On Sunday we visited Washington Valley Park in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Our friend found the hike on the website njhiking.com; I had never heard of the park before. Pictured is the lovely reservoir at the bottom of the hiking area.
We decided in advance to follow the red trail – it wasn’t always easy to see these markings for the trail on the trees.
I saw a variety of plants growing – no idea what this striped little plant is called.
I recognized these red oval berries from my childhood – I looked up the bush (red berries with thorns is what I looked for in Google Images), and I learned this is called a barberry bush.
I rather liked this plant inside moss that I found on the trail.
There were various streams on our hike that led into the reservoir. The girls (my daughter and friend) had fun hopping over the rocks.
When we got to the top of the hill on the trail, we were rewarded with views of hawks flying overhead.
You could see quite a distance from the top – the fall colors have faded, but they are still varied, though muted.
For more Nature Notes:
On Friday I made this version of a lentil paté that really does look like chopped liver, so I am calling this recipe “mock chopped liver.” I previously posted a recipe that I called vegetarian chopped liver – that one suggests eggs, and this one needs no egg, so it is suitable for vegans.
Ingredients for Mock Chopped Liver
- 3/4 cup lentils
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- salt to taste
- 1 onion
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. coriander
- optional: ginger
Cook lentils until soft (add a bit of salt while cooking). Soak walnuts for about one half hour. Sauté onions for about one half hour – the lengthy sautéing helps to caramelize the onions, bringing more flavor to the recipe (if you stop after 15 minutes, it will still taste good). Blend lentils, walnuts and onions in the food processor with spices.
The inspiration for this recipe comes from Mary’s Lentil-Walnut Spread, Lentil Walnut Pate and my friend Klara.
I added this post to Ruth’s Real Food 101.
My daughter and I went for a walk to the library today, and we enjoyed looking at the brightly colored trees. She was off from school because of some teacher enhancement enrichment something-or-another day.
The oak leaves are certainly multi-colored.
I really enjoyed the colors of my neighbor’s blueberry bush.
The local high school looked pretty with the adorning red maple in front.
Hard to believe a week ago we had snow on the ground – this has been a varied fall for foliage 2011.
For more Nature Notes:
Welcome to JPiX – the Jewish Photo Blogger’s Blog Carnival, Fall 2011 edition. Thanks to everyone who participated. We have a village in France, Rosh Hashana challah, Kfar Adumim, an olive oil factory, havdalah, a Jewish wedding, a lion in Jerusalem and more.
Left to right: Ilana-Davita, G6 and Wing Chun Jew (aka Jacob da Jew):
Batya:
Chosid’s Blog (Leah):
Real Jerusalem Streets (Sharon):
Cosmic X:
Mrs. S:
Leora:
I hope you will take the time to visit the photographers’ blogs and leave comments. The next JPiX will be in the spring. If you want to participate, please submit an entry here. If you are brave enough to volunteer to host, please contact me, and we can discuss the details.
This is the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge on the Niagara River – I am revisiting photos I took from our trip last summer to Niagara Falls. The Whirlpool Bridge is about a mile from the falls.
The Whirlpool Bridge crosses the international border between the United States and Canada. You can learn more here about the Whirlpool Bridge and the earlier suspension bridge it replaced (the world’s first working railway suspension bridge).
Here’s a jet boat one can take on the Niagara River. We just stood high on the cliff above and took photos.
For more bridges, visit San Francisco Bay Daily Photo:
I took a piece of pomegranate and put it amongst my canning jars (and there’s a water bottle in the back). So it looks like a pomegranate seed among glass. I have a lot of canning jars because I’ve been pickling and more recently I sprouted some lentils.
My original First of the Month was the rhododendron shrub – above is rhododendron leaves in late October. Below are May, April and February.
For more First of the Month:
I bought a pomegranate a month ago for Rosh Hashana, and it was disappointing and too white inside, not quite ripe. The seeds were bitter. On a whim, I decided to try again on Friday and was pleased to find bright red pomegranate seeds inside the pomegranate.
Pomegranates have Vitamin C, anti-oxidants and are considered to be anti-inflammatory.
A fence in our yard – one can see the mums in the front of our house in the distance. The burning bush is right above the fence. Today it snowed – who knows how this fence with mums scene will look tomorrow!
For more Shots Straight Out of the Camera:
Last week I saw this brown mourning dove wander about in my yard.
Soon after he noticed that I was following him (her?) around with my camera, he settled on this high phone wire in the back of my yard.
Oh, by the way, did you know that Noah sent out a dove: “And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground.” But before the dove, he sent out a raven. I didn’t have any ravens showing up in my back yard.
My neighbor’s burning bush is quite spectacular – bright red at this time of year. Ah, another Biblical reference, except the burning bush doesn’t show up in the weekly Torah reading until winter time.
Here’s the how the dry oak leaf hydrangea flower looks – this photo was taken the same day as the red hydrangea leaf photos.
Note that this post is not called The Diamond in the Window (book by Jane Langton). It’s a post about Noah, who was considered a righteous man in his generation.
So here’s the question: was Noah a righteous individual who might have not been so great in a different generation or was a shining light unto all the generations? And why is he looking at this diamond?
Or maybe he’s really looking out the window:
For the answer to these and other tantalizing questions, you will have to visit my friend’s Harry’s post Noach – Is righteousness relative?
The illustrations of Noah with diamond and window were executed by me (with some critical helpful feedback from my daughter) with pen, ink, and then a lot of playing in Photoshop. The aim was whimsical and playful.
