Fall in New York

When Andrea came home for Christmas last year after living in New York for four months she said, "Where are all the trees?" Kansas seemed so bare after being surrounded by woods. We can now see exactly what she meant. Tuesday night we drove into the Bronx for dinner. Would you believe that most of the way (and even in the Bronx) we were still surrounded by trees. At one point we couldn't see the sky because the trees formed a natural arch over the road!

It is so beautiful here that it is hard to describe. The colors are so intense. It seems like every time we have a chance to go outside there is even more color. Three sides of our classroom are glass. Usually we have our backs to the windows, but on Friday we sat so that all had a gorgeous view. I have heard the expression that the ground was carpeted with leaves. Well, it is true. This morning as we walked to church in places you couldn't see the grass or pavement because there are so many leaves covering it. Not only are there leaves on the ground, but pine needles, pine cones, acorns, and berries. At times when we are walking in the morning we hear continual pinging as acorns and pinecones hit the ground or even parked vehicles!

Since there are so many trees here they have a different way to deal with the fallen leaves than we do in Kansas. First, many hire a crew to blow the leaves into the street. We saw a three-man crew working last week. They formed an L-shape with two men in front and one on the side. Each man had a leaf blower that blew the leaves in front of them creating a larger and larger pile until they reached the street. Although we haven't been able to get a photo in action, we did find a crew that had finished their work for the day and were loading up their equipment. I'm sure they thought we were crazy when we asked if we could take their picture.

We had been wondering what happened to those piles of leaves along the curb. As I was walking back from lunch one day I found the answer. There was a truck with large cab but small covered bed. Along the side of the truck was a long hose probably about a foot in diameter. This hose extended about four feet beyond the end of the truck. One man was vacuuming up the leaves into this hose, another was raking leaves into a pile and the third was directing traffic around them. Since the bed of the truck wasn't all that large I'm assuming that the leaves were being shredded as they entered the truck. Someone told us that the city has free leaf mulch if you go and get it yourself. They also sell it bagged for others.

We're guessing that this weekend is the highlight of the colorful autumn season. Trees are starting to show bare branches. One of the trees that we have been watching at the Society (priests and brothers) was almost bare this morning when we walked to Mass. If you'd like to share in some our scenery, click here.

Yesterday the Congregation (Sisters) had their annual International Bazaar. Several of us volunteered to help. What would October be without a bazaar? John and I ended up working the snack bar. It was a lot different icing drinks than cooking dressing and turkey gravy. They served Cuban sandwiches and empanadas. Yum, yum! They had made lemon bars, Russian tea cakes, apple (from their trees) cake, zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, Italian plum bread and their famous Maryknoll Coffee Cake for sale at the baked goods shop. I must agree that their secret coffee cake was out of this world! In addition to the food, they also had rooms set up with merchandise according to region: Central America, South America, Africa, East Asia, South Asia. Talk about unique and one-or-a-kind items. It was busy, busy, busy. There was a large crowd so hopefully they did well.