Recent Visitor — Hummingbird Clearwing Moth

B.D. Lenz in Princeton During August

Princeton area fans of contemporary jazz guitarist B.D. Lenz will have ample opportunity to catch a show—or two—in August.

B.D. Lenz plays a unique blend of funky soul, rhythm and blues and jazz music. He has released seven CDs, the latest of which is Five & Live. Here's where B.D. will be playing around town.

Thursday, August 1
Princeton University Picnic on the Lawn
Brown/Dod Quad
6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Saturday, August 3

Halo Pub Pubfest 2013

9 Hulfish Street

6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Sunday, August 4 (moved from Saturday due to weather)

Palmer Square Summer Music Series

On the Green

2 pm to 4 pm

Saturday, August 10

Small World Coffee

14 Witherspoon Street

8:30 pm to 10:30 pm

Butterfly Festival at the Watershed Reserve

The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association will hold its annual Butterfly Festival on Saturday, August 10, from 10 am to 4 pm at the Watershed Reserve. Admission is $10 per person or $25 per carload. Purchase tickets here in advance for a discount. Parking is provided across from the Watershed Association courtesy of Bristol-Myers Squibb. Shuttles will be provided from the parking area to the festival. No pets allowed. Click here for more information.

The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association is located at 31 Titus Mill Road in Pennington. Click here for directions.

Tick Warning

Recent hot, wet weather has increased the danger of ticks in our area. As nature writer Carl Zimmer points out in an article in Outside Magazine, "It's hard to appreciate just how many ticks are out there. . . . The sheer volume of black-legged ticks in the eastern United States is staggering." We've posted previously how important good landscape management practices like annual mulching are to control ticks and other pests. Princeton Landing residents should pay special attention to the risks of tick bites to ourselves, our children and our pets.

Ticks are not insects. They are arachnids, closely related to spiders and mites. The three species of medical importance in New Jersey are the Black-legged or "deer" Tick (Ixodes scapularis), the American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis) and the Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum). These ticks survive by eating blood from a variety of hosts, including mammals, birds, reptiles and humans. All three species must feed upon three different hosts in order to complete their life cycle. And each bite has the potential of infecting their hosts with dangerous diseases, including Lyme disease, human babesiosis and human anaplasmosis, which can be as unpleasant as they sound.

Be alert to the danger of ticks. The effect of a tick bite can be life-altering and long-lasting. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) offers advice on how to avoid and remove ticks on people and pets here.

Photo: National Park Service

Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas

1920 – 2013

"Thank you, Mr. President."

Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

What Are We Paying For?

We've written here before about the flowering tree that our landscape contractor Brickman took out six weeks ago. The tree was removed from a planting bed in what our Governing Documents call "Parcel Common Area." There was no prior discussion about the work with the affected homeowners—and the Association had no plan for replacement. In fact, FVCSA has been neglecting this spot for years. In addition to the flowering tree that was recently removed, five other plantings in this bed were allowed to die over the last several years. None were replaced.

The homeowners on each side of this garage bed pay a $450 maintenance fee every month. Despite the $900 the Association gets every month, these homeowners and their Parcel 6 neighbors now look at an empty bed with two utility valve covers, a Comcast box and a layer of "mulch" put in by Princeton Landing's landscape contractor after the tree removal. The "mulch" contains shredded plastic and other garbage. Soon after installation of this "mulch,"  weeds began to sprout throughout the bed. Our landscape contractor's answer to this problem was to saturate the area with herbicide. Now the bed is filled with dead weeds to go with the shredded plastic and assorted other trash. Yet FVCSA continues to receive over $10,000 a year in maintenance fees from the homeowners who live next to this bed and thousands more from their neighbors, who must also look at the eyesore it created.

The Association had no plan for this bed to begin with and we just learned that it has no intention of having Brickman deal with it until at least next fall. In fact, "in order of importance" this bed comes behind "seeding bare spots on lawns" and "enhancing mailbox and utility station plantings." After that comes "planting something appropriate between driveways left bare by the removal of a dead tree or shrubs." Really?

The group now running Princeton Landing doesn't seem to understand what the Governing Documents say, or for that matter, the role good landscape maintenance plays in keeping up property values. What they apparently do have are high expectations that they can push off onto homeowners, who already pay a hefty monthly maintenance fee, the cost of replanting a bed that is the Association's responsibility to maintain.

Mourning Cloak — 2:16 pm

Mourning Cloak butterfly

Princeton Landing Celebrates the 4th of July

Independence Day greetings from Princeton Landing. Flag courtesy of the Noltings. Landscape courtesy of our landscape team.

Blueberry Bash at Terhune Orchards

Terhune Orchards is celebrating everything blueberry this weekend, July 6 and 7, at their annual Blueberry Bash. The sweet summer berries are big and blue, and the bushes are easy for all to reach, so visitors can wander through the orchards and "Pick-Your-Own" from 10 am to 5 pm.

In addition to blueberry picking, there will be pony rides, music, children's games in the barnyard, and rides through the orchards and fields on tractor-drawn wagons. Entertainment will be available for the children, including a puppet show presented by Tuckers' Tales Puppet Theatre on Saturday and Sunday at noon and 1:30 pm.

Bakers can get in the spirit by entering their favorite blueberry recipe in the Blueberry Bash Bake-off. Susan Yeske, Food Editor of The Trenton Times, will be judging the entries. Contest rules, prizes and entry form are available here.

Pam's Blueberry Bash Buffet is available for blueberry treats—blueberry drinks, blueberry muffins, blueberry pie and blueberry shortcake—as well as homemade favorites such as pork sandwiches, BBQ chicken, salads, gazpacho, cider slush, donuts and more. Bring home a fresh homemade blueberry coffeecake, blueberry cobbler, apple-blueberry crisp and blueberry salsa from the farm store. Adults can try Harvest Blues apple-blueberry wine in the Terhune Orchards Vineyard & Winery tasting room.

Parking is available at the farm, located at 330 Cold Soil Road in Princeton. Admission is free.

When in the Course of Human Events . . .

New Jersey Signers

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Frances Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

Fourth of July at Morven

On Thursday, July 4, from noon to 3 pm, Morven Museum & Garden will host its annual July 4th Jubilee, a patriotic event for children and adults. The museum occupies Morven, the former New Jersey Governor's Mansion and 18th century home of Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The entire family can celebrate Independence Day and learn about the patriots who had close ties to Morven.

Visitors are invited to participate in colonial life activities, join in singing colonial songs and ballads, sign the Declaration of Independence and meet George Washington as he shares personal letters from the American Revolution. Live music will be presented by the Riverside Bluegrass Band and refreshments will be served by Oink and Moo BBQ. Admission to the July 4th Jubiliee is free. There is free on-site parking available. For other parking options in the area, visit Princeton Parking. Morven is located at 55 Stockton Street in Princeton. Click here for directions.

Also, Morven's newest exhibit is Coastal Impression: Painters of the Jersey Shore, 1880–1940, which runs through September 29, 2013. The admission fee for the exhibit is $6, $5 for seniors and students. Here's a short documentary, Painters of the Jersey Shore, by producer Susan Wallner, who visits the exhibition at Morven to see the paintings by early Jersey Shore Impressionists and those who followed them.

Independence Day Fireworks 2013

                                                                    Photo by Peter Roome

On Wednesday, July 3, 2013, the Spirit of Princeton will present its annual Independence Day Fireworks. The best viewing site is the fields next to the Princeton University Stadium, along Western Way.

The fields open at 7 pm for picnicking and the fireworks begin at dusk, around 9 pm. Bring your picnic baskets, but no alcoholic beverages are allowed, nor is smoking because of the artificial turf. Parking will be available in University Parking Lot 21 below the fields off Faculty Road and in the University parking garage on Prospect Avenue.

This event is free, thanks to the Spirit of Princeton, a group of volunteers committed to producing events celebrating community and patriotism in Princeton.

Pass It On: A Bold Vision for the Watershed

The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association is embarking on a bold plan to transform the heart of its Watershed Reserve into an environmental model for all of New Jersey. The Pass It On campaign to implement A Bold Vision for the Watershed seeks to raise $10 million for a new LEED Platinum Environmental Center, redesigned trail network and fortified endowment. Want to help Pass It On? Join the Watershed Association at Our Bold Vision.