Tag Archives: river

Local Life

Focus: Signs of Spring; Renewed Hope

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Spring. It’s been long-awaited and it’s here. With it come signs of hope, growth, rebirth and fertility that was stifled by winter’s frozen grip. Stagnated.

Buds are beginning to bloom in sparse trees along the riverscape. Garden perennials are popping up with the sun. Bulbs about to pop with life are peering through remnants of the dead of winter. Abandoned laid eggs lie still in a half-made shriveled flower pot nest that a mourning dove ironically cast aside on the last cold day.

All comes back … to grow. To bring life and warmth back to the sparse riverscape, the yard, the flower pot nesting spot.

Sun up, signs of spring out. Take notice and soak it all up with the sun. Hope is here.

Take a look at our snapshots of little signs of spring above and take it all in.

**And don’t forget to click on one image in the gallery to enlarge and scroll! Enjoy!**

Interesting tidbit: Did you know that mourning doves have a habit of being terrible nest makers, but fabulous parents? True story. Ironic.

Here’s this week’s weather outlook for the Rumson-Fair Haven area from the National Weather Service …

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Local Life

Focus: Taking the Dank Away with River Daze

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Rumson’s shoreline view of the Navesink River
Photos/Elaine Van Develde

It’s been downright dank lately. But no matter how the dank sticks in your cranky craw, there’s nothing like a little river time to ease the shrill chill from the bones.

Even when it’s clouded, the view of the Navesink always offers a promise of light and the warm embrace of home. It’s pretty ducky for the ducks, no matter what, it seems. They have the right idea. Reveling in every ripple, every lap of low tide, every grain of damp sand is inviting solace — the terminal homecoming.

The scene may vary with time and vantage point, but for a Rumson-Fair Haven kid at heart, the river is that lifetime friend who never ages, whose loyalty never wanes. It’s always there, waving to you from the shore, letting you know that the chill and gray will go away. You are home. Always. Welcomed.

Remember, cozy up to that waving childhood friend, and wait for the sun to shine again.

Relive some river daze and solace by taking a look at this week’s gallery of the Navesink by Barnacle Bill’s and check out when the sun’s coming out in the weekend weather forecast, courtesy of the National Weather Service … (CLICK one photo in the above gallery to enlarge and scroll! Enjoy!)

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Local Life

Focus: Rumson Light in Hazy Winter Darkness

Press “Play.” Sometimes light peering through stark, hazy darkness is a beacon to play time that’s drawing near. It can transport a daydreamer to past play, too. Warmth. Vision. Clarity. Contentment.

The pin spotlights scream silence — peace. They remind: There is a light to follow forward and back. Each spot shines a light on one memory at a time, bringing focus to the haze, bringing back the warmth. Each spot draws us to a brighter tomorrow, too. Each reminds: There’s a way out of the dark haze, forward or rewind. Either takes us back to the same place. Home.

When two iconic playtime scenes — an otherwise bustling iconic Victory Park or Barnacle Bill’s gathering haven — are somber and still, it’s then that one can see the power of place clearly. Feel it deeply. The more stark, the more profound. The more simple, the more black and white, the love of home.

Get lost in the light to find your own way home.

— Photos/Elaine Van Develde for R-FH Retro only (CLICK on one to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)

And lighter days are coming to the area. Here’s the week’s weather forecast, courtesy of the National Weather Service, for the Rumson-Fair Haven area …

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Local Life, Opinion

Focus: Black & White Navesink River Tidings

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Black & White Winter at the River in Fair Haven
Photos/Elaine Van Develde for R-FH Retro only

It’s black-and-white simple, stark. The crackly, cool-hued solace offered by the winter’s Fair Haven Navesink River view is a prelude to all that’s warm. It’s a constant. A reminder that all that’s good is pretty simple.

The tide still rolls in gently over the patches of snowy, broken ice. All is a still, simple move forward, yet keeping all that’s good in its niche. The river is always there. A home anchor. Its shore a welcome mat. The tide gently wipes out all that’s broken, a little bit at a time. All that soothes melds together, soaking up the same goodness in one sliver of Earth. The tide that always comes in saturates the shore and hometown heart with searing sunshine for the soul.

Nothing really changes when it comes to the river view or its wealth of healing power. And all you have to do is take a minute to take it in … rolling ever so gently with its inspiring tide.

Say “Ahhhh” and take in the scenes … (CLICK on one photo to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy! And can you find those ducks?)

Here’s what’s headed this way weatherwise, courtesy of the National Weather Service …

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Local Life, Opinion

Focus: Fair Haven Dock Winter Blues & Sunshine Hues

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If the winter blues have set in after a day or two worth of spring(ish) respite, a little Fair Haven Dock time is a reminder that the blue hued winter sky and crackled icy shore is always a prelude to sunshine.

If not in the sky, in the heart. Through every crack in the icy snow coat on the beach under the dock, sun is seeping in for a peek into the happy place. The melt? Well, we know the cold sting in the air doesn’t stop the softening of the hometown heart with a glimpse back to dock days.

Of course, some of those dock days of the past involved a little mischief and jumping, which we are always asked to remind is prohibited. All the more the melt. But the daydream of one of your miscreant friends taking a plunge into that icy Navesink River water on a dare does crack a grin on the face.

How about the jaunt to a sliver of beach under the dock with a frozen cheesecake and a bottle of Boone’s Farm? Hmmmm … If that kind of memory doesn’t take away the winter blues … Focus back. What scene do you see?

Say “Ahhhhhh” to the serene river scene of blue and daydream the sun and smiling crazy times back. After all, the weather forecast is promising a peek through the icy cracks into spring again …

**Don’t forget to CLICK on one photo to enlarge and scroll! Enjoy!**

— Photos/Elaine Van Develde for R-FH Retro only

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Local Life

Scene Around: Snowed & Fogged Out at Barnacle’s

Even when the Rumson river view is obscured by the fog, a blanket of snow and empty Barnacle Bill’s chairs are vivid reminders that there’s always a seat for you at an iconic spot back home.

It sees you. You see it. The descending pea soup sky never takes away the view. It gives you a close-up of the little things that matter most, like a chair waiting for its townie.

Each piece of home is where the comfort embraces with a hushed, welcomed coddle in the disquiet of the cold air pangs. Its love blankets like the melting snow, sopping up the home earth beneath the feet that always seem to anchor there, tugging like quicksand at the heart. This is one piece of home. One iconic spot. The quiet, the starkness beckon. They call you back. Always.

You hear and return to take a big bite … of that burger, the memories and that home feeling, ingesting all that’s good. Yum.

The fog has lifted. Here’s what’s going on with the weather in the Rumson-Fair Haven area heading into the weekend, courtesy of the National Weather Service …

** Don’t forget to CLICK on one photo in the above gallery to enlarge and scroll! Enjoy! **

— Photos/Elaine Van Develde exclusively for R-FH Retro

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Local Life

Focus: Docked & Chasing the Moon

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Sometimes, the basics are the most meaningful. It’s pretty black-and-white. A night view from the Fair Haven Dock always anchors what really matters. It needs no color, no enhancement. Just the simple starkness, sky and moon.

Sometimes what really matters most is just finding the moon, taking in its night magic and chasing those beams. It’s far better than counting elusive sheep. Night time. River time. Best of times and sighs.

A real Goodnight Moon. Gaze and find in our river moon dance gallery.

(Click on one pic to enlarge, find the moon and scroll to the next. Enjoy!)

And while you’re moon gazing and chasing, check out the moody weekend R-FH area weather from the National Weather Service …

Local Life

Focus: Down By the River 2021

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River time is coveted time for Rumson-Fair Haven area people. Stealing away to capture its peace is a time-honored, often daily, tradition.

Here’s our window into what the river view brought us in 2021.

(Click on one photo to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy! Ahhhhh … river time!)

The most popular was the black-and-white “A Leg Up” — a testament to survival with a river view during pandemic times.

— Photos/Elaine Van Develde exclusively for R-FH Retro

Continue reading Focus: Down By the River 2021 →
Local Life, Opinion

Reflection: A Fall for the River Ripple Effect

Call it a fall for reflective river time. The effects are far-reaching, staying with you wherever you go, each ripple always reaching out past the reflection to bring you home.

River reflection. Ripple effect. It’s all about taking a closer look. Noticing the little things. The mirror image. The slightest crimp in the freeze frame that emanates from the wind’s whisper. It’s hushed secret-telling.

But it’s no secret. The pilings are anchored home. Each curl that you can see in the reflection’s blur will eventually reach the shore, bringing with it the focus in that reflective microcosm of change.

It’s what keeps us all studying that one mesmerizing ripple that reached us. The one that always latches onto our toes in the sand. The one that moves back out and in with the tide. The one that brings us back home and keeps us there in the ruffled clarity of what really matters. Where it all came from — the center. Home.

All it takes is one ripple to seek you out and find you, warmed by a crisp fall moment on the banks of the river in Fair Haven.

Take a look at the photo gallery above to remember what brings you back. (And click to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)

It’s always river time, but fall river days are dwindling. Here’s what’s in store for the next week’s fall weather from the National Weather Service …

Local Life

Focus: A Fall for River Time Sunscape

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When the sun sops up the fall clouds so it can peer through for a little glimpse back to summer, it’s time for river time.

Rowing, strolling, sitting … any way is the best way to move forward and go back to that warm niche that always has a place for someone in its heart. The place where, no matter what, that sun always manages to peek through and shed light on all those little big things that matter most — one ray at a time.

Any way to move back to that light on those river times is the way to go. And they went. They always do. And they hold onto it for a rainy day.

The rainy days and chill are coming back. But there’s never a damper on Fair Haven river time.

— Elaine Van Develde

Take a look (CLICK on one photo above and scroll. Enjoy!). Here’s what’s coming in those rainy, colder days ahead, according to the National Weather Service …

Local Life, Opinion

Focus: Benched at the River

Photos/Elaine Van Develde

Benched. It implies punishment of sorts. Not when you’re parked on a time capsuled bench at the river on the Fair Haven Dock.

And when the daytime sun drenches the seat you pick, all that’s wrong with anyone’s world seems to melt through the cracks, lifting the light in the spirit to meet the one in the sky.

Call it high hopes. The soaring, soothing warmth of it all just doesn’t reach higher heights, as long as benched time is river time … soaking it up. Diving back into time, sopping up the comfort of those feelings linked to the memories down by the river. Not a bad one there. Benched.

(Click on one of the photos above to enlarge and scroll. Remember and enjoy!)

There will be lots of sun to sop up on a riverfront seat this week. Here’s the weather forecast for the Rumson-Fair Haven area from the National Weather Service.

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Local Life

Focus: Fall River Walk & Weather

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Broody and blue-hued as the scene seems down by the river these days, there’s a toasty comfort in the fall breeze.

It whisks by and envelopes with a snug squeeze — one that whispers “You’re home.” Anyone who’s grown up with feet in wet sand on that Fair Haven beach slip, plucking shells that plop a time-honored magic into the palm of the hand, knows the spell cast.

The magic reminds — the sun always peer through the clouds offering that snuggle, that glow that lights the path back home.

— Photos/Elaine Van Develde (Click on one to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)

That sun is coming this week. Here’s how and when, according to the National Weather Service …

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