3 Free eBooks – October 2015

It was really hard to pick just three this month. So – two of the three are actually series. The Internet Archive’s new interface is a little different from the old one. I like to browse through (or read) the books online; clicking on the magnifying glass symbol on the far right of the display results in the book displayed in 2 page mode…and a page turn is just a click away.

Sharp, Helen. Water-color sketches of plants of North America and Europe, 1888 June – 1910 September. The sketches are packaged into 17 volumes and available on the Internet Archive here. I clipped a portion of the goldenrod page to include in this post. I recognized many of the plants. Evidently the sketches were used for teaching purposes.

Rattenbury, John. Living Architecture – Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin Architects. California: Pomegranate Communications, Inc. 2000. Available from the Internet Archive here. What an architectural feast! I picked the one I clipped because of the turquoise cladding at the top. Somehow that color is one of my favorites when the landscape is full of more muted colors.

Peterson, Bryan. Understanding Close-Up Photography. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. 2009. Available from Internet Archive here. Photography is something I’ve come to enjoy a lot in recent years…and classes and books on the topic add to the techniques and compositions I want to attempt! It turns out that the Folkscanomy Photography collection available via the Internet Archive has quite a few books; take a look at the book covers here and simply select one to look at the book in regular Internet Archive format.

3 Free eBooks – September 2015

A feast for the eyes – the natural world and the world of houses that are homes – that is the abstract of the 3 Free eBooks I’ve picked this month.

Porter, Eliot. Intimate Landscapes. New York: E.P. Dutton. 1979. Available from the Internet Archive here. This book gave me a lot of ideas about some different types of photography…still nature photography but with the idea of smaller settings that wide open landscapes, but more than macro images of flowers. Porter was interested in the nexus of nature photography and art in all his books but this one seemed more focused on that in-between perspective on the natural world. I had seen several of his books in physical form; this is the only one I have found available electronically.

Yagi, Koji with photography by Rho Hata. Japanese Touch for Your Home. Kodansha International. 1982. Available on the Internet Archive here. I like the lack of clutter in Japanese homes. I was also intrigued by the window coverings (some examples show in the clipped image from the book.

Baker, William T. New Classicists. The Images Publishing Group. 2004. Available from the Internet Archive here. Some beautiful, classical looking houses from Atlanta, GA. This is a book full of inspiration if you are remodeling…or looking for a new house…even if most of us can only afford smaller versions of these high end homes.

Monticello - June 2015

I’ve made periodic trips to Monticello since 1983 when I moved to the east coast from Texas. There always seems to be something new to learn at Thomas Jefferson’s home. We arrived early for the first Behind the Scenes House Tour and Day Pass - with reservations made ahead of time. There was a lotus blooming in the courtyard of the visitor center; I had not even remembered a pool there from my previous visit so it was a pleasant surprise.

Later in the day it would have been impossible to get pictures of the house without people milling around. Did you know that Monticello has three floors above the basement? Jefferson intended for it to look like a single story. Here’s how he got light to the 3 floors. Look at the stacked windows on the front of the house. The windows with the shutters are the first floor. The windows with a white frame and no shutters are the second floor. They fill the lower half of the second floor walls. The third floor has sloped ceilings and skylights!

The viewshed for Monticello is somewhat changed from Jefferson’s day. There were farms where the trees had been cleared within the viewshed during his time but probably not as many clusters of other buildings. From the house it is easy to position yourself where trees block the view.

No pictures are allowed inside the house so I don’t have a picture of the staples that were used to support the alcove beds. I’d not noticed how the beds were supported on previous visits. Jefferson’s bed was open on both sides (and he had a clock positioned on the wall at his feet…he got up when it was light enough for him to see the clock). The other alcove beds had walls on three sides; Dolly Madison visited with her husband frequently and did not like them (probably because she was on the side to the wall!).

The kitchen has separate ‘burners’ for cooking at different temperatures. But they are not vented. The kitchen would have been hot, sooty, and smoky.

The back of Monticello includes the dome. More of the house is visible these days because a giant tulip poplar planted by Jefferson had to be cut down in the 1990s. The inside of the dome room is being monitored closely these days because there are cracks that appeared in the plaster after an earthquake…and they are getting larger.

After Jefferson’s presidency there were quite a few people living at Monticello: his daughter and her many children and his sister….as well as other relatives and friends. They had to have quite a garden to feed everyone.

The view from Mulberry Row - the series of cabins for the slaves that worked in or near the house - may have included more trees that it does now. The kitchen is to the right of this view…the south pavilion above on the far left.

My favorite photograph of the house during this visit was through the flowers.

I was surprised at the number of butterflies we saw in the short walk around the grounds.

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Instead of riding the bus down the hill to the visitor center we walked past the cemetary and through the forest.

And then it was time to splurge for lunch at Michie Tavern. The food is good….but I’m not as fond of ‘all you can eat’ places as I once was. In this case - it is tradition. I think we have gone to Michie Tavern for lunch every time I’ve visited Monticello!

Maymont - June 2015

The golden age Maymont mansion in Richmond is well worth touring. I knew I wanted to see it when we walked the grounds and gardens back in April - on a Monday when the house is not open for tours (see my post here). I was very pleased to be back in Richmond in June and on a Saturday.

The basement area is set up as the waiting area for the tour and has displays of how the ‘upstairs’ of the mansion was supported. The maids’ room (used for sleeping and sewing/mending) had more outside light than I expected. The walls of the room are well back from the edge of the foundation for the upper floors; the windows are normal sized and the window wells in the external wall are large enough to lessen the ‘below ground’ feeling a basement usually has.

The tour allows pictures inside the house. The furnishings were left to the city of Richmond along with the house so the furniture that was in the house when Mrs. Dooley died in 1925 is still there. Mr. Dooley’s library/office has dark woods and large windows….and a winged lion chair.

Across the entry hall - Mrs. Dooley’s front parlor also has lots of large windows and a very fancy ceiling: pink and blue - roses and clouds. There is a lot of gold leaf too.

In the entry hall there is a fireplace with a comfortable chair….a dog sculpture…and a teapot on a hook.

The staircase to the upper floor has a large Tiffany window and a stuffed peacock.

All the windows have stained glass transoms at the top. They are different for each room.

One of my favorite rooms was a small parlor upstairs used as a breakfast room. The China on the table was perfect for a summer morning. One of the chairs had a water lily inlay - that included a dragonfly. The poppy pattern of China in the cabinet along one of the walls….and the cabinet itself...added to the ambience of the room.

In the niece's bedroom a tea set was displayed on a small table. There was a lot of trade with Asia during the late 1800s when the house was built.

Probably the most famous room of the house is Mrs. Dooley’s bedroom. The swan theme is everywhere: the bed, a rocking chair, the painting over the fireplace. Another unusual item in the room: the dressing table and chair are supported by narwhal tusks.

Out on the front porch after the tour I noticed the mosaic on the floor.

There is a small garden with sculpture and columns with a very large magnolia in the background.

As we walked back toward our car we walked through the herb garden. The bees were enjoying the beebalm and cone flowers.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 10, 2015

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Birding in the National Parks: Return of the Snowy Owls - It looks like this winter will be another one for seeing Snowy Owls in the northern states of the US! There were some sightings in Maryland last winter so I am hoping…

Did Venus Once Have Oceans of Liquid Carbon Dioxide? - Maybe the geological features on Venus (rift valleys, river-like beds, and plains) were may be liquid carbon dioxide rather than water like they are on Earth.

From the Feature Well - This is the summary of 2014 special issues from The Scientist. Looking back at them provides a good review of Biology issues and progress for the year.

The "Rule of 50" Helps You Know When to Give Up on a Book - How do you know when to quit reading a book? Usually I decide via scanning before I every start reading rather than determining ahead of time a number of pages I’ll read before deciding. I can’t remember the last time my scanning failed.

Monarch Butterflies May Soon Be an Endangered Species - The population has declined by 90% since the 1990s. It’s very sad. The agricultural changes in the mid-90s killed the milkweed (food plant for the caterpillars) at the edges of fields. Now there needs to be a concerted effort to increase the availability of milkweed.

The Most Amazing Meteorological and Space Observatories Ever Built - Beautiful and functional architecture from around the world.

Top Planning Trends – 2014 - A look at traffic data on Planetizen…popular tags overall and popular posts for each state. The most popular post for Maryland was about high-rise, mixed-use suburban developments.

Significant link between daily physical activity, vascular health - These type of studies come out frequently…with some nuance defined a little better than before. Hopefully no one is waiting for another study to transition some sedentary to active time every day. Now that I think about it - do these studies prompt people to become more active?

A Look Back at Our Most Popular Photos of 2014 - From the National Wildlife Federation. The very first one (a snowy owl) caught my attention.

National Park Service Launches Website Honoring 22 World Heritage Sites in the United States - Did you know that there are 22 World Heritage Sites (a UN designation) are in the US?  Most of them are National Parks…but now all. The list can be found here.