Fall Yard Work

There are a lot of fall yard chores! I’ve been trying to do a little on every sunny day recently.

Raking leaves always takes a lot more energy than I remember. Our trees are 20+ years old and big enough to have a lot of leaves….too many to leave on the grass since there are enough of them to form thick mats and kill the grass. Actually – the raking is easier than carting them back to the forest where they can decay into thick mulch on the forest floor. The yard crews use high powered mowers to blow them into piles and into the forest but the noise is overwhelming; for me it negates the pleasure of being outdoors on an autumn day…so I rake.

Cleaning up the deck takes some time too. This year, I am cutting the dried summer stalks and transplanting day lily bulbs (taking them from the beds where the deer always find the buds before they can bloom) into pots and planting native flower seeds (False Indigo and Joe-Pye Weed) that require overwintering before they can sprout. Our deck should attract even more butterflies and hummingbirds next summer! I’ve also harvested the celery stems and leaves that rooted last spring from the base of purchased (organic) celery. I’ve already enjoyed them in soup!

My husband will do a final mowing of the yard sometime this week to mulch the leaves still on the yard…and we’ll declare the fall yard work ‘done’ – ready for winter.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 21, 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.

Poland's Mysterious "Crooked Forest" Populated with 400 Bent Pine Trees – Trees are remarkably resilient. Whatever caused these trees to be bent near the base…and then continue growing upright…they are survivors!

Why do we still not know what’s inside the pyramids? – I usually notice stories about Ancient Egypt that come in on my newsfeeds but my awareness is even higher right now because of the Ancient Egypt course I am taking on Coursera.

6 Homemade Vegan Sauces and Condiments that are better than Store-bought – I’m trying the recipe for peanut sauce after I finish the store bought bottle I have in my refrigerator!

The digital revolution in higher education has already happened. No one noticed. – Another dimension of higher education not mentioned in this thoughtful piece is the continuing education that many post-career individuals seek. I recently looked at face to face classes offered in my area of Maryland and decided that the selection available from Coursera and other online providers was much greater (and the price was right too). Another case where the digital revolution in higher education has already happened.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Big Bend National Park – Part 2  - A continuation of an article I included in my October 31 gleanings….good info for planning a trip there.

Tangy and Tasty Fresh Cranberry Recipes – My ‘new’ recipe to try for Thanksgiving is the Cranberry-Carrot cake. I am not going to put icing on it….eat it more like muffins for Thanksgiving Day brunch. Don't forget Cranberry Orange Relish either! Wegmans recipe is here.

Move Over, Turkey: Meet the World’s Other Bald, Be-wattled Birds – Thinking of turkey this week….here are some other birds that have similar heads. They all look odd to me!

Field Drain Tile and the “Re-Eutrophication” of Lake Erie – Why the algal blooms have worsened in recent years after improving for the prior 15 years.

Elegant Greenhouse Photos Mimic the Ethereality of Oil Paintings – Hmm…the textured glass reminded me of a shower door. This might turn into a winter photography experiment!

Incan Mummy Genome Sequenced – The mitochondrial DNA analysis was the first completed and placed the boy in a very small subgroup – only 4 other known individuals. Other genetic analyses of the 500 year old mummy of a 7-year-old boy are ongoing.

Our Sycamore

We have a sycamore tree behind our house. It planted itself near the base of the stairs down to the lawn and I have simply let it grow…trimming off the lower branches so that it would not get in the way when we mow the grass. It will eventually provide shade for the three stories of the house on the west side; it’s tall enough now to shade the first two stories. This week I noticed how thick the fallen leaves were.

Sycamore leaves take a lot longer to degrade than maple or tulip polar – the other trees that drop leaves into our back yard – and they are much larger too. They keep growing from the time they unfold in the spring to the time they fall. They are often bigger than a dinner plate! They have to be raked or they will smother the grass. I got started on it this past weekend but it is quite a job.

The leaves sometimes fall when they are still a bit green…or mottled yellow and brown…or like cracked leather. I liked the color of the mottled leaf still on the tree with the sun shining through it. This is about as pretty as the sycamore leaves get in the fall.

The tree has bark that peels away and leaves the top part of the tree white. It is an easy tree to recognize in the winter

Last year our tree had one seed ball (that I saw); it is showing is maturity this year with many seed balls.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 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.

The People and Pueblos of Wupatki National Monument in the 1930s and 40s – The article includes pictures from just after the area became a National Monument. I enjoyed my visit to the monument last winter (see post with photographs here...and the picture below).

A Chart That Shows Where Every Country in the World Gets Its Food – North America is not very self-sufficient! About 90% of our calories come from somewhere else than North America. (Check here for the ‘Degree of Dependence per Country’ table.)

A neuroscience researcher reveals 4 rituals that will make you a happier person – A summary of research findings that can be applied…from Business Insider.

15 Intimate Portraits of Lions – Lions in the wild….pictures from National Geographic.

Aging Workers, New Technology – I was disappointed in the article. The examples seemed lame. For example – better floor mats for jobs that require a lot of standing are good for younger people too! Making technology more intuitive for everyone is important ---- smaller is not always better, and that is true for more than just gaining workers.

How many trees are there in the world? – From Scientific American – the answer is over 3 trillion but we are losing 10 million trees per year.

Martian Life Could Be a Biotech Bonanza – After the announcement of briny water on the Martian surface….what might that mean for the type of life we might find on Mars.

Easy Pumpkin Muffins – I love pumpkin muffins. The recipe I usually use is one that originally was for sweet potato muffins – so if pumpkin is in short supply this year (which I just heard that it might be by Thanksgiving) – substitute cooked sweet potatoes (not the canned ones….the ones from the produce department…bake them) for the pumpkin. Butternut squash will work too.

How to clean and airliner – Maybe I didn’t really want to know this. I’m carrying hand sanitizer from now on when I fly.

Solar-Plus-Battery Systems Can Insulate Customers from Increasing Prices – Solar panels – battery storage – the grid….some ideas about what the future relationship could be.

Learning Log – October 2015

The fall is the time of year still feels like the beginning of the schools year – a time to start learning something new – even though I have been out of school for more than 30 years! The fall is no exception.

Coursera is a mainstay for me although I’ve made a rule for myself to never have more than two courses going concurrently. Right now, I’m working on week 5 of 6 in a Meditation course (University of Virginia). The material is so rich that I find myself overwhelmed at times; it takes work to get through all the material for week in 7 days! One way to evaluate a course is to ask myself what I do differently after taking the course. For this one, the change is happening while I am taking the course: a daily meditation practice.

I finished the first week of the Forests course (University of Wisconsin-Madison) on the very last day of September. There are three more weeks to go. It has gotten off to a good start. The instructor has included a lot of context around the topic of forests – like why we have seasons, wind and current patterns, etc. I’m looking forward to the rest of the course.

About the time I finish up the Meditation and Forests courses, a new one on Ancient Egypt will start near the end of October.

Audio Book. I checked out Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness for Begginners from my local library (online) to listen to in conjuction with the Coursera course on Meditation. About half of it was guided meditation practice which meshed well with the practices from the Coursera course.

Creative Live was the source for several classes in September. My husband purchased The Art of Flower Photography and we watched the entire thing once; we’ll probably review some modules again after we have done some more experimenting. We ordered a white umbrella to diffuse to bright light on outdoor flowers and I made a baffle out of a white plastic shopping bag to make a white background for a flower.

I also watched some of the Creative Life Photo Week. I learned just enough to be dangerous from a 1.5 hour module on Photoshop Elements!

Learning by doing. September was a month to refresh myself on the general content of hikes with elementary school aged field trips since the fall hikes peak in October. The first one was on Oct. 1 – and it rained for most of the hike with first graders. It was an experience that the students, chaperones, and volunteer naturalists (like me) will remember – mostly positive. I think I learn something new on every hike I do with children.

Both my husband and I are renewing our knowledge of car camping. Years ago we camped to save money as we traveled. Now we are camping as part of his astronomy hobby – so we can stay out all night at astronomy gatherings but still be comfortable for when we are not observing. We had sold or given away all our gear so are busy figuring out what would work best for us now --- and our first nights out will be in October.

Learning Log - September 2015

I’ve pasted monthly about the classes I was enjoying on Coursera for the past year or so.Last month I expanded to ‘online classes’ since I enjoyed a Creative Live photography class. This month I’m expanding beyond that to the idea of a ‘learning log’ post each month as a way to document my learning paths; it’s an acknowledgement that my learning paths are evolving all the time both in content and learning strategies.

Learning by doing. I am endeavoring to take/make opportunities to apply what I am learning. The best example over the past month was the nature photography activity I did with summer campers. Teaching someone else is a great milestone for learning. I’m in the process of writing out the activity notes…and lessons learned….so that I can do it again next summer - even more effectively. The interaction also prompted several photographic projects for my continued development.

Coursera courses are still something that will appear in my learning log almost every month….I’m not planning to have more than a couple in progress at any particular time. I finished the Geodesign course in August. It was a nice follow on to the Geospatial Revolution course I took earlier in the year and I’ve noticed more articles about communities apply Geodesign ideas since taking the course.

I’ve started a Mediation course from the University of Virginia. It is the first in a series which will extend at least through the end of the year. Right now it is almost overwhelming but interesting enough that I am making the effort.

Later this month, a Forest and Humans course will start. I’m looking forward to the lectures and references during the fall in Maryland (lots of colorful leaves from the forest behind my house).

My husband purchased The Art of Flower Photography from Creative Live so we are beginning to watch in at hour at a time. As usual….I am interested in composition more than anything else although strategies for dealing with full sunlight (which often it too bright for good flower photography) may also be part of the course.

Photo Week 2015 on Creative Live happens in September too. My husband has already signed up for watching it live (and free). The three segments I am most interested in are:

• Photography Tips for Everybody (9/21 10:45 AM, 1.5 hours)
• Landscapes and Light (9/21 3 PM, 1.5 hours
• Beyond Macro Photography: Into the Microscopic World (9/24 10:45 AM, 1.5 hours)

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 13, 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.

18 beautiful houses for tiny people - Photographs of doll’s houses …inhabitants and furnishings too.

How past Native-American settlement modified Western New York forests - Larger nut-bearing trees were more abundant near settlements!

Rebuilding Sandbars in the Grand Canyon - I had learned about the attempts to rebuild sandbars in the recent Coursera offer on Water in the Western US…so this acted to remind me of the class, probably locking in what I learned through a surprise repetition.

Ultrasound is making new waves throughout medicine - Ultrasound is being used for more and more imaging these days….and is more portable than a lot of the other imagining technologies.

10 Ways to Save Pollinators - This is not just about honey bees….it’s about all pollinators.

Multi-tasking: Benefits on exercise - So doing something else while you exercise may not be such a bad thing!

Beyond Automation - Five paths toward employability is an automated…augmented world of the future.

Sewage Pollution: The Next Great Threat for Coral Reefs - 96% of places that have both people and coral reefs have a sewage pollution problem (85% of the waterwater entering the sea in the Caribbean is untreated). Sewage that reaches corals includes: fresh water, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, pathogens, toxins. Ewww! Not good for human health either.

The Shifting Sands of the Sahara Are a Lesson in Dune Dynamics - Illustrations of dune patterns (seen from above)

5 Ways to Make Environmentally Conscious Food Choices - I had thought of all 5…but this is post is a good summary to: support good companies, buy local, storing your food, growing your own, and choose less packaging.

Spring Trees - 2015

Part of the joy of spring is watching the plants unfurl from winter. I particularly like the trees and shrubs because the leaves come out in all kinds of ways…in clumps…as single buds...folded…coiled…pleated. I’ve collected a number of pictures of the new leaves over the past few weeks and have put together the slideshow below. Enjoy!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 21, 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.

Nine superfruits and super seeds to add to your diet - I eat 3 of the 9 frequently (chai, flaxseeds, and blueberries)!  There is only one that I haven’t added to my diet (yet): Acai berries.

There May Be More Water on Jupiter's Largest Moon than on Earth - Subterranean oceans - on Ganymede. It wasn’t so long ago that we assumed that the Earth’s oceans were unique…and now we are thinking that maybe they aren’t.

World's most iconic ecosystems: World heritage sites risk collapse without stronger local management - These sites have importance to world…the researchers argue for stronger local management. That is needed but these ecosystems are connected to other ecosystems are not iconic but may be critical to sustaining these designated iconic areas. We have to start thinking about how we sustain the Earth - worldwide - more often than we’ve ever done before.

Cherry Tree that needs pruningPrune Trees like a Pro - This post has good diagrams. I noticed it this week just as I was thinking about what I need to do first in my yard and decided pruning was high on the list; our cherry and plum both need it.

Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Egyptian Tombs with Stunning Murals - They were found near Luxor. Isn’t it amazing that there are still things like to be found in places that have been intensely searched for over a century? Hopefully they will be preserved in a way that the colors remain as vivid as they are now.

Towels top kitchen contamination hazards list - Ugh! I think I’ll start putting out a fresh towel every day.

The World’s Largest Solar Energy Projects - Some projects from India and California…these are huge installations.

Oncologists reveal reasons for high cost of cancer drugs in U.S. - There is a list of some potential solutions at the end of the article. One that sticks out is to allow the FDA or physician panels to recommend target prices based on the drug’s magnitude of benefit (i.e. value based pricing). Why has our system allowed something other than value based pricing to be the norm? Hurray for the doctors that are standing up for their patients!

10 National Monuments you’ve never heard of - Vacation ideas. I always like to keep these in mind to add to the itinerary of a trip to the area. I’ve been to El Malpais several times. Maybe next time I visit Tucson - Chiricahua will be a day trip.

Chitin, a structural molecule associated with allergy response, is identified in vertebrates - A few weeks ago, I learned that chitin (the material of insects’ exoskeletons) is in the cell walls of mushrooms…and then this article about chitin in fishes and amphibians! And chitin has been shown to be an excellent material for biodegradable plastics!

Touring the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research

I enjoyed the docent led tour at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at University of Arizona last week. The Bannister Building, where the lab is located is quite distinctive - with a scrim of articulated metal tubes. The wind was not blowing on the morning of our tour so we didn’t hear the sound of the tubes in motion.

Inside we wondered around the lobby before the tour. I was looking for various ways the large tree cookies were labeled. I liked the simple white arrows that showed the semantics used: pith, early wood, late wood, branch trace, fire scar, cambium and bark.

Here is a closer look to understand what a tree ring is (the center of the tree cookie is to the lower left of the image). Note that the rings are not all the same…their width reflects the growth conditions for the year they were growing.

And some trees live for a very long time. The labeling on the tree cookie from the Giant Sequoia that lived 1704 years is labeled with more information.

When the docent arrived, we were invited upstairs into one of the labs to talk with one of the researchers who showed us how the sample cores from trees are collected and mounted. The tree-ring lab is multidisciplinary; many specialties are required to glean the information from the samples. I was intrigued by the cross section on one of the upper floors that was very different than concentric rings. This would take a lot of finesse to interpret!

I’ve included two close ups to show the dates labelled on the specimen.

One other tidbit I picked up from the docent: on the elementary school tours, the children are given a small tree cookie (~3 inches in diameter) and the children sand it to reveal the tree rings! That would certainly be a memorable learning experience!