Quote of the Day - 1/11/2012

To say nothing is out here is incorrect; to say the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stone and earth is closer to the truth. - William Least Heat-Moon

~~~~~

When we think of deserts, sand dunes are likely the first image we have…space and light…sand (a phase of stone turning to earth dust)…the blueness of the sky a welcome change from the mono-color of the sand.

Another image is of a lone saguaro cactus. I’ve made several trips to locations within the Sonoran desert (the saguaro’s desert) over the past year; while the saguaros don’t grow as closely as trees in deciduous forests, there are indeed forests of them. And there are lots of plants growing in the rocky soil around them. It would be hard to walk cross country and not be caught by the thorns almost all the vegetation seems to have. The vegetation creates a fortress for the land. There is a beauty in these places that hold their own before casual interlopers.

Do we look at land and see ‘nothing’ because it isn’t in a form we know how to exploit - to grow food, to generate energy? The desert is a place to recognize that too often we decide to change something before we understand it. 

Quote of the Day - 1/10/2012

Few plants evoke such nostalgia as the towering hollyhock.  A favorite since Shakespeare’s England, its stately spires of flowers inspire images of country gardens and cottages. - American Horticultural Society Practical Guides: Annuals & Biennials

~~~~~

Hollyhocks remind me of a great aunt. The image of the flowers growing in the bed to the side of her house surrounding the steps to the side door - which just about everyone used as the main door to the house - is so vivid even after more than 40 years. If I didn’t have that memory, would this quote resonate with me? Probably not.

Do you have a hollyhock memory or are there other flowers that always trigger nostalgic thoughts?

Or approaching from another perspective: think of people that were important to you as a child and into young adulthood. Is there a flower you associate with them? It seems so for me; I associate:

• One grandfather with cannas because he grew so many of them. They were planted to be visible from the road and often screened the vegetable garden that was just beyond. Progeny of those cannas grow in my parents’ garden today.
• One grandmother with roses because she helped me make bouquets of them from her yard to take to my elementary school teachers.
• The other grandmother with gladiolus because everyone cut the long spires from the garden to put under the picture of her as a teenager. She seemed to enjoy having the flowers in the house when she returned from a day at the office.
• The other grandfather with black walnuts - I know not a flower…but I’m counting it anyway - because there was a black walnut tree beside the garage where he had a workshop where all his grandchildren enjoyed small projects with him. 

Celebrating January 2012

What do you celebration in January? Here are some ideas:

• It's the beginning of the year. Celebrate by being awake in its first moments - wishing family and friends a 'Happy New Year!'
• Alternatively - go to bed at a normal time and get up to see the sunrise on the first day of the year to celebrate new beginnings. This year I was driving east between Texas and Maryland for that first dawn of the year. It was not a very photogenic sunrise but the one a few days later the sunrise was spectacular and I've attached a photo of it below.

• Snow is cause for celebration - even more so now that it does not seem to come as often. Change your schedule to avoid the travel/commute nightmare (i.e. take a vacation day, work at home) and simply enjoy the impromptu day that snow made different. I'll post my recipe for snow ice cream when the first significant snow comes to my area. Sometimes getting colder by eating snow ice cream is not my preference - so I keep hot chocolate and spiced tea on hand as well.
• Celebrate that the flurry of the winter holidays are over. The calm after all the activity is something to savor. Do it with a good book or a walk in a favorite favorite garden (bundled up if it is cold) or a quiet out-to-lunch with a friend.

Quote of the Day - 1/9/2012

Moonlight makes me think of people who are far away and also reminds me of things in the past - sad things, happy things, things that delight me - as though they had just happened. - The Pillow Book (Penguin Classics)

~~~~~

Last night the moon was shining through the sky light in the wee hours of the morning. It cast a bright pattern on the tile floor and my thoughts trailed to the past. Perhaps

• the silence or
• this time of year when family/friends have returned to their homes and work or
• the increasing gratitude I feel for every aspect of my life

enhanced the crystal clarity of those moments….in the absence of color our minds create it in our thoughts of other times.

Art in the Tucson Airport

Airports are usually hectic, stressful places. There is a lot of 'hurry up and wait' going on prior to finally getting on a plane. Our mental checklists for boarding pass, drivers license, easy off/on shoes, to check or not check luggage, food, etc. often consume our attention.  

There comes a point that the checklists are satisfied as well as they can be; rather than diving immediately into escapist reading - take a deep relaxing breath and a look around. I'm highlighting what I saw in the Tucson airport recently in the pictures below...but just about every airport has art. Does it ameliorate the stress and chaos of the airport? Maybe not completely but is certainly is a step in the right direction and I appreciate the airport authorities that have made it available.

 

The picture above is the front and back of a shirt in a zippered suitcase sculpture -  tucked under an escalator near the baggage claim area. I almost walked past it because the lighting is so subtle and its shape fit into the slope of the escalator. After a few steps past, it registered that it was something a bit different and I went back to look at both sides of it.

The group of pictures below shows glass, stone, and wood grain close ups.The top two are simply panels on walls. They are practical art. I've always liked looking at wood grain because of the suggestions the grain makes for other images. Iridescent glass tiles appeal to me too. Their color changes with different lighting. Photographing them from different angles provided some artsy moments for me! The pictures at the bottom were from a mual made of polish shells, stones and glass. The overall mural depicted elements of Arizona (birds, fossils, cactus, etc.); I enjoyed the whole but chose my favorite parts to photograph.

Gleanings for the Week Ending January 7, 2012

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week:

• 26 Abolished National Parks - Sometimes they don’t go on forever…for many reasons. The one I’m most aware of is Platt National Park and it is still part of the system but no longer by that name.
• 2011 National Park ‘By the Numbers’ articles - This is a summary of the 2011 articles with statistical tidbits about selected National Parks. For example - which National Park is larger than Yellowstone?
• Stalk-eyed Flies in Kenya - The pictures say it all. This fly could substitute for an alien in a science fiction story.
• Top 10 states ravaged by extreme weather in 2011 - These all were in the news prominently when they happened…but seeing them all in one article is a good review of the year.
• Cool Whip - It’s got a rich history. I haven’t used it any time recently and, after reading this article….never again.
• 10 Gluten Free Grains - A quick description of amaranth, buckwheat, corn, millet, oats, quinoa, rice, sorghum, teff, and wild rice. How many have your tried?
• Patagonia Pictures - A posting on ShutterSalt of wild places in Patagoinia
• Examples of Black and White Portraits - Color is not always better….take a look at these examples from ShutterSalt
• New trends for 2012 (compilation) - Hmmm…lots of people making lists at the beginning of the year. This is a compilation from various sources.
• 5 Baby Animal Photos - Squirrels, bear, raccoon, bobcat, bison.

Quote of the Day - 1/8/2012

When we were young, we thought we’d build a house

And happiness would happen in. By middle age, we’d feel

Secure, propped by old loves, certainties. All we’ve learned,

And that with luck, is to invent ourselves each day.

Nadya Aisenberg in Leaving Eden: Poems  (1995)

~~~~~

Have you reached the realization that “All we’ve learned is to invent ourselves each day?” As children we knew it and, unburdened by a lot of remembered experience, just did it. It is something we rediscover at different points in our lives; it is a positive response in times of transition or change.

Part of growing up included the invention of expectations of what would make us happy. They focused our early adult lives. Sometimes that focus was about a career or a relationship or the accumulation of things. Having enough money almost always was a component. We figured that happiness would be the result.

For me - the life expectations invented in my teen years included college, career, and marriage. The momentum carried me through my mid-20s with almost no tweaking. I was happy during that period but still believed ‘happiness would happen in’ because that was what my experience seemed to be. Then I decided to change plans for graduate school and focus more on career; it was a significant shift in thinking of life goals from academic/theoretical to business/tactical…one of those inflection points of life. Again life proceeded with that focus for years and happiness still seemed to ‘happen in.’ At some point along the line, I began to realize that my tendency toward optimism and trust made it easy for me to be happy. Happiness did not ‘happen in’ because others could view the same situation and not be happy. It was my choice to respond with happiness in the present rather than regretting something in the past or being so focused on the future to not enjoy the now.

As we truly mature we realize that happiness is not something that just happens accidently. In this case I mean something different than physical maturity. Maturity is the knowledge, and sometimes wisdom, that individuals achieve easily in their 20s or beyond while others never quite achieve. This kind of maturity is not tightly linked to an individual’s age. It can be linked to parenthood because that situation often prompts heighted caring for someone outside of ourselves (a child) and that motivates us to be better people than we were before. The key is to realize that our response to our life’s situation is what is important. Whether or not you are happy is your choice; it cannot be provided by someone else.

Happiness is the response we choose to the daily invention of our lives.

Favorite Things to do on a Lazy Winter's Day at Home

It's a January afternoon. The Christmas decorations are put away, the kitchen is cleaned up from lunch, and the laundry for the week is almost done. This is a lull after the flurry of winter holiday activities....what would you do with 4 hours available? My list is below (not in priority order):

1. Take a nap....for about 30 minutes.
2. Get outdoors. The day was unseasonably warm but even had it been snowing, getting outdoors would have been on the list.
3. Read a good book by a window. Natural light always seems better...and I enjoy the view from the window too.
4. Cook. There has been a tremendous amount of good food recently so I'm enjoying getting back to the more normal foods like a wedge of pomegranate while I let soup simmer.
5. Plan the spring garden. I am not real serious about this yet...for now I'm just looking at catalogs that came in the mail and browsing web sites.

Quote of the Day - 1/7/2012

It is a mark of success in a park, public lobby or a porch when people can come there and fall asleep. - Christopher Alexander in A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Cess Center for Environmental)

~~~~~

This quote is from the mid-1970s. Much has changed since that time. In 2012, when an adult is asleep in a public place, the linkage is often to ‘homeless’ rather than a ‘mark of success’ for the space. Public places are intended for wakeful activity rather than sleep.

But - the underlying meaning of the quote has less to do with sleep than with people feeling secure in the place…that bad things will not happen there…that it is OK to relax and not be on alert. Even in the best of our public spaces, the design of the space is not enough. For over 10 years, the news media and our education system has trained us to a heightened vigilance - particularly in public places; we are often warned about our technical gadgets that draw our attention, sometimes to the exclusion of our surroundings.

Think about a public place you deem to be ‘successful’ - and what are the main elements that cause it to be that way.

The Smithsonian Mall in Washington DC is my example. The open area of the mall is heavily used throughout the year; there are always people about. The picture below was taken on a Sunday in November 2011 - not the peak of tourist season. The Park Police walk the fine line between intrusion and security. Many of the people are there as individuals - enjoying the ‘alone but not too alone’ of a public place. Some are passing through - walking between museums. Some are walking or jogging…not there for the museums at all. It is not a place a go frequently, but when I do it is enjoyable and I don’t feel the need to rush through it to be safe.

That doesn’t mean that I would sleep there.

What is Excellence?

The word ‘excellence’ is so overused that it has taken on a glitz that it didn’t have 20 years ago. It implies over to top quality…lots of high gloss polish…best of the best.

Is that really it?

I’d rather think about excellence as being:

Exactly fitting a need or creating a whole new way of achieving something…

Without waste…

Aesthetically pleasing…

Non-toxic now and in the future…

Durable…

Relationship building or sustaining.

How do you define excellence?

Quote of the Day - 1/6/2012

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.

The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:

And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.

A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.

Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

-- Conrad Aiken in The House of Dust (from Amazon) or (from Gutenberg)

~~~~~

Vivid descriptions of nature transcend time. The lines above were written in 1917 but still can be easily visualized almost 100 years later. The visions of silhouettes of trees against a bright but dimming sky…lights coming on in houses then, much later, winking out…the sound of sirens carrying so well on cold winter nights. Are the ‘pale slate-grey clouds’ the milky way or clouds in the west seen from the light of a full moon?

When these lines were written, the First World War was occurring and the world order was changing very rapidly. Monarchies that had been dominant for centuries were falling or at least changing to a constitutional system. The Industrial Revolution had started the trend away from agriculture as the majority occupation. Cities were growing rapidly. Everyone thought it was the war to end wars. We now know that it wasn’t and cannot imagine that anyone thought it could be true.

Some other parts of the poem may date it, but these first lines do not. Nature is a survivor to cherish.

Recipe of the Week: Winter Foods

What are your favorite cold weather foods? For many of us, it is ‘anything hot’ because we want to feel warmed from the inside out. Another criteria could be foods that preserve well into the winter or are seasonal in the winter. Here is the list I’ve created on a cold January day in Maryland:

• Soup. I did a blog post about homemade soup in early December…still is good in January. Today I enjoyed soup made by stir-frying mushrooms and celery with seasonings, adding some homemade spaghetti sauce with some water to make the broth, pouring it over freshly chopped cilantro, and topping it off with a few croutons. It was a great cold weather meal-in-a-bowl.

• Squash. The winter squashes (butternut or acorn) add a wonderful flavor as a side dish, a dessert, or pureed for a soup. I like their flavor and their color. The outdoors in winter time often seems less colorful than any other time of year so having food that has more color is very welcome. I tend to cook these squash whole in the oven so that they are soft by the time I cut them to scoop out the seeds. I like them with a dab of butter or sour cream as a side dish; with maple syrup and chopped pecans for dessert; with tomatoes and green chilies for a soup.  

Tea/Mulled Cider/Hot chocolate. I usually do not drink hot beverages in warm weather…but switch to them when the weather is cold outside. Teas and tisanes come in such a wide variety of flavors and scents; there is one to fit just about any mood. Sweetener may be required but I’ve found that drinking them without any additions allows me to appreciate the subtle flavor of the tea itself. Adding milk or cream brings back memories of childhood when my tea was as much milk as tea; it’s a pleasant trigger on a cold day indoors. Mulled cider or wassail (with citrus and cranberry) is very sweet; I love the smell too; it is very enjoyable in small amounts so I only make if for groups so that others will help drink it. I’ve tried the powdered versions and didn’t like it enough to buy the packets again. Hot chocolate comes in so many formulations; I enjoy the darker chocolate with less (or no) milk.

• Chili. Everyone should develop a favorite chili recipe. Mine is a Texas style with beef, beans, tomato sauce…and spices sometimes a little toward the hot side. We eat it like soup, in tortillas, as a casserole topped with cornbread, and over Fritos (how 60ish!). It is easy to make a lot at one time and then freeze half before we get tired of it; it will be a quick meal in a couple of weeks.

 What are your favorite foods this January?

Quote of the Day - 1/5/2012

One of the earliest known greenhouses was built around 30 AD for the Roman Emperor Tiberius, to satisfy his craving for cucumbers out of season.  Glass had not yet been invented, and the greenhouse, called a specularium, was painstakingly fabricated from small translucent sheets of mica. - Gardening Under Glass and Lights: The American Horticultural Society Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening

~~~~~

How fortunate we are to live at a time that many fresh fruits and vegetables are available all year round!

• Greenhouses are one way that is achieved - a technique attempted with varying degrees of success for over 2000 years with the first documented case noted in the quote above; there were probably even earlier attempts that we just don’t know about.
• Improved transportation is another; the produce aisle of our grocery often contains items that were grown in another hemisphere.
• Our houses are more evenly heated than in earlier times making is possible to have indoor gardens in winter; I only go as far as sprouts but with a little effort to do more.
• We have improved ways to store produce as well - temperature controlled, atmospheric (gases), coatings, bactericides.

There are still seasonal fruits and vegetables. Pomegranates are what I think about first. They are the ultimate December fruit for me….so beautiful with their deep red coated seeds. They really are not available in my grocery except for November-January. Strawberries are available all year round but are less expensive when they are in late May/early June for my area; years ago there was a local ‘pick your own’ strawberries farm that my family enjoyed annually (unfortunately, plant problems followed by a housing development has now overcome that tradition); somehow strawberries always seem to taste better during that ‘in season’ time.

What is your favorite out-of-season veggie or fruit this week? With it below 20 degrees F for the past few days - I’m enjoying little cherry tomatoes. 

Desert Botanical Images: Spines

Spines are a dominant feature of desert plants. They appear in a myriad of colors and shapes. The images below were captured on a recent trip to Arizona so these colors are the ones that show in winter.

Quote of the Day - 1/4/2012

Over our heads

Through the night

The stars descend,

Sacred threads of evening.

-        Marjorie Agosin in Rain in the Desert / Lluvia en el Desierto

~~~~~

There are so many nights in the cold of winter that are clear. I glance up at the sky as I am hurrying to the mailbox or into a store. Standing a while to just look is not comfortable.

Sometimes, though, the sky is so dark that a narrow rectangle of stars is visible through the skylight of my house and I’m always thrilled to see them in comfort while being frustrated that I cannot see more. It is a reminder of the vastness of this place in which our world rotates on its axis and around the sun…how much has been derived from observations of the stars that are the ‘sacred threads of evening.’

Do you think a higher percentage of the population were star watchers in ancient times than today? It seems that might be true because they were outdoors more than we are now and because they understood less. The world was a more frightening place to them because it was unexplained. Now our biggest fears are about things we ourselves have created. Star watching and seeking to know more about them seems so benign in comparison.

Packing your ‘Look’ for a Road Trip

Now that I have returned from an extended road trip - I have some notes about what worked well for me. It is easy to expand to taking the ‘kitchen sink’ when you have a whole car to hold it. Here are my top 10 notes about how to pack items that sustain your ‘look’ on a road trip:

1. Pack in several small suitcases or tote bags rather than having all clothes in one large suitcase.
2. Know what you will do with clothes after you have worn them. A laundry bag in the trunk (or multiple laundry bags pushed to the very back) can work quite well.
3. Pick your main three colors so mix and match is possible. In my case - I always go with black, red, and turquoise….with black being the color for most of my slacks/pants/jeans.
4. Choose layers sufficient for the coldest place you will be. In December, it was not ‘hot’ anywhere I went so the layering in addition to my regular indoor clothing included fleece/sweatshirt and a coat with gloves in the pocket!
5. Pack shoes in their own bag (best if the bag is unique and recognizable for each; plastic bags from stores work well). These bags can be tucked into a small space in the trunk or even partially under a seat.
6. For items that need to be on a hanger, I prefer to lay them on top of the items in the trunk. Hanging them in the car often reduces visibility…not good while on a road trip.
7. For cosmetics, I generally round up on a road trip. This might be a reaction to the rounding down when traveling by plane (and not checking luggage). At least I use multiple ziplocks so it is easy to get out just the items I need. If you are going to be a guest in someone’s home and sharing a bathroom, it is often a good idea to take a tray or bowl to keep you toiletries contained and easily transported back to the guest room rather than packing them back into the suitcase each day.
8. A small suitcase for toiletries, underwear, socks and one/two days of clothes worked well for me so I could leave the bulk off my clothes in the trunk while I was actually in transit.
9. Plan to do laundry for road trips of more than 10 days.
10. Find a small container for jewelry that has a good lid and is just big enough for what you want to take. My favorite is a heart shaped tin that I got as a valentine’s present several years ago. It is just the right size for earrings and rings. Bracelets can often fend for themselves in the suitcase.

Quote of the Day - 1/3/2012

Nature uses as little as possible of anything. - Johannes Kepler

~~~~~

Nature is a great teacher. The tangent I want to take from the quote today is not so much the first order lesson of biology…it is the translation of what we observe in nature to the way we live our own lives. The beginning of the year prompts thinking of changes we want to make and the theme for me this year is what I take from this quote.

‘Use as little as possible’ is a great mantra. I want to de-clutter all aspects of my life. Clutter gets in the way of what is truly important. It means that I need to better differentiate between what is essential and what is fluff.  The fluff needs to be used up, reused, donated, or recycled. Over the past few years I have focused on reducing the amount of trash the household produces but there has been a slow accumulation of things - older clothes, furniture that is no longer needed, etc. It needs to find a new home in 2012 enabling my life to be honed in the same way nature hones biologic systems.

Quote of the Day 1/2/2012

Fashion wears out more apparel than the man. – Shakespeare

~~~~~

How much attention do you pay to fashion? The diversity of attire in the workplace and public places is so broad that ‘fashion’ comes close to ‘individual choice’ now - probably more so than any other time in history. I certainly haven’t thrown or given any clothing way because it was ‘out of fashion;’ I either wear it out or give it away because I am simply bored with it (or it doesn’t fit me anymore).

Comfort is more important to me than high fashion. Maybe that is true for a lot of people.

• There used to be outfits in my wardrobe that I thought only looked good with shoes with a lot of heel. I’ve gotten rid of those outfits (and the heels) or decided that I don’t need the height as much as I thought I did. There are still a lot of very high heels in the stores but I don’t see them worn all that frequently. My guess is that people that wear the very high heels, do so for relatively short periods of time and not when they are going to have to walk for any distance.
• I used to wear dressy sandals with lots of straps. Now I wear flip flops or thick soled walking sandals. I notice a lot of other people wearing the same type shoes. Maybe there will not be as many feet that look misshaped by years of contorting shoes in the years ahead.
• If clothes don’t fit me well (too tight, too big, hangs funny), I give them away.

There were probably times in my life where the Shakespearean quote was true for me, but not now. Is it true for you? 

Road Trip in December - Texas

The road trip across Texas was a long one - from Texarkana to El Paso with a side trip toward Oklahoma City from Dallas. It was easy to see the vegetation trend across the state from forest to mixed forest/grasslands to grass lands then sand dunes/desert to rocky desert. There are rivers to cross too: the Red, the Trinity, the Brazos, the Rio Grande. The terrain goes from hilly to flat to a climb up onto the Edwards Plateau to flat again then the mountains.

I wrote about the rest stop mosaics in west Texas in an earlier blog. The rest stops in Texas were all clean and well maintained; the ones in west Texas were the same temperature as outside so were very cold when I passed through. There was at least one where the construction of a new facility was already started, presumably one that will be heated and cooled. 

The pictures below are from the welcome station between Texas and Oklahoma on the Red River (two on left), the wind farms that seem to be more numerous every time I come through west Texas (lower right) and then the mountain ranges that appeared on the horizon to break the monotony of the sand dune part of the state.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 31, 2011

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week:

To those who are lonely at Christmas - a poem from Joanna Paterson....it applies to other special holidays as well.

Birding in the National Parks - National Parks Traveler summary of articles on this topic during 2011

eBird - A site hosted by the Cornell Ornithology Department and National Audubon Society. I found it via a ‘Birding in the National Parks’ article. The site is well organized and useful for serious birders as well as more casual observers.

Holiday Guide to Ruse and Recycling - Now that the holiday is waning….time to clean up.

Was 2011 the Year of the Mega-Fire? - A retrospective the large fires of 2011 and a look at the future potential for mega-fires

7 Actions for Becoming More Like Yourself in 2012 - Food for thought as you plan your 2012

Visualizing Asian Energy Consumption - Good graphics showing worldwide energy consumption.

Traveler’s Checklists for 11 National Parks - If you are planning a trip to Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, Kings Mountain National Military Park, Crater Lake National Park, Fort Sumter National Monument, Zion National Park, Wright Brothers National Memorial, Gettysburg National Military Park, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Petersburg National Battlefield or Jefferson National Expansion Memorial…these can help you get the most from you visit.

Circumnavigating the Svalbard Archipelago in the Arctic Circle - Longish post with lots of pictures and associated commentary