3 Free eBooks - May 2015

So many beautifully illustrated books came to my attention in May.

Walton, Elijah; Bonney, Thomas George; Lowes, J. H. The Peaks and Valleys of the Alps. London: Sampson Low, Son and Marston. 1868.  Available from Internet Archive here. The creator of the water color drawings (Elijah Walton) got top billing on the title page of this book. The compositions always include details that make it easier to comprehend the enormity of the mountains. In this clip - it is soaring birds and some pine trees.

Poepping, Eduard Friedrich (editor); Endlicher, Istvan Laszlo (illustrator). Nova genera ac species plantarum, quas in regno Chilensi Peruviano et in terra Amazonica. Leipzig: Sumptibus F. Hofmeister. 1835. Multiple volumes available from Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3. I always find it difficult to resist botanical prints!

Stories from the Arabian Nights retold by Laurence Housman with drawings by Edmond Dulac. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1911. Available from Internet Archive here along with many other books illustrated by Edmond Dulac.

3 Free eBooks - April 2015

It seemed harder than usual to pick my favorite 3 eBooks to highlight this month. The visuals in all of these are spectacular.

Tuck, Steven L. A History of Roman Art. Wiley Blackwell. 2015. Available on the Internet Archive here. I enjoyed this book - many of the pictures taken by the author - as a follow on to the Coursera course on Roman Architecture last year.

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York. 1987. I remembered a type to the Catskills several years ago….and several of the places depicted by these artists. I realize now that I learned a lot about composition of landscape photographs from the Hudson River School artists.

Godman, Frederick Ducane; Salvin, Osbert. Insecta. 1901. I enjoyed the electronic version of the Biologia Centrali-Americana made available in the Smithsonian. The digitization project it not complete but I looked particularly at the Lepidoptera (butterflies) volumes (Rhopalocera and Heterocera) and enjoyed the color and variety of butterflies as of 1901. How many of them still exist. There has been a lot of habitat change in the past 114 years.

Ten Little Celebrations - March 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are my top 10 for March 2015.

Snow Day. It was pretty…and I enjoyed it - but I was ready for it to be the last one of this season.

A Muddy Hike. Who knew it would feel go to be outdoors on a cold cloudy day - squishing through the mud to find animal tracks. It felt good to get out of the classroom.

A March Day. It seemed like there have not been very many of the sunny, breezy, warmer days yet this year but there was one - and I celebrated it between the recurring waves of cold weather.

Fungi of Belmont. The snow had just melted and the jelly fungi were making fruiting bodies - a first bit a spring color to celebrate.

Magnolia puzzle. It is sometimes challenging to identify something with just dead leaves from last season and buds….I am planning some hikes to watch the trees flower this spring to make the final ID.

Brookside on the edge of spring. There was not a lot blooming last weekend ---- but there was a hint of the season. It will be worth a weekly trek to celebrate new flowers.

New hiking boots. So comfy! They felt great as soon as I put them on. I have worn them on one hike already - just to confirm that they are ready for a day long hike. The old ones still have some life in them - but I’ll wear the new ones for the longer hikes.

Last class of the week. March has been a busy month for classes…sometimes 3 days a week. I generally like class - but I’m saturated and celebrating when the last one ends for the week.

A day at home. I celebrated that I had no reason to leave home on one of the icy days early in the month. It seemed like I had a commitment to be somewhere else every other day that week!

Mailing books. I celebrated mailing off books to family far away. It harkened back to when I was mailing off books frequently via paperbackswap and I enjoyed the trek to the post office with my packages.

A Grand Finale

I recently used up the 150 or so credits I had on paperbackswap. They has accumulated at a time when I was clearing out a lot of accumulated books. Over a year ago I decided I had more credits than I would every use so I started donating books to a local library and slowly started using credits. I got books that supported courses I was taking on Coursera or books for family/friends. But so much of my reading has moved to digital platforms that I was using the credits very slowly.

When paperbackswap decided to charge a small fee for swaps, I decided to use the bulk of my credits before the charge went into effect. About 50 credits were used for books for family. The other 100 were primarily in x categories:

• Nature related reference books (identification primarily)
• Audubon series on Wildlife Refuges (for vacation planning)
• Big Island of Hawaii books (to support a vacation we are planning)
• Coffee table books (lots of pictures)

What a treat to get all those packages in the mail within such a short period of time! Our mailbox frequently could not hold all that arrived on the peak days. Unwrapping the padded envelopes and boxes was like a recurring Christmas morning.

Now I am working my way through the giant pile. It is wonderful to have such beautiful books in the ‘to read’ pile. Some of the books I’ll keep for reference after I read them but more than half are going elsewhere. About 15 of them have already been passed along to other people.

This grand finale is pleasurable on a number of levels…good reads (choosing them, having then in a pile to choose from, reading them), giving then to others, and building up my reference library for Master Naturalist work.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - February 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations’ - as had been the usual for the past few months. Here are my top 10 for February 2015.

Zentangle® Class - There were 4 classes in the course and I got to three of them; there were 2 snow days so the class extended across 6 weeks rather than the 4 planned. And now I am hooked on Zentangles and do at least one each day because they make the day better.

A day in the 70s - I celebrated the warm days in Texas - knowing there would be none that warm in Maryland in February.

Snow - I do enjoy snow scenes (in Maryland) as long as I don’t have to drive until the roads are treated and plowed. It has been so cold that the snow has lingered for most of the month and I’ve enjoyed feeding the birds and watching it slowly melt in the sunshine.

Snowed in at home - There have been a few days when it was snowing hard enough that we didn’t get out at all --- and I celebrated the days warm at home. We had plenty of good food, a fire in the fireplace, and a movie to watch.

Piles of books - I ordered over 100 books via paperbackswap to use up most of my credits before mid-February and now I am savoring the piles. It is a lot like Christmas when they arrive in the mail and then I have lots to choose from for winter reading. Every time I see the stack - I celebrate all over again. I’ve read 6 so far so the pile will be around for a while.

Carrot cake - I couldn’t resist buying two slices in my Mother’s grocery store….and celebrated that they didn’t skimp on the spices. It was good carrot cake.

Sizzling apple pie - One of the Mexican food places I went to in Dallas served apple pie on a hot skillet with sizzling syrup and topped with cinnamon ice cream. Yum! It becomes my favorite place for dessert in Dallas.

Birds at Josey Ranch Lake - It is hard not to be joyous at the sight of birds and people in the park.

Beginning of Master Naturalist training - I celebrate the content - the intensity - the instructors - the students. Everything was even better than I anticipated….and I did more follow up studying than I thought I would do too.