Patuxent Research Refuge – Misc.

Of course, there are other things besides waterlilies, milkweeds and goldenrod to see this time of year at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge. I did some experimental photography with some grass seed heads and asters…liked the results.

The cattails are exploding with fluff. If it doesn’t float away fast enough it becomes matted around the stalk.

Many plants are going to seed in the meadow.

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In the forest there are hits of color…just a few leaves at this point. Green still dominates.

There was an old jumble of trunks…some upright and others leaning over…with shelf fungus in profusion.

There is a bird blind around a collection of feeders but I wasn’t quiet enough to walk up to it without all the birds taking flight. I managed to notice finches on the feeders and mourning doves below.

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Sometimes something appears that I don’t expect – like this fire hydrant in the meadow. It isn’t that far from the visitor center but far enough that I would have thought one closer would be more useful and it was surrounded by wild vegetation – a little surprise. It was rusted enough that I wondered if it was still functional.

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Overall – every time I got to the refuge, I notice something that I haven’t seen before!

Patuxent Research Refuge – Milkweed and Goldenrod

The milkweeds are going to seed and the goldenrods are blooming at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge last week – typical fall meadow views. The milkweed seed pods have burst open and are spilling their seeds to the wind. The seeds have the possibility of starting new stands of the plant next year. The stands that are healthy now will come up from the roots already well-established next spring (i.e. no seed sprouting required).

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My favorite picture of the morning was the very first one I took – with the dew still sparkling on the fluff and the seeds still neatly emerging from the opening pod.

Often the goldenrod and milkweed are mixed in meadow areas but there are some almost pure stands of the goldenrod. It is the hero in the fall for migrating Monarchs and other nectar feeding insects. Sometimes the plant gets blamed for allergies, but it is insect pollinated, rather than wind. People with fall allergies are more likely to be feeling the impact of ragweed pollen!

Patuxent Research Refuge – Waterlilies

Last week, my husband and I spent a morning at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge. It’s about 30 minutes from where we live. The weather was a sunny and cool – typical early fall and a great time to be out and about.…and there were waterlilies blooming!

The first ones I noticed were in an area where the water level had recently dropped, based on the number of lilypads that were out of the water rather than floating. There was also a lot more vegetation in the water in that area other that water lilies.

Toward the end of our walk, we were between two ponds and the light was right for reflections. I liked the light pink of this first flower…even though a lilypad bisected the reflection.

The next flower I photographed I remembered to apply the rule of thirds after I took the first image….and have to admit – I like the second one better!

The visitor center was open but we didn’t go in. We’ll be back to see fall foliage in a few weeks!

Near the Little Patuxent River

On a recent morning – I headed out to the stream that flows under Broken Land Parkway from Lake Elkhorn just before it joins the Little Patuxent River for a volunteer gig – guiding a stream survey done by high school students. Near the bridge that crosses the stream on the Patuxent Branch Trail, there was muddy trail (poison ivy on each side…glad I had on long pants and high boots) to allow access down to stream. We set up our gear around three tables. There was not much dry area to set them up but the water was shallow. A partner and I guided 10 students to collect and ID macroinvertebrates from one of the tables while other volunteers did the same at two others. We had about 45 minutes….and then we got another group of 10 to do it again.

I took some pictures before and after the students arrived. The steam has a lot of vegetation on the banks but the stream has been eroded  - with some trees toppling over from being undercut by rapidly moving water. It is in an area where there is a lot of impervious surface. When it rains – the water rushes down to the stream where it carries away anything in the eroded channel; there is no connection to a flood plain that to slow down the water. It doesn’t take long for it to run off further downstream because we are in the Pediment rather than the Coastal Plain (i.e. there is always an incline for the water to follow).

The water quality was ‘very poor’ based on the types of macroinvertebrates that we found…however – we found quite a few of the types we found. The stream is not dead. Life holds on tight in this suburban stream.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 2, 2021

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 oil-field ‘fugitive’ that can slip into the water supply – The methane leaks into ground water are yet another reason fossil fuel is problematic. The industry evidently can’t or won’t clean up…making moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible even more urgent – although climate change should be enough for the world to be doing that already.

Top 25 birds of the week: Brown Birds – Not all birds are colorful! Watching small brown birds can be just as much fun though.

Ancient Human Presence Revealed At White Sands National Park - Researchers Push Back Date Of Human Arrival In North America Thousands Of Years – Fossilized footprints in the gypsum sand playa deposits…dated to the Late Pleistocene.

Mexico’s Ancient Inhabitants Moved Land and Bent Rivers to Build Teotihuacán – Still more being learned from an archaeological site that has been studied for many decades. LiDAR is one of new technologies that is yields a lot of new information.

Poorly circulated room air raises potential exposure to contaminants by up to six times – COVID has prompted more detailed research on this topic…and the discoveries should be used to improve building ventilation systems to help control other air-borne diseases.

Why colorful food is good for you – I like the colors and flavors….it’s an added benefit that they are also healthy choices!

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December – Finally!

River research reveals scale of macroplastic pollution – A plastic bottle takes a long time to break down….450 years and requires UV light. With so many bottles getting into rivers around the world, it is important to understand how they travel…how they begin to breakdown. They are going to be around for a very long time and, right now, more are still entering the rivers.

Research shows more people living in floodplains – From NASA. Tragedies that are getting worse as population increases and climate change causes flood risk changes.

Making Beetles Pee Can Protect Your Garden – Maybe this is also a pathway to an effective way to control insects like aphids without pesticides!

Going to Seed

This time of year, the plants are going to seed. I walked around our yard finding a few:

A dandelion puff in the grass – not a many as in the warm days of late spring and early summer…once the dandelion crescendo they continue flowering and making seed puffs through the warm months until frost.

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Many of the ferns have spores on the back of their leaves.

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Coneflowers look almost threatening with the spikes of seeds….a drape of drying petals below.

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We had a pyracantha at one corner of our house when we move here over 25 years ago – it died back but has now come up from the roots and has orange berries again this year – a pop of color beneath the huge bush growing above the re-emerging pyracantha.

The allium in the chaos garden has green seedpods. They’ll take a little longer to dry and pop open to let the black seeds escape.

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Zooming – September 2021

The joys of a camera with optical zoom (rather than a phone with just digital zoom) --- I see more detail through the camera than I can see with my eyes! There were several times I was out and about looking for opportunities for high key and pushing the limits of the optics. Several of those experiments were successful enough to be included in this month’s collection.

Enjoy the slideshow for the September zoomed images!

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2021

Celebrating the waning of summer…the beginning of fall –

Brookside Gardens field trip. Spending a few hours at Brookside always results in at least one mini-celebrations. This month there were three: hummingbirds – bees – and roses.

New low weight for the year. With a whole month at home, I managed to control my diet….and achieved a low weight for the year --- 3 times (lower each time). I’m celebrating the achievement and working to continue the trend!

Easy flu shot. I celebrated how easy getting the flu shot was…no waiting, the pharmacy already having all my information.  And now I’m as protected as I can be for my next road trip.

Macro photography. Celebrating images capture with my phone, a clip on lens and a clicker!

Melons. The season for melons was winding down but we celebrated 2 tasty cantaloupes from the Farmers Market in September.

Early morning in the grocery store. I enjoy grocery shopping….and celebrate that I have the store almost to myself…a low risk return to ‘normal.’

Volunteering. Returning to volunteer gigs – doing outdoor programs with students.. it’s another celebration of going back to a pre-pandemic ‘normal’ that isn’t quite the same but just as satisfying.

Beautiful weather. Sunny days…cooler…a little breeze – this is the time of year that it gets easier to celebrate a day outdoors.

Ferns under the deck. I celebrated that there were more of them than I expected this year!

French fries. I have been dieting so carefully….it was a celebration to have French fries (and cut back enough on other foods that day to not make it a “weight gain” day)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 25, 2021

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 birds of the week: September 2021 – Such a variety of birds in the world!

The Love Stories of Sleepy Lizards – An Australian lizard…they are monogamous and have a surprising threat display. They have been studied for over 40 years.

Searching for the Fisher Kings – The Calusa of south Florida…a capital on a man-made island made of shell. Surviving the Spanish but not the British.

New Coal Plants Dwindle Amid Wave of Cancelled Projects – Good! We need to be ramping up generation of electricity with renewables….and dramatically reducing the methane released by the oil and gas industry in their extraction processes…and then begin to reduce our need for oil and gas in areas that can be electrified (like transportation and heating/cooling).

Explore Life Under the Microscope with the Winners of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest – Photomicrography frequently creates art from reality that it too small for our eyes to see without the magnification and specialized equipment.

August 2021 global climate summary – From NOAA. Two global maps (temperature and precipitation). Where I live, August was hotter and slightly wetter than the average (averages from 1981-2010 for temperature…from 1979-2020 for precipitation).

People synchronize heart rates while listening to stories – Thinking about the brain as part of physical body….looking at the brain-body connection more broadly.

Study Links Transportation Noise to High Rates of Dementia and Alzheimer's – From Denmark.

Indigenous Resilience Center Launched at the University of Arizona – My daughter did her graduate work at University of Arizona; I’m glad they are launching the center to find and implement culturally appropriate solutions to the challenges of climate change.

The chemistry of dahlia flower colors – Also explains why there are no blue dahlias.

Designs of Kyoto: a collection of design for silk and cotton textiles

The two volumes of Designs of Kyoto: a collection of designs for silk and cotton textiles (volume 1 and volume 2) were published in 1906 and are available on Internet Archive. I’ve selected 2 sample images from both volumes.

I enjoyed the books – lots of nature themes and ideas for Zentangle patterns. Some of them looked very abstract – geometric – hits of realism. There is a modern quality to many even though they are more than 100 years old. Maybe nature images are timeless as long as the animal/plant depicted still exists in our world.

Silk and cotton are luxuries now – the inexpensive fabrics are synthetic creating a lot of ‘fast fashion’ with interesting fabric patterns….like these.

Our Oak

Looking up into our oak that grows near our mailbox, it looks like fall is well underway. The flags left from the periodic cicada larvae this summer have dropped their leaves and the rest of the leaves are turning now too. I’ll need to do a round of mowing soon to keep the leaves from getting too thick on the grass. The Virginia Creeper has grown a lot this year…reaching higher into the tree than ever before. It’s a native and climbs with suckers rather than rootlets; it only damages the tree if it gets too heavy; right now, it is well within the range that the tree can handle.

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That’s not to say that the tree is in great shape. Oak decline is happening all over the Mid-Atlantic. There are stressors are thought to weaken the trees: climate change, tree age, site conditions, history of disease. Our tree is probably 30-40 years old (the house is about 30 years old but the tree was planted as a sapling)…not very old for an oak. There is pavement on two sides of the tree (the street and our driveway) so soil compaction might be a problem. It has always had mulch and grass around its base and there are no exposed roots.

The stressors might have weakened our tree enough to make it vulnerable.  The way some of the leaves look is indicative of Bacterial Leaf Scorch. It will be years before the tree succumbs – finally starving (i.e. leaves turning brown and falling early…not continuing to produce food for the tree during the entire growing season). We’ll shore up its defenses by watering it during drought…keeping the fallen branches and debris picked up around its base. And eventually cutting the Virginia Creeper.

High Key at Conowingo

On Sunday morning we left our house about 7:30 AM to drive to Conowingo – about a 1.5 hour drive from where we live. Below the dam is our favorite place to see bald eagles. This is not the best time of year, but it was a sunny fall morning – a good time for a short daytrip.  

There were some black vultures on top of a car parked near the entrance gate at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park. I had heard about it happening but hadn’t see it before. There didn’t seem to be many photographers along the fence however there were cormorants and gulls over and on the water. There were more cars than usual but apparently the owners were mostly there for fishing. We saw several with very large catfish (looked like the invasive flathead catfish). The spillways on the far side of the dam were active…but it didn’t seem like there was much water churn on our side of the river.

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I had just started surveying the abutment, rocks and island with my bridge camera mounted on a monopod, when the battery connection problem that I had experienced previously began. I had to take the camera off the monopod and remove the foot to open the battery compartment and try to increase the thickness of the paper wedge I had been using to hold the battery more firmly on the contacts. I put everything back together and it still didn’t work consistently. I was able to see an adult bald eagle on the abutment and a great blue heron on a spit of rocks and gulls flying over the water --- but the camera would not work for long enough to get a good picture. So – I gave up and pulled out my small Point and Shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS). I was very disappointed in what I could do with less zoom than the bridge camera. So --- I opted to try some high key pictures. My first subject was large sycamore with branches that hang over the water. The color variation in the leaves was more visible with the background mostly bright white although I did one with the water partially visible.

My favorite is the one below with the foliage in the lower right corner. I can image this in a presentation with some words in the upper left!

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Next --- I chose to photograph the electrical towers. I was not aware of the blue (vignetting) in the upper corners until I looked at it on the monitor at home….but I like the little bit of color!

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One of the towers on the island in the river contained a surprise that I didn’t see until it was on the larger screen: a bald eagle standing on a nest! It is not a good eagle shot…the bird is facing away and blurry….too far away for the Point and Shoot to get a crisp image. But it shows how the eagles use of the manmade structures!

Overall – I was pleased with the morning…even though it was quite different than I’d planned!

Macros – September 2021

My smartphone, a clip on macro lens, and Bluetooth shutter control were the gear I used for the macro photos feathered in this month’s post. They are all from a short walk in Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant from the parking area and into the Honors Garden. The set up works very much like the bridge camera (with lens, diffuser, manual focus) in that I must get close to the subject and move the phone to get the focus perfect. It has the advantage of being a lot more compact than the other set up!

The rain from the night before had left everything with a sheen or droplets of water. Often the wet increased the richness of the colors…and the shine. The thin clouds provided good, diffuse light – a good day for smartphone macro photography. The cedar was on my way to honors garden.

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The seed pods on the magnolia were not flat enough to be an easy shot! The depth of field is very narrow with magnification.

I experimented with different perspectives of cone flowers

And asters. In the last picture, the depth of field gave me the blurring around the edges than I wanted.

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The birds nest fungus was in a mulched area near the parking lot. Some of the cups seem to hold water!

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Even grass seeds take on a different perspective in a zoomed image.

…And these are the best of the rest (note the insect hiding inside a flower)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 18, 2021

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.

Young female black bears in Asheville, North Carolina, are big, have cubs early – More research needed…it’s still not known what is causing them to be so much bigger and mature early…or if the population is increasing or not. It is clear that there are quite a few bears and lots of opportunity for interactions between people and bears – many not healthy for the bears.

The alarming risks of mixing common drugs – It is a problem that is acute in most elderly patients with good medical care. Their various doctors have gradually built up the medications…and the regime to take them all appropriately becomes daunting. Hopefully it will become best practice to constantly review and minimize drugs that are prescribed.

Work Of First African American Painter With International Reputation Explored – Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)

Hummingbirds can smell their way out of danger – I was thinking a lot about hummingbirds this past week after my success photographing one at Brookside Gardens.

Praying Mantis – I see these more frequently in the fall…but not every fall. There are so many mantis egg cases, there should be plenty to see; I need to improve my observation skills.

How much energy do we need to achieve a decent life for all? – The most important take away from this study: “energy for eradicating poverty does not pose a threat for mitigating climate change.” That is good news

The lost generation of ancient trees – The ancients are dying….and there are not enough trees old enough to replace them. There are various ways being tried to veteranize younger trees so they can play the role of ancient trees in ecosystems.

Fall Armyworms are Attacking Lawns and Crops on an ‘Unprecedented’ Scale – Hmmm…maybe this is a prompt to reduce or eliminate the grassy portion of the yard.

Mammoth Cave National Park: The World's Longest Cave Is Longer Than Before - 8 more miles mapped bringing the total to 420 miles!

Hand pollination of crops is of major importance – I was surprised that hand pollination is already used for important crops like apple, palm oil and cocoa.

Brookside Gardens in September 2021 – Plants

Of course – the plants are always a big draw for a visit to Brookside Gardens – never an exception to that. I did a landscape shot of the garden area the hummingbirds come.

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There was a plant in that garden with various stages of flowers that captured my attention while I waited from the hummingbird.

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I never was able to find the hummingbirds perched in the magnolia even after I saw them fly into the tree…but the tree’s developing seedpods were good subjects too.

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There was hibiscus blooming in a big pot to the side of our position.

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Turning around – I tried to capture the colors in the castor plants – leaves and seeds.

It was beginning to get a little hot, so we walked toward some shade. I was glad I had my water bottole in the back pocket of my photovest.  I can easily shorten the monopod for carrying or keep it extended to use as a walking stick. As we walked toward the rose garden – I took a zoomed picture of a datura flower. I liked the white color…gentle curves.

Maybe I was a little fixated on white since I photographed white roses as soon as we got to the rose garden.

I opted to sit on a bench in the shade under the wisteria arbor and took the rest of the photos of the morning for there! The zoom capability of my camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) is one of my favorite tools. I love to experiment. As I zoom beyond the optical zoom, the images tend to get a softer focus (for example, the very magnified underside of a rose below….which is my favorite flower picture of the morning).

And that was (another) enjoyable field trip/photography session to Brookside Gardens!

Brookside Gardens in September 2021 – Hummingbird

We visited Brookside Gardens last week – getting there about 9 AM when the temperature was still very pleasant. Our goal was to see some hummingbirds in the fragrance garden. We chose a weekday to avoid the crowd of photographers with the same objective in mind; the plan worked, and we were the only ones in the area the hummingbirds frequent. This is the toward end of the season for hummingbirds and the females are the ones still around…the males are already further south. We saw and heard the little birds almost immediately.

I was using my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) in Program mode…mounted on a monopod. That gear works well for me because it is maneuverable and has a lot of magnification adjustable with a fingertip. The camera also has a burst mode that worked well during this attempt. It helped that it was a sunny day – plenty of light on the birds!

Even though I saw hummingbirds frequently – in the trees, in the air, quickly flitting over the flowers – I only managed one good series of images. It was feeding near the middle of the bed with flowers attractive to hummingbirds. I’ve selected the 12 best pictures from the bursts of images I took for the slideshow below.

Note how compact the body of the bird is with the feet not visible at all. The muscles it takes to move the wings so rapidly to maneuver into position relative to flowers must be in excellent condition – and require a lot of energy. The bird looked nicely rounded; hopefully this bodes well for a successful migration south for the winter.

More about out visit to the gardens over the next few days about the insects and plants we saw…

Wasp with One Wing

On a recent walk around my yard looking for insects – I spotted a wasp on an allium in the chaos garden. I took a few pictures with my point and shot camera (zooming).

It wasn’t flying around so I decided to try to some macro shots with my bridge camera. Normally I would have been leery about being that close to a wasp, but it seemed to just be moving around the cluster of flowers. It was good practice.

It wasn’t until I got inside and was looking at the pictures on a large screen that I realized that the wasp was missing a wing! There was no way it was ever going to fly again.

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On the same walk – I saw a tiny leaf hopper on the nine bark bush. This is a clipped image…a lot more detail and pattern that I could see with my eye.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 11, 2021

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.

Wind Energy Accounted for 42% of New US Power in 2020 – And solar was 38% of the new energy. And 8 east coast states have large offshore wind projects in the works in the years ahead. Hurray! It’s a good trend and it looks like the slope of the trend will keep increasing for wind and solar (decrease and go to 0 for new natural gas).

How people respond to wildfire smoke -  Another reason to slip on a mask.

Devastating Rain in Tennessee – A map of the change in soil moisture between August 20 and August 21. The floods on August 21 in Tennessee (area circled on the map) killed at least 22 people. I was surprised that there was an area of Illinois (to the north and a little west of the flash flood circle) where the soil moisture increased even more; perhaps that area floods frequently and the area is managed with flooding in mind.

New analysis reveals Vesuvius Victims’ diverse diets – From analysis of Herculaneum skeletons. Men got more of their protein from seafood. Women ate more meat grown on land, eggs and dairy products.

Eye provide peek at Alzheimer’s disease risk – Amyloid plaques can form in retinas of the eye. Does their presence there provide a visible biomarker for detecting Alzheimer’s risk?

Top 25 birds of the week: Wild Birds! – Bird photography…..challenging and beautiful subjects for our cameras.

Have you seen a weasel lately? – There is a suspicion that weasels are in the decline…but the data is circumstantial. These are not predators that have been widely studied. The post points to a role for citizen scientists!

Dispatches from a world aflame – Reviews of two books about the recent fires…and the relation to climate change.

Preemption of Green Cities in Red States – At a time when we need to get serious about addressing climate change – a drive by some states to keep local governments from taking any action. There is a cognitive dissonance between historically arguing for local control then usurping that control when the state government does not agree with it. I like local control but acknowledge that higher up the governance hierarchy could make sweeping changes easier. Perhaps some of these state governments will redeem themselves by quickly taking strong action toward climate change reduction and mitigation – soon. The top issue for me when I vote these days has become climate change!

Climate Change Is The Greatest Threat To Public Health, Top Medical Journals Warn – Another reason that actions to address climate change must be at the forefront of our thinking about the future. Medicine cannot make up for the injury we are making to ourselves and every living thing on the planet.

Ferns under the Covered Deck

I bought some Christmas ferns for under our deck about 6 or 7 years ago. This year I realized I planted them in the wrong place – under the part of the deck that is not roofed; the boards have enough space between then that heavy rains come through with such force that the dirt under that area looks like a model of ridge and valley topography in exactly the pattern of the boards above. The parent plants managed to propagate in the more hospitable area where the covered deck overhead provides more protection! I’ve noticed a few ferns in the area in previous years but this year they seem to be taking off. And there are more than Christmas ferns in the mix – all of them are growing very well in almost complete shade. I’m going to spread some finished compost around them this fall to help them grow even more profusely next summer.

Two kinds of ferns seem to have spores on the back of their fronds so there is potential for the area to fill up with native shade loving plants!

Ready to Volunteer Again

Over the past week or so – I’ve been attending training sessions at the Howard County Conservancy’s  Mt Pleasant in preparation for field trips that might happen this fall. With schools in the county just starting this week, there is a lot that is TBD for the fall field trips. There are more that the usual challenges: potential for COVID-19 outbreaks (vaccination and masking helps but is not 100%), shortage of bus drivers, and a higher percentage of new volunteers than in past years. The usual weather challenge for the outdoor programs seems small in comparison!

I am hopeful that there will be at least some field trips. The scheduling requirements probably mean there will not be a lot of them until October, and there might be some opportunities where the volunteer gig will be in the school yard rather than at Mt. Pleasant. Either way – being outdoors with students is something I look forward to every fall; I missed it in 2020.

The training session this past week was on a sunny, cool day after Hurricane Ida came through our area. I couldn’t resist some photography before/after the session.

Honors Garden

Sweet Bay seed pods just outside the Honors Garden – smaller than the pods of the Southern Magnolia but still looking like red M&Ms peeking out of the pod.

A little fall look with sunshine bringing out the changing color of leaves

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Looking again at a tree stump cut earlier in the pandemic. I noticed that the rings are somewhat concentric for the early years of the tree’s life. Then they get very closely spaced on the side toward the bottom of these image. The tree seemed to grow skewed to the left!

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As I got close to my car, I noticed that the old pear tree in the old orchard is loaded with fruit this year!  .

The place….the people…it feels good to be on the cusp of fall volunteering!