Gleanings of the Week Ending December 17, 2022

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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.

Winners of 2022 Environmental Photographer of the Year Use Art to Tell Important Stories of Our Planet – Photography with a message

Rare good news from the Amazon: gigantic fish are thriving again – Pirarucu, an air-breathing fish that must rise to the surface every 15 minutes or so…can grow to be 10 feet long, weigh up to 450 pounds…are valued for their meat. The fish are making a comeback thanks to sustainable fishing programs in northern Brazil.

Stunning Winners of the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest – Capturing a place…and a tiny amount of time.

Top 10 Discoveries of 2022 – from Archaeology Magazine

Remains of last surviving Tasmanian Tiger discovered in museum cabinet – Finding and following the trail of an older female thylacine that was trapped and sold to the Beaumaris Zoo in mid-May 1936. She died in September 1936. The zoo transferred her body to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery where taxidermist preserved the hide, and the skeleton was broken apart and positioned on 5 cards. Both hide and skeleton were used by the museum for educational purposes…and then forgotten. They were found recently in a cabinet in the museum’s education department.

Best of 2022: Top Astrophotography That Captured the Beauty of the Cosmos – Quite a few from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Volcanic activity increases worldwide – There are 47 volcanoes around the world that are in ‘continuing eruption status’…more than double the normal. The article includes short videos of several of them.

The rich marine life under frozen ice – Phytoplankton and organisms that eat it….discovered by geologists trying to get a mud core, hitting rock, then seeing organisms when they reviewed what the camera on their equipment recorded!

Top Websites for Urban Planning – 2022 – From Planetizen. This year they highlight an increased attention to the social and environmental outcomes of planning…enabling identification/resolution in the intersections between the built/natural environment and the lives of people.

Exploring a forgotten Jewish Land – The Beta Israel in northern Ethiopia. The 100,000 strong population fled to Israel in the 1980s to escape war and famine.

Maya and US Southwest Archeology eBooks by Earl H. Morris

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A little archaeology from the early 1900s…books available from Internet Archive with great illustrations made immediately after excavations:

Preliminary account of the antiquities of the region between the Mancos and La Plata rivers in southwestern Colorado  (1919)

The Temple of the warriors at Chichen Itzá, Yucatan (plates) (1930)

Earl H. Morris did archaeological field work from 1912 to 1940….contributing artifacts to institutions that supported his work and a myriad of publications until his death in 1956. Both books are well worth the time to browse.

The first book’s pictures of pottery from the southwest reminded me of a visit to the Arizona State Museum’s The Pottery Project room….it was a place to savor shapes and patterns…I spent more time in that room than any other at the museum.

Old Rocking Chair

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My husband bought a rocking chair a month or so before we got married…about 50 years ago. We moved it with us from Texas to Virginia to Maryland to Missouri. It got a varying amount of use over the years, but I sat in in a lot recently since I positioned it in front of one of the windows in my office. The rocker was perfectly positioned for watching birds at the feeder, talking on the phone, crocheting, and making Zentangle tiles (using a clipboard to provide a hard surface). And then the back separated from one of the arms; it happened while I was rocking…talking on the phone…there was a crack and I stood up quickly to avoid breaking it even more.

My husband had mended the same place within the first year that we had it – putting in a larger screw and gluing the joint. He was going to mend it again but discovered that the screw had broken in half at the joint and he couldn’t remove either piece! We removed the cushions thinking we might reuse them and prepared to carry the rocker upstairs to go out next to the dumpster on the next trash day.

 Both of us feel sad to let it go; it’s a part of our history as a couple. We are frustrated that it can’t be mended and has become trash. We’ve ordered a glide rocker to replace it.

Intentions – What will I do different in 2023?

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At the end of 2021, I wrote down 4 intentions – things I wanted to be different in 2022:

  • Releasing myself from some of my daily ‘metrics’

  • Look for the unique

  • Reverting to a cleaner/neater house

  • Moving to life closer to my daughter

The last one was the most finite and the only one to be marked ‘done in 2022.’ The others are continuing. I was least successful in releasing myself from the daily ‘metrics.’ It worked well for me to do a mid-year assessment of my intentions…so I’ll do the same in 2023. My intentions for 2023 are:

Reliably spend a week of each month supporting my parents in their home (Carrollton TX). My sisters and I are determined to keep them as comfortable and independent as possible…honoring their wishes.

Restart volunteering. The pandemic caused a pause in my volunteer activities. At this point, I have tentatively identified where I want to volunteer…am hopeful it will be as rewarding as my previous volunteer gigs.

Update and maintain my yard. Our first summer in Missouri we hired a yard service. In 2023 I will use my (new) electric mower and mow it myself. I will also begin my project to reduce the amount of grass by planting several native bushes (I am thinking Beautyberry, Oakleaf Hydrangea, and maybe Ninebark). I also will start some perennial beds…maybe a ruff of day lilies around the base of maples in the front of the house.

Make some birding/hiking road trips. We were so busy moving in 2022 that we didn’t do the usual ‘vacation’ travel that we did pre-pandemic. We probably won’t do any airplane travel…but our location in the Missouri is a great starting point for road trips. There is a lot of Missouri that is ‘new to us’ too. The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis will probably be part of one of the road trips.

Attain and maintain ‘normal’ weight. I am close…but a few pounds too heavy. I’ve got into the normal range during 2022 but didn’t maintain it.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 10, 2022

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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.

Adults living in areas with high air pollution are more likely to have multiple long-term health conditions – A study of more than 364 thousand people in England. Respiratory and cardiovascular problems dominate but neurological and common mental conditions were also observed.

Best of 2022: Top 50 Photographs from Around the World – The first of the year in summary type articles. I had seen some of these photos before…but not all of them. They are worth a look.

Larger wheat harvest in Ukraine than expected – Based on satellite imagery, 94% of the winter crop was harvested…including 88% in areas not controlled by Ukraine. Some Ukrainian grain made it to global markets…however Russia is reaping the benefit of a significant portion of the harvest.

Medieval woman’s burial in Switzerland yields gold broach – A wealthy burial from a 7th century AD cemetery…excavated prior to construction work. The article didn’t say whether the finds would be going to a museum…or be reburied with the skeleton elsewhere.

More Than 52 Million Birds in the U.S. Are Dead Because of Avian Flu – It began last year in Eastern Canada and has affected flocks in 46 states since then. Wild and domestic birds are impacted…and there is a risk of infections in people too.

Study finds that experiences of daily stress decrease as people age – As we get older, we begin to deal daily stressors better. It’s a positive aspect to aging!

Archaeologists Find 1,900-Year-Old Snacks in Sewers Beneath the Colosseum – The debris from 1,900 years ago: olives, nuts, meats, cherries, grapes, figs, blackberries, and peaches!

Biodiversity unbalanced as ice-free Antarctic areas grow – Non-native species invading Antarctica

Idaho’s Potato Belt – 1/3 of the US potatoes are grown in the Snake River Plain….satellite images from NASA’s Aqua and Landsat 8.

Dam safety: New study indicates probable maximum flood events will significantly increase over next 80 years – This is a paper about 546 dams in Australia. We need to extend this type of analysis around the world…to improve the integrity of critical infrastructure into the future.

Coles Phillips eBooks

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Coles Phillips was an illustrator known for his stylish images of women for books, advertisements, and the covers of popular magazines. I browsed two of his books on Internet Archive recently:

A Gallery of Girls (1911)

A Young Man's Fancy (1912)

More of his magazine covers can also be found on Internet Archive (list here).

He died relatively young in June 1927; Life magazine featured one of his creations on the cover in July 1927 (and a 2-page illustrated obituary). His last Life magazine cover was in September 1927. The illustrations are available from Internet Archive via the link above.

He was one of the artists that depicted the greater freedoms of women in the 1920s. I wondered, as I realized how young he had been when he died, how his art would have evolved had he lived through the great depression and World War II.

Kittens! – Month 4

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Month 4 with our 3 kittens…..they are still kittenish but beginning to make cat noises…and always trying something new. Here’s my notes for what’s happened with the kittens over the past month.

Two of the kittens (Sooty and Puma) like the cat hammock that we kept from our first cat. It’s been in storage for almost 20 years because our next cats didn’t like it!

We tried putting up our Christmas tree…gave them time to adjust to it without ornaments. They climbed it, knocked off branches…then got sick. We opted to forego a tree completely this year even though we think now they were sick from something contagious that they all got and then recovered.

When they were sick, my husband let the kittens have the run of the 1st floor (except for our bedroom) during the night rather than sequestering them in their suite….and we’ve continued now that they’ve recovered – keeping the main bedroom and bathroom a kitten-free zone at night. We hear them at the door occasionally. I am the first one out and about in the mornings. I got my camera and photographed the kittens right after I emerged earlier this week: Pooky as in the hallway near a scratching pad, Sooty was comfortable in a pile of jackets my husband had left in a chair after the kittens knocked over the coat rack (damaging it a bit), and Puma was already waiting for my husband at the bedroom door.

It didn’t take long before all three were at the door…Pooky got nervous and retreated to the scratching pad. As soon as the door opened, they all streamed into the bedroom as if they had never been there before.

Sooty is the only one that likes the bathroom sink…and he doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone needing the sink.

When I was in Texas, I noticed some ‘space cats’ catnip toys. The cats will be getting them as part of their Christmas.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2, month 1, month 2, month 3

Crocheting Again

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I learned to crochet early on, probably when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather taught me! He didn’t crochet himself, but he read the instructions and taught me the basics. I can remember the setting: on the couch in his living room as my grandmother looked on. It was several years after the accident that had caused one of his legs to be amputated; he wore a prosthesis (primitive by today’s standards). My memories of him before the accident are vague, but I remember his interest, attention, patience, and kindness to me and my sisters all the years afterward. As I’ve started up crocheting again…thinking about how I learned…I realize that I was the only grandchild that he saw all the way to adulthood.

I don’t remember anything I made early on…I picked up crocheting again when I travelled with Up with People my junior year of high school. There was a lot of time on the bus between shows. I made slippers to use for rehearsals (wore them out very quickly), a hat and scarf. The hat and scarf were dark blue to match one of the colors from the tweed coat I wore then. I still have them but haven’t worn them in a long time. I tried on the hat and discovered that the yarn had degraded somewhat…making it less stretchy, too tight to be comfortable.

I made crocheted stars for Christmas tree ornaments in white shortly after I married…and then in red more than a decade later.

In my early thirties and before I had my daughter, there was another burst of crochet activity. I made some yellow dollies. I don’t remember why I chose the color! Around the same time, I was still making my own blouses for work and crocheted ecru or white pieces to sew into the neckline. I remember being very pleased with the results and wish I’d saved the crocheted part when the blouse fabric wore out.

I also made three crocheted scarves in red and green (wore them together for Christmas then separately at other times) and variegated pink with black. I’m not sure when I made them…probably about 20 years ago since I remember wearing them during my career and I’ve been post-career for over a decade.

Now – I am crocheting again. My initial project is to make a series of cotton scarves to keep the sun off the scar on my neck so that I don’t need sunscreen all the time while the scar fades. So far, I have made ecru and black scarves…am working on a white one. Light green and turquoise crochet threads have been purchased! It feels good to be crocheting again and making something that fits my need (cotton, colors, length) exactly.

Another aspect that pleases me about this new crochet project is the wooden bowl that was given to me in the 1970s by a friend I’d known all my life. I hadn’t used it for salads since its finish was damaged, but it is the perfect size and shape to hold the thread and my project….and reminds me of the good experiences I had growing up with her.

Through all the years and projects – crocheting has been an activity that I can do some deep thinking while making an item I need. Maybe that’s why I restart crocheting all over again.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 3, 2022

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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.

Drought hit large portion of the globe in 2021, state of water report says – Bad news for water: the negative trends are stronger than the positive ones.

Bloating common among Americans – I am so glad I discovered that I was lactose intolerant; it’s been relatively easy to change my diet to avoid bloating completely!

Do students really eat that badly? – Yes and no…and alcohol plays a negative role.

Fungi that cause lung infections may be spreading across the US – Infection causing soil fungi Histoplasma, Coccidioides, and Blastomyces – evidently the diseases are more widespread now than in the 1950s!

White House unveils its holiday décor, including 77 trees and ‘We the People’ theme – Getting in the mood for December celebrations!

From Patches to Pies, Illinois Knows Pumpkins – A little pumpkin history…and a satellite image (NASA’s Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager) from after the pumpkins are harvested.

Cranberry bogs in Plymouth County – A satellite image of production of another seasonal food: cranberries! Massachusetts supplies about 25% of the cranberries grown in the US (outpaced only by Wisconsin). The cranberry bogs look pink/red in the natural-color image at the beginning of the article.

We’re told to ‘eat a rainbow’ of fruit and vegetables. Here’s what each colour does in our body – Love the colorful foods!

Effigy Mounds National Monument Becomes a Tribal Sister Park To Ioway Tribal National Park – A new type of agreement….hoping it is a good one for everyone.

How to be a sustainable parent – It’s hard since the most easily obtained products are obviously not and there are no pre-defined alternatives that are more sustainable…aside from buying second hand (i.e. reuse) whenever possible.

eBotanical Prints – November 2022

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Another 20 botanical books in November. Four works by Ethelbert Blatter (best known as a pioneering botanist in British India) available on Internet Archive were browsed as well as 3 authored by Frederick Orpen Bower. I noticed that I’d missed browsing the 3rd volume of Bower’s The Ferns until I was writing this post – so I’ll include it with the December books.

The whole list of 2,512 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the November 2022 books with links to the volumes and sample images is at the bottom of this post.

Click on any sample images in the mosaic below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the November 2022 eBotanical Prints!

Lehrbuch der Botanik fur Hochschullen * Strasburger, Eduard, Noll, Fritz, Schenck, Henrich, et al * sample image * 1923

A history of British ferns * Newman, Edward * sample image * 1874

My Shrubs * Pillipotts, Eden * sample image * 1915

Plant-geography upon a physiological basis * Schimper, Andreas Franz, Wilhelm; Fisher, William Rogers et al * sample image * 1903

Cape Flowers at Home 1929 - Series I * Marloth, Rudolf * sample image * 1929

Das Kapland  * Marloth, Rudolf; Schimper, Andreas Franz Wilhelm * sample image * 1908

The origin of a land flora : a theory based upon the facts of alternation  * Bower, Frederick Orpen * sample image * 1908

The ferns (filicales) V1 * Bower, Frederick Orpen * sample image * 1923

The ferns (filicales) V2 * Bower, Frederick Orpen * sample image * 1923

Manuel complet de l'amateur de roses : leur monographie, leur histoire, et leur culture * Boitard, Pierre * sample image * 1836

Beautiful flowers of Kashmir Beautiful flowers of Kashmir V1 * Blatter, Ethelbert; Withen, G.A.; Walli, Haldar Joo * sample image * 1929

Beautiful flowers of Kashmir Beautiful flowers of Kashmir V2 * Blatter, Ethelbert; Withen, G.A.; Walli, Haldar Joo * sample image * 1929

The Bombay Grasses * Blatter, Ethelbert; McCann, Charles * sample image * 1935

The Ferns of Bombay * Blatter, Ethelbert; Almeida, Joseph Francis * sample image * 1922

Popular studies of California wild flowers * Rice, Bertha Marguete; Rice, Roland  * sample image * 1920

Mistletoe and holly * Prior, Sophia; Frey, Albert * sample image * 1939

Carnivorous plants * Prior, Sophia * sample image * 1939

Coffee * Dahlgren, Bror Eric * sample image * 1938

Tropical and Subtropical Fruits * Dahlgren, Bror Eric * sample image * 1947

Common Mushrooms * Pray, Leon Luther; Dahlgren, Bror Ericc * sample image * 1936

Decorating for the Holidays – Part 1

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Decorating the house for December has been different this year. It’s our first season in our Missouri house (old decorations in a new situation) and keeping the kittens safe is causing us to reconsider some of our decorating.

I decided that the pinecone wreath one of my sisters made for me more than 20 years ago needed to be refurbished; it was beyond my skills, so I took it to Carrollton and my sister stabilized the cones with wire and hot glue. We opted for simplified additions beyond the pinecones; I bought a new bow, and she attached it. When I got it back home, I realized I didn’t have any place to hang it that would be safe from our 3 kittens (the glittery bow would be too tempting them to chew).

It’s now hanging in my office in the basement…a kitten-fee zone.

My daughter and son-in-law helped us set up the tree on Thanksgiving. We didn’t decorate it right away…waiting for the cats to get bored with it. The kittens never got bored with it…climbed up through the center of the tree dislodging some of the branches. We took the tree down after 6 days when it appeared that the kittens were nibbling on the white plastic.

On the plus side, the old Christmas cards are not drawing the kittens’ attention. I have giant scrunchies with cards on the pantry door, the door to the basement, my office door, and one of the upstairs bedrooms.

There are also cards (with magnets taped to their back) on the two metal doors in the house (the doors to the garage and front).

Since we’ve turned off the gas fireplace completely, I put cards around the metal frame of the upstairs fireplace as well.

There are still a few other places to put old Christmas cards. I am glad I collected cards over the past 30 years…realizing that there won’t be many new ones; few people send cards any more…including me.

We have a wreath that we’ll put on the front door. My husband bought a magnetic hook as soon as we realized the door was metal! More on our decorations in a week or so…..when we decide to declare them ‘done.’

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2022

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Ten little celebrations for November. Some of them weren’t so little: a 91st birthday, a grandnephew, and Thanksgiving. There was a lot of food involved too. Celebrating November foods is probably my favorite lead up to the crescendo in December and then the beginning of a new year.

A mini-pumpkin – perfect for 4 servings. My sister bought small pumpkins for a table centerpiece; we decided to cook one of them for lunch along with meatloaf. The oven was nicely full. I pricked the skin of the pumpkin before I put it in the oven since I was cooking it intact. After about an hour, I took it out of the oven, lifted the stem off, cut it into quarters, and took the seeds out from the center. Everyone sprinkled cinnamon and added butter to melt into the pulp. All that was left at the end of the meal was the skin! Yummy!

Cranberries. I like cranberries in just about everything: stir fry, sauces for meatballs (combined with tomatillo salsa), chopping as an addition to stuffing, sauteed with apples + butter + cinnamon + honey for dessert. I used to make cranberry relish on the stovetop because I enjoyed watching the cranberries pop as they cooked, but I don’t like the relish as much anymore (too sweet) so now I enjoy cranberries pooping in stir fry or when they are sauteed. I celebrate both their flavor and their color!

Getting 141 bulbs planted. It took multiple sessions in the yard…and I celebrated when they were all finally in the ground. I hope most of them survive the squirrels and bloom next spring!

Leaves – raked, blown, shredded. Mowing is adequate for the leaves at our house but not my daughter’s. She has very large trees and the leaves were thick enough to kill grass. She and I spent an afternoon focused on leaves…and celebrated our accomplishment! The weather cool and crisp for a traditional fall activity …. always helps get me in the mood for the beginning of the holiday season.

A 91st birthday. Both of my parents are 91 years old as of November. Our family celebrates these milestones…enjoying that we still have them with us.

A grandnephew. Celebrating a baby in our family…the 1st one in over 20 years…adds a another facet to our joy during the holidays.

Walnuts. Not sure why…but walnuts have become a favorite this year. I am celebrating all the ways I’ve found to add them into food I am preparing!

Ritter Springs and Neighborhood Ponds. Celebrating the crisp air outdoors…the color of leaves…the frost on the grass.

Thanksgiving. Celebrating a day to appreciate all the recent events of our lives…a prelude to the family events/gatherings of December.

Leftovers. It’s a treat to have great food in short order… prolongs the celebration. I ate too much on Thanksgiving…did better on the subsequent days and maybe enjoyed the food more.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 26, 2022

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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.

Battle Over Bears Ears Continues in Utah – I am looking forward to visiting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments and hope that their boundaries stay the way the tribes that have used the area for a very long time want. At some point Utah and the counties that are opposing the size will recognize the values of the tribes and country that want to preserve historical, paleontological, and geologic aspects of these places….and that the state benefits significantly from people visiting. The tourism $ may become more dependable and long term than other uses of the land.

Pyramid and Hundreds of New Kingdom Coffins Found in Egypt - An Old Kingdom pyramid, 300 New Kingdom coffins with well-preserved mummies with names of the deceased, and nearby a pyramid to Queen Neith…a previously unknown Queen.

Long-COVID clinics are wrestling with how to treat their patients – Frustrating situation.

Fenced In: How the Global Rise of Border Walls Is Stifling Wildlife – Border walls have increased since the end of the Cold War! This makes climate change an even bigger challenge to mammals…because they cannot move to better habitat if there is a border wall in the way.

Baby's vaccine responses linked to birth delivery method, study finds – Babies born via Caesarian section have lower antibody levels after vaccinations than babies born naturally.

Scientists Discover More Than 22,000 Endangered Manta Rays off Coast of Ecuador – Larger than any other Manta Ray population.

A Massive Freshwater River Is Flowing Under Antarctica’s Ice – It is flowing at 3 times the rate of the Thames. This finding helps understand some problems with existing models…hopefully it will allow for model updates to predict the impact of warming more accurately on Antarctica’s ice.

A Field Guide to Jackrabbits – Hard to see denizens of the western US (and Mexico).

France Looks to Mandate Solar Panels Over Large Parking Lots – Good idea…maybe it will begin to happen in the US even without a mandate.

Bright LEDs could spell the end of dark skies – Hope cities can learn to use LEDs like Tucson…not overuse bright white LEDs.

Ducks, Geese, and Swans of the World (eBooks)

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Nagamichi Kuroda was a Japanese aristocrat and ornithologist. Two of his books (in Japanese) published in 1912 and 1913 are available from Internet Archive…worth a look for the illustrations. I’ve selected a sample illustration from each book.

Geese and Swans of the World

As I browsed these books, I wondered how many of the birds he documented still survive in viable numbers.

Kuroda lived a long time and published books on Javanese birds and Parrots…so there will be more of his books to enjoy as the copyrights expire. Both World Wars probably impacted his work; the books available now were published before World War I and the next ones mentioned I the Wikipedia entry are in the early 1930s and then beginning again in the 1950s. The Wikipedia entry was short on details of his life.

First Snow in Missouri

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I missed our first snow at our Missouri home (we moved there in June) last week since I was in Carrollton TX. My husband sent pictures, so I enjoyed the event vicariously! We were a little surprised that snow happened so early in the season.

I am consciously noting the differences between the seasons in Missouri and Maryland during our first year living in Missouri. The summer here was much drier in Missouri than I ever experienced in Maryland – at least this past summer. And then the fall in Missouri happened very abruptly in October with two nights of temperatures in the low twenties. Some leaves didn’t turn before they fell off the trees! It was very different than the falls in Maryland that happened more gradually….or maybe this was just a different fall for Missouri too. In recent years, we didn’t get snow in Maryland until December although in the 1980s there were some notable snows (the one I remember the most was in 1989 at Thanksgiving…my daughter’s first snow).

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 2022

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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.

Energy crisis: How living in a cold home affects your health – The coming winter is going to be very difficult for many – particularly in Europe.

Parks of the 21st century: new ways to reinvent abandoned land – Parks always are signs of hope…the greening of places that might have been eyesores in the past. I wondered how much toxic remediation had to occur for some of the sites they described; its encouraging that we can clean up the messes we’ve made in the past!

Alcohol caused one in eight deaths of working-age US adults – The data used from the analysis was pre-COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the CDC has released data for 2019 and 2020 and it shows a larger-than-normal 26% spike in the alcohol-induced deathrate. In 2020, alcoholic liver disease and mental/behavioral disorders were the leading underlying causes of alcohol-induced deaths. Sad numbers….lots of people and their families impacted.

A field guide to the unusual raptors of the Southern US – I was pleased to see the snail kite in this article – a bird I saw on a birding trip to Florida in 2019.

Farmers in China, Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice – Very positive results. Hopefully we will eventually have perennial forms of other grains (wheat in particular).

The weirdest places you can find wild turkeys – Wild turkeys have made a comeback since the early 1900s…a restoration success story. Part of the Thanksgiving vibe this week!

Breast cancer survivorship doubles – An analysis of Canadian data from the 2007-2001. The study also highlighted the long-term side effects in these survivors…the need for new therapies to improve the health of women after surviving breast cancer.

Permanent Standard Time Could Save Lives, Explained by A Sleep Expert – I don’t like changing to/from daylight savings time; before reading this article, I didn’t care which one we chose to make permanent. Now I am convinced that we should stick with standard time! There are too many negative health impacts to staying on daylight savings.

How to avoid bad choices – The article is about the research on how to teach children ‘decision-making competence’ – not just a measure of raw brainpower but how well someone is able to appraise situations. There are many approaches but the goal is to get children and adolescents to start thinking about risk and danger in a more analytical way….on the way to adulthood.

Blind spots in the monitoring of plastic waste – The amount of plastic waste in rivers could be up to 90% higher that previously assumed. The current measurements are mainly based on surface observations…but plastic can be suspended or sink! This study tracked 3,000 particles from 30mm to larger objects like plastic cup. Knowing where the plastic is helps guide where clean up would be the most effective.

Donald Maxwell Illustrations

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Donald Maxwell was an English writer and illustrator active in the first third of the 20th century. This week’s free eBook selections are 5 of Maxwell’s self-illustrated books that are available on Internet Archive:

A dweller in Mesopotamia (1920)

Unknown Kent (1921)

The Last Crusade (1920)

Unknown Essex (1925)

Unknown Sussex (1924)

These are easy books to browse for the illustrations which are a mix of line drawings and color plates. Enjoy!

11 years of Blogging

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I started this blog 11 years ago this month – November 2011. It was one of the activities I started as I prepared to leave my career behind….anticipating that I needed new rhythms to take the place of work days. Writing a daily blog was one of the first ideas I had for a new daily rhythm, and it has continued to be an outlet for the evolution of my post-career years.

The broad categories of my favorite activities – reading, writing, traveling, photography/art - have been reflected during the 11 years…with the shifts I’ve experienced over the years evident in the posts:

My reading is almost entirely digital media now – dominated by Internet Archive and website feeds (via Feedly). I’ve gone through spurts of multimedia learning/reading (Coursera courses and webinars with details charts and references) but am in a multimedia lull right now. My interest in botanical prints has continued…with a goal of finding/browsing 20 new books on the topic each month. My interest in climate change has ramped up…and I have taken/plan personal changes; I’d like to leave the earth a better place…or at least not a worse place (that idea is getting more and more challenging).

Writing has been a way to reduce stress for me since the 1980s; I’ve trained myself to ‘write it down and let it go.’ The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated cultural divisions in the US has been a greater strain on that training than ever before and there was some faltering in late 2020/early 2021. I am realizing now that writing is, again, my most effective way to bolster my resilience to whatever happens.

Traveling for the first few years of the blog was motivated by my daughter’s location (in Tucson) with road trips to and from Arizona and traveling with her to Hawaii…then helping her move to Pennsylvania and then to Missouri more recently. My volunteer work (leading themed hikes with elementary school children, coaching high school teams doing water quality assessments in streams/rivers, etc.) enabled me to discover natural places close to home. Birding festivals became a favorite travel motivation (to New Mexico, Florida, and Texas) in the few years before the pandemic. Then it all stopped. Since the pandemic, our travel is day trips or for family visits (my parents and daughter) and then our moving to Missouri….and it has all been road trips.

My expertise (and equipment) for photography has increased dramatically over the 11 years. I go through phases…most recently an uptick in macro photography (with my phone). I have refined my Zentangles over the years…and going through phases: new tile shapes (other than square), white highlights, coloring (with different kinds of pens). There is a lot more artist creation in my life now than during my career and my blog has reflected that increase over the past 11 years.

That sums up the state of the blog 11 years in!

Here is a summary of the regular posts (weekly and monthly):

Gleanings 1st one was for week ending 12/31/2011…use the gleanings tag to see all the posts

eBook(s) of the week – 1st monthly post was in October 2012 (i.e. started out as monthly transitioned to weekly on October 9, 2020)…use the book of the week category to see all the posts

eBotainical Prints – 1st post with the eBotanicalPrints tag was on December 17, 2018…use the eBotanicalPrints tag to see all the monthly posts

Zoom – 1st monthly post was in August 2013…use the zoom tag to see all the posts

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – 1st monthly post in October 2012…use the celebration tag to see all the posts

Previous anniversary post: 10th anniversary

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 12, 2022

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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.

America’s largest transit bus charging station & microgrid open in Maryland – The headline caught my eye because I lived in Maryland for over 20 years – 8 of those in the county where this is happening! I hope other states have the same sorts of projects in the works.

NASA Finds More Than 50 Super-Emitters of Methane – Finding them is only the first step….how many of them will be situations we can reduce or stop the emission?

Iron induces chronic heart failure in half of heart attack survivors – This study prompted testing of iron chelation therapy to remedy or mitigate the effects associated with iron in hemorrhagic myocardial infarction patients.

Unique Bronze Age belt discovered near Opava – Half my ancestors came from the area that is now the Czech Republic…I am drawn to articles about the history of the region.  The belt is quite beautiful…but was it a practical item of apparel?  

What happens if our circadian rhythms are out of whack? – WHO has proclaimed that disrupted circadian rhythms are a probable carcinogen. The study discussed in this post was about the mechanism that circadian rhythm disruption triggers lung tumors.

View 16 Breathtaking Images from the Nature Conservancy’s Annual Photo Contest – Take a little break….look at awesome images of our world.

Mississippi River Basin adapts as climate change brings extreme rain and flooding – This year the stories about extreme weather seem to be more frequent – and wide ranging in terms of water. The Mississippi was low enough for barge traffic to be impacted because of drought…yet there were floods along part of the river just last summer.

Eye-opening discovery about adult brain's ability to recover vision – An unexpected success…opening new ways to treat a vision impairment (LCA) and maybe prompt a re-look about how the adult brain can re-wire itself relative to vision.

The World’s Whitest Paint May Soon Help Cool Airplanes and Spacecraft – A way of making paint that was previously too thick/heavy for things that move. The thicker version works for homes and buildings. We’ll need this technology to reflect heat without expending energy!

Greater cloud cover may be narrowing the gap between daily high and low temperatures – Simulating clouds explicitly. Trying to understand why nights are heating up faster than days across the globe.

Snow and Ice Photography

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Herbert Walker Wagner’s Snow and Ice Photography was published in 1938 and is available on Internet Archive. My takeaways are from two perspectives: 1) composition ideas for my next encounter with snow and ice and 2) as a historical record of the state of photographic art in the 1930s – just before World War II. The ‘looks like’ (ice herd example) idea emphasized through cropping and the naming of compositions are my top two compositional ideas from the book. Historically – the realization (again and again) about how much easier it is now to take and enhance photographs; digitization and software has changed photography tremendously.

Enjoy the three samples I picked to include in this post…there are many more in the book which is well worth a look!