Training for Fall Field Trips

Early September is training time for Howard County Conservancy’s fall field trips for Howard County Schools. The content of the field trips had not changed this year; that meant I could take pictures rather than focusing totally on learning the material as we took the example hikes.

Montjoy Barn

The barn is one of my favorite places. It dates from the 1700s and was moved to Mt. Pleasant in 2003. It has doors on two sides that make a great frame for pictures…and the pegs used in its construction surprise children and chaperones alike during the elementary school hikes.

Stream Assessment

We used the Davis Branch at Mt. Pleasant for the stream assessment training. We’ll be doing the student science activity with 9th graders in many streams and rivers around the county this fall. There is an abiotic component (testing the water) and then wading into the stream to look for macroinvertebrates.

Meadow

The hikes through the fall meadow are a joy with second graders studying insects or soil….or sometimes taking a tangent from the assigned topic to observe vultures soaring or small flocks of gold finches enjoying the seeds of meadow plants.

The volunteers are trained…primed for the fieldtrips to begin!

Hiking to the Patapsco

Last Saturday, I led a group from Belmont Manor and Historic Park to the Avalon area of Patapsco Valley State Park. It was a beautiful day for a hike – sunny and not too hot. I didn’t take any pictures going downhill since I needed to be in the front. I did stop to check some spicebush (understory trees) for caterpillars since I am more aware of spicebush swallowtail caterpillar behavior from the Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy caterpillar house (see my post about them here) while we made a short stop to allow the group to come together.

Once we got down near the river, a volunteer ranger met us to provide some park history. One stop was concrete Avalon Dam and I took a picture of it through the tangle of vegetation trees. The river bypasses the dam now! Looking down I noticed some self-fungus and very green moss among the accumulating leaves.

We stopped at the sign about Elkridge Landing. There is some controversy about exactly where the Landing was but it probably was not exactly where the sign I located. Another bit of history: the sign was made as an Eagle Scout project; it was very nice at the beginning - but has not weathered well. Maintenance in the park is always a challenge.

This is a wall that remains near what was the mill race in colonial times for the Avalon Nail and Iron Works – mended many times. It could be used for a geology talk as easily as for history.

While we were in the park we saw an ambulance come by with flashing lights and then leave again – lights still flashing. We heard that a hiker had gotten bitten by something. Later we learned the bit was from a copperhead and was on the ankle. It was a warm enough day that many people were in hiking sandals and shorts….scary that there was at least one snake not that far from where were hiking.

We started our hike back up the trail and noted the shelter along the trail that we hadn’t noticed on the way down because we stayed on the fire road rather than taking the trail.

The trail through the forest was up hill but shady and scenic.

I stopped to enjoy the stand of bigleaf magnolia. I didn’t hike to see them in the spring this year…maybe something to plan to do in 2018. That’s when they would be blooming.

The path is at the edge of the meadow for some distance and took pictures of a spider and meadow plants going to seed.

The hike was over 4 miles --- a good prelude-to-fall hike.

Red Soup

I have become a fan of beets. I love the color and flavor they add to soups and salads. Beets were a major ingredient in a soup I made on one of the first cool mornings of our fall.

The ingredients were:

Bullion

Beet

Tomato

Rosemary, thyme, parsley…whatever seasons you like

Mushrooms

Sunflower seeds

I started by letting the fresh beet cook in the bullion while I got all the other ingredients ready. I added the tomato and seasonings after the beet began to soften then used the masher while the soup continued to bubble. I added the mushrooms and continued cooking until the mushrooms reduced in size.

The sunflower seeds were sprinkled on top after it was in the bowl.

Yummy!

Tree Cookies

I was in a class recently that included looking at some labelled tree cookies – for trees that are relatively common in our area. Each one is about a foot across. I photographed them to study on my large computer monitor.

Some of them have split as they dried and the saw marks are still visible…but the rings show through reasonably well. They would probably show up better if the cookies were sanded a little. There is something unique about each one: the sugar maple looks light colored throughout; the dogwood has wider dark marks (reddish in color) and they don’t appear to be concentric further away from the center); the cherry has a dark center; the white pine shows come places where branches come off and this cookie has the most clearly visible rings all the way out. It is possible to count the rings out from the center to determine the age of the tree when it was cut done.

Celebrating Labor Day

We’re staying home for Labor Day – celebrating the end of summer with a ‘splurge’ meal of hotdogs and corn-on-the-cob cooked on the grill,

Snacking on cherry tomatoes while we cook…and

Watermelon afterward (maybe as mid-afternoon snack).

The forecast is for sun after a weekend of clouds (and rain) – a warmer day that we’ve had recently as a finale for the summer. The opening of schools in Maryland has changed from late August to the Tuesday after Labor Day this year which emphasizes the feeling that Labor Day marks the end of summer.

This year with the flooding from Hurricane Harvey just beginning to recede – there is a sobering aspect to this holiday. Modern communication brings it to us; the loss of ‘home’ for so many people is painful to us as well.  We should all be thinking about how we can help....and find out more about disaster mitigation strategies where we live.

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens XV-XIX

The 5 most recent shifts at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy have not been overly hot – unusual for August here in Maryland. Before the 15th shift, it was damp. I took some pictures under a bald cypress of a Cypress Gall (Midge) that had not matured enough to kill the small branch and some developing cones. When I walked over to the boardwalk toward the nature center I walked through a spider web that has been built overnight; not the best way to start the morning. I brushed myself off and headed into the conservatory. The shift was a special one for photographers – so not crowded at all and calmer than the public shifts.

It was raining for the entire 16th shift. I managed to find some dry spots under trees along the stream when I got there for my walk around the gardens prior to the shift. Some big rocks have been added to the stream bed to stabilize the banks. There is one area that eroded perilously close the fence and the road just beyond.

The slide show below is the rest of my walk. I moved fast when I was being rained on but took pictures when I found a sheltered place: 1) of a curve in the stream, 2) in the rose garden under the crepe myrtle trees, 3) a waterlily (note the ripples from the raindrops into the pool), and 4) under the cypress trees that kept the butterfly bench mostly dry. Wings of Fancy got off to a slow start that day because the ticket seller was late…and it was raining harder. The conservatory leaks! The tiny space between the ticket taker awning and the caterpillar house becomes a little waterfall when it is raining hard! But the exhibit was a good rainy day activity for people once they got into the conservatory.

The 17^th shift was not rainy. It was an early shift for photographers again and I relaxed before hand with a good walk around the gardens noting blooms (sumac, joe pye weed, sunflowers) and then some oddities on the bald cypress (something that looks like tiny yellow ‘flowers’, and a fuzzy caterpillar with horns), jewelweed growing near the boardwalk on the way to Brookside Nature Center (the plant is supposed to be good for treating poison ivy…but it often grows in locations the poison ivy does), and a cocoa tree in the part of the conservancy not used for the butterfly exhibit.

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The 18th shift was sunny – but not too hot. I’m paying more attention to the tiny yellow blobs on the bald cypress; one of them had red filaments. The rose garden is beginning to bloom more now that the high heat of summer is over.

The rest of the garden has benefited from the rain too and looks lush. I enjoyed trying to photograph the skipper butterflies on the Mexican sunflowers.

The 19th shift was sunny and cooler than I excepted; as I was walking around I was glad I was going to be in the conservatory once my shift started where it would be warmer. I talked to one of the Brookside staff about the tiny yellow blobs on the cypress; it’s not something they have seen before.

I headed up toward the scent garden and saw a dragonfly in the air. It landed on one of the maples…and sat while I managed to find him in the foliage for a zoomed image. The maple leaves are beginning to change color for fall.

Another sign of fall in the gardens – a cardinal molting and getting new feathers on its head. This is not bald…but all the new feather shave not come in so the crest looks scruffy and around the eye still needs additional feathers to look ‘normal.’

I walked over to the boardwalk to photograph the jewel weed again and got side tracked when I noticed a spider near one of the flowers. It took long enough to get the photograph I wanted that i hurried to the volunteer entrance to get into 'flight attendent' gear and ready for the shift. It was a busy morning in the exhibit.

The Wings of Fancy is over for 2017 on September 17….I’ll most about the last of my shifts just after ‘the end.’ It’s been a great volunteer experience!

Previous posts re Volunteering at Wings of Fancy: prep, I, II-IV, V-X, XI-XIV.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 2, 2017

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.

Yoga and meditation improve mind-body health and stress resilience – A study that went beyond anecdotal reports of positive effects. They looked at brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and activity in the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) and inflammation markers.

20+ Spectacular Photos From the…Solar Eclipse and NASA’s Best Photos of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse – Photo series from the web of the 8/21/2017 solar eclipse.

Dancing can reverse the signs of aging in the brain – Dancing is more effective than endurance training! Both dancing and endurance training increase the area of the brain that declines with age but dancing improves balance too!

The big idea: 5 ways to be a more thoughtful traveler – The articles ‘5’ are: know some history, think about how you’ll document your trip, read a book set wherever you’re going, learn some of the language, and understand where you come from. Good ideas!

10 Really Weird Animals of the Anthropocene  and Tongue Orchids & Corpseflowers: 7 insanely weird plant species – There is so much to learn about plants and animals…sometimes because they are changing and sometimes because they are hard to find/rare.

Trying to Create Something Different in the Nebraska Sandhills – I couldn’t resist this one…since I just visit Nebraska for the first time recently.

Image of the Day: Flying Blood Bag – The entwined network of blood vessels in a pigeon’s CT scan.

Our brains to change from early to mid-adulthood – The changes observed were so highly correlated to age that the researchers could estimate the ages of an individual simply by looking at the brain scan. 111 scans were analyzed from volunteers 18-55 years old.

On Education in the 21st Century – A paper by Richard Watson (futurist) for the Australia’s Department of Education. It talks about Slow Education (people centric, reflective, and aim to ensure that individual appreciate where the things they consume come from…emphasizes the importance of local difference, craft and quality over standardized production and cheap ingredients).

Interactive Infographic: The Global Business of Dying – The laws governing how terminally ill patients can choose to die vary widely – around the world and in the US (link to the US map is at the bottom of the global post).

Owl Butterfly Eggs

Last weekend, I took a few minutes to photograph the eggs of the owl butterfly in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit. I got as close as I could to the canna leaf where they were located and then clipped out the part of the picture to see them even better. The eggs quite small – about the size of the head of a straight pin – and look smooth to the eye. With the magnification of the enlarged picture it is easy to see that they:

• Are ribbed
• That they change as they develop with the white one being one that is probably not going develop. The others probably have a tiny caterpillar developing. Do you see the light brown C shape in the third egg from the left? Looks like a developing caterpillar!

One of the joys of volunteering at the Wings of Fancy exhibit is being there frequently enough to see the progression of butterfly development…and occasionally capturing some of it with my camera.

Road Trip Home from Nebraska

We retraced our road trip to get home from Nebraska – taking two days (again) to make the drive.

I took some last pictures around the hotel the afternoon before we left: the art in front of the gas station when we were filling the tank, the sunny parking lot, and the curtains in the room (they are a good prompt for a Zentangle!). This trip was the first time I had ever been in Nebraska and I was surprised that it was hilly; somehow, I expected it to be very flat like the panhandle of Texas. As we headed east the next morning we made one stop while still in Nebraska. There were a few people that were making an early start like we were – but not the crowd at the rest stop on eclipse day! The rest stop included some signage about the Native American use of the area.

We crossed the Missouri River, leaving Nebraska and entering Iowa. The rest stop at Council Bluffs has good signage about the history of the place and the fossil record; artistic ‘bluffs’ near the entrance, a floral mosaic inside, and low dividers around some of the picnicking areas; and a reddish colored walkway that might have been patterned after the river we’d just crossed.

We stopped at mid-morning to eat watermelon another Iowa rest stop. There were plenty of tables in the shade but it was cool enough that we picked one in the sunshine. There was a cicada that was very slow moving – too cold to make noise or fly away when I got close to take a picture! We stopped in Iowa City for lunch at a McDonalds and part of the decoration had physics and chemistry formulas! Right before we entered Illinois, we made one last stop and I took pictures of sun flowers. I like to see plants that are good for pollinators and birds in the rest stop gardens.

The Mississippi River is the boundary between Iowa and Illinois and I took a picture as we drove over the bridge. This is before the river joins with the Missouri…so it’s not as muddy looking. The only rest stop we used in Illinois had planted their formal beds with things good for last summer and fall insects and birds…good for them! It seems to be the trend in rest stop maintenance!

We hit a lot of traffic as we drove to the south of Chicago and into Indiana. I took a picture as we entered the state. We made a stop at a gas station before we got to the hotel in Elkhart, Indiana….tired after a long drive. There was a restaurant within walking distance from our hotel and it felt good to get the exercise after sitting for so much of the day.

The second day we had a shorter drive. The Ohio rest stops are more formal grass and trimmed bushes. There are some margins that might provide plants for insects. There are lots of travel brochures and I picked up several – thinking that north east Ohio could be a good destination for a fall or spring road trip. The rest stops have either barrel or dome sections over their food courts. I realized in the last one we stopped at that there was a Ohio map on the floor!

I took picture through the car window as we went into Pennsylvania. The Alleghenies make for a lot more elevation change and winding in the highway. The clouds were fluffy that day too. The skyline of Pittsburgh…the Heinz sign…the Squirrel Hill tunnel (my son-in-law’s apartment is on top of the tunnel!). After we left my daughter in Pittsburgh, we made a stop at one of the service plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike…and then it was through the Allegheny Mountain tunnel.

Our only stop in Maryland before we got home was at the South Mountain rest stop. By that time the fluffy clouds were mostly gone. The stop has mowed grass around the picnic tables…but the beds are planted with meadow type grasses and small flowers rather than exotic flowers. Those plants probably are easier to maintain and give the butterflies/bees a boost!

An hour later – it was good to get home.

Previous posts about our Solar Eclipse trek: Road Trip to Nebraska for the Eclipse, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Solar Eclipse – August 2017, Nebraska Sunrise.

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

As mentioned in last Friday’s post, we stopped at the Indian Dunes National Lakeshore on our way to see the solar eclipse in Nebraska. After stopping at the visitor center (bison sculpture in front) to get a map, we drove to the Dunes Succession Trail which is part of the West Beach Trail System.

The first part of the hike was along a pave path to the beach. We crossed the dune field.

The beach is relatively narrow but it was a sunny warm day and people were enjoying the water. We followed the signs to the trail. The beach got very narrow and the sand was difficult to walk through.

Finally, we got to the trail that headed back into the dunes. Low grass and trees stabilized the sand.

It was still difficult to walk in the sand and it was obvious that sometimes the trail caused erosion of the slopes to the side of it.

There were low areas that looked like meadows and sometimes had wet areas.

The areas of succession (grasses, pines and low shrubs, deciduous trees) would happen again and again on the walk – which got easier after we came to the boardwalk.

Going up stairs is easier than walking in loose sand!

We thought we were at the top of the stairs and turned to take a picture of the Chicago skyline. It was a hazy afternoon….would have been better on a clear morning, I’m sure.

Looking back from the way we came, the variety of vegetation is easily seen. Sometimes the vegetation does not hold the sand well enough and exposed/loose sand results.

The cotton woods seem to be a hardy deciduous species here.

Even in the areas of hardwoods, there are sand slides where the vegetation failed to hold the sand. Note that the trees are no very big around either – probably not very old…and stressed.

The hike was a good contrast from the long drive in the car. We stopped for the night after a short drive into Illinois, more than half way to our Nebraska destination.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 26, 2017

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.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #101 and #102 – 50 bird pictures this week! My favorite in the first group is the barn owl (and the other owls in this group). My favorite in the second group are the two pictures of spotted owlets! --- I am drawn to owls this week for some reason.

Voyager: Inside the world’s greatest space mission – The two Voyager space craft were launched in 1977…and are both sending back messages to earth.

Trees with ‘crown shyness’ mysteriously avoid touching each other – I haven’t observed this phenomenon in our Maryland forests…but now when I am in a forest, I’ll always look for it!

Time Spent – Who Americans spend their time with (from Richard Watson’s blog). It changes with age. The last chart shows that as we get older we spend more and more time alone.

Air pollutions ranking in 32 cities –  LA ranks 24; Washington DC, San Francisco and New York are 26-28; Boston is 31. Delhi, Beijing, and Cairo are the top three.

Trees and shrubs offer new food crops to diversity the farm – Ongoing research from the University of Illinois trying to mimic the habitat features, carbon storage, and nutrient-holding capacities of a natural system with a farming method that incorporates berry and nut bearing shrubs/trees with alley cropping (hay or row crops)….to be economically and environmentally sound.

AWEA releases map of every wind farm and factory in America – There is a link to the interactive map. The red diamonds are manufactures and the blue dots are the wind farms themselves. It’s easy to see that manufactures happens a lot in areas other than where the wind farms are located….that the center of the country has a lot of installed wind turbines! We saw some of them in Iowa on our way to and from the solar eclipse last Monday.

Diversity Lacking in US Academia: Study – Under-representation of African Americans, Hispanics, and women in STEM faculties at public universities. There is a similar lack of diversity in PhD programs. On a positive note: the assistant professor is more diverse (more Asians, Hispanics and women) that the associate or full professor rank.  Unfortunately, this positive finding is not true for African Americans. Overall – still a challenge….and it impacts the broader labor market as well.

More than 300,000 Atlantic Salmon Spill into Pacific – Oh no! Hopefully this is not catastrophic in the long run. But – Why are they growing Atlantic salmon in pens in Puget Sound anyway?

Thanks to Co-op, Small Iowa Town Goes Big on Solar – Kalona, Iowa – not far from our route to the eclipse! It comes down to local self-reliance and economic development that made sense for this small town. Somehow a pointer to this article (from last February) was in a blog post I looked at when I returned home and I noticed where the town was…small world.

Zooming – August 2017

It’s always fun to review the pictures I’ve taken during the month and select the ones where I used the zoom feature on my camera. I use it a lot so have most of my pictures ‘fit’ the criteria. Plants are the most frequent object…but there are butterflies and a bird this month as well. Enjoy the slide show!

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2017

August has been a busy month – volunteering (primarily at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy) and the solar eclipse road trip. There has been plenty to celebrate.

Monarch Butterflies. The population of Monarchs in Maryland is so reduced from 15 years ago that I celebrate whenever I see them. Brookside Gardens has a few and they are strong enough flyers that I’ve seen them even on rainy days where most of the other butterflies are hiding under leaves.

Orange dead leaf butterfly resting on my hand. An orange dead leaf butterfly kept me company for the last 20 minutes of one of my Wings of Fancy shifts! It settled onto my hand and used its proboscis to get whatever was on my skin. Periodically it opened its wings – flashed their brilliance for a second or two before looking like a dead leaf again. (picture from back in July...not when it was on my hand)

Emerging Atala butterfly. I was at the discovery station talking with a group of children in front of the discovery station when an Atala butterfly emerged. Its wings were folded so tight that they were almost not visible! The was a great experience for the children…and for me too.

Emerging pipevine swallowtails. One day there were three swallowtails that emerged during the hour I was at the discovery station at Wings of Fancy. There was a different audience of families each time. Someone would comment that one of the chrysalises was moving and then – the butterfly would be pulling itself out. The wings would be very wet but noticeably start expanding almost immediately.

Cantaloupe. We’ve has some great watermelon and cantaloupes from our CSA this year. They are probably all worth a little celebration but there was one cantaloupe that was spectacularly sweet – and that’s the one I’m thinking about as I write this.

August sunrise. Somehow being up and observing the sunrise is my favorite way to start the day. It is something to celebrate even if it potentially happens every day!

Orange striped oakworm caterpillar. Yes – it eats oak leave…but they don’t kill the tree. They are beautiful caterpillars and I celebrated seeing one for the first time!

Spider web on the mailbox. I celebrated a spider web that was naturally misted (with fog) and being in out at the right time to photograph it. As a secondary little celebration – I was relieved that the ants that crawled up my legs, while I was concentrating on photography, did not bite me!

Glow. I celebrated thinking about the glow of light in flowers and glow of interactions with people…sometimes those two things bring out similar emotions.

A day at home. Sometimes with a lot going on, a day at home is just what I need…and worth celebrating.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 19, 2017

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.

Three things to know about the Louvre’s history – A fort…royal residence…and then a museum!

Americans are using less electricity today than a decade ago – Annual residential electricity sales have declined by 3% and residential electricity sales per capita is down by 7% since 2010. Advances in efficiency and shifts to smaller devices are making a difference. Some argue that electric cars will cause an increase in demand for electricity….but the same people that drive electric cars are likely to have solar panels!

Aspirin’s Four-Thousand-Year History – Willow bark was used for 1000s of years for ‘curing’ fevers. In 1897, Felix Hoffman at Bayer created chemically pure salicylic acid and then created acetylsalicylic acid which did not irritate digestion the way salicylic acid does….and Aspirin came to the marketplace.

The Quest to Restore American Elms: Nearing the Finish Line – My grandparents had elm trees around their house in Oklahoma when I was growing up in the ‘60s. My grandfather built a picnic table around one of them and we had our evening meals there during our summer visits. In my late teens, the tree began to die and eventually had to be cut down. The place lost a key element when that happened. I’m sure that was true around many homes. I hope the elms can be restored….and maybe the chestnuts too.

Climate change is disrupting the birds and the bees and Europe to experience vast and rapid ‘invasion’ by infectious diseases as climate warming continues – The effects of climate change are not just rising temperatures or changing weather patterns. Everything on earth is interrelated. Sometimes that building in resiliency to change and sometimes it enables small changes to have a domino effect that is catastrophic.

In the Earth’s hottest place, life has been found in pure acid – Microbes that survive in extreme acid, hot temperatures, and high salinity. The pH in one pool was 0…and life was found there.

Here’s a crazy idea: let’s agree on the facts – Finding common ground through data? That is what Steve Ballmer is working on. The USAFacts site is the result and it is very easy to spend time looking at the summary reports….and the linkage to raw data sources.

It’s not your imagination. Summers are getting hotter. – A graphic of the changing bell curve of the temperatures with the base period being 1950-1980…crawling toward the hot and hotter direction for the time periods since them.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #100 – There is an indigo bunting in this set. I always celebrate when I see one in the field!

The greatest threats to humanity as we know it – Infographic from BBC Future.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 12, 2017

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.

Map of Play – A non-profit that not only builds playgrounds all over the US but also maps the ones they build and others (here). What a great way for families with children to explore the parks where they live….and when they travel!

Could a Bus with Sleep Pods Replace Airplanes? – Right now it only operates between LA and San Francisco…but it has the potential to be a less stressful way to travel than through an airport. What would it be like to take buses overnight and touring cities during the day…gradually moving cross country?

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #99 – Two pictures of peafowl! A male sitting with the tail feathers bunched behind and the head of a peahen!

The Chemistry of Giant Hogweed and how it causes skin burns – Awful plant! We were warned about this plant in Master Naturalist training since there have been some found in Maryland.

5 health benefits of beets – I’ve been enjoying beets from the CSA this year. Instead of always making fruit beety with them, I’ve be using them one at a time: raw in salads, in soups with potatoes (adds color!), and slivered for stir frying with other veggies. I like them well enough, I’ll buy them at the grocery store after the season for them via the CSA is over!

Illustrated timeline presents women’s fashion every year from 1784-1970 – A little history. I remember from the late 50s onwards and was making many of my own clothes from the mid-60s…so the styles for those years look familiar. I made a dress for myself that looked very similar to the 1966 dress about 1967!

The animals thriving in the Anthropocene – A study done by a team based near where I live in Maryland! Mosquitos, cockroaches, rats, deer, house sparrows…a few of the organisms are thriving while others are declining…or even becoming extinct.

Medieval Manuscripts are a DNA Smorgasbord – Much can be learned from the debris scraped away during cleaning of old manuscripts: DNA from bookworms and humans plus the animals that became parchment. So – we learn history from the physical aspects of manuscripts as much as well as from the words on the pages!

Magnificent Photos of Canyons Carved over Millions of Years –  Antelope Canyon and Canyon X…in Arizona. My husband already wants to plan a vacation to the place.

Ancient DNA used to track Mesa Verde exodus in 13^th century – Another item in the gleanings for this week about a place near Antelope Canyon…Mesa Verde. When I visited years ago, the mystery of where the people went was unresolved although many assumed they came part of the Pueblo peoples in New Mexico. This study used DNA of turkeys! Evidently the Mesa Verde people raised turkeys for feathers and food…and they took the turkeys with them when they migrated to the Northern Rio Grande area north of Santa Fe, NM.

Overwhelmed with Tomatoes

The tomato season is in full swing at our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). There are different kinds and some weeks there are choices. This week we had a choice between yellow and red small tomatoes; I picked the yellow…and then 2 large heirloom tomatoes. I eat all of them in salads.

The two pounds of red tomatoes that were also part of this week’s share are more challenging. I used some of them in a soup yesterday…but may have some left next Wednesday when there will be more tomatoes coming (in the next CSA share).

I’m freezing the red cherry tomatoes I had left from last week. I just rinse them and put them in a Ziploc. It’s easy to take them out a handful at a time after tomato season for soups if it is cool outside or veggie smoothies if it is a hot day.

The important thing – no wonderful tomato is wasted!

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens XI-XIV

The first 4 shifts at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy in August were not as hot as some of the shifts in July and I settled into the rotation. The discovery station always seemed to be the most crowded hour of the shift. There is so much there: butterflies emerging from chrysalises, plants that butterflies are laying eggs on, and touch samples (laminated butterfly wings for young children…butterflies that have succumbed for adults and older children).

Before the 11^th shift, I was a little late and only had time to take a few pictures along the walk up to the exhibit…but one was a Monarch butterfly; they’ve become rare enough to be a little celebration every time I see one.

The little hike before the 12^th shift was on the nature center board walk where I saw a spider excise a leaf that had been blown into its web; it was a neat job and the web was left intact.

A beetle was crawling down one of the big trees.

I walked back toward some of the formal gardens and saw a dragonfly in the mulch

And some odd growths on a bald cypress (fungus?).

It was raining before the 13^th shift (and for the rest of the day). I took two quick pictures with my cell phone before going into the conservatory to start my shift…some very well cypress cones

And flowers in a wet garden bed.

The 14^th shift was on a bright and sunny day. I went overboard with pictures! There a spicebush butterfly fluttering around the rose garden – this is one of the few images I got that was not blurred with its motion.

The roses in the garden were covered with water droplets from morning dew…somehow I like the flowers even better with the droplets.

There was a goldfinch enjoying one of the other plants. It contorted itself to get ‘the goodie’ from the plant.

As I walked back toward the conservatory – a Monarch butterfly was enjoying some flowers…and I zoomed to focus on how it was using its proboscis.

Previous posts re Volunteering at Wings of Fancy: prep, I, II-IV, V-X.

Yard Work – August 2017

I am not a gardener. My husband keeps the yard mowed but leaves the trimming of bushes and weeding (and planting) to me…but I am always a little behind. The bushes seem to grow faster every year. There was a time when the invasive vines almost took over!

Recently, I’ve set a goal to work outdoors for an hour every morning I am at home and it’s not raining. It’s surprising how much can get done in an hour. One hour I cut the day lily leaves that has started to look ragged (the deer ate the flowers earlier in the season).

There was a pile of the leaves cut from around the oak to carry back to the brush pile at the edge of the forest.

I found a small plant that looks like a little evergreen at the base of the oak tree. It had been protected by the day lily leaves. Maybe it will survive the browsing deer.

The milkweed in our front flowerbed has new sprouts. The plants come up from roots left behind when we cut or pull the large plants. I will let the young plants stay to accommodate any egg laying Monarch butterflies.

In a second hour this week, I pulled weeds in another bed since it was too wet to use the electric hedge trimmer. I carried two loads to the brush pile. I uncovered some very wet and colorful shelf fungus growing on a weed covered log.

There was a fallen sycamore leaf that had grass poking up through the lacey holes probably made by an insect while the leaf was still on the tree.

I noticed that the spicebush growing at the back of our yard (in the forest) is a different color green than the trees around it.

Sunflower Pictures to Brighten a Rainy Day

As I begin to write this post, it has been raining all day. I need something that brightens up the wet! What could be better than sunflowers! I looked back at pictures I’ve taken since mid August and come up with some cheer. There is the big sunflower that I got as a volunteer at Brookside Gardens.  The goldfinches are already stopping by for snacks.

Then there are sunflowers that came up from seed that shed into the pots from last year’s plants. The flowers aren’t as big but they are still cheerful.

When they are toward the end of their blooming the petals droop like limp hair around the ‘face’ of the flower.

Up close, one observed the texture of the petals causes water droplets to align when there is a heavy dew.

And that brings us back to a very wet day that needed some sunflowers to brighten my mood!

Flower Glow

Sometimes the light is just right…the flower bloom is at the right stage…it seems to glow from within.

It happened last week at Brookside Gardens. The hibiscus flower was in partial shade but the wind was blowing and the top part of the inner flower got direct sun for a few seconds. There were several fleeting opportunities to take pictures…the one I am including in this post is my favorite.

As I looked at the on the larger screen, I wondered if people glow and concluded that when I think of people glowing it isn’t from light…it is from something within. Looking back at people that came through the Wings of Fancy exhibit – it seems like the people I noticed ‘glowing’ were either young (preschool) or very old.

For the children, the glow came from seeing so many butterflies around them. They don’t appear overwhelmed or overly excited; they just stand and follow the butterflies with their eyes…a little smile on their face…their hands together.

For older people, it is a little different but sometimes the expression is the same. There was a 90-year-old woman in a wheel chair whose family had brought her to the exhibit to celebrate her birthday; she didn’t say very much but the look of her face was one of pure joy of being in that place at that time watching butterflies flutter around her. Another older lady – probably in her 80s – was more animated; she talked about when she was young and loving butterflies around where she lived but being afraid of caterpillars…not finding out until many years later than the caterpillars became butterflies. While she talked, she followed butterflies with her eyes; she was savoring her life – present and past.

The other people in the exhibit may not always glow but the happy voices and expressions on just about everyone’s face certainly makes the volunteer shifts enjoyable. The Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens in my universal happy place this summer!