Fire in Midwood

An unfortunately exciting afternoon in the neighborhood. I was working away on my month-end close reports when it started to sound like every emergency vehicle from a 3-mile radius was pulling up and stopping right nearby. I decided to take a break and go out and see what was going on.

One of the lovely old homes on East 18th was on fire. I think I heard one of the firemen say that no one was inside - don't know if they meant they got everyone out or if no one was home, but glad to hear no one was hurt. The firefighters got things under control fairly quickly, but what a rotten thing for someone to have to deal with on top of everything else. :(

The exterior of the house looked to be intact except for where the firefighters had broken in, but there was definitely damage.

There were 9 big trucks and about the same number of smaller vehicles - it was so sad that they had to be here but I still found it fascinating looking at all the various units that had come out and seeing their pride through all the various emblems and memorials on their trucks. 

Hooray for NY's Bravest. 

Florida Day 5 - Manatees and an otter!

Nothing very inspiring going on for me here in Brooklyn. It's been rainy, I've been social distancing and working from home, I have a few more flowers I haven't shared yet, I probably will but rather than change the name of my blog to Flowerma, tonight I decided to dip back into my Florida pictures.

We'd had a couple of near misses with manatees in the preceding days. My friends in Anna Maria Island had taken us to a place where some manatees had been earlier in the week, but they'd moseyed on. The Mote Marine Lab has a pair of manatees, Hugh and Buffett, but their habitat had just closed temporarily for renovations the week we visited. These near misses made me even more interested in seeing manatees. A little online research turned up Manatee Park in Ft. Myers. It was a 45 minute drive, but when I called the park & asked if we would see manatees if we came, the very sweet woman who answered the phone positively guaranteed it. So the next morning my sister and TQ and I all jumped in the car and set off to see the manatees.

Manatees, as we learned from one of the volunteers there, have no blubber. I would never have guessed that, they are so roly-poly looking, but they don't, and that's the reason that when the waters of the Gulf get too cold for them (below 68 fahrenheit) they make their way up into the warmer inland waters. They particularly like the warm outflow from power plants, and Manatee Park is built around one such outflow that runs into the Orange River. We didn't end up paddling with the manatees here - there is a kayak and canoe rental there but as usual, we hadn't gotten the quickest start so didn't have hours and hours and hours to play with, and we found that the manatee viewing from the shore of the outflow canal was fantastic. There were mamas and babies, and the volunteers told us some really interesting stuff (including stories about how wildlife rehabilitators go about releasing manatees - this is a frequent release spot and the newly freed animals are tracked carefully to make sure they're doing ok, all really interesting) so we decided to stick with that, plus a little time exploring the grounds.

That was a good call because they had this lovely short nature walk on a boardwalk through the mangroves where the outflow met the river, and while we were exploring that, we found a wild river otter! We'd enjoyed seeing the ones they had at the Mote Marine Lab the day before, and getting to watch this one going about his wild otter daily routine was just fantastic.

And we got to see a herd of manatees getting spooked by something - that was pretty impressive, they had been floating so peacefully but my goodness, when these big creatures all went diving away simultaneously, they left the water roiling!

Another beautiful day in Florida! All photos after this, click for a slideshow view. 

Tulip Time!

As promised/threatened in my Sheepshead Bay post, here is a random assortment of tulips in the Ditmas Park/Midwood neighborhood. Tulip time doesn't last too long, and boy, did I enjoy my tulip safari on the weekend before last.

And I just don't have anything more to say about tulips that they don't say for themselves way better. Click on the first photo for a slideshow view. 

Sheepshead Bay - by bike!

A couple of weeks ago, TQ came out to the living room to find me looking glumly at a map of Brooklyn.

"Planning your next walk?"

"Sort of. Trying to figure out where the nearest salt water is."

We live in a neighborhood right smack in the middle of Brooklyn. It's beautiful, with lovely homes and lawns and big trees and gardens. It's a great neighborhood for walking, and (as you know if you've visited this blog at all in the last few weeks) I've been getting the biggest kick out of watching the Spring floral progression, snowdrops to crocuses to daffodils and cherry blossoms and now well into tulip time (yes there will be a Tulip Time post, of course there will). But I'm really starting to miss the waterfront!

Sheepshead Bay is within walking distance from home, but it's a bit of a time commitment on foot, and except for the medical stuff, I've been respecting the rules about public transportation being for essential personnel only. I was thinking maybe the inland end of Gerritson Creek might be a little less of a hike, and there's a little nature boardwalk there that might offer some nice birds. Still not exactly nearby, though.

But TQ had a great idea - why didn't I borrow his bike? He hadn't used it in a while so it needed a little attention, but he got it dusted off and the tires blown up and as soon as he had it ready to go, I went for a shakedown cruise up to Prospect Park.

No salt water there, no, but I've done a lot less biking than your average middle-class suburban raised person as the home in Hawai'i was on a steep hill, a most beautiful place but not bike friendly at all, except for the occasional serious biker who would go slowly puffing by up the hil, working hard in low gear, reappearing a little while later going back down, an elated flying blur with wheels just zzzzzziiiiiiizzzzzing along at maximum speed. My dad got a bike to ride to work at Pearl Harbor at one point, but that didn't last too long - I don't think the concussion after the 10-speed's skinny tires hit a storm drain the wrong way one unfortunate day was necessarily the end of it, but eventually he was back to driving.

The only time I remember being a normal 70's kid going everywhere on a bike (which was actually a magnificent chestnut horse, although it would've looked like an orange 3-speed to the average grownup) was during our brief sojourn at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Flat as a pancake, and about as safe for free-range kids as anywhere you could imagine - I think the whole family got bikes and my friends and I went all over the parts of the base that didn't require active duty ID's for access. I remember that as being great fun, but that was just a couple of years.

So i am not super super confident of my biking skills, and I've always been scared to ride in NYC because of the traffic. Things are of course very different now, but I still thought that keeping my first ride in really familiar territory and in walking distance of home seemed like a good idea.

First ride went great. For the 2nd ride I thought of Sheepshead Bay - but decided to do one more test ride up to the park, this time adding the loop around the park for a little more mileage. That went fine, too.

Then we had a whole stretch of sloppy weather - rain and/or high winds and I went back to hoofing it.

But today was finally absolutely glorious and I had a wonderful ride down to Sheepshead Bay and back! Click for detail. Love this part of Brooklyn! 

I got a later start than I'd hoped so I didn't take too many pictures, but I did stop to watch this mama swan on her oh so urban nest :( having a nice preen in the sun. Gorgeous day!

Tomorrow it's back to drizzle, but I was thoroughly happy with today's ride.

And can't resist linking to a very fond memory from one of my long walks to Sheepshead Bay - How To Share Your Chowder With A Dog. Miss that girl.  

Brooklyn in Bloom

Still thoroughly enjoying watching Spring unfold this year! I went for walks both days this weekend, a shorter one combined with grocery shopping on Saturday and then a nice long one (5 miles plus) today. Yesterday was overcast, today breezy & sunny although clouding over a bit in the afternoon.

I always love sharing pictures of my neighborhood because it just doesn't look like what people think NYC is supposed to look like - and right now I'm really glad that I live in such a great neighborhood for long walks.

Click on any photo for a slideshow view.