m not sure why. I sure hope 0 to 1 was a great year, because its number-offsetting legacy sure haunts meJ

[iii] Sadly, I did not have my fancy new camera to take pictures/video of this.