CSA Share

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The Gorman Farms CSA season is about done but I am enjoying everything in the shares we are getting. A recent share filled the ceramic top of my stove. There are carrots with more top that carrot – but I like the tops in salads and soups; as soon as I got them home I cut the tops off, cleaned them and put them in a plastic bin with the parsley. I’ll eat the carrot tops first since they won’t last as long as the parsley. The carrots themselves will be eaten with hummus for snacks. They were very muddy. Heavy rain and mud has made harvesting more challenging than usual in our area.

I haven’t tried the watermelon radishes yet but I have enjoyed them in seasons past. We’re still getting a couple of onions every week which fits well with the way I cook. I’m a little behind on the winter squash; at some point I’ll cook them all and freeze the pulp to use like pumpkin. There were three tiny versions of butternut squash in this share; supposedly they are even sweeter and cook faster because they are small. The purple cabbages are small – struggling in the soggy fields probably. The peppers are holding strong; there were bell, banana, and roasting peppers in the share. And then there are sweet potatoes…several pounds every week; I’m saving the ones that are cured to eat after the CSA is over for the year. There was quite a selection at the overage table and I picked the fennel; I’ve developed a taste of it…since joining the CSA several years ago; I’d never tried it before that.

Good eating in October!

Foggy Morning at Centennial Park

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Earlier this week, I enjoyed doing some photography at Centennial Park on a foggy morning. The lake was a little high from the recent rains and the fog muted the colors of the trees (still mostly green).

I stopped at a dogwood tree to capture the buds for next season and the seeds from this year.

There were some colorful leaves that showed up better at close range.

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There were some fall flowers at the edge of the lake – somewhat protected from the water run off by a large rock.

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There were not very many birds around:  a few Canadian geese on the lake

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And a mockingbird. Note the small spider web in the picture with the mockingbird.

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The spider webs and small mushroom growing on rotting mulch were the photographic high points of the walk. I post more about them next week.

Shelf Fungus

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There were several tree trunks/branches thick with shelf fungus that I photographed last Friday during my muddy hike in the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area). The first was a tree standing by the river – exposed roots holding it right on the edge. There were at least three different kinds of fungus on the trunk.

Perhaps seeing that tree made me more observant as we hiked further along the along the loom of the South Wind Trail. I spotted some bright orange fungus on some fallen branches beside the path. The color jumped out – a contrast with the greens and browns on the forest floor.

With all the rain we’ve been getting – there are quite a few fungi around…and they are fresh enough to be brightly colored. They are fun to find and photograph. Exact identification is frustrating for most of them, so I am lumping these as ‘shelf fungus’!

Rain and the Middle Patuxent

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Last Friday, I had all my gear prepped and was almost walking out the door when I got the word that the field trip for high schoolers to assess stream health in the upper part of the Middle Patuxent River (in the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area) was cancelled. There was a line of heavy thunderstorms come through the night before and crossing the river on rocks was impossible. It’s been a rough fall for stream surveys with all the heavy rain we’ve gotten. I waited until mid-morning then headed out to see the high water myself – recruiting my husband to go along. It is about 15 minutes from our house.

Like a lot of forested areas in our county, there are scheduled deer management hunts posted on bright red signs. There is a similar one in our neighborhood for the forest behind many of our houses (and down to the Middle Patuxent River).

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The South Wind Trail started out as older asphalt then became grass with some muddy places.

I saw some Christmas ferns under a low growing tree just off the path.

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The closer we got to the river the muddier the trail got. The ground was clearly saturated. It would have become quite a quagmire with 60+ students, teachers, and volunteers hiking down to the river.

At the river the water was higher than I’d see it and foam was floating on the surface. The rocks we used to get across the river where we did most of the sampling were partially submerged…to dangerous to cross the river. The amount of sediment and rapid flow of the water would have made it had to find macroinvertebrates as well.

At first, I thought the gray areas of the rocks close to the river were lichen, but when I looked more closely, the areas looked more like they had been scoured and the lichen might be starting to grow again – very slowly.

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As we continued around the loop to get back to our car, a part of the trail looked like it was becoming a rivulet into the river. Since the water had not made a ditch yet, it might be something that has just happened this fall.

Mushrooms

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Mushrooms are coming up all over. The moisture we got in September evidently provided optimal conditions for the fungi to put up fruiting bodies.

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On the way home from Belmont last week, I stopped along the road to photograph an embankment with visible mushrooms.

As I got closer I discovered some that were not quite as visible. There were at least three different kinds. The largest ones, that were in all stages of development, were what I saw first. The started out as white then began to darken and crack like meringue. Finally, the cap splits. There were some that were still just pushing up – still almost concealed by pine needles.

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There was one that was almost the same color as pine needles.

And puffballs that were in all stages of development.

When I got home, I noticed a large one at the base of a neighbor’s tree. I put my macro lens beside it to show the size and then took a picture of the surface with the lens; it looked like a topography map with rifts between the brown patches!

Brookside Gardens at end of September – part II

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Yesterday I posted about plants…today is about birds and butterflies. We’d gone to Brookside Gardens to photograph hummingbirds – realizing that it was near the end of the season for them. The garden area full of salvias was still full of flowers.

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There were a few birds, but they did not stay long. The only image I managed was a hummingbird in a tree….using the zoom to advantage. The bird looked very rounded and in good shape to continue south.

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I also photographed a male and female monarch (the male has a black node on each hind wing). They too were probably heading south and stopping at the garden to refuel.

Brookside Gardens at end of September – part I

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The growing season is waning, but there is still plenty to see at Brookside Gardens when we went last weekend. Some plants have already produced their seeds – the sumac and sunflowers and castor beans among them.

The magnolia pods are as colorful as the seeds. Some of the seeds have already been eaten by birds or squirrels.

But there are still flowers to see too. I spent time photographing asters with tiny water droplets still coating them from the morning dew.

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But there are other things still blooming as well.

There were some lights that were turned on covering the trunks and lower branches of trees around one of the court yards – evidence that the crew putting up lights for the holiday light show has already started.

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Cooler Days – Little Fall Color

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Here it is the end of September and most of the leaves are still on the trees and green. The ones that have fallen are brown.

Our oak is a good example of that. Looking at the ground it looks like half the leaves have fall but the tree still looks like it has plenty more. (The ruler in the picture is me learning to take better documentary pictures for trees.)

In the back of our house, the red maple has no red leaves. Usually it starts out with a few that show up surrounded by green. But right now it’s still a wall of green although there are leaves on the ground that are brown.

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The tulip poplar usually has some yellow leaves surrounded by green. Some of the leaves look like they might be turning but even the zoomed image looks like a wall of green.

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There are some green tulip poplar leaves that have fallen in recent heavy rains…but overall the tree still has a lot of green leaves attached.

The sycamore has been dropping brown leaves but still has a lot of green ones on the tree. It’s usual the first to drop leaves. This year some are staying on the tree but there are still more green than brown ones.

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We’ve gotten a lot more rain than usual in September (almost 11 inches rather than the historical average of 4.6 inches) and the trees may be impacted by that. There is a lot of mud even in the grassy areas of our yard.

The end of October is generally the time the leaves fly from the trees, so I am still anticipating fall color. It just seems that there are too many brown leaves on the ground already.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 29, 2018

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The Amazing Ancient Fishes of Africa – Cool Green Science – Lungfish, butterfly fish, bichir, bonytongue…most of them are air breathers!

Thinking beyond yourself can make you more open to healthy lifestyle choices -- ScienceDaily – Maybe we need to psyche ourselves to make better choices!

Japan's Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Successfully Deploys Landers to Asteroid Ryugu's Surface and Bouncing robots land on asteroid 180m miles away amid mission to fetch sample for Earth • The Register  – Exciting stuff from a rover on an asteroid! And the return mission in 2020 will be exciting too.

Molecule with anti-aging effects on vascular system identified -- ScienceDaily – A ketone body was identified that is produced during fasting or calorie restriction. It appears to delay vascular aging.

Free Technology for Teachers: A Good Resource for Learning About the Science of Food – 14 short videos about food research.

Scientists investigate how DEET confuses countless critters -- ScienceDaily – Evidently DEET interferes with organisms’ response to odors thus confusing the organism rather than repelling it!

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Birds with Yellow Plumage – National Geographic Blog – I always enjoy the bird photographs

BBC - Future - How to use seawater to grow food – in the desert - An experiment in Jordan to farm with solar powered desalination of Red Sea water for greenhouses cooled as part of the desalination process. Jordan currently imports a high percentage of its food…if this type of farming can be cost effective the country might be able to feed itself and even export some foods.

How leaves talk to roots -- ScienceDaily – When I was in college taking biology courses in the 1970s – micro RNA was not in our vocabulary!

Well-Preserved Roman Road Uncovered in the Netherlands - Archaeology Magazine (more details at https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/09/roman-road-artifacts-found-during-digging-for-a-new-motorway/ ) – New finds like this are always a little surprising…things that were there for a very long time but covered over by a few feet of soil.

Zooming – September 2018

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The zoom on my new camera (60 vs 40 optical zoom…and then comes the digital zoom too) makes it even easier to stand well out of the flowerbed, get a good angle, not scare the butterfly or bee. It’s easier to hold myself steady using the viewfinder rather than the screen like I had to previously. Sometimes I use the monopod…but other times I find that I can simple hold myself steady enough that the camera image stabilization does the rest.

The images I selected this month are from several places: Longwood Gardens, home, Brookside Gardens, and Howard Count Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. Some of my favorite places to be.

Enjoy my picks of zoomed images for September 2018!

Fall Yard Work – Part II

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The rain held off last week, so I got 2 rounds of yard work. I’ve already posted about the first one. The second round started with me taking the kitchen scraps and a torn-up pizza box back to the compost bin. I noticed an Eastern American Toad on the way back to the front of the house. I managed to get close enough to get a picture of it with my cell phone before it hoped away.

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I finished getting the day lily leaves cut from the front flower bed along with some weeds; that totaled about half a trash can full.

I decided to try the leaf blower to collect and slightly shred leaves. It worked great on the drive way and the gutter at the street but just OK on the front yard. Some of the oak leaves on the yard were too damp to be picked up easily. The leaves from the bag the filled up the rest of the trash can to go back to the compost bin. At the compost bin, I mixed everything up and made holes to connect the layers with the pitchfork…then watered the pile since I wasn’t sure how soon it would rain again. Cardboard and paper shreds soak up the water and help the compost ‘cook.’

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The next activity was picking up sticks from around the oak tree; it self-prunes so there are always sticks around it. I collected an armload of sticks and took them back to the brush pile. I don’t put them in the compost because it takes so long for them to decompose without somehow reducing them to small pieces. One stick had a flower like fungus growing on it.

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I took a closer look at the oak tree trunk again and discovered a largish ant. I think it is a False Honey Ant.

The highlight of the morning in terms of wildlife started out as a mystery. I was looking at the lichen on the oak tree and noticed a piece that moved! It wobbled a bit but stayed on the trunk. When I put a leaf in front of it, the movement stopped completely.

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I’ve marked the first picture. Can you see it in the others? It is a lacewing larva! I’ll be looking for these little critters from now on. They have great camouflage.

Cloudy Day at Brookside Gardens

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Last weekend we went to Brookside Gardens to photograph hummingbirds. The garden area they frequent still had lots of blooms.

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I photographed other parts of the area: some favorite sculptures,

Seed pods,

A rabbit eating breakfast,

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Mushrooms under the roses,

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And at artsy shot of an orange flower with a spiral shaped bud.

The best observations of the morning were bumblebees nectar robbing. The bee makes a hole in the base of the flower and then drinks the nectar. The shape of the flower would be a tight squeeze for these bees. Still – this is a case where the bees are not acting as pollinators since they bypass the flower structures entirely.

But hummingbird photography was disappointing. The lighting was not as good as the previous visits and there were not as many birds coming to the flowers. I only managed 3 pictures worth sharing.

So – the nectar robbing saved the day!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 22, 2018

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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.

Curiosity rover surveys a mystery under dusty Martian skies -- ScienceDaily – What makes Vera Rubin Ridge so hard?

The Environment's New Clothes: Biodegradable Textiles Grown from Live Organisms - Scientific American – ‘Growing clothes’ that are sustainable – very different form the current fashion industry.

Change your diet to save both water and your health -- ScienceDaily – Research that looked at the water footprint (the volume of freshwater to produce goods) relative to types of diets. It turns out that many of the foods that take a lot of water to produce also are overconsumed – in the EU where the study was done and maybe even mores o in the US.

How the People of Pompeii Really Died - The Atlantic – New technology looked at bones and teeth of the 19th century plaster casts from Pompeii. Two surprises: they had good teeth, and many died of head injures rather than suffocation.

A Great Brown Storm Is Raging on Jupiter – It’s not like the red spot. They come and go and Jupiter. This time NASA’s Juno spacecraft is there to monitor its progress and show more of its structure.

One big reason why women drop out of doctoral STEM programs: The fewer women in entering class, the less likely they'll stay -- ScienceDaily – This study ruled out grades and funding as the main reason….the academic climate for women is not only harder to measure, it’s also harder to change.

First evidence that soot from polluted air is reaching placenta -- ScienceDaily – There is a health cost for burning fossil fuels…and it begins to impact us before we are born. Previous research had linked air pollution with premature birth, low birth weight, infant mortality, and childhood respiratory problems. This research was focused on determining if the particles in the lung – breathed by the mother -  can circulate through the blood to the placenta.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Gamebirds – National Geographic – Peacocks are considered game birds!

Total of 21 new parasitoid wasps following the first ever revision of their genus -- ScienceDaily – The first revision since 1893…and using specimens from 20 natural history museums.

Something Blue | The Prairie Ecologist – Blue sage…insect magnet.

Our Oak Tree

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We have an oak tree in our front yard beside the mail box. It was a very young tree when we bought the house in October 1994.

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It’s grown a lot in 24 years.

We appreciate it’s shade on the front of the house in the morning. This year it has some Virginia creeper growing on the trunk. Maybe it’s just the wet year. I’m leaving the vine – since it’s a native plant – but may cut it next year. The tree looks very healthy but had no acorns this year; maybe the a cold snap last spring caught the tree at the wrong time.

The tree has more lichen and moss on it now. The extra moisture may contribute to the density but it’s typical of mature tree trunks in our area to have these companions. I like the contrasting greens of the moss (very bright) and the lichen (soft green).

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The county trimmed the lower branches from the street trees in our neighborhood and our oak was no exception. I took a picture of the scars where larger branches were cut. They show how the tree responds.

One that was particularly interesting had some curly fungus growing in it. The surface was not as vertical as most of the other cuts; perhaps more water is retained…and the fungus found a niche.

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Overall – the oak is one of my favorite trees. I wish they had planted it further back from the street and the drive way…and not elevated the mulch around it; it’s a lesson learned for future houses and trees. At this point, I just enjoy that this particular oak where and how it is.

A few minutes observing…a tree stump

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During one of the training sessions for the Howard County Conservancy’s fall field trips, we stopped briefly near the chicken coop to talk about topics for the kindergarten and 1st grade hikes. There is a stump in the area that used to be mostly surrounded by other plants…hard to get close enough to look at closely. Now it is clear all around it and it’s possible to approach in from all sides.  It’s been decomposing long enough to have several examples of fungus that were enjoying the recent wet weather to grow rapidly. As I listened to the conversation around me – I spent a few minutes photographing parts of the stump.

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A flat fungus with tiny water droplets – with the clip-on macro lens.

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A jelly fungus that seemed to glow (also with the clip-on macro).

And a picture with and without the macro lens that was a fungus that reminded me of mineral deposits in caves!

Sometimes pictures I take very quickly when I am rushed are ones I only take time to enjoy later…once I am home and have time to really look.

2018 Wings of Fancy Ends

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Yesterday was the last day of Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy butterfly exhibit. I volunteered for the last morning shift; taking in zucchini muffins to share with the other volunteers and staff. It started out slow for the butterflies and visitors; the day was cool and very cloudy. Then it warmed up a little and the sun even came out.

I looked back through pictures I’ve taken in the exhibit -ones I’ve liked but not posted for one reason or another. I think if headlines for some of them:

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A Birdwing resting – being harassed by a smaller butterfly

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Three Queens

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Sleeping late (butterflies roosting long past sunrise because it was so cloudy – mostly Longwings)

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Pining to go outdoors (Blue Morpho)

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Living jade (Malachite butterfly)

I put the rest into a slide show…to prolong the joy of the 2018 Wings of Fancy exhibit one more day. I’m already looking forward to next April when the 2019 version will open!

Paper Wasp

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In one of my forays into my front flowerbed to check Monarch butterfly chrysalises, I noticed a wasp on a poke weed flower stalk. It was moving all over the stalk, investigating each open flower. I had my camera…and took a series of pictures. The pictures were easy enough to identify it as a Common Paper Wasp Polistes exclamans using the Maryland Biodiversity Project website. I learned from their database that it is a species of the southeastern US that appears to be expanding northward. I looked around for the nest but didn’t see one. We still have some time for the larvae to develop but as the nectar plants die back, only the young queens will remain – in a protected spot to over winter.

Enjoy the paper wasp acrobatics on the poke weed flowers slide show!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 15, 2018

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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.

BBC - Future - How China’s giant solar farms are transforming world energy – Giant solar farms that, when viewed from the air form Giant Pandas. All over the world…but in China particularly…there are more and more enormous solar farms. It’s good for the immediate future but there are still issues with what happens when the solar panels need to be recycled (i.e. in 30 or so years).

New research shows how children want their food served -- ScienceDaily – I didn’t find this a challenge…my daughter always enjoyed her food. It seems more likely to be challenging in places like school cafeterias or other institutional settings.

Photos Show the Icy Glacier Landscape of Northeast Greenland – Life lurking in the ice waters. It’s a difficult place to dive.

Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance (Rutgers NJAES) – Maryland is not that far from New Jersey so this list works for us – although I wish they would mark the plants native to North America. I’d rather plant natives.

How This Popular Garden Plant May Spread Parasites That Harm Monarchs | Smart News | Smithsonian – Aargh!!!! We need to be sure we are not planting tropical milkweed in areas where it is not native….the orange butterfly weed – which is also a milkweed – is native across most of North America and a good plant to have in the garden for Monarch butterfly caterpillars.

New color-generation mechanism discovered in ‘rainbow’ weevil -- ScienceDaily – The researches from Yale propose that this mechanism might be useful for screen displays to enable the same true image from any angle and to reduce signal loss in optical fibers.

What Ötzi the Iceman’s Tattoos Reveal About Copper Age Medical Practices | Smart News | Smithsonian – There have been papers coming out about additional discoveries from the remains found in the Alps in 1991 over the years --- there was a lot we could learn and new technologies have come along to enable more than anyone thought about at first.

Night-time habits of captive flamingos -- ScienceDaily – The forage and roam! Evidently, they are more active at night in the wild as well. During the day they tend to rest and preen…that’s when courtship displays happen as well.

Muscle Clocks Play a Role in Regulating Metabolism | The Scientist Magazine® - Circadian rhythms are not just from the brain! There are timekeepers throughout the body. The peripheral clock in muscles was confirmed in 2007 and it turns out that it is important to glucose metabolism. There is still a lot to learn about all the body’s timekeepers!

BBC - Future - Are hot springs the future of farming? – Maybe there is not one strategy that is the ‘future of farming’ – but this is an interesting idea that we may see in places where it can be done effectively.

Monarchs of September

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Back in August it seemed like we were seeing more Monarch butterflies that at any time during the summer. They seemed to be everywhere. And they were laying eggs.

Toward the end of the month, there were large caterpillars and smaller ones too.

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Then – I only found large caterpillars

And the chrysalises. Some still looked like jade pendants and others were already beginning to become clear – the monarchy colors coming through.

The elementary school that I delivered chrysalises and caterpillars too had their first butterfly emerge last Tuesday – 11 to 12 days after the chrysalis was made. When they released it, the butterfly flew away to the south! Hopefully it is not waylaid along its journey by Hurricane Florence.

Just this week I have had two butterflies emerge and fly way. They were both on the same window frame – opposite corners. On Wednesday morning – the first one emerged and stayed near the empty chrysalis until it flew away.

The second one emerged on Thursday morning. It crawled up onto face of the lintel. It took several hours for it to fly away – perhaps because it was a cloudy day and the humidity was about 90%. It is clearly a male based on the dark nodes on the lower part of the wings.

With all the diseases monarchs have these days – there have been disappointments too…at both the caterpillar stage and the butterfly. I’ve observed deformed butterflies probably caused by the parisite  Ophryocystis Elektroscirrha (OE) – and lethargic, shriveled caterpillars probably from Pseudomonas bacteria (aptly named ‘Black Death’)…so having an apparently healthy butterfly emerge is something I need to keep trying to help the Monarch butterflies! It’s a lot harder to raise healthy Monarchs now than it was back in the 1990s.

Magnolias

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This time of year, we are seeing the last of the magnolia blooms for the year. I like the white blooms with the velvet brown underside of the leaves.

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Even when the flowers start to fade, their deepening color is appealing. These two flowers were on a Southern Magnolia tree at Brookside Gardens that did not look quite healthy. I hope this bloom time was not its last. It often seems that stressed trees make a huge push to make seeds.

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And then there are the seed pods. There are variations with the different varieties of magnolias, but I always imagine that the seeds look like red M&Ms. I mentioned during a pre-school field and one child told me – with a very serious face – “except they don’t have an ‘M’ on them”! My favorite pods are on the sweet bay magnolia because they are more seed – less pod and the specimens near where I hike with students are low enough for them to easy see them.