Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/16/2020 - Digiscope

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing Life Magazines from 1939. I’ve been working my way through the scanned issues of Life Magazine available on Internet Archive. 1939 was before the US entered the World War II but the pages of the magazine are full of pictures of Europe…of the wreckage in Warsaw and Hermann Göring….along with ads for Studebakers. The pictures are snippets of history – what people were seeing as ‘news’ at the time.

Digiscoping. My husband bought a gizmo to hold a cell phone to the eye piece of our birding scope….allowing a capture of images through the optics of the scope. I did a test on a cold, breezy morning – through the window (a French door in our breakfast area).

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The maples were looking very golden…with samaras and new leaves.

We reconfigured the tripod a bit…took the carrying case off the spotting scope…before I tried some pictures of the tulip poplar. The flowers (tulip like!) are beginning to open. The leaves are large enough to see their distinctive shape.

Overall, it was a good experiment. My husband thinks another mount will work better for us…and trying again on a day that isn’t so breezy would be easier too. Eventually we might even get good enough to photograph some birds back in our woods.

Making chili. We got a large package of ground beef in our last grocery delivery, so I suggested that we make chili to use 2 pounds of it…and then freeze the rest of it in 1-pound packages. I had beans that I had cooked early in the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ regime in the freezer. My husband orders a supply of our preferred chili mix – so we had that on hand. The only thing we were missing was a can of tomato sauce. We substituted spaghetti sauce! When the chili was done, he had his in tortillas (i.e. a chili soft taco) and I had mine over bulgur wheat. We have a lot of leftovers!

Finding a forgotten pair of jeans. I reorganized my closet about a month ago to work my way though all my pairs of jeans/slacks while I am at home…and discovered a pair of jeans I had completely forgotten about. And they fit! My plan had been to discover things that needed to go in the ‘give away’ pile. So far – I haven’t found anything in that category.

Seeing a goldfinch ‘sheltering’ on the screen near the birdfeeder. I noticed a goldfinch under the eve on the screen of our covered deck in the morning. It seemed very intent on whatever it was doing. Then it flew to the feeder to get some seed and look around a bit…then went back to the screen. It appeared to be eating the seed it had gotten from the feeder. I wonder if there was some kind of drama earlier that made the finch leery of our feeder.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/13/2020 – 30 years ago

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Taking portraits of a Common Grackle. The grackles are little too big for our feeder but one flew to the sycamore and sat around for long enough to be photographed….picking up the nuances of color in the feathers. They are not an ordinary black bird! And the yellow eyes give an additional zip to their appearance.

Cooking barbeque chicken slowly. I decided to cook chicken breasts loaded up with barbeque sauce and a little extra olive oil…for 6 hours. I used two forks to pull apart the meat about 30 minutes before we ate to let the sauce get to every bite. Very yummy…and we have plenty leftover for another meal too. 

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

I started posting about what was happening to me 30 years ago beginning last November. And I’m continuing the monthly post now, looking back to April 1990….

My baby was old enough to be crawling, enjoying looking out the window at birds and her dad washing the car, intrigued watching herself be dressed in front of a mirror, sometimes cranky as her teeth appeared, and playing pat-a-cake. Her increased mobility gave her more opportunity to explore on her own – biting the play pen to see if it tasted good (or helped her gums feel better), checking out the cat’s favorite box (the cat looking on placidly), and striking a pose to rest or just look about.

We had company from out of town and visited some sights around Maryland and DC with her for the first time. Of course, she was too young to remember any of them: Mount Vernon, Catoctin, Arlington Cemetery, Jefferson Memorial, National Zoo, Brookside Gardens and the Aquarium in Baltimore.

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The Aquarium was her first time in a backpack (since they don’t allow strollers); it was an experience for me too.

I was getting ready go back to work part time in May – having a few interviews for the assignment I would have until I started back full time in the fall. While I was preparing myself, I was doing things to make the change for my daughter easy too. We transitioned from cloth to disposable diapers, dropping the diaper service. She had her first days in family day care during the last week of the month…and seemed to enjoy the interaction with the other young children. We were very fortunate to find a wonderful the provider right away; my daughter was with the same family day care until she started Montessori pre-school.

I was off from work from mid-August 1989 to early May 1990….the longest time period I was not working in my career. It was a time of huge transition and I realized at the time that I was extremely fortunate to not have to rush back to work juggling the changes at home with a career immediately after my daughter was born. The company I worked for was ahead of the times in terms of medical leave and then unpaid leave with a job to come back to.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/11/2020 – Found Mirror

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Noticing the big buds on the sycamore. The buds outside on the tree are finally getting big Soon they will have small leaves…and those leaves will continue to grow all summer until some get to be as big as dinner plates.

Witnessing quite a bit of bird drama: Our backyard was an active place yesterday.

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Surprise! We have juncos again! There are at least 2 of them around still. In years past, they were gone by now. Maybe the very windy weather has caused them to not make it to their summer nesting areas so they came back to refuel.

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A red-bellied woodpecker drives away cowbirds from the bird feeder. The cowbirds generally seem aggressive, but the red-bellied woodpecker made short work of about 6 cowbirds on the deck around the feeder. It flew in the cowbirds scattered

A piliated woodpecker inspects our forest. We see a few every year but they don’t seem to stick around our area of the forest. I saw it fly into the tulip poplar at the edge of the forest. It was hidden by leaves at first then came out and was preening. I looked more rounded than usual with its feathers fluffed out.

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A red-bellied woodpecker found edibles in the sycamore. Usually they come to the feeder and ignore the nearby trees. Yesterday there was an exception. There was pecking going on!

Filling the bird bath. The wind and low humidity of the day before had caused it to dry out. I had a little surprise when I went out with the pitcher of water in the morning just after breakfast – there was a thin layer of ice in the bowl! It popped out easily, falling to the ground below the deck - and I filled the bird bath with the water from the pitcher – hurrying back inside to get warm. Yesterday was a low humidity day as well – but not quite as windy.

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Enjoying spaghetti sauce tomato soup. I wasn’t hungry enough for pasta so I simply added some celery to the spice tomato meat sauce….added fried onions on top. It was a great light meal.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

In the early day of our ‘stay at home as much as possible,’ I cleaned out some boxes that had been in our basement since we moved to the house 25 years ago. One was a box of framed prints and other larger flat things that I’d boxed up after my mother-in-law died 4 years before that. I didn’t remember the mirror at all. It had been protected inside the frame of a larger picture, held in place by padding. There was a bit of tarnish along one side. Perhaps she bought it a few months before she died, and I hadn’t noticed it – I simply put it in the box with other things that it could be packed with. Once found - I hung it in the entry hall of our house.

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Now I notice it every time I go downstairs – which I do many times a day on the way from the upstairs bedroom/my office and the kitchen/doors to outside. It’s probably not something I would have purchased but I like it more as the days go by. It’s part of our family history simply because she chose to buy it. And so – the mirror on the wall, hung by another generation as a reminder of the past and reflecting the present. Perhaps it becomes an heirloom in our future.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/4/2020 – March 2020 Contemplation

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Arriving bugs. We ordered them back on 3/18 and are letting it sit on the living room floor for a few days – let any viruses die. Then we’ll start our photography project!

Savoring favorite recipes of the past week. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with food a bit this week.  

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Kale‘n’eggs. I got a bag of kale pieces in my grocery order over a week ago. I’d been using them in smoothies but thought to do something different – maybe as a spinach substitute in scrambled eggs. I chopped the pieces in to small bits using my small food processor, sautéed them a bit before I added the beaten eggs. As little Mrs. Dash for seasoning. Tastey!

Sweet potato soup. I had baked a larger sweet potato than I could eat with the rest of a meal, so I had it left over in the refrigerator along with some chicken. I made a light broth with chicken bouillon and dried onion then added the mashed sweet potato and cut up chicken. Fried onions (the store brand like French’s Fried Onions) made a great topping…or I could have used black bean chips.

Whole wheat biscuits. I don’t eat breads very often. When I do – a batch of drop biscuits is probably my favorite thing to make. It’s a highly modified version of the recipe in my 1960s cookbook (the one I got about the time I became a teenager): Set the oven to 450 degrees. Combine in a bowl (2 cups whole wheat flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 scant teaspoon salt). Combine in a measuring cup (1 cup milk (I used non-dairy), 6 tablespoons olive oil). Pour the milk and oil into the dry ingredients then blend with a fork to form the dough. Drop onto an oiled cookie sheet; I tend to like a heaping teaspoon size drop biscuit. Eat them hot with butter or orange marmalade or ginger preserves. I usually eat about 1/3 of the biscuits on the 1st day and freeze 2 packages for other days.

Getting a grocery delivery. The only time slot available when I first tried to do the order was for delivery between 8 and 9 on Saturday night! I took it. The order was left on the front porch and we brought it into the house…to the floor of the foyer. We put the refrigerator items away then put the non-perishables in the back of my car in the garage – with the intent of simply waiting 48 hours for any coronavirus contamination to dry up and die before the items were put away in the panty.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now a little contemplation of what happened to us in March 2020….

On the national level, there were 75 cases of COVID-19 at the beginning of March and 188,000+ at the end; 1 death to 4,000+ deaths in the same time period. Things have changed on a personal level too…and that is what I am thinking about today. Here is the timeline for me:

  • 3/1         Touch Tank and Discovery Cart at Robinson Nature Center

  • 3/5         Grocery store early. No crowd. Used hand sanitizer when I got in the car. Washed my hands with soap and water before and after putting the groceries away.

  • 3/7         Cancelled trip to Texas originally planned for later in the month; decided not to go to training or volunteer gigs after 3/8

  • 3/8         Touch Tank at Robinson Nature Center

  • 3/9         Carload of ‘stuff’ to landfill

  • 3/10       Following “stay at home as much as possible” guidance from CDC

  • 3/11       Grocery store early buying to keep 2 weeks of food in the house always in case we got sick. Store not crowded.

  • 3/15       Starting the daily “Filling a Day of Social Distance” series of blog posts

  • 3/16       Last trip to the dentist for me (finishing some prior work)

  • 3/17       Last trip to the doctor’s office for my husband

  • 3/18       Grocery store early…but they had changed their hours to open an hour later. More crowded. Carts outside. Wipes and hand sanitizer at the door to use before shopping.

  • 3/19       Another grocery store early to find things we couldn’t at the previous store. Not crowded…found a few things

  • 3/20       Another grocery store during senior hours still looking for a few items. More crowded than I expected (all older people too).

  • 3/25       Scheduled 1st grocery delivery…deciding to make do with what we could get delivered

  • 3/27       Telemedicine appointment for my husband

  • 3/31       Gutter clearing – all arrangements made online

During March, we started changing in ways that are fast becoming habitual: more frequent hand washing, using a lot less toilet paper (water spray bottle and toweling), eating at home all the time, appreciating home and family more consciously. We are also paying attention to keeping ourselves mentally healthy…engaging in activities we enjoy and exercising rather than watching the news all the time. Yes – we are worried about family and friends near and far. But we’re all taking precautions to stay healthy. I try to accept that and move on to whatever activity is next in or around our home.  

What’s planned for April? The calendar is empty. We have arrangements to spend even more time at home than we did in March…keeping healthy.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/3/2020 - Gleanings

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Photographing the sunrise. I seem to get busy and miss the sunrise most mornings…but not yesterday!

Catching up on Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:

Noticing more sycamore leaves emerging. There are now three buds that have popped…lots of tiny leaves.

Making experimental face masks from materials I have at home….for when/if we need to go out. I made a mask with a paper napkin, small binder clips, the cut off top of a small gift bag (for the loops). The napkin would be replaced after each use…the rest sprayed with Lysol. It would probably fit better over the nose if I made some pleats. Even better using a scarf (or paper towels) and two hair ties/covered bands. (How to videos I watched). This is all about protecting others; I don’t want anyone to get sick if I happen to be an asymptomatic carrier.

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Started Fashion as Design course on Coursera. The week 1 optional 2-hour video of 4 speakers and then Q&A (Under Review and then Reading) on the topic was well worth it.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the normal weekly gleanings post….

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. 

25 Photos of Madeira's Dreamy Fanal Forest by Albert Dros – Calming nature. It is a quite different forest than the one I see from my office window. Both views are much appreciated.

Tips for how to stay happy in troubling times - BBC Future – Hopefully, some of these work for you. I find that limiting the time I spend catching up on ‘news’ is the one I need to keep reminding myself about; it’s so easy to get absorbed in all the pandemic news (none of it good). I want to be informed but not 24/7.

Monarchs Covered 53 Percent Less Area in Mexico this Winter | The Scientist Magazine® - The last paragraph of the article was the worst news: “The butterflies have already begun their journey north but there is not enough milkweed in Texas to support the butterflies’ reproductive cycle this spring.”

How your personality changes as you age - BBC Future – It seems like there are a lot of positive general trends in personality as we age: more altruistic and trusting individuals, willpower increases, a better sense of humor, more control over emotions. They’re calling it ‘personality maturation’ and it continues until at least the 8th decade of life! And its observed across all human cultures.

Top 25 birds of the week: Eagles - Wild Bird Revolution – Never can resist the birds….

On This Scorching-Hot Exoplanet, a Forecast of Molten Iron Rain | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – 640 light-years outside our solar system

Tour A National Park from The Comfort of Your Couch -  Hmmm….I’m going to start working my way through the virtual tours….Maybe one a day?

Unprecedented preservation of fossil feces from the La Brea Tar Pits: A 50,000-year-old Snapshot of Los Angeles trapped in asphalt -- ScienceDaily – The La Brea Tar Pits have been studied for more than a century….but apparently there are still things to learn from them. Fossilized rodent pellets found in context (so definitely not modern, they also were radiocarbon dated to ~50,000 years ago). They are preserved along with twigs, leaves and seeds….an intact woodrat nest!

Massive Mammoth-Bone Structure Found in Kostenki, Russia - Archaeology Magazine – A circular structure about 41 feet in diameter…made with bones from at least 60 mammoths.

Tree Tapping Isn’t Just for Maples – The 2020 season is over for getting sap from trees – this is still an interesting article about how it is done…and other trees that also have sweet sap. I was surprised to see sycamore on the list.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/1/2020 – eBotanical prints

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Weighing in at a new low for the year. 0.6 pounds lower than my last ‘new low.’ I am celebrated with 2 squares of dark chocolate for breakfast!

Hearing the recycle truck at 6:25 AM. That’s their usual time. It’s reassuring to know that they are still on the job making their rounds…that some things continue at a normal pace. I am thankful to the crews to hoping they stay well.

Catching up on Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safaris:

Making two Ad Rinehardt Black Painting inspired Zentangle® tiles. I didn’t make the whole tile black but I did make a black square. The technique was not the same either since I used Sharpies and layers rather than making the special matte low-oil paint that Rinehardt is known for. I finished the Rinehardt module in the Coursera course: In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting yesterday.

Taking breaks with nature cams. There are a lot of them out there! A post from the Nature Conservancy here (the spoonbills and alligators swamp cam can be very noisy in the morning – a great way to start the day – they are in the EDT zone). A list I collected from the Maryland Master Naturalist emails:

Clearing my calendar for April. I had left some volunteer gigs on my calendar in April – being overly optimistic. I took them off this morning. The organizations are closed. Everyone is preparing for the coronavirus peak in Maryland; as of today, the model is saying it will be around April 28th. Maryland has a stay at home order (since 3/30), all educational facilities are closed (since 3/16), and non-essential services were closed (since 3/23…and the definition of non-essential is not ‘loose’). It looks like the social distancing measures are flattening our curve but there have been some outbreaks that are troubling (nursing home and mental hospital) and sad.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the normal monthly post about botanical prints from eBooks.

There are 16 new books added to the list in March. There is quite a variety this month --- mostly from the 1800s although one book from the late 1700s and another from the early 1900s, some color others drawings, exotic places (Ceylon, India, Madagascar, and Australia), some traditional botanical prints and some textbooks of botanical traits.

The volumes are all freely available on the Internet by clicking on the hyperlinked title. The whole list of 1,864 books can be accessed here. Sample images and links for the 16 new ones are provided below. (click on the sample image to see a larger view). Enjoy!

A hand-book to the flora of Ceylon Plates I-XXV * Trimen, Henry * sample image * 1893

A hand-book to the flora of Ceylon Plates XXVI-L * Trimen, Henry * sample image * 1893

A hand-book to the flora of Ceylon Plates LI-LXXV * Trimen, Henry * sample image * 1893

A hand-book to the flora of Ceylon Plates LXXVI-C * Trimen, Henry * sample image * 1893

The British flora, or, Genera and species of British plants V1 * Thornton, Robert John * sample image * 1812

The British flora, or, Genera and species of British plants V3 * Thornton, Robert John * sample image * 1812

Indian medicinal plants : plates * Kirtikara, Kanhoba Ranachodadasa; Basu, Saman Das * sample image * 1918

Histoire naturelle des plantes (Madagascar) Atlas V3  * Baillon, H; Drake del Castillo, E. * sample image * 1903

Histoire naturelle des plantes (Madagascar) Atlas V4 * Baillon, H; Drake del Castillo, E. * sample image * 1890

Histoire naturelle des plantes (Madagascar) Atlas V1 * Baillon, H; Drake del Castillo, E. * sample image * 1902

Histoire naturelle des plantes (Madagascar) Atlas V2 * Baillon, H; Drake del Castillo, E. * sample image * 1904

Giftpflanzen-Buch, oder, Allgemeine und besondere Naturgeschichte sämmtlicher inländischen sowie der wichtigsten ausländischen phanerogamischen und cryptogamischen Giftgewächse - Atlas * Berge, Friedrich * sample image * 1845

Traité de botanique générale V1 * Herincq, Francois * sample image * 1860

Traité de botanique générale V2 * Herincq, Francois * sample image * 1860

A specimen of the Botany of New Holland Vol 1 * Smith, James Edward * sample image * 1793

A course in botany and pharmacognosy * Kraemer, Henry * sample image * 1902

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/30/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Hearing traffic noise in the early morning. I woke up about an hour before my time to get up and heard traffic noise. We’re close enough to I95 that sometimes in the winter when the trees don’t baffle the sound and the weather conditions are right…we hear the trucks. I hadn’t heard it as much recently and thought it was the effect of the pandemic. Today it seemed more like a pre-coronavirus Monday. I dosed until my Fitbit vibrated at the usual time.

Discovered HiJinx podcasts from my local library. I listened to the most recent one - ‘A most notorious woman’ about a Grace O’Malley – Ireland’s Pirate Queen. (Anne Chambers’ book on O’Malley available at Internet Archive here.)

Seeing deer just after 8 in the morning….going back to the forest. I wonder where they spent the night. The forest behind our house is part of the green space along the river. Did the deer spend their night elsewhere or did they leave the forest for a morning browse on tender plants in the neighborhood (like my daylilies) for ‘breakfast’ and were returning to the forest because a car or two had come down our street.  

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Later in the day – when it was warmer – I walked around the yard and noted that the daylilies were recovering from the deer browsing several weeks ago. They were not eating them this morning. Also, the daffodils are on their last legs. I took some macro shots of them.

More violets were blooming.

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Dandelions are becoming more numerous too. I’m being lazy and leaving them alone. After the heavy rains a few years ago caused some of our lawn to turn to dirt with patches of grass I have come to appreciate the deeper roots of dandelions that hold the soil.

The leaves on the tulip poplar are a little bigger but the flower buds are not open yet.

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The cherry tree was attracting bees!

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It was a wonderful sunny day and warm enough to have the windows open again. Hearing birdsong in the forest never gets old.

Remembering something I forgot to include in the post for last Friday – my husband had a telemedicine session. It was a first for us. It was a follow up after some tests and lab work from back in February….not coronavirus related. It was a lot less stressful than going into a doctor’s office during this time.

Receiving a communication from our Community Supported Agriculture farmer about what they have been doing to social distance while they work and the modified share pickup process planned when the season starts for us in June. I am reassured that they are thinking ahead…that I can still enjoy the bounty of fresh veggies this summer.

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Photographing the sunset. The sunset is not in my line of sight from my desk, but I can see it if I stand in front of the window and look to the left. I timed it right last night. The clouds reflected the orange light in an arc over the tall trees.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27, 3/28, 3/29





Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/28/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Watching Winchester Mystery House Virtual Tour. I saw the blurb about the tour in one of my news feeds…and followed the link to view it (a little over 40 minutes). I remembered having an afternoon free during a business trip to San Jose – probably over 10 years ago - and touring the house. It was memorable and this virtual tour showed it very well…a good reinforcement to the memory.

Turning electronics off during thunderstorms. There was a line of thunderstorms that came through while I was watching the Winchester House Tour….I switched to watching on my laptop screen (on battery) rather than my big monitor. The lightning and rumblings passed quickly; the rest of the day was just rainy.

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Stir-frying with ground turkey. Using a seasoning packet I found in the pantry – a few months past the ‘use by date.’ This was my first experience using ground turkey; I’d put it on the list since it would be easy for the shopper to get what I wanted. We liked it – but I think I’ll go back to chicken breasts for next time. Maybe I’ll used ground turkey for chili though.

Taking end of day photos. It was a raining most of the day – not a good day for pictures…so I opted to experiment with the ‘night scene’ setting on my camera for the ‘through the window’ picture in the early evening.

Reviewing the birdfeeder camera videos. Saturday evening might become my regular time to review the videos from the birdfeeder cam for the week. It worked well for this past week. Here are the highlights:

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On Sunday – a Carolina Wren was in the first video of the day at 7:38 AM…a female Cardinal was in the last. A frustrated squirrel was first at the feeder on Monday about 8 AM.

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On Tuesday, a female Red-Bellied Woodpecker was first at 7:47 AM. On Wednesday, a pair of House Finches were at the feeder at 8:27 AM and there was a grand finale with a pair of House Finches and a female Cardinal at 5:40 PM.

On Thursday, the Carolina Wren came while it was very foggy at 7:06 AM. There were a lot of birds at 5:49 PM: female Red-Bellied Woodpecker with a Titmouse and a Carolina Wren. Then a chickadee just after the woodpecker flew away with a peanut.

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On Friday, a Titmouse was the first visitor at 6:55 AM. And the Cowbirds arrived – males first…then females…then male again. The last bird of the day was at 6:45 PM…a male Cowbird.

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On Saturday, the Carolina Wren was the early bird at 7:31 AM. There was a grand finale at 6:48 PM with House Finches and Chipping Sparrow. Most of the time the house finches come as a male/female pair.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27

6 Free eBooks – March 2020

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With so much time at home this month – I have browsed through many more online books and ramped up my monthly post about eBooks from 3 to 6. I’ve chosen 2 novels for their illustrations, 2 Ernst Haeckel collections, and 2 volumes from the 1840s with drawings of Yucatan ruins. Enjoy!

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Poe, Edgar Allan; Clarke, Harry (illustrator). Tales of Mystery and Imagination. London: George G. Harrap & Company Limited. 1923. Available from Internet Archive here. The illustrator, Harry Clarke, was also a stained-glass artist.

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Basswitz, Gerdt von. Peterchens Mondfahrt : ein Marchen. Berlin-Grunewald: Verlagsanstadlt Hermann Klemm AG. 1920. Available from Internet Archive here. The story started out as a stage play in 1912 in Leipzig; it became one of the best-loved German children’s books.

I found two collections of Ernst Haeckel’s works that I hadn’t found previously:

Radularia. Berlin: G. Reimer. 1862. Available from Internet Archive here.

Art Forms of Nature. Leipzig and Wien: Bibliographisches Institut. 1904. Available from Internet Archive here.

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Stephens, John Lloyd. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1843. Available from Internet Archive: here. Frederick Catherwood made the drawings for both volumes. Stephens and Catherwood were important figures in the rediscovery of Mayan civilization.

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Gleanings of the Week Ending March 28, 2020

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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.  

Tree Rings, Wildfires, and Climate | The Scientist Magazine® - Evidently the linkage between winter precipitation and fires in the spring in California – long documented in tree ring studies – has disappeared. Wildfires now are as likely to happen after a wet winter as they are after a dry one.

New Research Shows Healthy Agriculture Means Healthier Birds – Honing our understanding of healthy agricultural schemes that promote healthy farmland birds.

How cutting your food waste can help the climate - BBC Future – Over the past few years, I have started composting and reduced my food waste by eating food – never forgetting what I have in the refrigerator. Keeping a mental inventory of fresh fruits and veggies…freezing anything that I might not use before it goes bad….has been key. I enjoy frozen bananas in smoothies more than the unfrozen! This time at home (social distancing) gives me an opportunity for another round of reducing food waste….although it’s harder now since I’ve done all the easy actions.

'Grand Challenge' review stresses global impact of microplastics -- ScienceDaily  - Where major research and discovery are needed re microplastics impact on the environment and health. Recognizing that all plastic is not the same and new tools will be needed.

20+ Photos of a Snow-Covered Winter Wonderland in the Forest and 15 Incredible Finalists of the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest – So many beautiful pictures. I needed the boost of natural images this week.

Dragonflies are efficient predators: They consume hundreds of thousands of insects in a small area -- ScienceDaily – Exploring predation in the insect world…its impact on prey species and the community.

A Naturalist’s Guide to the South African Cape – Some unique species.

Top 25 birds of the week: Migratory birds - Wild Bird Revolution – I always enjoy the 25 bird pictures each week.

Sinking ships to stop erosion - The Landslide Blog - AGU Blogosphere – The example shows ships sunk after World War I to stop erosion…and now more than 100 years later – it’s obvious that it worked!

Staying in? Keep learning with science activities that kids and families can do at home | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Some resources from NOAA….ocean and atmosphere topics to explore without leaving the house!

30 Years Ago – March 1990

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30 years ago this month – my husband and I took our daughter on her first overnight trip. We went to Blackwater and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuges on the eastern shore of Maryland/Virginia. At Blackwater we saw our first Bald Eagle in the wild while the baby was working on a bottle (i.e. she was weaned from breast milk). We used our new umbrella stroller on some grassy paths at Chincoteague; by the end of the trip, it was somewhat scuffed…no longer ‘new’ looking.

I was making plans to go back to work in May…had sent a note off to my manager about wanting a part time assignment for 4 months and then would go back to full time after that.

My parents came from Texas for a visit – being with us for my Dad’s birthday. We bought some soft balls for our daughter to give to him for his birthday and I remember taking this picture. She has a pillow behind her because she wasn’t yet adept at sitting on her own. My dad’s arm is in the picture and the red ball he is getting ready to roll to her is in his hand. He moved it several times before he let it go…training her to keep her eye on the ball!

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Previous 30 years ago posts can be found here.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/22/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Trying macro photographs of spicebush and red maple. My original plan was to tromp through the backyard and into the woods…do the photography outdoors. But – it was colder and breezier than I anticipated so I cut a small spicebush branch and picked up a twig of red maple samaras that had blown off. The photography part of the project would be done inside.

I worked with the red maple samaras first. I used a jeweler’s loupe and my cell phone with the samara on my kitchen countertop…a small flash light supplementing the natural light coming from one side. I like the graceful ridges in the ‘wings.’

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Then I ‘got close’ with my Canon point-and-shoot camera….let its macro setting do it’s best. These are small immature samaras…about 1/4 inch.

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The spice bush flowers are small too. I put the branch in a vase (with the sycamore branch). I might get to see its leaves unfurl too…after the flowers are done. I noticed an ant on the branch as I put it in the water. Can ants be pollinators?

I tried several approaches to photographing the small flowers. The ones below were done with the clip-on macro lens on my phone. The challenge is the shallow depth of field. These flowers are small but not flat!

Then I tried putting my Canon bridge camera on a tripod across the kitchen and using the zoom. It blurs the background and provides more depth…but the color is gone. Maybe I’ll put more light on the flowers and try again. The sycamore buds might benefit from the same photographic strategy. My husband gets into the action too – helping me with the more complicated set ups.

Catching up on the Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari videos:

Completing the Jackson Pollock segment of the In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting Coursera course. I’ve been doing one ‘week’ of the course every day and enjoying all of them – particularly the part about learning how they were made.

Re-assessing our investment strategy…making some changes. At first, we thought that maybe the social distancing strategy would work, and the economy would blip but recover soon. Not enough people are following the guidance – it says something very sad about us as a nation – and means that the pandemic with be more overwhelming. From an economic standpoint, it is more than a blip and deteriorating further. So we made some investment changes to stabilize rather than free fall…..continuing our social distancing…and hoping that the tests of potential therapeutic drugs work well enough to save lives and shorten the time people are in the hospital to recover. Both my husband and I fell of the wagon of limiting time spent following the coronavirus stories and statistics yesterday…back to limiting that activity today – no one needs a constant pounding of repeating bad news.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20

Jigsaw Puzzle of the Moon

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Cleaning out a large box that had been in our basement since we moved to our house 25 years ago, I discovered framed pictures and other wall hangings. Several pieces were from the 1980s – a macramé piece made by sister on a large hoop and a collage of astrophotographs my husband made in the late 70s and early 80s. Other things were much older: a picture my husband remembers being in the houses he grew up in from the very beginning of his memories and a jigsaw puzzle of the moon that I remember helping to assemble in the 1960s. The puzzle was very difficult – made possible only because of the labeling of the features; my family was so pleased when we finished it that we glued it to a board. Someone carefully cut the circle and painted the raw edge black. I not sure when I ended up with it because of my husband’s interest in astronomy.

The 1960s were full of optimism about space exploration. It fueled an uptick in science and engineering interest overall. I’m glad to have this memento of the time. But where does this jigsaw puzzle go next?

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 21, 2020

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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.  

Can Destroying Senescent Cells Treat Age-Related Disease? | The Scientist Magazine® - Lots of trials going on…this may be a way to extended years of healthy life (not elongate life).

This 'Blood-Red' Snow Is Taking Over Parts of Antarctica | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – I remember seeing snow that was the color of watermelon in Colorado…it’s algae Chlamydomonas nivalis, which is the most common type of snow algae around the world. It hasn’t been as common in Antarctica until this year.

Spotted Zebras, Yellow Cardinals, and Three-Antlered Deer: What Causes these Animal Oddities? • The National Wildlife Federation Blog – Some uncommon forms of animals we all recognize.

What Makes a Venus Flytrap Snap | The Scientist Magazine® - It’s complicated…and nuanced so that the plant only invests in digestion efforts when there is food!

Just a Tiny Fraction of America’s Plastic Can Actually Be Recycled, Report Finds - Yale E360 – We can’t send it to China any more…so it’s all on us to clean up our own mess. Unless and until we can get recycling working well…it’s important for all of us to reduce our use of plastics as much as possible. It’s hard to do.

States with highest rates of melanoma due to ultraviolet radiation identified: Several landlocked states among those with highest rates -- ScienceDaily – It’s not all about being out in the sun either. The prevalence was higher in younger females due to tanning bed usage by teen girls in the late 1990s contributing.

Interactive Infographic: How Salt Transforms Coastal Forests | The Scientist Magazine® - We noticed this process as we’ve visited Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge over the years. There are some areas that used to be marsh with some trees that are now open water.

Top 25 birds of the week: March 2020 - Wild Bird Revolution – No birding festivals in our future near term….but still enjoying pictures taken by others.

Why your internet habits are not as clean as you think - BBC Future – A good compilation of studies about energy consumption for various aspects of our online activities….maybe we can skew toward the lower energy use ones more frequently. Some of the energy, we pay for in terms of our electricity use….others are embedded in products or services we use where the energy usage is not something we see directly.

Coronavirus: How hand sanitizers protect against infections – Compound Interest – Some timely chemistry.

Chinese Mantis Egg Cases

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Update: This blog post is about a visit to Robinson early in March. Like all Howard County Recreation and Parks facilities it is closed today as part of the strategy to slow the spread of COVID-19. Check the county web site for more information.

The dried grasses near the entrance of Robinson Nature Center seem to have a lot of mantis egg cases. They are easy to spot this time of year when the plants are dried and shriveled. The egg cases themselves look a bit like dried foam – about the same color as the grasses. But their shape is distinctive. It’s a Chinese Mantis egg case. The three egg cases I photographed were within a few yards of each other! There are going to be a lot of little mantises looking for food in that garden this spring since each egg case has 100s of eggs.

The species is not native, but it has been around in the US a long time. It was introduced in 1896 to the US and is now throughout the Northeast. It is the largest mantis in North America. It eats mostly other insects and spiders but has also been known to eat small reptiles, amphibians and even hummingbirds. I saw one eating a tiger swallowtail (dark morph) butterfly last July at Brookside Gardens

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Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/15/2020

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I normally do a daily blog post…but during this time, I might do an extra post from time to time. Since I am ‘staying at home as much as possible’ to reduce our COVID-19 exposure (and potentially slow the spread of the virus), I have more time at home.

Normally this time of year I travel, get training for upcoming volunteer activities, and take day trips---as spring is unfurling. This year was no exception, but it all came to a screeching halt last week. So – what am I doing with this extra time at home? Fortunately, I have a house that I enjoy and there is a lot to do. If you are at home and getting a little low on ‘things to do’ maybe these extra posts will give you some ideas.

There are the usual things that I always try to work into my day (but don’t always succeed when I have a lot of other things going on):

  • Zentangle (more than one)

  • Breathing App (this is an smartphone app that provides tones for breathing – in and out – in a rhythm that people meditating achieve….I find it very relaxing for 15 minutes…better than a substantial nap and makes me even more focused on whatever I do afterward)

  • Yoga (I’ve already built up my routine in the past week!)

  • Browse through 3-4 books on Internet Archive and other online sources. (I like variety. Today I am still working my way through 1) The Vermont Life magazines – I am up to Autumn 2011; 2) Starting The English Home magazines; 3) Working backwards through the Quarterly Journal of the Audubon Society of Missouri – I am back to 2013 now…getting to know to birds found in the state where my daughter is living; and 4) Keeping in reserve the Internet Archive collection by or about Alphonse Mucha.)

  • 12,000 steps (this one is a little harder being at home all the time although I am taking walks around the neighborhood or working in the yard on days that the weather is good)

  • Pictures of birds at the feeder or birdbath – right now the feeder is empty because we are discouraging a hawk from frequenting our back yard and it’s been raining so the birds don’t need the birdbath as often

But what I am doing more than the usual today…what are some ‘different’ things that I did today to keep boredom at bay?

  • Cleaned the foyer and kitchen floors. I don’t do this often enough.

  • Dusted the top of all the door frames. It might have been over a year since I did it. They were dusty!

  • Photographed the plum tree (once the rain was over). There were blossoms at different stages of development and the day was cloudy enough to avoid the harsh shadows of sunny days.

  • Read a chapter in a physical book (I usually read online these days but have a stack of books I’ve been meaning to read for several years)

  • Started soaking some pinto beans (the bag has been in the pantry for over a year, their ‘best if used by’ date was December 2020...I’m going to cook them to use in chili…we have plenty of time to do slow food!)

  • Watched Are Viruses Alive? Video by an astrobiology professor from University of Edinburgh (recorded at home for his “Life in the Universe Pandemic Series”). I enjoyed his Coursera course several years ago.

What I am trying not to do?

  • Eat more than usual

  • Spend too much time looking at COVID-19 news and analysis

NISE

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Update: This blog post is about a visit to Robinson early in March. Like all Howard County Recreation and Parks facilities it is closed today as part of the strategy to slow the spread of COVID-19. Check the county web site for more information.

One of the things about volunteering – there are always new things to try. Robinson Nature Center recently got some kits from the NISE (National Informal STEM Education) Network which is a community of informal educators and scientists dedicated to supporting learning about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) across the United States. Before I signed up for the training Robinson was offering, I looked at the NISE site. It offers many program and activities with great documentation (some kits). I was thrilled to know about the site and enjoyed the hands-on experience at the Robinson training.

Then I tried the “Exploring the Universe: Orbiting Objects” one Sunday afternoon. It included the ”gravity well” apparatus (made with PVC pipes and elbows, slip tees, PVC snap clamps, and 4-way stretch fabric). The picture shows the heaviest sphere representing the star/sun. The idea was to use spheres of various sizes and weights to simulate planets.

The activity is designed for ages 4 - adult. During the hour I was doing the activity with people coming to the nature center, the age of the children skewed young. If there were 2 children in the visiting family, the youngest was younger than 4. But it was still fun. We simply had some escaping planets and the children were not quite old enough to understand the content --- other than direct observations of the different size/weight of orbiting planets/balls and the star ‘wobble’ particularly with the heavier planet/ball orbiting. It was a learning experience for all!

Mycology Class Remnants

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Way back in the 1970s when I was working on my undergraduate degree in Biology, I took a mycology (study of fungi) class. It was one of the most memorable upper level courses in my undergraduate work…but it’s been a long time. The textbook, lab book and spiral notebooks are long gone. When I was cleaning out the basement (continuing projects during the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ strategy to avoid COVID-19), I found remnants of the course: some black and white negatives in protective sleeves – unlabeled. As soon as I looked at them, I knew they were microphotographs of the microscope slides I made during the mycology lab even though I don’t remember which species they are (some are penicillium species).

The negatives were somewhat deteriorated – maybe they were never crisply focused. I scanned them with my Epson V600 Photo Scanner then clipped the best portions of some of the frames and colored them blue in Microsoft Powerpoint. They have an abstract art look.

I remember that in the lab we inoculated growth medium (agar and other types), let the fungus grow onto the glass…then stained the fungus (methylene blue, I think) to make the filaments and fruiting structures and spores appear blue under the microscope. I would love to take a mycology lab course again….and take lots of pictures!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 14, 2020

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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.  

Shrikes: Meet the Bird That Impales Prey on Spikes – The bird creates its “pantry” on barbed wire…other spikey objects. Gruesome…but it’s an adaptation that works for the bird.

The color of your clothing can impact wildlife - ScienceDaily – For water anoles – orange is better than green if you want to see the lizards!

We're Destroying Virgin Forests for Toilet Paper -- What Are the Alternatives? | CleanTechnica – Not good! We in the US are the biggest users…change is hard.

Why Clouds Are the Key to New Troubling Projections on Warming - Yale E360 – Fewer clouds as the planet warms? If so, we’ll heat up more because more solar energy will strike the planet. That’s what the most recent models are predicting and real-world data from satellites suggests that the modelers’ predictions may already be coming true. We’ll have less snow and ice around too to reflect solar energy back into space. It seems like we should make all sky facing manmade surfaces (like roofs) white or lighter colored (unless they are generating energy)…and look for other opportunities to reflect like clouds.

New Research Rewrites the Demise of Easter Island | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – There is mounting evidence that Easter Island people created the statues until at least 1750 – after contact with Europeans. And their population has been relatively stable since the 1400s. By the time the British explorer James Cook arrived in 1774 the statues were in ruins. By 1877, just over 100 people remained on Easter Island.

How do woodpeckers avoid brain injury? – Woodpeckers avoid concussions with some adaptions: 1) specialized skull bones, neck muscles, beaks and tongue bones 2) less internal fluid surrounding their brain to limit the motion of the brain during pecking. Interesting…and maybe can help devise ways to protect and heal human brain injuries.

Anti-solar cells: A photovoltaic cell that works at night -- ScienceDaily – Some research…potentially a way to balance solar power over the day-night cycle.

How did the last Neanderthals live? - BBC Future – From caves in Gibraltar….the insight that they were much more like us than we once believed: they exploited seafood and marine mammals (they could swim…hunted dolphins), wooly mammoths, woolly rhinos, ibex, birds (maybe used their feathers…particularly the black ones); they decorated walls and shells; their hyoid bone was like ours (which means they might have had speech like ours); they made tools of bone that were copied by modern humans.

Florida scientists study health effects from exposure to toxic algae - UPI.com – Blue-green algae toxins make people sick (liver damage/disease, skin rashes, headaches, trouble breathing) but does it cause disease when it is absorbed via breathing (i.e. airborne particles) during algae blooms? Fish kills are bad too. It’s good to research the topic but shouldn’t we do everything we can to prevent the blooms in the first place?

Researchers Find Cell-Free Mitochondria Floating in Human Blood | The Scientist Magazine® - Surprise! Now to figure out their function….

From the basement: pictures from house hunting in 1983

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I’ve found boxes of old pictures I hadn’t looked at since we moved into our current house about 25 years ago in the basement during my increased time at home. It’s hard not to go off on a tangent and think about that history while I am scanning pictures (and/or the negatives). This post was prompted by pictures from when my husband and I moved from Texas to the east coast for new jobs in 1983. At the time there were house listings, but they were accessible only to realtors and they didn’t include any pictures. We had a week of house hunting paid for by our new employers and we were in the process of buying a house at the end of that week! We took pictures of the top contenders with a Polaroid as well as my husband’s Canon: the Polaroids to help us decide (not rely totally on our memory of each house while we were debating) and the others to develop after we got back to Texas so that we could make detailed plans on how we would arrange our furniture in the house when we moved in late June/early July.

The pictures of houses we didn’t buy are thrown away…and the ones I’m using in this post are the film photos (I was surprised that the Polaroids were still in good shape as well) of the house we bought. The house was about 30 years old and had some light remodeling. It’s the only house I’ve owned that had a gas stove…and no fireplace. It was my first house with a basement. The yard was the high point of the place: large oak and beech tress…mature boxwood and azaleas…raised beds on two sides of the back yard. The backyard had more moss than grass. It was like a green carpet. It was quite a change from the smaller trees and overall drier conditions in the part of Texas I was moving from.

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My favorite aspect of the kitchen was the pantry!

OK – now I’m telling myself to get off this tangent and back to cleaning out the basement….