Thrift Store Finds

I love the bargains I find at thrift stores. The thrift store jeans and other pants I bought when my daughter was a senior in high school (over 10 years ago) are wearing out…so it is time for some ‘new’ finds. On my first foray to the local thrift store, I found 3 pants; they cost a total of $16! I’ll clean out the old pants from my closet and put them in the giveaway pile although they are very worn and might only be good for rags at this point. The serendipity find of the day was a pair of winter boots that are warm and not too clunky. The soles don’t look worn at all and they are very comfortable. I always wonder at these ‘like new’ items; how did they come to be in the thrift store? I bought them for $9 and plan to enjoy them all winter.

Company Coming

The prospect of overnight visitors is always a good forcing function to get the house is better shape. I vacuum regularly but the parts of our house that we don’t use frequently (like the guest bedroom and bathroom) are not dusted and cleaned as often as the rest of the house.

And we tend to accumulate things on the surface areas in the kitchen – breakfast area – den. We have a lot more space than we need, and I’m always surprised at how long items remain in place once they are put down. So now I am feeling good about getting spaces cleared off and the house changed from summer to fall/winter. I brought in the glass birdbath bowl, cleaned it thoroughly, and filled it with the CSA bounty of winter squash – a great center piece for the kitchen island.

End of the CSA Season

The end of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) season was this week. I’ll miss the weekly share – bursting with freshness and flavor.

There are some things that will keep and be used over the next few months  - white potatoes that I’ve stored in paper bags, sweet potatoes that are simply spread on a tray in my darkened dining room, and winter squash that I’ll eat up before the potatoes.

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I have tomatoes, diced hot peppers and leafy greens for soups in the freezer. I’m planning to eat up all the other fall offerings over the next few weeks. They are fresh enough to last that long in the refrigerator: carrots, beets, turnips, cabbages, peppers, scallions, cilantro, arugula, lettuce, spinach, and broccoli in salads and stir fries. The eating will be so good…

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Walking in the Neighborhood

Our neighborhood is not great for a long distance walk…still – there are photographic opportunities at every turn. Before I even left my house, I saw a sycamore tussock moth caterpillar (dense white hairs with butterscotch tuffs at the head end).

I also realized I needed to do another round of raking; the sycamore is beginning to shed is very large leaves – some more than a foot across.

Along the walk I saw a few other leaves on the ground and photographed ones caught my attention. The oaks (not that there are two different kinds of oak leaves in our neighborhood) are shedding their leaves more than the other trees. Most of the maples – which provide the most colorful or our fall leaves – are still green.

The storm water retention pond is not appealing – still full of scum that is very visible without the vegetation that used to grow around the pond. On the plus side, the slopes have not been mowed so the erosion that happened right after the pond was cleaned out last spring has been stabilized.

I sat on the bench and took some zoomed pictures of some of the plants in the unmowed area.

I walked up to the entry of the neighborhood and took a picture of the cornfield across the street. It will be harvested soon. The only green left in the field itself area the weedy vines using the corn for support. There is some chicory growing in the area between the road and the field. Chicory seems to be resilient to just about everything – unlike milkweed which no longer grows in the margins around cornfield.

Finally - Some Rain

The last 4 weeks have been very dry in our area with the only moisture being dew coating everything in the mornings. It’s unusual to go this long without rain although it has made the fall field trips easier for the students (into the streams/rivers or BioBlitz). It finally rained yesterday and I’m sure all the vegetation is soaking up the moisture.

It might be too late for the fall foliage to recover enough to show vivid colors. Some trees have already lost their leaves…a very brief and muted color change then leaves swirling. I’m still hopeful that the trees behind our house will show their typical colors since the leaves are still on the trees and green. The color in our backyard usually peaks just before Halloween.

The status of our trees before the rain: cherry (leaves already on the ground), plum and oak (about half the leaves already on the ground), tulip poplar (about 1/3 leaves yellow and the rest are still green), maple (leaves green), sycamore (some curling brown leaves on the tree and ground, still about half the leaves are green and still on the tree).

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After a few days of rain – we’ll see what happens.

Fall Cleaning

I am trying to pay a little more attention to the house between volunteer work. My new – and favorite – tool is a long-handled scrub brush that I bought about a month ago. Why did I not buy one before rather than delay any job that required scrubbing on my hands and knees? Now I make quick work of the tile floor in the bathrooms (cleaner than they’ve been in years) and the shower stall (base and lower walls), and even scrubbing in carpet cleaner that later gets vacuumed up.

I might have to get one for outdoors – the deck and the garage – because this one is for indoors only!

Bowls

I have a small collection of serving bowls that I use for a ‘meal-in-a-bowl’ – where the whole meal is in a largish bowl: soup or salad or stir fry. There are 4 bowls that I stack in convenient place in the cabinet and use frequently.

My favorite one is a clear glass bowl with a botanical pattern – smooth on the inside with the botanical texture on the outside. I only use it for salad. It is probably the lightest in weight of the 4 bowls so I can enjoy my salad anywhere, not just at the table.

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My next favorite is a shallower bowl from Praltzgraff (Mission Flower). I bought it as a single piece specifically for warm meal-in-a-bowl dishes: soups or stir fry. I liked the pattern inside the bowl and around the rim. I always eat soups at the table (too prone to spills to carry around) but eat stir fry meals anywhere in the house that there is a comfortable chair.

There is a plain white bowl that gets a lot of use because it is the only one my husband uses too. He uses it for spaghetti. Soups and spaghetti (the squash variety) are what I put in this bowl.

The last bowl I like more for the pattern than the bowl itself. I only use it when the others aren’t available because it is so heavy. It’s usually for salad but sometimes has other things in it…since it is the last resort from the cabinet.

Just writing this post is making me hungry!

Raking Oak Leaves

I’ve raked the leaves falling from our oak tree twice already this year. My typical tools are the rake for the leaves and then a broom for the crushed acorns in the driveway and street gutter.  Today I remembered to take before and after pictures.

I had cleared 4 trash cans full of leaves from the gutter and grass closest to the street just a few days ago and was surprised that were so many leaves to be raked.

5 trash cans full of leaves and a half trash can of acorn debris later – the yard looks better but I realized that the tree still looks like it has a lot of leaves! This is not the last raking of the fall for this tree.

I also noticed that the acorn debris seemed to be more ‘hats’ that the nut itself. Maybe the neighborhood squirrels have been retrieving more of the acorns that fall on the driveway!

Spaghetti Squash

The Gorman Farms CSA shares in recent weeks have included winter squash; the first one was a spaghetti squash and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I cooked it first – whole, skin pricked with a fork, for an hour at 350 degrees. At the end of the hour I took it out cut off the top and then cut it in half to let it cool a bit. I had decided the first meal from it would be ‘spaghetti’ so I started the sauce: spicy tomato sauce from a jar poured over eggplant cubes that needed to simmer a bit. Back to the squash: I used a spoon to life out the mass of seeds and pulp in the center then teased out the ‘spaghetti’ that I wanted into a small non-stick skillet; I added a little oil and stir fried the squash a little to drive off excess water. I cut up some arugula for the topping while the sauce continued to bubble and I added some shelled edamame for protein. When the squash we ready I poured it into a bowl…the added the sauce and the generous handful of arugula. Yummy!

I used about 1/4th the squash for the ‘spaghetti’ dinner. The next fourth was used for a dessert! I soaked raisins in apricot brandy for a few hours. I started the dish by sautéing the squash with a little butter in a non-stick skillet, adding cinnamon + maple syrup + raisins with brandy as it cooked. I let the liquid cook down almost completely. It smelled wonderful and tasted yummy – eaten warm. The squash is naturally sweet so no much syrup was needed. This is something I will make again.

I still have more spaghetti squash in the refrigerator…planning to make a frittata since I will be out and about a lot over the next few days and that is easy to make ahead for a quick meal when I get home.

Next up – acorn squash.

Home Alone

I never lived alone so it is unusual to have some days to just be at home by myself – having no reason to be anywhere else. It happened this past weekend when my husband was away at the Black Forest Star Party at Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania. I would not like it to happen frequently, but what a luxury for a few days! I got caught up on so much and enjoyed the quiet house.

And I still enjoyed some views of the star party my husband sent. They had relatively clear skies for 2 of the nights making it a worthwhile endeavor for the 500 or so people that were there camping on the field with their telescopes.

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Birding through a window – September 2017

The goldfinches are enjoying the sunflowers on the deck…making them easier to photograph. The look about after each acrobatic move to pluck a seed.

A fledgling was making quite a fuss on the deck roof outside my office. I looked around to see what else was going on and discovered the parent in the gutter --- ignoring the noise from the fledgling and enjoying a bath!

A few days later our resident Carolina Wren was out early and singing. There was still water in gutter and it soon took a bath and emerged very wet and bedraggled looking.

Red Soup

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

The ingredients were:

Bullion

Beet

Tomato

Rosemary, thyme, parsley…whatever seasons you like

Mushrooms

Sunflower seeds

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

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

Yummy!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 16, 2017

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Two places to look at bird images: Stunning Winners of the 2017 Bird Photographer of the Year Contest and Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #104 – I can’t resist. Birds are such interesting subjects for photography….and challenging enough to engage photographers the world over.

This is how Pittsburgh is taking climate action – Now that my son-in-law is in Pittsburgh for his post doc, I am learning more about the city. It’s moving way beyond its heavy industry history. The Phipps Conservatory was one of the places mentioned in the article as a place that generates all its own energy and treats/reuses all water captured on site! We visited the place last March (see blog post here).

‘Rubber material’ discovered that could lead to scratch-proof paint for car – Wonderful if it can be made available at reasonable cost.

Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues – School needs to prepare students with skills they will need as they get older….so it can’t stay be anchored in the past. The challenge is to not set a new high-tech anchor that is expensive and potentially a dead end or not very effective. The pace of change that adults and children have in their lives is ramped up; perhaps a life skill we all need it how to cope with that pace of change without being overwhelmed.

How self-driving cars will change the American road trip – I’ve been thinking about this recently and was disappointed in this article in that it hypothesized the cars stopping every 180-200 miles. If I was on a road trip and only stopped every 3 hours or so….I’d be very stiff by the end of the day. Does the author think that the interior of self-driving cars will be different enough that people can somehow move around a bit more rather than just sitting relatively still? What about children and older people that can’t ‘hold it’ for 3 hours? If the cars or autonomous enough – will we be more likely to be traveling through the night and the car just stopping when it needs to for charging with us sleeping through everything?

Exploring Europeana in Czech, Irish, Slovak and Slovenian – One part of my family is Czech so this post caught my attention. I don’t speak the language but I’m interested in the art my ancestors might have seen before they left in the late 1800s.

West Coast Monarch Butterflies Flutter Toward Extinction – The numbers of west coast monarchs have declined by 97% since 1981. Very sad. Monarchs are declining all over the US not just the east coast ones that migrate to Mexico.

We could lessen the toll of hurricanes – but we don’t – A timely article after Harvey and Irma – so much destruction…of places and people’s lives.

New Guide: Energy Efficiency at Home - ASLA has created a new guide to increasing energy efficiency through sustainable residential landscape architecture, which contains research, projects, and resources.

Back to School

The K-12 schools started again in Maryland this week. The traffic patterns have changed; there are about 8 cars that leave my neighborhood just after the elementary school bus (parents waiting to leave for work until their children are off to school)!

It’s been a long time since I was in K-12 but somehow September still means a ramp up of activity after a somewhat ‘lazy’ summer. There is a psychology from my own school experience…reinforced by my daughter’s experience.

This year September is busier than usual with volunteer shifts at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy through September 17 and the training for volunteers at Howard County Conservancy followed by the start of field trips from many of the county schools. The Watershed Report Card program for high schoolers already has quiet a schedule that begins September 19 and continues through most of October.

I am also signed up for Conservation Easement Training in September.

I supposed if it ever gets slow – I could take a Coursera course….but right now it looks like this ‘fall’s back to school’ is already very full.

Celebrating Labor Day

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

Snacking on cherry tomatoes while we cook…and

Watermelon afterward (maybe as mid-afternoon snack).

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

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

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 Free eBooks – August 2017

I’ve been enjoying colorful magazines on various topics that are from 2016 and available on Internet Archive. It’s like browsing through a stack of periodicals in the dentist’s office!

House Beautiful (from US and UK) from 2015 and 2016. Available from Internet Archive here. Lots of food for thought if you are redecorating, renovating, or moving to another house and wanting to add something to make it ‘home.’

World of Animals from 2014 and 2017 available from Internet Archive here. Great pictures of animals – many in action – from all over the world.

Canadian Architecture and Design 2009 available from Internet Archive here. Again – great photography…beautiful places. I hope pocket doors become popular again!

Spider Webs

Last week on a foggy morning, my husband commented that there was a large spider web on our mailbox. I went out to investigate. Sure enough – it was easy to spot.

The fog had left water droplets on the strands of silk. Making it more visible.

As I zoomed in – they looked more and more like beads on a string.

I noticed another web over the mailbox. It was not as organized and the camera had a challenge to focus on anything as I zoomed in. I wonder if the organization of the web indicated it was a different kind of spider than the one that built the web below.

There were different webs in the azalea near our porch but they had caught the fog as well. The webs look like gauzy nets. These spiders had evidently had recent success and were working to wrap up their prey. As I was photographing these webs, I felt a tickly on my right leg – and discovered a small ant was crawling around. Then I looked at my left leg…and there were 12 or more ants! I cut the photography session short and brushed the ants off and put baking soda water on my legs even though – amazingly – I don’t think the ants stung me at all.

Hope everyone along the path of the solar eclipse in the US today takes the opportunity to see it! Be safe and enjoy the event.

Birding through a window – August 2017

Last month, I posted about an America goldfinch that perched on the window frame outside my office. And it’s a goldfinch again for August’s ‘through a window’ post. This male is already in the process changing to winter plumage. He has patches of gray on his head and neck and there are tufts of feathers that the bird was moving around on both sides – like they itched. It was not exactly symmetrical but maybe molting never is.

As the leaf cover of the trees gets thinner, there is always less protection from predators so the drabber winter plumage helps the bird survive. No need for him to stand out when it’s not breeding season!

An August Sunrise

With the days getting shorter, I’m downstairs before sunrise on some mornings. I looked out the narrow window beside my front door last weekend about 10 minutes before sunrise and decided to take a minute for some pictures…stepping out to the front porch. I experimented with composition and orientation. My favorite is the last one because it shows the top of our oak tree and there are faint pink streamer clouds up into sky. It was a very worthwhile minute on the front porch! The cat watched me from the narrow window; he might have been enjoying the morning scene as well. Noticing the sunrise is a great way to start the day.