Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/24/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Receiving a flowering plant – virtually. My daughter sent a picture of her Persian violet in bloom. She was excited since it is a plant that requires a lot of sun….lots of grow lamps in her office in Missouri. She has it at home now since the university buildings are closed. And in all the turmoil….it’s blooming! She is getting ready to begin teaching her classes virtually next week.

Beginning the experiments with Dutch Chocolate protein powder. We ordered it at my daughter’s suggestion - protein with a longer shelf-life and doesn’t require refrigeration. Chocolate for me; vanilla for my husband. My first experiment was a red smoothie: 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 scoop protein powder, 1 heaping teaspoon beet root powder, banana, 1/4 cup walnuts – yummy and pretty too.

Making a list and checking it twice. My daughter encouraged me to stop going into the grocery store beginning this week. I made an online list for curb side pickup with my usual grocery store…reviewed it carefully with my husband to make sure it would be everything he wanted for the next week. And then – just before bedtime – I tried to submit it. I quickly discovered that there were no available times for curbside pickup! I went to bed extremely frustrated deciding to wait until the morning to look at other options. The saga continues tomorrow….

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

Jigsaw Puzzle of the Moon

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

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

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/21/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Cooking corn on the cob and hamburger patties on the grill. It was a cool cloudy day…but not too windy for grilling.

  • Walking in the neighborhood. It felt good to get out of the house and get some exercise outdoors. It is easy to keep social distance…even more than 6 feet! I took some pictures along my way: bent reeds and their reflections in water, a squirrel at attention, some red maple samaras that fell from the tree too early to mature (beautiful color though) and cattail stalks from last season at the edge of the water retention pond.

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Celebrating birds finding our feeder again. They are still not back in the numbers before the seed was gone from the feeder. A titmouse is in the first video from the feeder cam. I’ve already seen red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina chickadee, titmouse, eastern phoebe (not at the feeder…on a nearby tree branch), dark-eyed junco, and goldfinch.

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

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 21, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/18/2020

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

Going to the grocery store turned out to be a rather overwhelming experience. The store opened an hour later than posted on their website (the decision evidently made last night after I checked) and there were more people that had accumulated by the time they opened. After sitting in my car for about 30 minutes and just before the doors opened, I walked over to the far edge of the parking garage to photograph the sunrise. It was the last calm moment of today’s shopping.

The carts were all lined up outdoors and we entered the store single file….spaced out. More than half the people looked 60+ (like me).  Everyone was wiping down carts, using hand sanitizer and trying to keep 6 feet apart. My plan is to shop weekly to maintain the 2 weeks of food and supplies in the house.

  • We were running low on disinfectant for our counter tops because I had not been finding it recently; they didn’t have what I wanted today either, but I did buy something else. I didn’t find disinfectant wipes either.

  • No toilet paper. I’m down to about a 1.5 weeks supply in the house…so I need to find some soon.

  • I did find buy some boxed flax milk that can be stored in the pantry rather than the refrigerator because keeping 4 cartons of milk in the refrig at all times (which is what is I drink in 2 weeks), takes up too much room.

  • The meat counters were bare as was the canned chicken shelf so we are dipping into our two-week supply if we don’t find any at the store we will try tomorrow morning.

  • They had cat food but not the kind we were running low on. I didn’t buy any. That could become an issue next week. Hopefully the cat will eat some foods that he typically does not like as well (we pamper him…he’s 19 years old).

  • I couldn’t find any dried beans. I cooked what I had in the pantry recently…wanted to restock.

  • Medication we would typically use for a cold or the flu….just in case we somehow get sick…was sold out. My husband had bought a small supply before but it’s not enough if we both got sick and needed it for a week or more. We need to find some tomorrow.  

  • My husband’s protein shakes were not available in the flavor he likes. I’m not sure what I am going to do about that.

  • I found everything I wanted in the produce section (radishes, celery, kale, bananas) – fortunately.

After this experience – I might change to curbside pickup or delivery for next week.

Here are the unique activities for yesterday that helped me recover from the overwhelming start to the day:

  • Ordering protein powder (NutraBio® 100% Whey Protein Isolate) based on my daughter’s recommendation – just in case we are challenged to get enough protein at some point. It also has the advantage of being a pantry item rather requiring refrigeration. I’ve enjoyed the beet powder I bought before all this ‘stay at home as much as possible’ started for the same reasons: great nutrition in a small space and long shelf life. They’re both smoothie ingredients! I’m wondering if the combination of the Dutch Chocolate protein powder, banana and the beet powder will be like a ‘red velvet’ smoothie!

  • Watching the 5th video in the ‘Life in the Universe Pandemic Series’ from Charles Cockell – Will I ever meet aliens?

  • Noticing that my neighbor’s forsythia is blooming…and that the spicebush in the forest is blooming too. It’s not as showy…but it’s a native. There is a butterfly that needs spicebush for its caterpillars too: the spicebush swallowtail. I’ll put on my hiking boots and tuck my pants into socks (to avoid deer ticks and Lyme disease) to troop back into the woods to get some pictures of their flowers someday soon.

  • Responding to an email query about tips re cell phone nature photography….and was pleased to provide some links to two blog posts (one and two) with tips illustrated by examples that I did a little over a year ago. It’s nice to have some two-way interaction beyond my immediate family!

  • Ordering some bugs from https://www.thebutterflycompany.com/ for a photographic project. My husband is the one that suggested it. We are anticipating needing to supplement the projects we’ve already started for ourselves while we are ‘staying at home as much as possible.’ We ordered: cecropia moth, Luna moth, eastern comma butterfly, question mark butterfly, zebra swallowtail, and eastern Hercules beetle.

  • Watching the Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safari – Sihil the Ocelot.

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

eBotanical Prints – February 2020

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19 botanical eBooks found in February! There were two series about alpine plants and then one series about medicinal plants. The publication dates range from 1868 to 1971…although heavily skewed to the second half of the 1800s. I always enjoy looking at botanical print books but in February – when the view from my window is winter trees – I find them even more appealing.  

The volumes are all freely available on the Internet. The whole list of about 1,850 books can be accessed here. Sample images and links for the 19 new ones are provided below. (click on the sample image to see a larger view). Enjoy!

Common Weeds of the United States * Reed, Clyde Franklin * sample image * 1971

Atlas Rostlin * Joh, Jan * sample image * 1899

Atlas de la flora alpine V1 * Correvon, Henry * sample image * 1899

Atlas de la flora alpine V4 * Correvon, Henry * sample image * 1899

Atlas de la flora alpine V5 * Correvon, Henry * sample image * 1899

Fleurs des champs et des bois, des haies et des murs * Correvon, Henry * sample image * 1922

Atlas der Alpenflora V1 * Hartinger, Anton; Dalla Torre, Karl Wilhelm von * sample image * 1882

Atlas der Alpenflora V2 * Hartinger, Anton; Dalla Torre, Karl Wilhelm von * sample image * 1882

Atlas der Alpenflora V3 * Hartinger, Anton; Dalla Torre, Karl Wilhelm von * sample image * 1882

Atlas der Alpenflora V4 * Hartinger, Anton; Dalla Torre, Karl Wilhelm von * sample image * 1882

Atlas der officinellen Pflanzen - Band III * Berg, Otto Carl; Schmidt, C. F.: Meyer, Arthur * sample image * 1899

Atlas der officinellen Pflanzen - Band I * Berg, Otto Carl; Schmidt, C. F.: Meyer, Arthur * sample image * 1893

Pflanzen-Atlas nach dem Linné'schen System * Hoffman, Carl * sample image * 1881

Botanischer bilder-atlas nach De Candolle's Natürlichem pflanzensystem * Hoffmann, Carl * sample image * 1884

Traité pratique et raisonné des plantes médicinales indigènes, avec un atlas de 200 planches lithographiées * Cazin, F.J.; Cazin, Henri * sample image * 1868

Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Vol 1 * Kohler, Hermann Adolph; Pabst (Gustav);  (Walther Otto Müller, C. F. Schmidt, and K. Gunther illustrators) * sample image * 1887

Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Vol 2 * Kohler, Hermann Adolph; Pabst (Gustav);  (Walther Otto Müller, C. F. Schmidt, and K. Gunther illustrators) * sample image * 1890

Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Vol 3 * Kohler, Hermann Adolph; Pabst (Gustav);  (Walther Otto Müller, C. F. Schmidt, and K. Gunther illustrators) * sample image * 1898

Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Vol 4 * Kohler, Hermann Adolph; Pabst (Gustav);  (Walther Otto Müller, C. F. Schmidt, and K. Gunther illustrators) * sample image * 1899

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/16/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Discovered some to go peanut butter in my pantry that are ‘best if used by’ April 2020 which prompted a snack of peanut butter and celery….and taking everything out of the pantry to see if there was more items that needed to be used promptly. There was some cocoa that should have been used by 2014 and some coconut flour by 2017…into the trash they went. The before and after shot of the pantry is below….it was a good ‘cleanup and out’ project for the day.

Continued “Life in the Universe Pandemic Series” videos from Dr. Charles Cockell – Is there life on Mars? And Will Samples from Mars cause a Pandemic?

Cooked pinto beans. I soaked them for a full 24 hours (part on the counter…then in the refrig) then cooked them in the morning and ate a small portion with some leftover stir fry chicken for lunch. Yum!

Learned about Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae Cyanotype Impressions in a Europeana Blog post (one of my news feeds) and then searched to find an online copy. I was frustrated that the Internet Archive only had one print! It turns out that The New York Public Library Digital Collections has a digitized copy of the volumes once owned by Sir John Herschel. I enjoyed the first volume and added the others to my reading list for subsequent days.

Watched the first Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Home Safari…daily at 3PM EDT…for children but interesting for adults as well…the first video is about their young hippo Fiona. From their Facebook Page.

Went to dentist to get permanent crowns. I was worried about the temporary ones that I had for over 3 weeks coming loose/off at a bad time….having a painful dental problem when the office might be closed. So - I had a very short breach of social distance…but I decided it was worth the (slight) risk.

Overall, this is my 8th day of adhering to the low density, 6 feet rule (except for the dentist which was low density but could not always achieve the 6 feet separation)…stay at home as much as possible…hand washing with soap/not touching face. The last time I was at a place with more than 25 people in a room was 19 days ago. I’m beginning to realize that some of what I am doing now (like the more frequent hand washing with soap) might be on the way to becoming habits.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15

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

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

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

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

  • Zentangle (more than one)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I am trying not to do?

  • Eat more than usual

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

NISE

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

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

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

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

Mycology Class Remnants

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

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

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

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 14, 2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full Moon

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Sunday night was clear – and I took pictures of the full moon before I went to bed and when I got up.  I used the ‘night scene’ setting on my Canon Powershot SX60 HS bridge camera which takes multiple shots and melds them in the camera. The picture I took in the evening was focused on the moon. There is an unfocused branch in the across the lower right of the picture.

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The picture from the morning is focused on the tree branches – clear enough to know that it’s a tulip poplar! I like it better than the evening picture.

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Both pictures were taken though second floor windows of our house. We have so many big trees that it’s impossible to photograph the moon close the horizon where it can be yellow orange. Still – I liked what I got…pleased that my hands could hold the camera steady enough for the ‘night scene’ setting to work.

Daylight Savings Time

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Today is the massively coordinated move to daylight savings time for most people in the US. What a bother! It’s disruptive to our already challenged biological clocks.

Some of our clocks change automatically (all the ones connected to the internet), but my husband still takes on the task of doing the ‘spring forward’ on the wall clock, an alarm clock, the stove, the microwave, etc. He leaves my car for me to do (it has two places that need to be changed!); I never changed it back to standard time last fall…so it is correct again as of today.

There seems to be more discussion of not changing clocks twice a year…but nothing happening (yet) at the Federal level and the states are limited to the option of staying on standard time according to this article published last year about this time.  There are substantial majorities in several states that would prefer staying on daylight savings time (or shifting to the time zone to the east and staying on standard time). I think that would be my preference even though staying on standard time would be by second choice. This is a case where I don’t like the status quo!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 7, 2020

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

Chasing Little Frost Trees in a Prairie Wetland | The Prairie Ecologist – We haven’t have many days for me to look for frost trees here in Maryland this year. This is always a matter of taking advantage of a frosty sunny day when it’s fun to look for interesting frost formations on exposed surfaces – grass – windshields, etc.

Stoneflies and mayflies, canaries of our streams – It’s great to see an article about the adult forms of the insects we collect as macroinvertebrates (larval form) when we do water quality monitoring either quarterly or with high school students on a field trip to a river.

Earthquakes in and around Yellowstone: How Often Do They Occur? – There are lots of them! About 5 that are strong enough to be felt have happened each year over the past decade.

Top strategies for successful weight loss maintenance-- ScienceDaily - Choosing healthy food, tracking what you eat and using positive self-talk….seems like common sense, but it is not ‘easy’ and so we struggle on. It comes down to making changes for the long term rather than just for a little while. New habits are always tough but, once truly habitual, become just the way be live our lives.  

Eero Järnefelt, painter of Finnish nature | Europeana Blog – Images of the natural world in the late 1800s. Koli National Park in eastern Finland was visited by the painter frequently.

Sustainable Farming Comes to America's Heartland | CleanTechnica – Iowa farmers…leading with their actions…responding to climate and environmental changes to farm better.

Can we heat buildings without burning fossil fuels? - BBC Future – Capturing heat from nearby places…using it for heating. It’s geothermal in the cities!

Bloom in McMurdo Sound – Green swirls in the water off Antarctica (some of the green color might be on the ice as well.

Camera Trap Chronicles: Cool Critters of New Hampshire – Maybe sometime  we’ll put our camera, currently pointed at the birdfeeder, in another location….see what comes into our backyard. I know we have deer but there could be other things as well. Our camera already picked up what looked like a racoon on our deck.

Top 25 birds of the week: groups of birds – Beautiful birds…a good ‘last addition’ to the gleanings list this week.

Winter Yard

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We haven’t had very much winter weather this year. Last week I walked around my yard looking for early signs of spring and I found some. The bulbs are coming up. Daffodils and maybe an old hyacinth bulb have come up in the leaf mulch I left in the front flower beds.

There are some irises too. I’m not sure when they came up; they all have leaf damage so they may have emerged very early during a warm spell. They haven’t bloomed the last few years, but the leaves are tough enough that the deer usually don’t bother them.

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The little holly that came up in the bush by the garage is growing enough that I’ll trim back the deciduous bush that has always been a challenge to keep trimmed. I’ll let the holly take over!

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Under the deck where the moss died back in last summer’s drought, we have ferns that seem to be enjoying this warm winter in their protected location. I’ll spread some compost around them.

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The red maple buds are swelling. The tree has had less success in making seeds these past few years with a cold snap coming as the blooms are full and vulnerable. Hope that doesn’t happen this year.

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I took a picture from another vantage point of our bird feeder and the camera. The deck is 1 story off the ground where I am standing. My office window is visible in the right of the picture.

Overall, the yard looks pretty good. It hasn’t rained hard enough to make any muddy spots without grass. So far it looks like my decision to mow the leaves into the yard is working very well. There are some sticks around the base of the oak and sycamore that I need to pick up…and the front flower beds need to be cleaned out. Maybe I’ll start those chores on our next warm day.

Flower Photography Experiments

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My husband and I set up a vase of flowers with lights and cameras on our kitchen island for some photography experiments. It was a good winter-time activity for us.

My first experiment was with my Canon SX 730 HS in macro (flower symbol) mode. I tried handheld at first…but the tripod made for the better pictures. The shallow depth of field is always a challenge.

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Next I put a petal on a clip in front of the light source and used my 15x macro clip-on macro lens with my Samsung phone. Both of the pictures below were taken with the light shining through the petal.

A day or so later I realized that it would be handy to have a light source that I could easily take into the field for macro shots of things like macroinvertebrates. The solution I came up with was my iPad.

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I simply turn the screen to its brightest…bring up something that is a white screen…and put the specimen on top of the iPad. Then I can use my phone’s camera with a clip-on macro lens or

Rest the phone on a jeweler’s loupe (the one I have is 22x magnification).

For macroinvertebrates that are in some drops of water, I could protect the iPad by covering it with a clear plastic bag. Depth of field is still a big issue; the specimens that will look the best are ones that are flatter and not too opaque.

Zentangle® - February 2020

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29 days in February 2020….so that’s the number of Zentangles I select from the pile I created during the month. The black background tiles are from the iPad (in the Procreate app); I opted to not carry pens and paper tiles when I traveled during the first part of the month so all the tiles from February 1st through 9th were on the iPad. I did a series using letters as strings. A few of them made it into the picks for the month.

Toward the end of the month, I was experimenting with mono-patterned tiles without a frame or string.

And then there were the rest….

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

3 Free eBooks – February 2020

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Three picks from my February browsing in Internet Archive…..so many books to choose from.

Richardson, Frederick (illustrator). Old, old tales retold - the best-beloved folk stories for children. Chicago and New York: M. AAA. Donohue & Company. 1923. Available from Internet Archive here. I wonder how many children in the 1920s had access to books like this one. My guess is that the books were mostly available in cities and to wealthier families.  There is a Wikipedia entry for Frederick Richardson that prompts me to look for other books that he illustrated. The metadata for books on Internet Archive does not always list the illustrator….so searching by title or the author of the text is required.

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Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing. Vermont Life. Montpelier: Agency of Development and Community Affairs. A quarterly magazine published from 1946 – 2018…all available from Internet Archive here. I started out with the first issues and am now up to 2004. It is interesting to see how the state changed over that time. I enjoy all the seasons but picked a ‘spring’ picture since that is the season coming up.

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Scott, Jeffries, Samantha (editor). Homes & Antiques. Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited. A magazine with most issues from January 2015-March 2016 available from Internet Archive here. There were several pictures with shoes stored under the bed. Now I don’t feel as guilty about not putting my shoes in the closet floor as we did when I was growing up. At least half my shoes are by the door to outside or under my computer desk!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 22, 2020

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

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: February 2020 – Note the new website for these weekly posts: https://wildbirdrevolution.org/ ---The posts are still the beautiful bird pictures collected into a group for a weekly visual celebration of birds.

100% Wind, Water, & Solar Energy Can & Should Be the Goal, Costs Less | CleanTechnica – A short summary of a report with specifics for 143 countries…getting to 80% renewable energy by 2030 and completing the transition by 2050. Now to vote with that goal in mind for a livable future for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren….and onward.

LEDs, Downward Lights Changing the Night in Chicago - News | Planetizen – Chicago will complete the transition to energy efficient LED streetlights in 2021. They’ve calculated that it will save the city $100 million over 10 years. At the same time, they have made an effort to focus the new lights downward to cut light pollution. It’s too early to tell if that aspect of the project will be a success.

Vegetation Filters Harmful Particulates from Air--But How Much? | The Scientist Magazine® - It’s probably better to push for the transition to renewable energy (in school buses, for example) but where that is not happening fast enough – planting a green wall of vegetation can block pollution from school yards…which could reduce the impact of vehicle exhaust on children’s lungs.

Decline in Coal-Fired Power Reduces U.S. Carbon Emissions in 2019 - News | Planetizen – Good news…but it could decline more quickly. The 2019 results are from market forces alone. If there were political will, things would happen even faster.

Archaeologists Excavate 200 More Chinese Terracotta Warriors | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The first terracotta warriors were found in China’s Shaanxi province in 1974. Now there is more excavation and more soldiers from the same tomb. All the warriors have unique expressions, hairstyle and physical features.

Organic crop practices affect long-term soil health -- ScienceDaily – This study looked closely at organisms in the soils…along with the impact of prior soil disturbance.

Recovery: A Plague of Bullfrogs – The Eastern part of the US is the native range for Bullfrogs…but they are invaders in the West. They are clearing native frogs and eating other animals too (ducklings are an example cited). So various municipalities and conservation groups are acting.

What We Can Learn From Ötzi the Iceman's Hunting Pack | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Ötzi was preserved for 5,300 years in a glacier until he was discovered in 1991. A lot has been studied since that time. He’s a window into Copper Age Europe.

Photography in the National Parks – More favorite spots for photography from Rebecca Larson. This collection included three National Parks I have not visited: Glacier, Olympic and Mount Rainier. Now I want to plan a trip to see them!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 15, 2020

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

All About Feathers – A tutorial on feathers…lots of great visuals (stills, videos, drawings, photos) from The Cornell Lab Bird Academy.

NOAA Research’ top 5 stories from 2019 – Catching up on some reading…the stories featured were the most popular on their site in 2019.

Capturing CO2 from trucks and reducing their emissions by 90% -- ScienceDaily – Research applicable to making transportation friendlier to the environment…retrofitting of existing trucks.

Rising Temperatures Are Stressing the U.S. Corn Belt - Yale E360 – It’s not just rising temperatures…it’s the shift in rainfall causing hydrologic stress during the summer months. Maybe the ‘corn belt’ could shift northward?

Traveler Special Report: Threatened and Endangered National Parks – In Alaska and beyond…we are losing the natural treasures we sought to protect.

The history of candy canes and why they taste so cool – I am late getting around to including this in the gleanings list. I like peppermint candy year round…even if it’s not in the candy cane shape! I have peppermint candy chips to use in snow ice cream…if it will ever snow enough this winter here in Maryland!

Largest Electric School Bus Program in United States Launching in Virginia | CleanTechnica – Dominion Energy partnering with Virginia School districts…to achieve a 50% electric school bus fleet by 2025 and 100% by 2030. Good for the environment and the lungs of Virginia’s school children. I hope other states will move in the same direction.

These infrared images show just how alive butterflies’ wings are – Surprise! Butterfly wings have living cells not just membranes and scales! The living cells can sense heat and the butterfly responds behaviorally.

 Flame retardants and pesticides overtake heavy metals as biggest contributors to IQ loss - ScienceDaily – There are a lot of things that are toxic in our environment these days…and children are the ones that are hurt the most…and the hurt lasts their lifetime. This study looked specifically at lead, mercury, poly-bromated diphenyl ethers (PDBE…flame retardants) and organophosphate pesticides.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Bird Photography – A little eye candy to end the list of gleanings for this week.