Ten Little Celebrations – January 2024

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There are so many little celebrations every day. Here are my top 10 for January 2024.

51 years of being married. OK – perhaps this one is not ‘little.’ We marked the day by getting a special meal (picked up, eaten at home)…but the more significant part of the celebration was the savoring of being long marrieds…of always being supportive of each other, particularly when things are stressful.

Spider lily bulbs. I celebrated getting spider lily bulbs (and some iris rhizomes) planted before the very cold weather in mid-January.

A fragrant candle. I finally used up a very fragrant candle I had moved from Maryland (in the car since they are not permitted on moving trucks). When I entered my office each morning, I celebrated how it smelled from the candle I’d burned a few hours the previous evening!

Being home. Being away from home for 7 weeks and then leaving again for Texas 2.5 weeks later for a few days gave me several opportunities to celebrate coming and being home!

Braum’s Strawberry Poppyseed Chicken Salad. Yum. I had about given up on finding something at a fast food place that I liked…so I celebrated this discovery. The greens are fresh, the grilled chicken tender, the strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple make it special.

First Snow. I celebrated being home for snow…not on the road between Texas and home!

Patterns in the snow. I celebrated my first pattern walks in the snow…hope to try it again soon.

Old friends. I celebrated that two old friends (that I hadn’t talked to in years) contacted me just when I needed to talk to them…before I even realized how wonderful that would be.

2 years cancer free. Celebrating a 2-year mark of a 5-year monitoring regime for cancer after surgery…and all the checks are indicating no cancer.

Being indoors. When the temperature is single digits or below zero…it’s worth celebrating an indoor day in a warm house.

Zooming – January 2024

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January was a very light month for photography; I was recovering from the stress of being away from home and made 2 short trips to Carrollton very focused on helping my parents adjust to their new home and preparing to sell the house they had lived in for over 30 years. Even with fewer images to select from – I savor the 9 selected as the best for the month: birds and snow and sunrises….and a surprised flower (taken near the end of December just as the first hard freeze was sending the Carrollton TX area into winter). Enjoy the January 2024 slideshow!

Snowy Day on our Patio

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The birds were very active at our feeders recently with the temperature in the single digits (Fahrenheit) and the wind blowing up to 16 miles per hour! Multiple perches were in use much of the time. The house finches were the most numerous but there were sparrows (white-crowned) and a woodpecker (hairy?) and a female Northern Cardinal too. It was quite a feeding frenzy!

I was taking pictures through an office window with a screen so the pictures have a softened focus. Sometimes birds were still enough for portraits (female finch, male woodpecker, white crowned sparrow, cardinal).

I attempted a picture of sparrow through vegetation….and liked the artsy veil that the automatic focus produced with the challenge.

Of course, there were other items catching snow around our patio – the chiminea, the holly trees, the gnarled vine to the side of the stairs to the deck, a paver near the almost covered lambs ear, fall leaves in the bottom of the wagon. I stepped outside to take these pictures….and all the birds flew away!

The birds returned within minutes of my exit from the patio back to the warmth of my office.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 27, 2024

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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 autoimmune diseases be cured? - After decades of frustration and failed attempts, scientists might finally be on the cusp of developing therapies to restore immune ‘tolerance’ in conditions such as diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis.

Good and bad news for people with low back pain - The good news is that most episodes of back pain recover, and this is the case even if you have already had back pain for a couple of months. The bad news is that once you have had back pain for more than a few months, the chance of recovery is much lower. This reminds us that although nearly everyone experiences back pain, some people do better than others, but we don't completely understand why.

Why diphtheria is making a comeback - While this present surge of diphtheria cases is indeed unprecedented for West Africa, it is really a symptom of larger issues in global health, including insufficient infectious disease surveillance, poor vaccination rates and scarcity of public health resources.

The Prairie Ecologists Photos of the Week – January 22 2024 – Photographs from out in the cold.

The chemistry of meat alternatives – It’s complicated…..in the end are meat alternative ultra-processed food?

The strange reasons medieval people slept in cupboards – I can see how they might have been warmer….but also rather claustrophobic. And wouldn’t they be hard to keep clean?

In the time of the copper kings - Some 3,500 years ago, prosperous merchants on Cyprus controlled the world’s most valuable commodity. Beginning in the third millennium B.C., and especially during the second millennium B.C., copper was king and could make those who possessed it extremely wealthy and powerful. There was enough copper and tin on board the Uluburun ship (wrecked off the coast of Turkey) to produce 11 tons of bronze, which experts estimate could have been turned into 33,000 swords. Researchers have analyzed the Uluburun wreck’s copper and found that it all came from Cyprus. There is evidence of the surprisingly diverse nature of the community thriving there and that those Cypriots who controlled the production and distribution of copper, such as the shipment found off Uluburun, could become exceptionally rich.

Cicadas Are Coming: Rare ‘Dual Emergence’ Could Bring One Trillion of the Bugs This Year – We don’t live in the overlap area…but where we live in Missouri will see Brood XIX this summer….a great opportunity for cicada photography!

Incredible Winners of the Close-Up Photographer of the Year Contest – So many beautiful images. My favorite is ‘Spirit of Yucatan’ (drifting stems of lily pads in a Mexican freshwater cenote…the sky above).

Deepwater Horizon oil spill study could lead to overhaul of cleanup processes worldwide – Chemical oil dispersants combined with sunlight…made oil more toxic. Observations from after Deepwater Horizon, and being confirmed experimentally, to improve responses to oil spills.

More Yard Work – January 2024

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The forecast for very cold blustery weather in Missouri had me scurrying to get a few more things done in the yard.

I picked up a pile of sticks from our side yard; they are from our neighbor’s river birch…too small to cause damage but I’d rather not let them accumulate too much. They make good kindling in our chimenea to enable me to burn some of the bigger pieces that have accumulated from other trees.

The rock rose my sister sent home with me is now planted in the corner of the back yard. It will probably get through the frigid cold better being in the ground rather than a pot. There was also a millet seed head in that corner; if both grow next summer that corner should be an interesting new bed…rounding the corner to make mowing easier.

I also planted some iris rhizomes along the fence. I still have more of them in buckets; I put the buckets close to the wall of the house on the patio under the deck and hope they survive to be planted next time the temperate is in the 50s!

Everything Pumpkin

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Pumpkin (and associated spices) is everywhere since I’ve been home.

I am slowly but surely beginning to use the pumpkin puree that was prepared and frozen in the first weeks of November: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies (Quaker Oats has several more pumpkin and oats recipes I am going to try as well), soups (just add a little broth, some protein, and some other veggie to the pot…fried onions or pumpkin seeds on top), and custard. The soups don’t have the pumpkin-pie-spices but just about everything else I am cooking with pumpkin does. The pumpkin just melds together with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves to create my favorite late fall and winter smell.

Recently I have been burning a pumpkin spice candle in my office too…carrying the smell far away from the kitchen.

Recently I have been burning a pumpkin spice candle in my office too…carrying the smell far away from the kitchen.

It provided the scent for one of my favorite afternoons recently – hot apple cider rooibos tea, snow outside the window with the dried hydrangea from last fall on the sill, good books and music on the computer.

Dried hydrangeas

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My daughter let me cut the last three flowers on her Asian hydrangea bush last October (see post here). They lasted a long time in a vase on the windowsill in my office. About the time I headed to Texas in mid-November, I put the flowers into separate vases with no water to enable the flowers to dry.

When I returned home, the flowers were nicely dried with most of the petals still blue! I took some high key images of the best one – where the petals stayed relatively flat rather than wilting/curling.

This is a great way to prolong the flowers of fall into winter. I wonder how long the color will last….

Yard Work – January 2024

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Normally I don’t do much yard work in January but I was away from home for the last mowing of leaves in November so that was my project for the first warmish day after I was back in Missouri; I mowed the areas with thick leaves when the high temperature for the day was less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit. After that I began to worry that there wasn’t going to be a day warm enough to plant some of the bulbs my sister dug up for me from my parents’ yard.

Then it happened. It was in the forties again, but the sun was bright. Before I started my project, I walked around my yard to assess the plants in the flowerbeds. There must have been an early hard freeze because all the crape myrtles have leaves on the stems – no time for them to turn and fall. The same thing might have happened to the rose bushes too. Next spring there might be a lot of dead twigs to cut out of those plants. On the bright side, there were several plants – including the hens and chicks – that appear to be handling the temperatures very well.

I used the wagon to carry the pots of spider lily bulbs around to the front of the house. They were going to become a ‘ruff’ around the base of our two red maples. I had put mulch around the base last spring, so it was relatively easy to dig a rig near the outer edge of the mulch and then plant the bulbs. It only took one pot for each tree; I still have one pot of those bulbs to plant at my daughters.

I hope I get another warmish day to plant the iris rhizomes and a rock rose….but first I need to decide where I am going to plant them!

First Snow of the Winter

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I was home for a bit of snow last week; I don’t know that it was the first of the season overall…but it was the first for me! It started by covering the deck and railing…the cover of the gas grill.

I was hopefully that it would cover the tennis court so I could try out walking a pattern there…but it didn’t stick to the court since the temperatures before the snow had been significantly warmer. I’ll have to wait for another snow event. I used my camera zoom to photograph snow caught in the holly branches.

I celebrated being home for the snow!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 13, 2024

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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.

What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? – The two most recent ones are COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS. Death from the 1918-1920 flu pandemic was larger than both together….and the population of the world was less then too.

Moments of hope and resilience from the climate frontlines – Drought then intense rains leading to rolling blackouts, damage to infrastructure, agriculture failures, mosquito spread diseases. Heat stress leading to deaths of people and wildlife, wildfires. Protecting and rehabilitating damaged habitats. A new normal….not anyone ready. Heat officers to help residents cope. Coastal erosion (caused by coastal development, rising sea levels and storm surges). Taking two years rather than one to dry firewood in Lapland. Solar panels positive impact on health care in India (and anywhere where electric power is unreliable). Crop irrigation required where it previously was not. Learning from our past, simpler lifestyles.

European Imports of Russian Pipeline Gas Dropped by Half Last Year - Europe has implemented measures to conserve energy and has ramped up wind and solar power. Last year, Germany, the largest economy in Europe, drew more than half of its power from renewables for the first time.

NASA Captures Stunning Images of Jupiter’s Moon Io on Closest Flyby in 20 Years – Image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Io is the most volcanically active planetary body in our solar system with 100s of volcanos.

Christmas Trees on the Beach – The innovative ways communities are using the cut trees after Christmas!

How humans have changed the Earth’s surface in 2023 – Overhead pictures tell stories of the past year. The picture of the drained Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was startling.

Photographer Travels Europe to Document Incredible Starling Murmurations – I see smaller murmurations every road trip….never in a situation to photograph them! They are not always starlings. I remember seeing one in Florida that was tree swallows.

Could Climate Change Cause More Lakes to Turn Bright Pink? – Single-celled, salt-loving halobacteria. There is a new pink pond at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii…but it has been happening in the Great Salt Lake’s North Arm for several decades.  The number of pink ponds could increase with warmer temperatures increasing evaporation (and increasing the salinity of waters).

Next Solar Eclipse, In April, Expected to Attract Upwards Of 4 Million Tourists - Great American Eclipse has developed a geographic model to estimate how many people will travel to see the April eclipse. This model predicts that between 1 and 4 million people will travel to the path of totality. Texas is expected to receive the majority of visitors, followed by Indiana, Ohio, New York, Arkansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Oklahoma, Maine, and New Hampshire.

U.S. Dietary Committee considers if the potato is a vegetable or a grain - Agriculture officials say the average American consumes about 50 pounds of potatoes each year.

Glad to be Home

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As I write this, I have been home again for a week after being away almost 7 weeks. It had taken this long to get settle back into an at-home routine….to relax enough to feel truly rested! At first, I felt so exhausted that I took naps – which didn’t seem to help. It took me 5 days to fully empty my car. I needed the alone time after being so engaged with people all the time; I didn’t want to talk on the phone at all…had to force myself to check my text message. My emotions were still volatile, and I consciously started trying to unwind. Cutting back on caffeine, getting more exercise and quick neighborhood hikes (even though it was cold outside) finally worked.

It’s such a joy to just be home. I’ve enjoyed returning to spending more time just being in my house…cooking, reading, writing, making Zentangle tiles, and planning one or two vacation travels for the next 6 months. I pampered myself included burning a scented candle I’ve had for years, a facial (using supplies from a Christmas gift), hot apple cider rooibos tea, big red peppermint stick, and pumpkin oatmeal cookie bars.

As the days passed, I fell myself recovering…although there are some aspects of the past 7 weeks that might be a permanent change. I’ve learned more about how I deal with stress --- holding off its effects until the crisis is ‘over’ --- and then requiring time to recover. It is a strategy and provided enough resilience, but I might need to bolster by stress reduction techniques in preparation for the next crisis; more self-care during a crisis might make recovery easier (or unneeded).

I’ll be taking off for another trip to Carrollton TX soon, but the trip will be only 6 days this time! Much easier!

My Parents’ House

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Once the decision was made in mid-December with my parents to move to an assisted living group home, I found myself examining the house that that had called home for more than 30 years – the last home they would own…the only one that didn’t still have a mortgage when they moved. The contents documented the whole of their lives.

The creation of the garden room not long after they moved into the house was a project that added more than space to the house.

The space was lined with house plants (some that had grown quite large) and had great light. The jigsaw puzzle table was there…a rocker and glide…and a transport chair that was easily maneuvered into a sunny spot to observe birds outside at the feeder or read the paper. The glide, puzzle table, and transport chair were moved to the assisted living group home.

The large plant in the foreground of the picture with the transport chair is one that grew up into the skylight of the garden room over the decades. My sister had brought it home from her work when an office closed. It bloomed in December (something it had done rarely over the years)…to the joy of my parents and the whole family. My sister has now managed to move it (in a U-Haul truck) to her house about an hour away; we were all relieved that it survived the trek intact.

A clay pot that another sister made was in the corner of my parents bedroom holding a collection of peacock feathers and dried seed pod/flowers….a suncatcher. My mother selected it as something to move with her – perhaps because of the memories of each item and the vase itself. Peacock feathers are special in my family because my maternal grandparents kept peacocks in their later years.

Back in the garden room a small poinsettia purchased recently sat on the windowsill. The second image is my favorite artsy image of December 2023! The pot was small enough for the windowsill at the assisted living group home so it moved with my parents.

We are now in the phase of sifted though everything in the house….taking a little more to my parents, distributing items to family members and my parents’ friends, donating some items….recycling and trash are the last resort. There are ups and downs to the work. It is giving us time to internalize the pivot point in my parents’ lives (and our own).

First Frost in Carrollton

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December was warmer than usual in Carrollton. There wasn’t a frost until the next to the last day of the month! I went out early to capture the sunrise…not particularly interesting but worth the effort since I realized there would be frost to photograph when there was enough light.

I went out about an hour and half later and found frost coating the ground cover in the garden. Some of the plants seem more frosted than others – the differences in textures and microclimates probably.

The 30+ year old rose bush had a bud that was not yet open. I realized that I should have cut it before the frost to bring inside. I cut it with the frost on it and took it to the assisted living group home for my parents later in the day….perhaps the last flower from the rose bush a cousin purchased for my grandmother’s 80th birthday so many years ago.

The sweet gum in a side yard (a hybrid that does not produce spiky seeds) is finally red. My parents planted the tree several years ago when it became apparent that the mulberry trees that were almost the vintage of the house were not going to survive much longer. I’m glad they enjoyed the young tree for several years before they moved.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 6, 2024

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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.

How Britain's taste for tea may have been a life saver - The explosion of tea as an everyman's drink in late 1700s England saved many lives - the simple practice of boiling water for tea, in an era before people understood that illness could be caused by water-borne pathogens, may have been enough to keep many from an early grave. Sometimes people's existing behaviors can make more of a difference to their health than an explicit intervention might.

Carbon-Based Paleolithic Paintings Found in France - The carbon-based drawings were detected with visible light and infrared photography, X-ray fluorescence, and spectroscopy underneath previously known images. The discovery could allow for precise radiocarbon dating of the artwork. Most of the Paleolithic paintings in the more than 200 caves in the region were made with iron and manganese oxides, which cannot be directly dated with radiocarbon dating technologies.

Winners of the 2023 International Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest – Wonderful views. I wish more of them were annotated (where they were taken…comments from the photographer, etc.). One of my favorites was the Winner for Snow and Ice by Thomas Vijayan of Canada.

Which zoo animals are most active in winter and what times are best to see them? – Author commenting about zoos in the UK…but most of the comments are relevant to zoos in the US too. I particularly enjoyed the last recommendation – going to the Reptile House to warm up! My daughter gave us a membership to the local zoo for Christmas…and we’ll probably bundle up and go soon (but not while the weather is in the 20s)!

Photos of the Week – December 24, 2023 from the Prairie Ecologist – Great reminders that there are interesting subjects for nature photography in winter.

103-Year-Old Artificial Christmas Tree Sells for Over $4,000 – A sliver of history: The tree originally belonged to Dorothy Grant, whose family purchased it for their Leicestershire, England, home in 1920. When she first saw it, the 8-year-old girl was “wildly excited.” She decorated its branches with cotton wool that resembled snow, as baubles were an “extravagance” at the time. Grant cherished the tree for the rest of her life. When she died at the age of 101 in 2014, her 84-year-old daughter, Shirley Hall, inherited it. She decided to part with it to honor her mother’s memory and to ensure it survives as a humble reminder of 1920s life—a boom-to-bust decade.

Photography In the National Parks: 2023 In Review – Rebecca Lawson’s favorite shots from 2023 from Yellowstone, Glacier, Mount Rainer, Lake Chelan, Yosemite, Death Valley, and Banff National Parks.

Honeycrisp, Cosmic Crisp usher in banner year for U.S. apples - Growers report that apple production in the United States hit levels in 2023 that had not been seen since the 2014-15 season. Washington State was the largest grower, producing some 90% of the nation's crop. Of all the varieties, Honeycrisp, Gala, Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Fuji make up 76% of the total apple holdings. The big winner this year was the Cosmic Crisp apple, which experienced a 41% year-over-year growth, with 9.5 million bushels harvested.

Millions of mysterious pits in the ocean decoded - Most of the depressions in the seafloor in the German Bight are created by porpoises and other animals in search of food, and then scoured out by bottom currents. The researchers showed that the marine mammals leave pits in the seafloor when they hunt for buried sand eels.

2023 was a year of big anniversaries – 20 years ago the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas…the Concorde made its final flight, 30 years ago the World Wide Web launched into the public domain, 50 years ago hip-hop began, 60 years ago March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (“I have a dream” speech)…JFK assassinated, 75 years ago Israel declared independence, 80 years ago Casablanca opened, 150 years ago blue jeans patented.

eBotanical Prints – December 2023

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Twenty more books were added to the botanical print collection in December– available for browsing on Internet Archive. They were almost the only books I read/browsed in December; I was overwhelmingly busy caring for my parents.

The publication range for this group is 1629-1959 – a lot has changed in those 300 years!

The whole list of 2,781 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the December 2023 books with links to the volumes and sample images is at the bottom of this post.

Click on any sample images in the mosaic below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the December 2023 eBotanical Prints!

Niger flora; or an enumeration of the plants of Western tropical Africa * Hooker, William Jackson (editor) * sample image * 1849

Bouquet de Melastomataceae Bresilieannes * Cogniaux, Alfred; Saldanha del Gama, Jose * sample image * 1887

Bryologia javanica V1 * Dozy, Francois; Molkenboer, Julian Hendrik; Bosch, Roelof Benjamin Van Den; Sande Lacoste, Cornelius Marinus van der * sample image * 1855

Bryologia javanica V2 * Dozy, Francois; Molkenboer, Julian Hendrik; Bosch, Roelof Benjamin Van Den; Sande Lacoste, Cornelius Marinus van der * sample image * 1855

Chung-kuo chu yao chih wu tʻu shuo.ho bien Nan-ching ta hsüeh, Shêng wu hsüeh hsi [ho] Chung-kuo kʻo hsüeh yüan, Chih wu yen chiu so.  * Keng, I-li * sample image * 1959

Collection d'orchide - esaquarelles originales. * Missouri Botanical Garden * sample image * 1900

Contribuciones al conocimiento de la flora ecuatoriana * Sodiro, L. * sample image * 1905

Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen * Sprengel, Christian Konrad * sample image * 1793

De plantis exoticis libri duo * Alpini, Alpino; Alpini, Prosperi * sample image * 1629

Descriptio?n de l'Egypte recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont ete faites en Egypte pendant l'expedition de l'armee francaise * Raffeneau-Delile, Alire * sample image * 1824

Description des plantes de l'Amerique * Plumier, Charles * sample image * 1693

Descriptionum et iconum rariores et pro maxima parte novas plantas illustrantium * Rottboll * sample image * 1773

Die Coniferen * Antoine, Franz * sample image * 1840

Phyto-iconographie der Bromeliaceen des kaiserlichen königlichen Hofburg-Gartens in Wien * Antoine, Franz * sample image * 1884

Die Flora der deutschen Schutzgebiete in der Sudsee * Lauterbach, Karl; Schumann, Karl Moritz * sample image * 1900

Nachtrage zur Flora der deutschen Schutzgebiete in der Sudsee * Lauterbach, Karl; Schumann, Karl Moritz * sample image * 1905

Die pflanzenwelt Ost-Afrikas und der nachbargebiete * Engler, Adolf * sample image * 1895

Flora Brasiliae meridionalis * Saint-Hilaire, Auguste de * sample image * 1825

Flora Java - Volume 2 * Blume, Carolo Ludovico * sample image * 1828

Flora Peruviana, et Chilensis Plates 1-152 * Ruiz, Hippolito; Pavon, Jose * sample image * 1798

Last Sunrise of 2023

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I was in my parents’ house alone on the last day of 2023. They had already moved to assisted living (more on that in the monthly ‘ramping up elder care’ post coming soon) and the first round of distribution of the furniture had occurred: to their new home, to the rest of the family. It felt odd to be there without them and without the jumble of possessions that had been there for over 30 years. The beauty of the sunrise changed the trajectory of my mood for the better!

I loved the color caught in the line of trees visible from the backyard. I took several zoomed images. I think the last one is my favorite.

It occurred to me that the prettiest sunrises are not the ones the occur on a clear morning…it takes some clouds to catch/reflect the light. Maybe that is a good analogy for life too – that complexity and challenge make life better!

My Favorite Photographs from 2023

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Photography is something I enjoy frequently (one of those hobbies that pop up almost daily!). I’ve picked 2 photos from each month of 2023 for this post. Picking favorites is always a bit of a challenge; looking at the collection as I write this post I realize some were chosen for the light

  • A heron in morning light

  • A backlit dandelion

  • High key image of iris…and then a turkey using the same technique

…some for the subject

  • The busy fox squirrel

  • Two insects in one flower

  • The egret struggling to control a fish

  • The feet of the American Coot

…some because they prompted a strong memory of the place.

  • Driftwood at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge

  • Sculpture in the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House Garden in St. Louis

  • Metal iris and sunrise at my parents’ house

  • Geese on the snow and ice in my neighborhood in Missouri

  • Cairn as the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield, MO

  • A flower blooming in December at Josey Ranch Park in Carrollton, TX

Enjoy the mosaic of images (click to see a larger version).

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2023

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December has been one of the most unusual (and stressful) of my life. Along with all the upheaval – there were still little celebrations to notice and savor.

Completion of a construction project. Big machinery digging in the street/sidewalk, the alleyway, and backyard of my parents house. The city was replacing an old sewer pipe. It was interesting to watch…although there were a few anxious moments too. We all celebrated when they finished within the 3 days they’d estimated for the project!

A warm day to mow the leaves. The leaves didn’t really begin to fall in Carrollton TX until December. We celebrated a warm day to mow them into the yard.

Crystalized ginger, big peppermint sticks. I savored special foods from the past that I haven’t eaten as much in recent years. I bought the crystalized ginger and a sister provided 6 of the big barber pole peppermint sticks. I started the celebration of my birthday early!

Red velvet cake. When I was growing up, my usual birthday cake was red velvet cake – made by my mother. This year one of sisters and her husband discovered a diner that had an excellent version of the cake – and bought me two pieces – which I enjoyed 2 days in a row prior to the actual birthday!

A break. My other sister came to make lunch for my parents and I took a break away from my parents’ house. I went to a small café for brunch and they had a special: birthday pancakes! I opted to get that special (another early birthday celebration) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I walked (and took pictures of birds) around Josey Ranch.

December celebrations. My birthday is just one of the normal December celebrations in my family. There is also my parents’ anniversary (their 71st) and Christmas! It’s always a hectic month…full of family visits.

Good sleep. I usually sleep well but it has not been as consistent this month….so I celebrated a particularly good night!

Fall foliage of crape myrtles. I’d never noticed crape mytles in the fall before. At my parents the conditions must have been just right for them to turn from green and hold their leaves this year. I celebrated how great they looked with the leaves and seed pods.  

Finding assisted living. Change is hard. We had moments of discovery and panic…celebrated finding an assisted living group home for my parents and then realizing that the details required another burst of energy. As I write this we are all celebrating how much we have accomplished with our combined efforts.

Daughter arriving. My daughter came for my birthday and the anniversary. She took me out for Ethiopian food to celebrate my birthday!

December 2023….what a cresendo for the year!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 30, 2023

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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.

Fevered Planet: How a shifting climate is catalyzing infectious disease – The geography of disease is also changing as novel pathogens affecting plants, animals and humans increase their range. New beetles are heading north and devastating Siberian forests, Alaskan mammals are struggling as new ticks arrive and human habitations in northern Norway are infested by new insects.

‘Green Roads’ Are Plowing Ahead, Buffering Drought and Floods - Designing roads to capture water through strategic channels, culverts, and ponds and divert it for agricultural use. Nearly 20 countries have either implemented Green Roads for Water or plan to begin soon, and thousands of kilometers of roads, worldwide, have already received Green Roads interventions.

Photos of the year (2023) from the Prairie Ecologist (part 1 and part 2) – Lots of great nature photos.

How Fire-Prone Communities Can Reduce Their Risk - Playbook for the Pyrocene, which offers 20 community planning and design strategies that can be applied by landscape architects, planners, homeowners, and developers. “The questions we are trying to answer here are not so much where to build, but rather how to build better within the context of wildfire broadly.”

Giant Goldfish Are Bad News for the Great Lakes - In the Great Lakes, abandoned goldfish and their kin are known to root up plants, contribute to harmful algal blooms and consume native vegetation.

Nine breakthroughs for climate and nature in 2023 you may have missed – Yes – I missed some of these!

Parts of China’s Great Wall Are Protected by a ‘Living Cover’ of Biocrusts – Lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria!

Fresh water from thin air - Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH). The need for more affordable options has spurred interest in ‘passive’ AWH systems that use moisture-hungry sorbent compounds to collect water. The small amounts of power that such systems require could, ideally, be supplied by the Sun. Typically, these sorbents are exposed to the air overnight, when temperatures are cooler and moisture is more abundant. They collect the airborne moisture as liquid in a process known as adsorption. When day breaks, the sorbents are transferred to a device that uses solar energy to drive the release of water. This water is then condensed and collected. And there are abundant opportunities beyond simply producing drinking water. For example, a harvesting system that piggybacks on existing photovoltaic solar panels, using the waste heat and energy from these panels to power water production9; the resulting water helps to cool the panels and therefore improves their efficiency

Archaeologists Discover Brutal ‘Bakery-Prison’ at Pompeii - The cramped space provided minimal light, as windows to the outside were small, high and barred.

The Great Wall of China (eBook)

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William Edgar Geil is believed to be the first American to have traveled the entire length of the 2,500-kilometer-long Ming section of the Great Wall of China. The book he published about that adventure was published shortly afterward in 1909 and is available on Internet Archive. It is illustrated with photographs taken by the author…documenting the wall as it existed at the time.

The Great Wall of China

So much has happened in China  over the intervening years…and the Great Wall seems to be something that is simply ‘always there.’ I remember two stories about it recently that reminded me that the wall is changing too: it was breached with construction equipment and a study that showed that the encrustations (lichen, moss, cyanobacteria) actually slow down erosion of the wall.