Belmont in January 2019

Last week, I attended a lecture for Howard County Conservancy volunteers at the Belmont Carriage House – arriving early to walk around a bit before the lecture. There was still quite a lot of snow on the ground.

I stayed on the cleared roads until I made the trek up to the old cemetery.

The old tulip poplar looks even more ancient in the winter with all the hollows and bark injuries more clearly visible. It had a lot of seed pods from last season just as the younger trees do.

One of the people I was hiking with pointed out an ash tree on the Patapsco Valley State Park side of the cemetery that had evidence of emerald ash borer (the lighter color on the bark). This tree will have to be cut down before it falls on the cemetery taking down fences and stones.

On a positive note – the hemlocks in the cemetery seem to be thriving. A few years ago they were infested with wooly adelgid but they were treated and it seems have saved them.

The wind must have ‘pruned’ the holly in the cemetery. A branch was draped from one of the headstones – no footprints in the snow around the headstone.

There were lots of deer tracks in the snow as we walked up to the cemetery and back. We didn’t see any rabbit tracks. Maybe a coyote?

We circled back along the row of white pines. The snow stands out even on a very cloudy day.

It was time to head back. I stopped near the mailboxes to take a picture of the pond with the bald cypress standing just to the left of it. It does have a classic cypress shape but if I wasn’t familiar with the tree, I’d have to hike down to the pond and see the cypress knees that surround it for a definitive identification.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 19, 2019

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.

After More Than 4,000 Years, Vibrant Egyptian Tomb Sees the Light of Day: NPR – Hopefully they will take steps to keep the colors vibrant now that the tomb is open to people and light.

The Bizarre and Disturbing Life of Sea Cucumbers – Cool Green Science – Way more complicated than they appear at first glance.

Norway's Energy-Positive Movement to Fight Climate Change - The Atlantic – Norway has some buildings that generate more energy than they use.

Life Deep Underground Is Twice the Volume of the Oceans: Study | The Scientist Magazine® - That’s a massive among of carbon in life that we know very little about….so many unexpected and unusual organisms.

Foods that lower blood pressure | Berkeley Wellness – And the list even includes dark chocolate!

Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor – This article includes time phased projections from 2018 to 2100…lots of track is going to need to be moved – or some other flood mitigation will need to be built.

Google Virtual Tour Preserves Collections Destroyed in Brazil Museum Fire | Smart News | Smithsonian – Some heartening recovery from the tragedy of the fire…Google’s virtual tour work, 1,500 pieces recovered from the debris, and a growing collection of photographs and video clips of the museum the way it was.

Soggy 2018 for the Eastern U.S. – An article from mid-December…showing just how wet we were in 2018. We live between Baltimore and Washington DC….soggy indeed.

New houseplant can clean your home's air -- ScienceDaily – Our houses have become so tightly sealed that concentrations of chemicals that are hard to filter out can accumulate. Maybe ‘engineered’ plants can be a solution.

Periodic graphics: How different light bulbs work – The trend is toward less cost/hour….more hours. Hurray for the LEDs that are not as blue as the compact fluorescents!

Mt Pleasant in January 2019 – Part 2

Continuing the images from last week’s hike at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant….

I noticed a bluebird box with lichen growing on its roof. I wondered how long the houses lasted. This one had a plaque below it saying it had been installed in 2009 so it’s held up for 10 years!

There was some farm equipment near the edge of a field – covered in vines. It must not have been used for at least one season…and maybe longer. Nature is taking over! I didn’t get close enough to determine what kind of vines they might be – mile-a-minute or oriental bittersweet (both invasive) would be a good beginning guess.

With the record amount of rainfall we got in 2018, there was a root ball of a tree that fell – probably last spring.  What a dramatic change it must have been for the organisms around the roots before it fell…there would be a complex story to document different organisms came along after the tree feel and the elements alternatively dried out and filled in the hole (with water or soil washed into the hole). Nature is always in motion!

A beech tree had been cut down and the big logs left in place.  Maybe the tree had fallen and was cut up to clear the trail or maybe it was a standing dead tree that was cut before it could fall. The center was rotting. The beech bark looks so smooth from a distance but often looks wrinkled upon closer inspection.

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Ranger, the barred owl, is back in his quarters near the nature center. He seemed very calm as we hiked by. There aren’t school fieldtrips with lots of students to crowd around his space during the winter; it’s easier for him to be Zen.

It was good to be back at Mt. Pleasant for a hike…maybe I’ll go again sometime with my husband…wear boots that can get muddy and hunt for skunk cabbage peeking through the muck.

Winter Walk in the Neighborhood - 2

I noticed a lot of mud as I walked in our neighborhood. Some of it was on the sidewalks – not something I’d noticed in previous years. 2018 was a record rain year for us…and we’ve continued to get rain in the first part of 2019.

There is mud where grass used to grow under many of the trees.

Sometimes the trees would have made the area very shady before the leaves fell but most of the branches of trees along the street are trimmed high by the county so emergency vehicles can get down the street without being damaged. There is still a lot of bare soil under them.

I am already thinking about what alternatives I have for the area under our plum tree; since we have a challenge with deer eating tender plants, my first idea is to simply mulch out to the dripline of the tree.

A squirrel was rooting in a raised bed in one yard. He noticed me, but I was far enough away (using the zoom on my camera) that he continued his investigation.

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Gleanings of the Week Ending January 12, 2019

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.

I have a growing list of gleanings from sites that are not operational because of the partial government shutdown; they’ll come out in the list for the Saturday after the sites are operational again.

Climate, life and the movement of continents: New connections -- ScienceDaily – Sediment, which often includes pieces of dead organisms, may create a lubricating effect between plates, accelerating subduction and increasing plate velocity!

BBC - Future - Six reasons your memory is stranger than you think – Timelines are hard (many times inaccurate) from memory…I’m glad I keep a running list of important family travel and events.

Regenerative Cities: An Urban Concept Whose Time Has Come! | CleanTechnica – Re-thinking what cities of the future could be.

Scientists call for eight steps to increase soil carbon for climate action and food security: International coordination and financing essential -- ScienceDaily – Big benefits…but hard to come by the collective push to obtain them.

Earthquake Damage Detected in Machu Picchu - Archaeology Magazine – Evidence of an AD 1450 earthquake that damaged Machu Picchu is seen in cracks and stone damage of the buildings. The Inca’s modified their construction techniques after the event too.

Shrinking of Utah National Monument May Threaten Bee Biodiversity | Smart News | Smithsonian – Grand Staircase-Escalante is home to 660 bee species, 84 of which live outside of protected land under changes. At a time when we know pollinators are under stress…one more reason why our Federal lands are needed as refuges from human activities that damage the environment.

Scientists Don't Stay for Long in Their Jobs Anymore: Study | The Scientist Magazine® - About half of scientists who enter a scientific discipline drop out after 5 years; in the 1960s, it was 35 years. We are probably training more people in science fields but many don’t stay in academia. This study used publishing records to determine if a person stayed ‘in the discipline.’ I’d prefer to see numbers of people that had careers in a STEM related field rather than just the one they trained in and find another metric than published papers to make the determination. There are a lot more jobs today where people use their science training that do not use ‘publication’ as a measure of success.

BBC - Future - Can we cheat ageing? – Some areas of active research to help us stay healthy longer (may or may not help us live longer).

Corn Domestication May Have Taken Thousands of Years - Archaeology Magazine – It all started 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico. The process continued in Mexico and the southwestern Amazon for several thousand years. It was a slow process.

Ring in the New Year With Dazzling Total Lunar Eclipse of a Supermoon | Smart News | Smithsonian – Hope we have good weather on January 20-21….since it should be visible from our house!

There used to be hemlocks

We’ve lived in our current house for almost 25 years. The forest behind the house was one of the reasons we bought it in the first place; my office is the best room in the house because of the view from the window. Over the years the trees have grown – the maple in our yard acting as a foreground to the taller tulip poplars behind. There is a holly that is the only tree that keeps its green in the forest.

But it wasn’t like that in the beginning. The forest is growing on a slope…down to the Middle Patuxent River. You can see the sky through the trees because of that slope and because the hemlocks that used to grow in the forest are all gone. I remember seeing them in the early years; the trees seemed to have crows at the top frequently; I always thought there must have been crows’ nests in the hemlocks. But then West Nile Virus killed almost all the crows and wooly adelgid – I am assuming - killed the hemlocks.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but the hemlocks are gone, and they won’t be coming back. The crows, on the other hand, seem to be rebounding. I have seen more each year for the past several years. Today I am missing the hemlocks.

Squirrels and our Bird Feeder

Back in December I hung some garlands of suet and seeds on our deck for the birds; the birds didn’t find them fast enough. We fed squirrels. Within a few days, all that was left of the suet and seeds were the twine garland, straw bows, and hulls.

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We’ve always had squirrels in our yard but now – in January - they seem fatter than I remember. They like to explore our deck from the railing – probably hoping for more suet and seeds. I’m not providing more.

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I have put out the bird feeder with seeds. It’s several years old and I only fill it in the winter. It is supposed to be squirrel resistant and it has proved to be effective in past seasons. I finally caught a squirrel in the act…and the feeder with its seeds won the round! It has springs that are pulled downward by the squirrel’s weight (not birds) and there are metal ‘flowers’ that cover the holes where the seeds are available. Note the top flange of the feeder is below cap on the top…that indicates that the metal mesh with roosts and flowers is pushed downward. No holes uncovered to the squirrel.

After the squirrel thoroughly explored all sides of the feeder, it jumped down and the springs returned to normal uncovering the holes to give birds access to the seeds. Good design!

Conowingo Dam

Back in December we made a trek to Conowingo Dam. The dam was generating electricity and the spillways were open. The water was high and moving fast. A rainbow formed where the mist kicked up from the spillway flow. Almost all the rocks where the eagles and herons normally perch were under water!

The bridge abutment where bald eagles perched during previous visits only has a few gulls and gulls were the only birds we saw in the river too. The river was so strong that the fish were probably not making it close to the dam (when they do – when the water is not as swift – they attract all the fish-eating birds like eagles and herons and cormorants).

There was debris on the few rocks that were not covered by water and on the spit of the island containing the big electrical towers.

The lower part of the fishing park was closed because of high water.

I satisfied my self with some pictures of sycamores – seeds just above where we were standing and the white bark tracery on the other side of the river.

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2018 was a record year for rain where we live and that is evidently true for much of the Susquehanna watershed as well. We’ll have to wait to go again when it hasn’t rained for a few weeks and the fishing will be good for the eagles at the dam.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 5, 2019

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.

Ambitious VR Experience Restores 7,000 Roman Buildings, Monuments to Their Former Glory | Smart News | Smithsonian – Is this the way we’ll experience buildings that are ‘lost’ in the future?

Most Top Burger Chains Flunk Fast Food Antibiotics Scorecard | NRDC – We don’t often go to burger chains any more. After this report – maybe the best choice would get chicken rather than beef.

Hundreds of Supplements Spiked with Pharmaceuticals | The Scientist Magazine® - Not good at all. The pharmaceuticals are undisclosed and some of the pharmaceuticals are those that have been withdrawn or were never approved. Advice: use single-ingredient supplements…and not buy supplements that are riding a fad.

7 surprising ways your body changes with age | Berkeley Wellness – I’ve noticed my feet are wider based on the way shoes fit. The others might be harder to see since they happen so slowly.

Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools | Scott H Young – Describing thinking tools my using professions where they appear to dominate. I hope that all the professions use multiple tools in their day to day work…even if there is one that is used most frequently.

Your guide to enjoying winter birds – It’s been so wet this year that we don’t have birds coming to our heated bird bath like we did last year. I put the bird feeder up a few days ago. Maybe we’ll start seeing more visitors.

Scientists Find Large Amounts of Methane Being Released from Icelandic Glacier - Yale E360 – A previous unknown source of methane…glaciers that are melting and happen to be covering active volcanoes and geothermal systems are probably all releasing methane. The gas is produced by microbial activity. This extra methane is not factored into current climate change models.

The Best of 2018 from the Prairie Ecologist (part 1) (part 2) – Lots of great prairie pictures.

New butterfly named for pioneering 17th-century entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian -- ScienceDaily – I enjoyed here books on Internet Archive in 2018 (find them here).

Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ – History backed up with ice core data.

YE Thinking: Favorite Images

Looking for a way to summarize my year in pictures for this last post of 2019, I selected 3 favorite photos from each month – not an easy task for me. Many of them are from at home…some from other places close to home…then Socorro NM and Carrolton Tx. It’s been a good year! Enjoy the slide show….celebrating 2018!

Three Water Birds at Centennial Park

Last week my husband wanted to try out some new camera gear and decided to do it at Centennial Park. I tagged along to do some photography myself.  The lake is settling into winter.

I saw three birds on the water.

Canada geese were the most numerous although still a smaller number than I often see. The water was high in the lake and   the stone jetty near the boat launch (closed for the winter) was partially submerged. A goose stood on one – like a game of ‘king of the hill’ with the other geese.

There was a female bufflehead was periodically visible. Buffleheads are diving ducks that are very hard to photograph while they are feeding.

I managed to capture a sequence of the bird just after it surfaced…and then it dove again!

The third bird I saw on the water was a female common merganser. This bird was not feeding but quickly swam further away than I could follow with my zoomed lens.

That was it – less that a dozen Canada geese and then two lone ducks!

Walking back toward the car, I photographed some old birds nest fungus. There were still some ‘eggs’ in some of them…but probably thoroughly dried out by now.

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There was also a very robust lichen on a dogwood tree. With all the extra rain we have recently the lichens and mosses are bigger and brighter than usual.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 29, 2018

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.

From High Above, A New Way of Seeing Our Urban Planet - Yale E360 – Cities – growing and growing. It is mind boggling that urban population has grown from 751 million in 1950 to 4,200 million today.

How changing labs revealed a chemical reaction key to cataract formation: Researchers studying eye lens find a new function for a protein previously thought to be inert -- ScienceDaily – Learning more about the chemistry behind cataract formation….not a treatment yet but better understanding can be the path toward slowing or more targeted treatment of cataracts.

Curious Kids: What are some of the challenges to Mars travel? – A series from The Conversation (in Australia) for children…but interesting to adults too. Kids ask the best questions!

A DOZEN WAYS FAMILIES CAN #OPTOUTSIDE EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR | Children & Nature Network – I’m on a role with the child focused gleanings right now…I would add to the list: find easy access natural spaces (near where you work or live) and visit them as often as possible.

VIDEO: We Hope Your Day Is As Great As This Snow-Loving Panda’s: NPR – Pandas are such a visual treat. This is Bei Bei at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo back in November.  My husband and I missed the snow (we were in New Mexico).

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Owls – National Geographic Blog – 2018 was my first sighting of barn owls in the wild…awesome.

Ragweed Is on The Move – National Geographic Blog – Not such a big change in the south….in Kansas City the season is prolonged by 23 days. For those people allergic to ragweed…that is a miserable trend.

Some health related posts: Blood pressure: Early treatment advised by US guidelines has no survival benefits -- ScienceDaily and Your heart hates air pollution; portable filters could help -- ScienceDaily – At least the second one was actionable; I now have a portable filter in my bedroom and I think it is reducing my cat allergy – maybe more.

Aerial photos of U.S. national parks from space – I love national parks. Everyone I have been to has had something spectacular to offer. It’s sad that they are all mostly closed (if the bathrooms and visitor centers are not open….they are closed) for this week (partial government shutdown).

How do different light bulbs work? – in C&EN | Compound Interest – Light bulbs have changed a lot during my lifetime. Hopefully now we are on track to have bulbs that are closer to the natural sunlight spectrum so that the light does not cause eye or sleep problems.

Zooming – December 2018

It’s been somewhat cold this month – but no snow yet. I’ve enjoyed photographing our transition to winter using the zoom on my camera to set the frame of the scene and/or to enable me to stay out of the mud (we’ve had lots of rain) or indoors and warm. There is still a little green left…and the sky sometimes seems brighter when its clear and cold. Enjoy the December 2018 Zoom slideshow!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 22, 2018

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.

2018 National Geographic Photo Contest | National Geographic – Galleries of great photography.

Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360 – Land use changes…widespread environmental degradation…between 1992 and 2015.

Himera: One of the greatest archaeological discoveries of recent decades emerges from oblivion - The Archaeology News Network – More than 12,000 almost untouched burials – many from a battle fought between Greeks and Carthaginians in 480 BC. The Greeks were victorious in the first battle but the second battle in 409 BC was won by the Carthaginians and they razed the city.

We broke down what climate change will do, region by region | Grist – No part of the US will be unscathed.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Herons, Egrets and Bitterns – National Geographic Blog – Enjoy some bird pictures. Herons and egrets are my favorites to photograph.

How tree rings tell time and climate history | NOAA Climate.gov – A nice summary of tree ring dating…and an example using Mesa Verde.

Amazing Sands from Around the World – Cool Green Science – I’ve seen the Olivine Sand and Black Sand beaches in Hawai’i (on a very windy day….posted about it here). I’d like to see the star sand in Japan.

Grand Canyon National Park Celebrates Centennial Year at Grand Canyon and Around Arizona – 2019 is a milestone anniversary for the park; lots of events to celebrate this national treasure.

Only 12 percent of American adults are metabolically healthy, study finds: Trends help sound alarm for efforts to lower associated risk of types 2 diabetes, heart disease and other complications -- ScienceDaily – Not a good statistic since the long term risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other serious health issues are higher for those that are not metabolically healthy.

Rethinking Raw Milk, 1918 | The Scientist Magazine® - Alice Evans and the path toward avoiding milk borne diseases. Her work was published in 1918. Draft ordinances for states and localities to implement pasteurization requirements for milk to be consumed by humans were written in 1924. The first federal pasteurization law was passed in 1947…saving lives and millions of dollars in public health costs.

Josey Ranch Birds – Part II

There was finally another sunny day in Carrollton TX and I headed over to Josey Ranch Park again. I was lucky enough to arrive about the same time two women arrived with food for the birds. Two swans were at the boardwalk before the women could make their way from the parking lot to the boardwalk; the swans must recognize the signs of a forthcoming meal. The pigeons and seagulls flew in quickly.

After the crowd of birds gathered to enjoy the feast – the coots seemed to be arguing – chasing each other and churning the water. The northern shovelers in the background did not hurry over like the other birds.

How many birds can you identify in this picture? (see the bottom of this blog post for the most prominent ones). This is a good picture to see the relative size of the birds as well.

There are not very many mallards at the lake this time of year. The light changes the green coloring of their head; sometimes the feathers look black!

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Lesser Scaups are more prevalent.

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The Great Egret is there every time ago – must be a resident.

Pigeons are on the roof of the nearby senior center and library except with there is food! Iridescent neck feather and red eye – oh my!

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The Northern Shovelers are not quite as numerous as the Lesser Scaups and they seem relatively used to people being about.

I managed to get a seagull taking off from the lake – watch the one to the center right.

Birds in the ID quiz picture: swan (partial) on the far left, Canada geese in the upper third, ducks with large bills and rust colored sides are male Northern Shovelers, ducks with light sides and brown heads (yellow eyes) are male Lesser Scaups, coot in lower right (black with pointy beak), pigeon (partial) on bottom margin, gull?  Inflight in the upper left.

Rainy Day in Texas

I stood at open sliding glass doors to take some rainy-day pictures last week when I was in Texas. The colors of the wet foliage were bright for such a cloudy day. Even the raw wound from where a big branch had been cut from a tree was colorful.

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A squirrel surveyed the yard. I thought the animal might have heard my camera

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When it darted off through the treetops.

A few minutes later – another squirrel was on the ground. The face and paws looked lighter, but it might have just been the light.

A couple of days later, the sun was out again….and I got a different perspective of the garden, but it was cold enough that I took the pictures from an open sliding glass door again…quickly to not let the heat escape from the house.

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Josey Ranch Birds – Part I

After the sadness of seeing the dead crow, I headed over to the Josey Ranch Lake to see the birds that were still very much alive. The day was still cloudy…but the birds didn’t seem to care.

There were Lesser Scaup – which I had seen during precious visits to Carrolton during the winter and early spring (February 2015, January 2017, and March 2017).

The Northern Shovelers are there for the winter as well.

The Great Egret is there all through the year.

As are the Mute Swans.

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Canadian geese are not as common. I had not seen them before this year at this small lake in Texas.

American Coots and pigeons were plentiful and sometimes were in mixed groups on the shore.

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The sea gulls – far from any sea – seem happier on the water.

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Mourning a Crow

Every time I visit my family in Carrollton, TX, I photograph the birds at the Josey Ranch Lake Park. The first bird I saw last week was near a trash receptacle beside the parking lot….and it was dead. It was a cloudy day to beginning with and finding a dead crow seemed to fit the weather. Seeing a dead bird is not that common; recently I am more likely to find feathers scattered from a predator taking a bird rather than a whole carcass. I mourned the crow the rest of the morning.

I wondered if the bird had died in a collision with a car…or whether it was West Nile Virus again causing crow deaths. My family had commented that they had been seeing more crows and assumed that the population was healthy and growing again.

I took the photographs with a zoom rather than getting close…just in case the bird died of an infection of some kind. A few white feathers are visible; evidently that is not so unusual for crows even though most of the time we think they are totally black.

More tomorrow about the birds that were active on the cold blustery day…helped me get over seeing the dead bird first.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 15, 2018

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.

Stunning Abstract Aerial Photos of Namibia's Desert Landscape – A part of the earth with almost no vegetation. There are parts of the US that would be just as stark.

Anopheles mosquitoes could spread Mayaro virus in US, other diverse regions -- ScienceDaily – Another mosquito born disease that may increase in North America as the climate warms. There are already mosquitoes capable of transmitting it here – Andopheles species.

Bad molars? The origins of wisdom teeth – I’ve always wondered why so many people must have their wisdom teeth out. All 4 of mine were pulled when I was 19 because they were impacted. It turns out that eating a crunch/chewy diet when we are young may help the jaw grow long enough to accommodate these late molars. Wish I would have known that; I might have fed my daughter a bit differently. Too late now.

Climate Smart Farming CSF Climate Change in Your County and Climate Smart Farming – Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Solutions – The first link is a county by county look at the history of temperature and precipitation in the Northeast. The second it about the research being done to help farmers plan for extreme weather events…that have become more common in recent years.

How tracking people moving together through time creates powerful data – A discussion of how cohort data is helping us understand health and disease. The example used in the article is the Framingham Heart Study.

Air Pollution from California Wildfires 60 Times Above Safe Limit - Yale E360 – Air quality is impacted by fires. In areas where the frequency of fires is increasing, fire may overtake all other kinds of air pollution for a time.

Can Tourism Save the Ocellated Turkey? – Cool Green Science – What an unusual looking bird! It’s a tropical turkey (Mexico, Belize and Guatemala) that behaves like the North American Wild Turkey.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: November – National Geographic Blog – And more birds.

Forage Wild Nuts for Your Holiday Feast – Cool Green Science – Nuts native in our forests. Too bad the American Chestnuts are no longer plentiful…maybe some of the recent hybrids will survive to repopulate our forests.

BBC - Future - A 'samurai' swordsmith is designing a space probe – Creating corers to use for sampling an asteroid using metallurgy learned making samurai swords.

HCC’s Natural Holiday Sale

I’m catching up on some posts for the events early this month. Back on the 1st of the month, the Howard County Conservancy hosted their annual Natural Holiday Sale. Volunteering in the kitchen for the sale has become a tradition for me; it’s a great way to start the Christmas season. I keep the big coffee urn suppled with Russian Tea (Tang, instant tea, lemonade mix, spices) and restock the trays of homemade cookies for shoppers. The table requires near constant attention to look bountiful and festive.

This year the garden club added suet decorations to their holiday arrangements. I bought two garlands and a large pine cone. My deck will be the most decorated part of my house – all for the birds!

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The bins of natural materials and glue guns were a big hit as they are every year…lots of creativity…center pieces that tell a story. See some pictures of the event from 2016 here; it changes a little every year but the cookies and Russian Tea and critter creations are a constant!