Gleanings of the Week Ending July 15, 2023

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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.

See the Rancid, Blooming Corpse Flowers Attracting Hundreds in California – Seeing pictures is good enough for me!

Global diet study challenges advice to limit high-fat dairy foods – Some dietary advice is more impactful that others. New studies show that dairy, particularly whole fat, may protect against high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome.

Dust From the Drying Great Salt Lake Is Wreaking Havoc on Utah’s Snow – Dust makes the snow less white…which means it warms more quickly and melts!

Early Medieval Ivory Pocket Ring Analyzed – The ring was found in the grave of a wealthy Anglo-Saxon woman near Sheffield, England…and it was made from the tusk of an African elephant!

Parts of a Munich synagogue demolished by Nazis are found in a river 85 years later – The site of the synagogue is a parking lot and department store now. About 150 tons of stone columns and a tablet bearing the Ten Commandments were found about 7-8 miles from the site in a river. The synagogue had been built in the late 1800s and had more than 1,500 seats. It was destroyed in 1938.

Cosmetic chemical concerns – Not an exhaustive list/explanation, but worth browsing…there are others that seem to be concerning too (such as sulfates) that manufacturers are saying their products are eliminating.

Astro-tourism – chasing eclipses, meteor showers and elusive dark skies from Earth – We did a trek to Nebraska for the 2017 eclipse…have enjoyed Staunton River State Park Chaos Star Parties. My husband has been to Greenbank and Cherry Springs State Park for similar amateur astronomer events. It would be great if there were more such events but there are fewer people interested (and able to afford the equipment) than birders. Hopefully some of the dark sky sites will enlarge their offerings beyond outreach events for individuals that would like places to set up their own equipment. On the plus side – there are solar eclipses come up!

Native Bees Yield Hardier Flowers Than Honey Bees, Research Finds – When pollinated by native bees, plants produce more diverse offspring….and diversity is increasingly important as our climate changes.

Frogs as pollinators – A previously undocumented interaction…and an example that there are still aspects of the natural world to be discovered.

Older adults who remain more active have a better quality of life, study finds – Not really a new idea…but a study that tried to quantify the impact.

In Beaver World eBook

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In Beaver World was published by Enos A. Mills in 1913 and it is available on Internet Archive. I enjoyed the pictures and drawings….his observations about beavers he observed extensively near his home in Colorado. I’ve included several sample images from the book below.

Enos Mills was, according to the Wikipedia article about him, the main figure behind the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915. He gave speeches, published books on nature and hired/trained nature guides. He encouraged people of all ages to get outside and into nature. His methods of nature interpretation are still taught to students in the field of interpretation. He died relatively young (52 years) in 1922….his legacy a national park and his books.

Missouri Botanical Garden – June 2023 (2)

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There are aspects of the Missouri Botanical Garden that are not plants….but are part of the garden experience.

There are benches at handy intervals; it always seemed easy to find one in the shade! Maybe I will make a project of photographing more of the benches during some future visit.

The ceiling in the Sachs Museum is worth the few steps inside…check out whatever is being exhibited there too.

There is a statue of Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden near his mausoleum. He set out to create a major and lasting institution more than 150 years ago. He died in 1889 and the garden has continued to thrive in all the directions he initiated…has expanded in ways he could not have imagined. My first experience with the garden was via their Botanicus site where the Missouri Botanical Garden has been digitizing botanical books and making them available since 1995; I found the site in 2009 and have been browsing their books (mostly via the Internet Archive interface). Visiting the garden is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

The Japanese Rock Garden areas around the water feature have smooth curves created with a rake…and there are Japanese lanterns too. A Great Blue Heron flew to a large rock in the center of the water feature and began to preen; the Canada goose in the background is doing the same.

In the Chinese Garden there are mosaics made with small stones as well as the traditional lions at the entrance.

I liked the bench around a tree. It reminded me of the one at Longwood Gardens when my daughter was young; we used it as a resting place where she could easily get up to run into the mists when the big fountains came on (it was a warm day); and then it was gone as part of the fountain renovation. I savored that memory sitting on this bench half the country away from Longwood (near Philadelphia).

There are small sculptures of wildlife too: wood ducks in the forest, butterflies in the butterfly garden….

Geese and racoons as part of fountains.

A purple martin house looked almost full.

One of the green areas had a ‘Mowbot’ to keep it trimmed.

At the end – I took pictures of the floor in the visitor center…familiar leaf shapes: horse chestnut, tulip poplar, sweet gum.

Looking back, it was a good ‘first visit’ – but I already want to go again!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 8, 2023

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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.

Air Pollution Causes 1 In 6 Human Deaths – Deaths from modern pollution risk factors, which are the unintended consequence of industrialization and urbanization, have risen by 7% since 2015 and by over 66% since 2000. Unfortunately, little real progress against pollution can be identified overall, particularly in the low-income and middle-income countries, where pollution is most severe. It is increasingly clear that pollution is a planetary threat, and that its drivers, its dispersion, and its effects on health transcend local boundaries and demand a global response.

Opioids no more effective than placebo for acute back and neck pain – The study was done in Australia but, hopefully, will lead to stepping away from opioids for back/neck pain. How many became addicted to opioids via doctors writing prescriptions trying to relieve their patient’s back pain?

Antimicrobial Resistance: The Silent Pandemic – The first accounts of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurred 2 years after Alexander Fleming warned about it in his 1945 Nobel speech. AMR is now responsible for nearly 700,000 deaths worldwide each year, and it is projected to kill 10 million per year by 2050.

Early Women Were Hunters, Not Just Gatherers – My favorite statement from the article: “Grandmas were the best hunters in the village.”

Overdose deaths involving street xylazine surged years earlier than reported – Drug death data is gathered and analyzed slowly…not so long ago, it appeared that illicit xylazine use was still largely concentrated in the mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast….but it is not showing up in street samples all across the US and surging in the South and West. US drug deaths hit a new record last year with roughly 110,000 fatal overdoses nationwide from fentanyl and increasingly complex street drug cocktails.

U.S. Wind and Solar Overtake Coal for the First Time - In the first five months of 2023, wind and solar produced 252 terawatt-hours, while coal produced 249 terawatt-hours, according to preliminary government figures. The decline in coal is happening faster than anyone anticipated.

Largest-ever atlas of normal breast cells brings unprecedented insights into mammary biology – 12 major cell types, 58 biological states…differences based on ethnicity, age, and the menopause status of healthy women.

Why our voices change with age – Lots of reasons the sounds we make can change. One habit suggested from the article that I am considering: “Singing or reading out loud daily can give the vocal cords sufficient exercise to slow their decline.”

Cedar Breaks Wildflower Festival Starts Friday – Hmmm…maybe I should look for wildflower festivals (along with birding) when I plan our vacations.

Meltwater is hydro-fracking Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its internal structure - Earth’s remaining ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are far more vulnerable to climate warming than models predict, and that the ice sheets may be destabilizing from inside. Recent studies have shown that:

New Mexico Dreaming

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My daughter had a conference in Albuquerque, NM in June…took advantage of a tour to the Very Large Array (astronomical radio observatory) offered. She sent two pictures.

And started a whole sequence of thoughts about traveling to New Mexico again. The last few times (pre-COVID) were for Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in the fall/early winter; they included a lot of birding field trips around Socorro, NM plus tours of the VLA. Prior to that we made vacations that featured Sandia Peak, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Conservation Area, and Bandelier National Monument. As early as the 1970s, we took road trips from Texas to New Mexico….to Santa Fe, Taos, Los Alamos, Albuquerque.

Now we live close enough to enjoy a road trip to the state. I’m contemplating a loop that would start with an almost straight drive from Missouri across Oklahoma to Albuquerque…and come back through Dallas. Between the long drives…a lot of shorter drives to see areas we’ve been to before and maybe some that we haven’t too! We’ll wait for the temperatures to cool down…and maybe for the birding festival event…to make the trip.

Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie – June 2023

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My original plan was to walk around the Pocket Prairie and take macro pictures with my phone. It was a good thing my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) since the morning was very breezy…too much for getting close shots with the phone. The optical zoom on the bridge camera was the only option.

The trash cans near the picnic table are Carrollton themed! Are they new this season? I don’t remember them from before.

The prairie area is full of May flowers setting seed and then the full summer flowers in bloom. I particularly enjoy the sunflowers (buds and flowers).

Across the pond from the Pocket Prairie – a Great Egret was looking for breakfast.

Maybe the morning I go in July will be less breezy and the macro plan will work….and there might be more insects too!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 1, 2023

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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.

How technology helped archaeologists dig deeper – Tools that tell us a lot more than excavation can: chemical and genetic analysis, lidar. This article uses new archaeological data from several cities (New York, Cahokia, Rome, Pompei, Angkor Wat)…pointing out that new analyses reveal that they were often full of immigrants that built the city and there were places those people lived nearby that often were not noticed by excavators! Archaeology is now able to tell us more about how ordinary people lived – not just the elite.

The white roofs cooling women's homes in Indian slums – Maybe white roofs will become a trend in lots of places…reduce the heat island effect that cities must struggle to overcome as the planet gets warmer.

Vienna is the most livable city in the world – It has stability, robust health care and education systems and strong infrastructure, among other factors. There are no cities in the US in the top 10; Honolulu, Hawaii is 25th on the list and the top city located in the US. There are 3 in the top 10 located in Canada: Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. 

That's no pizza: A wall painting found in Pompeii doesn't depict Italy's iconic dish – Tomatoes and mozzarella were not available 2,000 years ago when the fresco was created! Tomatoes came from the Americas a few centuries ago and mozzarella was invented in Naples in the 1700s.

This Ancient Maya City Was Hidden in the Jungle for More Than 1,000 Years – Found during a survey with light detection and ranging (lidar) scans in the Balamku ecological reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula. The site is on high ground surrounded by extensive wetlands. The ruins have been named Ocotun (‘stone column’ in Yucatec Mayan) in honor of the many columns found at the site.

Is fast fashion making us sick? – Fashion can be rife with toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and chromium…and the US has done little to protect consumers from these toxins in clothes. Researchers are correlating declining fertility rate and the rise in autoimmune diagnoses in the US with chemicals found in our clothes.

Winners of the 2023 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate the Beauty of Birds – Eye candy images of the natural world.

Surgeons must tackle three global health challenges to save lives – Assuming that a new device or approach is always better - not a good assumption but a common one that surgeon make!

The perilous life of the solitary pangolin – Learn about this African animal…their situation in the wild…and how things have changed over the past decade.

Winners of the 2023 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition embrace our world’s biodiversity – Images telling stories.

Zooming – June 2023

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So many photographic opportunities in June…close to home and in Texas. There were more biting insects around so staying on paths was all-the-more important; almost every image I took used the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). Enjoy the slide show!

The pictures include:

  • A sunny day visit to the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Gardens,

  • An afternoon and then (a week later) morning visit to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman, TX), and

  • A morning at Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie (in Carrollton, TX).

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2023

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Every day brings multiple little celebrations…I choose one to log for the day and then select 10 each month to savor in this post.

One year anniversary for our Missoure home. June 2022 is when we moved to Missouri. We’ve settled into the house and I’ve confirmed that my favorite room in the house is my office…just as it was in the Maryland house. The house itself and being closer to family have confirmed again and again that we made a good decision to move when did! So we are celebrating the anniversary.

Dishwasher and sprinkler system working. Of course, every house needs maintenance…in June both our dishwasher and sprinkler system had problems (dishwasher leaked water and the sprinkler system developed a broken head/pipe after the grinding of the pine stump). Fortunately, both were easily fixed (rather than an expensive replacement) and we celebrated that they are functioning again.

Internet/TV/phones working. Shortly after I got to my parents’ home in Carrollton, their internet and TV and phones failed. We had a painful 4 days….celebrated when the tech finally came and replaced their outside box (it was at least 18 years old!).

Scissor-tail at Josey Ranch. Celebrated when I saw a scissor-tailed flycatcher while I was out of my car with camera in hand!

Ducklings at Josey Ranch. Celebrated seeing newly hatched ducklings with a mom trying to protect them from turtles!

Seeing beautyberry flowering. I had previously only noticed beautyberry plants after they had their purple berries. This June I celebrated knowing where the plants grew so I could see the flowers.

Trimming all the dead parts out of crape myrtle and rose buses. It was a daunting task because it seemed like there was so much to trim. It got a little better when I discovered that my gauntlet gloves worked (not thorn pricks from the roses) and that the dead twigs/branches would burn easily. I celebrated when the task was completed…felt like I had accomplished a lot in getting my yard looking better for the summer.

Buying a fragrant sumac (native plant sale). I celebrated my first native plant addition to my landscaping…there will be more through the years.

Homemade marinade with balsamic vinegar. Celebrating trying a new recipe and realizing that I will never need to buy bottle mariade again!

Road trip to St. Louis. Celebrating another road trip with my daughter! Blog posts coming up re our adventure.

Ducklings

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On the same morning as I photographed the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher at the Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie, I noticed some almost grown Mallard ducks on the nearby pond with their mom. There may have been more than four in the brood originally, but 4 surviving past the stage where turtles can drown them is wonderful to see. They looked good in the morning light.

On the shore I saw a female duck in some taller grass. She looked very alert…and soon I saw why.

Ducklings! They must have been the second wave of young this season. The little ones were very active and heading toward the water.

I took a video – observing the mother trying to keep the ducklings close to the shore…probably aware of the turtles lurking in the pond. It was a breezy day, and the ducklings didn’t always stay in a tight group! It is surprising how quickly they move….how they can maneuver through the tall grass and bob in water shallow enough that the mother is standing. There were 5 of them. I’ll look again for the group in late July which I will be back in the Josey Ranch (Carrollton TX) area.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

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I saw scissor-tailed flycatchers flying along the roadside in my April and May road trips between Missouri and Texas. The bird is easily identified because of its long tail. I saw several in Oklahoma at first – to be expected since it is the the state bird. Then I saw several on the May morning I visited Hagerman. I could never photograph them because I was driving. I finally got lucky in June and spotted one getting breakfast the morning I went to the Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie in June.

The bird was sitting on a snag…periodically leaving to swoop over the grass…then would return to the snag. It was a breezy day and the long tail seemed to me a bit of a disadvantage; the movements of the bird to catch insects in flight were very dramatic. It was great to simply stand and watch the bird. Being able to finally photograph the bird was the highpoint of my morning!

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge – June 2023

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It was hotter and dustier than May on the afternoon I was at Hagerman…a stop on the road trip between my home and Carrollton TX. The riot of wildflowers of May has shifted toward thistles and sunflowers and lotus…with the May flowers producing seed.

There were three types of egrets I saw: cattle and snowy…

And then a great egret on a snag - scratching.

The black vultures were on the ground. They didn’t appear to be around feeding. They were just in a group at the edge of one of the ponds…socializing.

The butterfly garden near the visitor center has a wider variety of flowers still blooming.

And they were attracting butterflies. I watched one getting nectar from a cone flower.

There were several other kinds around too…and I saw one butterfly laying eggs on a plant that didn’t have any flowers (must have been the plant that the caterpillars like to eat). I had a pleasant conversation with a woman as we both enjoyed the garden; she was about my age, had bought a butterfly kit for a granddaughter (the caterpillar had successfully developed into a butterfly that was released), and was part of the rotation caring for her elderly father in his home…a wonderful chance encounter that made the road trip unique!

There were bees in the butterfly garden too. One was taking a break on a bench…an easy picture!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 24, 2023

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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.

A New Day for the Ancestors’; Mounds - Archaeology Magazine – An Ohio Supreme Court ruling in December 2022 increases access to the earthworks. Soon, the mounds will cease to be part of the golf course at Moundbuilders Country Club!

How ‘tornado alley’ is changing - BBC Future – Tornado Alley is widening. Large tornado outbreaks have become most common in Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky rather than Texas and Oklahoma where the term ‘tornado alley’ was invented in the 1950s.

Knit One, Purl Two - Archaeology Magazine – Patterned silk stockings from the 17th century. Volunteers in the Netherlands tried to recreate them. It turned out to be exhausting and highly complex….and required hundreds of hours!

Rooftop Solar Grew Nearly 50 Percent Globally Last Year - Yale E360 – Great progress…the challenge remaining is to be able to use it when we need it. Upgrading electricity and storage infrastructure must keep pace.

50 Years of the Endangered Species Act: A Gulf Coast Success Story • The National Wildlife Federation Blog – The story of the recovery of the Brown Pelican. Now they are easy to see again!

The Fastest-Warming Continent, Europe Has Already Heated by More Than 2 Degrees C - Yale E360 – In 2022 Europe experienced 16,000 heat related deaths and $2 billion weather-related economic damages. With climate change, it is warming faster than any other inhabited continent.

What the Largest-Ever Study of Primate DNA Reveals About Ourselves | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine – Evidently most primate species have more genetic diversity than humans do. However – primates at risk of going extinct are not helped by that diversity; their trajectory toward extinction is happening too rapidly.

Photography In the National Parks: Photo Documentation – Some tips on how to take pictures that help others recognize a special place/feature, understand a concept, or grasp the mechanics of how something happens.

Divers Are About to Pull a 3,000-Year-Old Shipwreck from the Depths | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine – Pieces of wood…hand-sewn together. 23 feet of the 39 feet vessel are in very good condition.

Denison, Texas Travel Center – June 2023

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The Beautyberry was blooming at the Texas travel center on US 75 (entering the state from Oklahoma). I searched for the flowers since I knew the plants were growing there…remembering the purple berries I’d seen last fall. The buds and flowers are very small…easy to overlook among the foliage. This is a plant I will check every month to observe how the berries develop!

Some of the wildflowers that were blooming last month have already started to make seeds but there are new rounds of flowers.

It was hotter and, as I walked along the sidewalk with plants leaning into the walkway, I felt like there were biting insects around my ankles! I took pictures quickly – noticed insects on some of the flowers.

I headed back to the car to continue my road trip to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge and Carrollton.

Mushrooms and a Robin’s Egg

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Some surprises that show up in my yard are worth photographing! The mushrooms that show up where a large tree was removed (probably several years before we bought the house) have appeared several times in the year we have owned the house. They come up in clumps that display different stages of development…then disintegrate to black goo. I saw these one morning when I was mowing….stopped to take pictures before I continued.

The same day I saw part of a Robin’s egg in the mulch under one our maples. Was there a robin’s nest in the tree…a parent cleaning up after a chick hatched? That is the hopeful story I told myself…although I also realized a predator could have found the nest in the tree or elsewhere and dropped the shell after a good meal.

The next day, I mowed the other half of the yard and discovered a stinkhorn had come up in the mulch where our pine had recently been cut and the stump ground up. I guess the fungi are hard at work in the cleanup!

Sunflowers

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The plant-of-the-month I chose for June is the sunflower. They’ll be blooming for most of the summer, but late May and June is when they begin. I saw them at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge near Sherman TX and at Josey Ranch’s Pocket Prairie. They are large plants…sometimes grow in groups…dominating prairie type spaces.

I like them from every perspective and maturity. Even on windy days, I can get zoomed pictures. I like the structure of the buds when they are green…and then when the yellow petals begin to peek through. The bud structure can still be seen in the back view of the flower. Sometimes the petals are wrinkle free…sometimes they look like crepe paper. The flowers turn toward the sun so it is not uncommon to have a plant full of flowers with brown centers in view….or the stem and petals extending from bud remnants of the back of the flower.

The plants attract insects…and later will provide food for birds.

There is a lot to like about the sunny sunflower!

June Yard Work

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There has been a lot of yard work beyond the usual mowing and weed eating in June. The wildflower seeds I planted are up and I water them almost daily to help them get established. There always seems to be something that needs doing in the yard and I try to spend an hour each morning working on the highest priority ones!

The above ground portion of our two rose bushes died over the winter so there were a lot of dead stems to cut away. I think the same thing had happened during winters in the past since there were obviously some parts that had been dead a lot longer than others. I am still trying to decide whether to dig out the bushes entirely.

I did get sidetracked while I was working…when I noticed a small slug on one of the older stems that had some fungus growing on it. I couldn’t resist the photo op!

The 4 crape myrtles in the flower beds also died back to the soil line over the winter. The part that was older broke off easily. The part that was last year’s growth had to be cut with pruners, but it wasn’t very large. There was one plant that had obviously been more vigorous in the past and had stems that were large enough that I had to use a saw to get lengths that would fit in my chimenea.

I’d decided that the easiest thing to do with the dead rose and crape myrtle stems was to burn them. I don’t have anywhere for a brush pile in my Missouri yard and the idea of taking rose stems (with lots of thorns) anywhere very far was not appealing.

It was a good task for the cool mornings of June! I would start gathering the dead stems about 7…burned what I collected in about an hour and was back indoors before 9!

My husband noticed that the store where he buys our bird seed was having a native plant sale; we went to shop. I’ve wanted to start adding native plants to our landscaping. Our first is fragrant sumac. I planted it a flowerbed where it had room to expand (they can grow new plants via suckers). It will be a great addition for wildlife and fall color! It’s close enough to the wildflower seedlings that I can water it when I water them.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 17, 2023

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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.

Humans taking a toll on Yellowstone wildlife - In recent days two black bears have been killed by motorists, an elk and a bison were also hit by vehicles, a newborn elk calf was picked up by motorists concerned for its fate, and a bison calf had to be put down after a visitor tried to help it out of the Lamar River so it could catch up with its mother. I remember that the park had good signage trying to educate people….seems that it isn’t as effective as I assumed it would be.

See the Rare Albino Echidna Spotted in Australia – It’s been named (Raffie) and photographed…evidently still in the wild! A piece of trivia from the article: a baby echidna is a puggle.

Tune in to the Great Salt Lake kestrel cam – Take a look…they hatched on May 17th…and they are growing up fast.

Scientists target human stomach cells for diabetes therapy – Still very much in research phase…but it would certainly improve the lives of a lot of people if it can be developed into a treatment!

This New Device Generates Electricity from Thin Air – Evidently the device can be made from any material that can be punctured with ultra-small holes. Too good to be true….or competitive with established clean energy sources like wind and solar?

Super low-cost smartphone attachment brings blood pressure monitoring to your fingertips – A clip that fits over the phone’s camera and flash…an app. It costs about 80 cents to make but the cost could be as low at 10 cents when manufactured at scale. Evidently it does not need to be calibrated either! I wonder if cuffs will become a thing of the past very quickly!

What we know about the health risks of ultra-processed foods – Research teasing out what exactly about ultra-processed food is bad. I’ve been trying to reduce ultra-processed food…so have been following the advice in this article for at about a year: if you're considering eating a packaged food, read the ingredient list…If you really have no idea what some of those ingredients are, it probably went too far.

You can make carbon dioxide filters with a 3D printer – Printing a hydrogel material that holds carbonic anhydrase (an enzyme that turns carbon dioxide and water into bicarbonate).

Nepal Won’t Move the Mount Everest Base Camp for Now, Despite Risks – Everest’s highest glacier has lost half its mass since the 1990s because of higher temperatures. It may only be a few years before the camp needs to move.

Colombia’s ‘cocaine hippo’ population is even bigger than scientists thought – Wild descendants of the hippos introduced in Columbia by Pablo Escobar….considered the largest invasive animal in the world. There are probably 181-215 of them in Columbia. Several strategies are being tried: contraception administered via dart, castration, exporting the animal to sanctuaries abroad. Culling appears to be the only strategy that can save the biodiversity of Columbia.

Our Missouri Yard – June 2023

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There are always things to photograph in our year. In June I decided to walk about with my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e)….taking mostly macro looks at the plants.

Our lamb’s ear is blooming. It attracts pollinating insects. I have lamb’s ear plants coming up in the yard too….thinking maybe I should avoid mowing them and let them continue to spread…take over some areas where the grass is not growing so well anyway.

This time of year it is possible to find all stages of flower development on a single plant. The color sometimes is deepest just as the flowers open.

I have pokeweed coming up in some of the same places it was last fall…probably from the roots that remained. I like the green leaves and will probably let it grow. Maybe this year the fruits will mature before the first hard frost…provide early winter food for birds.

There is a native grapevine near one of my bushes. The new leaves start out folded in half. I am pulling it away from the bush and allowing it to continue to grow. Something has already been nibbling on its leaves.

I like that the yard has interesting plants…and is providing some food for wildlife. Hopefully the wildflowers I’ve planted this year will grow this season and then come back year after year…increase the yard value for pollinators!

Cataract Surgery

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Cataract assessment has been a part of my annual eye checkup for the past few years. I always wonder if it is a positive thing to still have eyes correctable to 20/20 since when cataracts make that correction impossible, cataract surgery will likely provide years of good vision without glasses – as boon since glasses (or contacts) have been part of my life since third grade.

This May and June my younger sister is getting cataract surgery and I am providing taxi service for her surgery and immediate follow-up during my monthly weeks in Carrollton, TX. It’s been a good learning experience. She arranged for her surgeries to be first thing in the morning. She felt well enough for breakfast after the first surgery – even though she was feeling disoriented with a big eye patch and no correction of any kind on the eye that was uncovered. During the follow up appointment, she had her glasses modified – the lens removed from the side that had the surgery – so that she could see better. On the side that had the surgery, her distance vision was 20/15 but her eye was still healing. She still has restrictions on how she slept (not on the side where the surgery was done) and lifting (nothing over 10 pounds); the instructions were clear. So many people get this surgery that the process is very well defined!

For me – there were lessons learned for when it’s time for my cataract surgery. It’s a consuming process since it is done in 2 surgeries (with some time between). It is awkward with changing sight between the first surgery until the healing of the second eye (and maybe prolonged depending on the type of intraocular lens is used…the light adjustable ones are adjusted after the second surgery).

I’m glad I volunteered to help my sister during the process…and learned from the experience!