Yard Work – June 2025

It’s the time of year when there is a lot to do in the yard. There is always something to see along the way….like an insect on one of lawn mower knobs. I am appreciating the new blades my husband installed on the mower.  It does not clog as easily when the grass is a little wet and the batteries seem to last longer too.

With my husband’s surgery in May, we got a little behind on edging and weed eating. When he was recovered enough to do the edging, he went out to check the situation and someone in the neighborhood had already done it! They also did some weed eating which was not as appreciated since they cut some daylilies and my Missouri evening primrose too. There was a smashed bird nest/egg nearby as well (although that could have been from another cause). I put some bricks around the cut primrose and later pulled most of the grass growing around it. I posted a thank you with a proviso about the evening primrose and day lilies on the neighborhood’s Facebook page since I have no idea who did it.

We have hackberries coming up everywhere….planted by birds. There is a large hackberry near the neighborhood pond – probably the parent. I am cutting them at this point but might leave one if it comes up in a place that it could grow to be a tree. Poke weed and Virginia Creeper are other natives that are prolific in the yard…..sometimes a little overwhelming and I usually leave them – particularly in the back yard. Poison ivy is something I always try to pull as soon as I find.


A hedge parsley came up in one of my flower beds…and it was pulled since it is not native to North America and tends to spread. I do the same with tree and Asian honeysuckle. A forsythia (also non-native) has been an ongoing project in my back yard. I am gradually cutting it down and will eventually paint the cut stubs with herbicide to kill it. I would rather have a native bush there. In the meantime, the results of my pruning are making a higher pile on my deck….drying out now and will be burned in the fall in my chimenea.

I planted a pot of flowers and veggies and a white oak seedling in late May. The zinnias are beginning to bloom! I won’t do it long term since it must be watered frequently….not something I want to do! I’ll have to decide where to put the white oak.

Other than my mower - my pruners, water bottle and gauntlet gloves are my primary tools. I’ve purchased some summer weight sunblock shirts and wear a hat, so I don’t need sunscreen except on my face!

Multi-Zentangle® Tile Pattern

I made a series of tiles in June and early July using magazine page cut tiles and a simple hand drawn diagonal shape as a ‘frame’ for the patterns. That meant that the tiles themselves could be arranged in a meta pattern! It was fun. If I do it again, I will cut a shape for the frame from card stock so it will be more consistent….or maybe a bit more complex.

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 12, 2025

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 Has U.S. Energy Use Changed Since 1776? – Historical perspective. Coal, petroleum and natural gas did not surpass renewables (i.e. wood) until 1885!

Is this the end for Easter Island's moai statues? – The moai are made from tuff, a volcanic rock largely composed of compressed ash. This type of stone is porous and unusually soft. The wind and rain do not treat it kindly. Weathering of the moai appears to have increased sharply during recent decades; drier weather followed by very heavy rains, more wildfires, rising sea level  and increased wave event have all contributed.

20 Incredible Nominees for the BigPicture Natural World People’s Choice Award – Some great photography.

In Yellowstone, Even Animals Sometimes Make Mistakes – A bison stumbled into Grand Prismatic Spring…and there was no happy ending.

London Inches Closer to Running Transit System Entirely on Renewable Power - London will source enough solar power to run its light railway and tram networks entirely on renewable energy. The deal brings Transport for London closer to its goal of running its entire transit system, including its sprawling underground railway network, on renewable energy by the end of this decade.

Time For Canada to Dump the Big Three & Go Electric with China – Something valid for Canada to consider…certainly more forward looking than subsidizing old technologies.

The end of tuberculosis that wasn’t - In the late 1980s, many thought the fight against tuberculosis (TB) had been won. A disease that had plagued humans for at least 9000 years was on the path to being eliminated. Three factors raised concerns about the resurgence of tuberculosis in the United States and rich countries in Europe in from mid-1980s and 1990s: HIV/AIDS epidemic, the rise in drug-resistant tuberculosis, and higher rates of TB in foreign-born populations.

The US’s asbestos U-turn: why the Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering its ban - Each year, around 40,000 deaths in the US and about 5,000 in the UK are attributed to asbestos exposure. If the US ban is lifted, it’s possible that the number in the US could increase over the coming decades while those in the UK will continue to fall. While global consensus moves toward stricter regulation, the US now finds itself at a crossroads, between scientific evidence and pressure from industry.

Inside Egypt’s Enigmatic $1 Billion Grand Museum - During a press conference on June 14, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the official opening was postponed due to “current regional developments”—loosely referring to the then-escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.

These Colorful Satellite Views Reveal Our Forests in Unprecedented Detail and Showcase the Potential of the New Biomass Mission - The European Space Agency’s satellite will measure trunks, branches and stems in forests to shed light on how much carbon is stored in trees across various continents. The example image of the Beni River in Bolivia shows a lot of oxbow lakes!

Silver and Gold of the Viking Age

My pick for the week’s eBook is from the British Museum and was published in 2011. It is available on Internet Archive. Many of the artifacts are jewelry. They showcase the design and metallurgy skills of the period. Many times we focus on the violence of the Viking Age…their ships and weapons and raiding of coastal settlements. Looking at jewelry provides a different perspective. I wondered how many of the designs were from the Vikings themselves or were looted (or copied) from the peoples they encountered.

The Cuerdale Hoard and Related Viking Age Silver and Gold from Britain and Ireland in the British Museum

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (4)

July 2 – July 9 with a lot of bigger and bigger luna moth caterpillars and a few cecropia moth caterpillars… an ongoing adventure.

I graduated to two large bins for the 40 or so luna moth caterpillars on 7/2 because the caterpillars seemed too crowded in one.

I moved the cecropia moth caterpillars to are larger bin too. They were still small but were beginning to look colorful…growing well on the sweet gum leaves.

I appreciated my neighbor with the sweet gum tree even more as the caterpillars got bigger. I made almost daily trips to get a bag of leaves! Pretty soon I graduated from my long-handled pruners to a pole saw because all the leaves were higher in the tree. The cecropias were eating well (I could find them more easily once they were in their own bin) and were still small enough to keep up with their food requirements.

One morning I thought I heard noises coming from one of the big luna bins. I made a movie to capture the sound of caterpillars eating (not loud….but I was pleased to capture the sound of caterpillars munching)!

The same day that I heard munching, I started to see some cocoons and noticing how big many of luna moth caterpillars had become.

The next morning I saw one that had changed color…as they sometimes do before building their cocoon.

I thought I left plenty of leaves in the bins for overnight….but when I came downstairs the next morning there was not a leaf left in either bin. It was a caterpillar emergency. I texted my neighbor and cleaned out the bins (put cocoons in a separate bin) and then went to get leaves. Fortunately, most caterpillars survived.

As I was cleaning out the bins, I found another caterpillar that had changed colors and put it in a small bin with violet leaves, and it immediately made a cocoon!

After the caterpillar emergency was dealt with, I had a shift in the Butterfly House. I took two larger caterpillars for the caterpillar display table and 4 cocoons for the display case. The cocoons contrasted nicely with the older cocoons already in the case because the leaf part was still green!

I got a collapsible case to put my other cocoons in so I can watch them emerge….and hopefully share the experience with the family that provided the leaves for the caterpillars.

The cecropia caterpillars will probably go to the Butterfly House at some point and maybe some of the luna moths when they emerge.

It’s been an exciting week…probably the peak sweet gum consumption of this adventure.

Previous Adventures in Caterpillar Care posts

Yards in June

There was a lot going on in yards in June.  I enjoyed documenting my own yard and that of my daughter’s too.

The native plants in my yard are doing quite well: fragrant sumac (the first one I planted),

American spikenard (one that is a few years old and another than I planted this year),

Missouri evening primrose with its big yellow flowers,

Common Primrose that is becoming well established in my wildflower garden, and

Mushrooms keep coming up in the area where a tree was cut down several years before we bought the house.

My daughter and son-in-law planted some native plants in an area near their driveway and the street recently; they are thriving along with the yucca that has been there for a long time.  

There are non-natives: daylilies in both yards,

Asian hydrangeas in her yard (that she generously cut for a bouquet now in my office window),

A very large Southern Magnolia in my daughter’s house,

Lambs ear – that bumblebees like when it is blooming at my house,

Roses and hostas at both houses!

I have arugula flowers since I didn’t start eating the leaves soon enough. Oh well – they attact some small pollinators. There are zinnia flowers nearby too.

We are both challenged with grass growing where we don’t want it…and some invasives like Asian bush and vine honeysuckles. I have a lot of tree seedlings to control too – particularly hackberry, mulberry, redbud, oak, and maple.

Roston Native Butterfly House – June 2025

Of course there are butterflies in the Roston Native Butterfly House…

But this post is focused more on caterpillars. The cecropia moth

Has very large caterpillars which are the stars of the caterpillar table!

The luna moths (male with feathery antennae and the female with more thread like antennae)

Also have large caterpillars but they are not quite as large or colorful.

The tiger swallowtail caterpillars have fake eye spots. They are often on the tulip poplar tree in the butterfly house…at eye level with many adult visitors. We sometimes move a caterpillar on the table so that the children can see it more easily.

Learning about caterpillars – and their importance in the environment as food for other creatures (particularly young birds) - is part of the butterfly house experience.

Remains of a Bird

I found the remains of a bird on our patio. It must have been there for a while – through several recent rains. It has been picked clean except for the more substantial wing feathers. It is about the size of a barn swallow; they nested under our deck again this year. The cause of death is not obvious, and I was relieved that it was unlikely caused by the bird flying into the glass of a window since there is not one nearby.

 My first thought was about how fossils of archeopteryx look because of how flattened it is except for the skull. I didn’t try to move it because it is out of the way and appeared to be glued to the pavement. The most nutritious part of the bird is already gone and I will let nature complete the process.

Fantastic Caverns

Fantastic Caverns is a great place to visit in the summer since the cave is 60 degrees all year long. We arrived a little before 10 AM and got tickets for 10:30 since there was a large school group at 10. During the wait, I bought some goat milk soap in the gift shop and looked at the mineral, quilt, and other artifact displays in the visitor center.

At 10:30 we walked out of the visitor center, down a ramp, and got on the tram that would take use through the cave.

I managed to take more pictures of the entrance (man-made) as we started our tour than I did during my previous visits. There is a lot of Viriginia Creeper on the rock face.

I used the ‘night scene’ setting on my Canon Powershot SX730 HS (my oldest camera!) because it is easier to hold than my phone. The lighting in the cave is relatively good and the guide illustrated several ways lighting of the cave has changed over the years. This was my third visit, and this guide was probably less experienced that my previous visits. (click on any image below to see a larger version).

This was the first visit to the cave for my daughter and the second for my husband. We all agreed that it is an excellent option for visitors that are not physically able to do other caves. We are already planning a visit to a cave that offers ultraviolet light tours…but that requires being able to walk around on your own with a headlamp and googles!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 5, 2025

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.

See the Face of a 10,500-Year-Old Woman, Reconstructed by Archaeologists and Artists – Based on well-preserved ancient DNA.

Rare, Mind-Bending M.C. Escher Works Are Up for Auction - Escher was a skilled artist who seamlessly bridged the worlds of art, mathematics, and science in the mid-20th century. Today, his influence remains as important as ever, with a fascinating body of work that continues to mesmerize and inspire minds across the world.

As Wind and Solar Grow, China Ships More Coal Overseas - Analysts say the era of “more renewables, more coal” in China is over, with solar and wind now set to displace coal, rather than supplement it. Even under conservative assumptions coal generation in China could soon peak and enter structural decline.

Work, wages and apprenticeships: sifting for clues about the lives of girls in ancient Egypt - Elephantine, a town at Egypt’s southern frontier near modern-day Aswan, provides a unique window into the urban life of some girls who worked in textile workshops during the ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom, which dates approximately 2030–1650 BCE. Girls received payment for their labor. It also suggests a structured apprenticeship system where young girls (and boys) worked alongside experienced craftswomen. Historians must always look beyond elite contexts to incorporate diverse evidence types – administrative documents, archaeological remains, and artistic representations – to construct a more complete picture of ancient lives.

Earth’s Clouds on the Move - Clouds are common on Earth, but they are ephemeral and challenging to study. Remote sensing has helped scientists tremendously by enabling consistent, global tracking of the elusive features, even over inaccessible areas like the poles and open ocean. Two published studies: 1) Where storm clouds form has changed. The implications for the climate are significant: This has added a large amount of warming to the system. 2) The shift in storm clouds increased the amount of energy absorbed by the oceans by about 0.37 watts per square meter per decade—a substantial amount on a planetary scale. Big question: What has caused the reduction in reflective storm clouds and whether the trend will continue.

Sinkhole Exposes Remnants of Medieval English Hospital - Walls hidden just beneath the city streets that once belonged to the twelfth- or thirteenth-century St. Leonard’s Hospital. The institution was built just after the Norman conquest and replaced the earlier St. Peter’s Hospital, which was founded by the Anglo-Saxon King Aethelstan. It was a place for caring for the unwell, elderly, and the condemned, but also served as an orphanage, helped feed the poor, and provided meals for the prisoners in York Castle. The hospital was destroyed during the Reformation under the reign of Henry VIII.

Lightning Strikes the Arctic: What Will It Mean for the Far North - A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Scientists are now reporting a dramatic surge in lightning in the Far North and are scrambling to parse how this could affect wildfires, the chemistry of the atmosphere, and Arctic ecosystems.

Scavenger Animals Are in Trouble, and That Could Spell Bad News for Human Health - Scavengers are in trouble—and their decline could be harmful to human health. Half of the 17 obligate scavenger species included in the study are considered “vulnerable” or “critically endangered” by the IUCN. When they are reduced in numbers or disappear, some smaller, occasional scavengers are proliferating. These creatures, such as rodents and feral dogs, tend to transmit diseases to humans.

How do sleep trackers work, and are they worth it? A sleep scientist breaks it down - Most modern sleep trackers do a decent job of estimating your total sleep each night. Some are more accurate for sleep staging, but this level of detail isn’t essential for improving the basics of your sleep. Focus on improving your healthy sleep strategies and pay attention to how you feel during the day.

Is an apple a day really good for your health? - Eating an apple a day is great– but only if that is part of a diet rich in various other plant-based foods, since that is a key driver of good health.

eBotanical Prints – June 2025

Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in June - available for browsing on Internet Archive. Most books were published in the 1800s (14 of the 20) although there were 5 from the 1700s. The first book on the list - The Illustrated Garden: Books from the Missouri Botanical Garden, 1485–1855: An Exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum – was published in 2004 and is going to be a great reference and I continue to explore eBotantical Prints!

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,143 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.

Click on any sample image from June’s 20 books below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the June 2025 eBotanical Prints!

The Illustrated Garden: Books from the Missouri Botanical Garden, 1485–1855: An Exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum * Herndon-sonsagra, Francesca * sample image * 2004

Album containing watercolors of plants * American School * sample image * 1881

Curiosites de la nature. des fleurs * French School * sample image * 1756

Four albums of flowers by an amateur artist and botanist V1 * English School * sample image * 1828

Four albums of flowers by an amateur artist and botanist V2 * English School * sample image * 1828

Four albums of flowers by an amateur artist and botanist V3 * English School * sample image * 1828

Four albums of flowers by an amateur artist and botanist V5 * English School * sample image * 1828

La natura, e coltura de' fiori fisicamente esposta in due trattati con nuove ragioni, osservazioni, e sperienze * Arena, Filippo * sample image * 1768

Roberti Icones Platarum V1 * Robert, Nicolas; Bosse, Abraham; Chastillon, Louis de * sample image * 1701

Roberti Icones Platarum V2 * Robert, Nicolas; Bosse, Abraham; Chastillon, Louis de * sample image * 1701

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V1 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V2 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V3 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V4 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V5 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V6 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V7 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Nouveau Duhamel, ou, Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France V8 * Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, M. * sample image * 1812

Collection du regne vegetal, arbres, forestiers et fruitiers, leurs fruits * Ledoulx, Pierre Francois; Verbrugge, Jean Charles; Ducq, Joseph Francois * sample image * 1831

A catalogue of English plants drawn after nature by Lady Frances Howard  * Howard, Lady Frances * sample image * 1766

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (3)

This post is about my adventures in caterpillar care from June 25 to July 1.

The cecropia moth caterpillars (4 of them) were moved to their own bin. They are slower developing than the luna moth caterpillars and started out still having lots of block bristles but had progressed to more colorful instars a few days later. They are still quite small.

My daughter sent me a picture of a ‘wild’ cecropia moth caterpillar on elderberry. Mine are eating sweet gum.  

There are 40+ luna moth caterpillars. They are bigger and go through sweet gum leaves faster. I replenish leaves twice a day in the big bin.

The big bin with a cooling rack to support the leaves works well. I take out the denuded twigs and put in new – using the rack to support the leaves well above the frass level. With 40 caterpillars – a lot of frass accumulates in just 24 hours!

To refresh the bin, I put a layer of paper towel in the bottom of a fresh bin, then move the cooling rack from the old bin to the new. There are always 3 or 4 caterpillars among the frass; if they will crawl onto a leaf, I use that to move them but otherwise, I cut the paper towel around the caterpillar and move it on the paper towel.

With the caterpillars eating so much more, I got some leaves from another sweet gum and also went to the Botanical Garden after a storm and found a branch that had be ripped off a sweet gum….lots of caterpillar food! I am saving the neighborhood tree for when I need a quick food source for the caterpillars. Sweet gum has the advantage of staying fresh for days in a closed bin….although it doesn’t last that long if there are 40 caterpillars in the bin!

Volunteering at the Library

I helped set up the used book sale at one of our county libraries last Friday. It was different than last year because the room was in use until 5 PM so our set up was delayed until after that. In addition, it was raining all afternoon. I wondered if there were going to be a lot of wet boxes.

I got there about 10 minutes before the allotted time and there were indeed people in the room, so I worked on a jigsaw puzzle that the library had set up near a window while I waited. Other volunteers were arriving too – some with a load of book boxes in their cars (since it was raining – enclosed vehicles were required…the usual pickups could not be used).

After helping stack chairs and move tables to the periphery of the room, I got started on the children’s books like what I did last year. There was a table and a cart. The differences from last year were 1) more helpers and 2) less books (we estimated what we needed for the sale based on what happened last year). I had two helpers that loaded the bottom shelf of the cart, so I didn’t have any backache from this set up! We were done in less than an hour.

Zentangle® – June 2025

30 days in June…so featuring 30 Zentangle tiles for the month. I had 170 to choose from so the choice was more challenging than usual. I made 3.5-inch squares from magazine pages this month and then made patterns over the images. In previous months, I had enjoyed the color variation when my ‘blanks’ were made from  “Bright Splash” card stock and realized that images in magazines would have a different kind of color variation. The slicker and thinner paper was a bit challenging at times, but I enjoyed the June tiles so much that I will probably continue in July!

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.

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2025

Butterflies and birds…visiting a prairie and the place I spent some formative years….lot to celebrate in June.

Butterfly Festival. I volunteered at the Master Naturalist booth for the Butterfly Festival at the Springfield Botanical Garden. It was very well attended, and people seemed to be enjoying filling in the butterfly passport; I began to feel like a recording talking about the spicebush swallowtail as I handed out stickers…but kept going because the children’s excitement was contagious!

1st graders in the Caterpillar Café. 80 first graders and chaperones. I was glad the cabbages had caterpillars on them! The big message of the game I played with them was that most caterpillars don’t survive (i.e. they get eaten…baby birds need them!). I was glad I had prepared well enough that none of them cried!

Morning in the Butterfly House. I always choose the 10 AM to 12:30 PM shift in the butterfly house because it is the coolest time of the day…and, so far, every shift has been something to celebrate…and there are lots of aspects to celebrate: quiet time with butterflies/moths, watching caterpillars munching on leaves (or deciding to go walkabout), the development of fruit on the pawpaw trees, people (local and from around the world) enjoying the place.  

Luna moth caterpillars. This celebration is ongoing because the caterpillars are still growing. I celebrate every time I count and realize that the numbers munching is staying about the same (i.e. not much mortality). Every time they shed their skin and are noticeably bigger, I celebrate their survival and realize that I will have to ramp up the amount of leaves I provide.

Magnolia petals as seasoning. I celebrated my daughter’s introducing me to magnolia petals. I tried slivers in salad and a stir fry. I liked them best in the stir fry (a little strong raw). My son-in-law made kombucha with them…and I am looking forward to trying it.

Schuette prairie. My fourth prairie walk…and probably my last until it begins to cool down. I celebrated that I could identify some of the plants I’d seen on other prairies and saw bunchflower for the first time.

River Bend Nature Center. I visited Wichita Falls – where I attended grades K-10 in the 1960s - and celebrated the new-to-me River Bend Nature Center that is just the kind of place I would like to volunteer. There are aspects of our formative years that we seek to replicate in our lives….but this was an instance where I felt the place was still attuned to what I need now more than 50 years later.

Juvenile robins. I celebrated that the robins seem to spend more time in our yard…and the juvenile robins seemed to congregate in my shade garden. Maybe not using chemicals on the yard and leaving the leaves on the backyard through the winter has made a positive difference!

Missouri evening primrose. I celebrated the large yellow flowers of the native evening primrose I bought last month. It started blooming soon after I planted it and kept getting new buds.  

Hummingbird at our feeder. There is a female hummingbird that comes to the feeder on my office window multiple times a day. She gets a good long drink and seems to look at me before she flies way! I wonder if she is raising young birds nearby. Celebrating a relationship with a bird!

Zooming – June 2025

The images I selected for this month’s Zooming post reflect the places I have been recently: the Butterfly House as the Springfield Botanical Gardens, my neighborhood and my home, the Ed Clark Museum of Missouri Geology in Rolla, the Dickerson Park Zoo, the Schuette Prairie, and the River Bend Nature Center in Wichita Falls TX. That’s quite a lot of variety during a single month! Enjoy the June 2025 slideshow!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 28, 2025

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.

Meet the Kangaroos That Live in Trees - Filling an evolutionary niche akin to monkeys, they’re keystone species in the rainforests of New Guinea and Australia.

Manet Cut This Painting in Half 150 Years Ago. Now, the Two Sides Are Back Together for a Rare Reunion - In 1874, Manet began to paint a scene of the Brasserie Reichshoffen on a large canvas. Unlike his paintings of military scenes or upper-class life of the 1860s, the new piece captured the dramas of everyday life. But Manet became dissatisfied with the composition of the large work and opted to cut the canvas in two. Over the next few years, he refined each half into more concise, if slightly less ambitious, depictions of the same café: At the Café and Corner of a Café-Concert. While both paintings are well regarded, Manet’s contemporaries struggled to understand his decision to separate them. But Manet’s conviction that the two should be kept apart remained strong. When the two paintings of the same café were exhibited at the Triennial Salon in Antwerp in 1879, they were shown in separate rooms.

Deconstructing Buildings: The Quest for New Life for Old Wood - A growing number of cities have launched initiatives to reuse the wood waste from construction and demolition that now ends up in landfills. The challenge, proponents say, is to deploy new techniques for disassembling old buildings and markets for repurposing the salvaged wood. Using reclaimed wood in buildings stores carbon and helps reduce emissions by avoiding the need to cut new trees. Going forward, some architects say, buildings should be designed for disassembly — meaning every structure is built not only to last but also for easy dismantling and repurposing when its time is up.

Why the appendix is much more important than we once thought - The appendix has been shown to be an important component of immune function, especially in early life. In addition, the appendix itself contains a very diverse and varied microbiota distinct from other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, suggesting a specialized role. Removal of the appendix has been associated with a reduction in gut bacterial diversity which can lead to intestinal dysbiosis and potentially increase susceptibility to various diseases. Appendectomy has also been linked to an increase in fungal diversity in the gut; the appendix may play a role in the balance between bacterial and fungal populations, potentially acting as a store of commensal gut microbiota that repopulate the colon after exposure to pathogens or antibiotic treatment. The appendix may play a further role in protecting the gastrointestinal system from invading pathogens.

How Extreme Heat Impacts Children - Infants and young children sweat less and are unable to regulate their core body temperature as well as adults. Playgrounds are not always built with materials designed to withstand heat and prevent burns. Older children such as high school athletes face increased risk of heatstroke and other illnesses during practices and games. 

Weather makers: How microbes living in the clouds affect our lives - Trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses and single-celled organisms travel the globe high in the atmosphere. Current aerobiologists deploy sophisticated air-samplers on drones and use DNA-sequencing technology to identify airborne life by its genes. The aerobiome, researchers now recognize, is an enormous habitat filled only with visitors. By one estimate about a trillion trillion bacterial cells rise each year from the land and sea into the sky. By another estimate, 50 million tons of fungal spores become airborne in that same time. Untold numbers of viruses, lichen, algae and other microscopic life forms also rise into the air. It's common for them to travel for days before landing, in which time they can soar for hundreds or thousands of miles. The aerobiome is a force to be reckoned with – one that exerts a powerful influence on the chemistry of the atmosphere. It even alters the weather. It turns out that biological molecules and cell walls are exceptionally good at triggering rain. More sobering… In a 2023 survey of clouds, bacteria carrying 29 different kinds of resistance genes were found.  A single airborne bacterium may carry as many as nine resistance genes, each providing a different defense against drugs. Every cubic meter of cloud could hold up to 10,000 resistance genes. A typical cloud floating overhead may hold more than a trillion of them.

The New Normal Is Already a Loss: How Shifting Baselines Skew Our View of Nature - Think back on the bird song you woke up to this morning. You might have pulled out a few recognizable threads, perhaps the robin, the crow, the sparrow. Now imagine what morning might have sounded like to your grandparents. Major scientific studies indicate that it was likely a cacophony of song by comparison—many kinds of birds and more of them. The difference, the shift in normal, is gradual over time and the loss, without memory or data, is hard to define. With each generation, our perception of the natural world changes, and with it, our understanding of what accounts for abundance and loss of biodiversity. A term bandied about is the “new normal.” In ecology, it’s called the shifting baseline syndrome. 

Fungi to the Rescue: How Mushrooms Are Helping Clean Up Toxic Lands - Mycoremediation, the use of fungi to break down pollutants and absorb heavy metals from contaminated soil. Certain species can transform petrochemicals, pesticides, and heavy metals into harmless compounds or concentrate them for safer removal. This nature-based method offers an affordable, less disruptive alternative to traditional “dig and dump” remediation approaches.

A History of Some National Park Roads – The only roads mentioned in the article I haven’t experienced is Generals Highway in California and Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana!

The Famous, Feathered Dinosaur Archaeopteryx Could Fly, Suggests New Study of a ‘Beautifully Preserved’ Fossil - A fossil collector discovered the Chicago Archaeopteryx sometime before 1990 in limestone deposits near Solnhofen, Germany, where all known Archaeopteryx fossils originate. As the Field Museum’s preparators worked on the pigeon-sized Chicago Archaeopteryx, they realized that the fossil included more soft tissues and delicate skeletal details than any other known Archaeopteryx specimen. From previous fossils, they already knew the dinosaur had asymmetric feathers, which are vital to creating thrust in modern, flying birds. But the hard slab of limestone around this specimen had also preserved a key layer of feathers called tertials that had never been documented before in Archaeopteryx.

The Craftsman (magazine)

I browsed 50 months of The Craftsman magazine from the early 1900s back in February. They are available from The University of Wisconsin-Madison digital library.

They are a way to understand the way people were living at the time – a time when my grandparents were born. Click on any of the sample images below to see a larger version…and use the links to browse the whole magazine.

The craftsman Vol. XIII, Number 4 January 1908

The craftsman Vol. XIII, Number 5 February 1908

The craftsman Vol. XIII, Number 6 March 1908

The craftsman Vol. XIV, Number 1 April 1908

The craftsman Vol. XIV, Number 2 May 1908

Adventures in Caterpillar Care (2)

My husband handled the feedings while I was in Dallas and Wichita Falls for 3 days; I left him plenty of sweet gum leaves (in the bin and in a vase to be added as needed). He managed although at one point they seemed so hungry that he thought they would run out food. The caterpillars were noticeably bigger with I returned home! I went to get fresh food the next morning…and that is when I started making some changes.

I opted to move the caterpillars to a slightly larger bin with a ruler added to hold the leaves above the coffee filters (and frass that accumulates very quickly). The fresh leaves that the old container held did not last 24 hours! I counted 40+ luna moth caterpillars and at least 3 cecropia moth caterpillars as I moved them on leaves to their new bin. It turned out that the larger bin was not big enough either since the leaves were almost all gone in 24 hours. The bigger caterpillars eat more than the newly hatched ones.

As they passed their 2-week-old mark, I moved the luna moth caterpillars to a large been with a cookie cooling rack to keep the leaves off the bottom. I have a paper towel layer there rather than coffee filters. Sometimes I can stick the twig through the metal grid so that the leaves stand up for easy caterpillar access. When I moved the luna mother caterpillars to the big bin, I counted 50 before I got sidetracked and lost the count! I’ll try to count each time I move them to a clean bin (probably every other day); they like to be under leaves so it is impossible to see most of them just looking down into the bin.

The luna moth caterpillars are now mostly green – which also makes them harder to see! How many do you see in the two pictures below?

When I moved the luna moth caterpillars to the big bin, I gave the cecropia moth caterpillars their own. There are 4 of them. They don’t grow as fast as the luna moths; they seem to like the sweet gum leaves (I tried maple leaves since some references list them as a popular food plant, but these caterpillars were already imprinted on sweet gum so they will continue to get it. The cecropia caterpillars are in the bin that I only used once for the whole group. It should work very well for them until they get very large.

Stay tuned for next week’s post about the continuing adventure.

Wichita Falls, Texas

Instead of driving directly back home after visiting my dad in Dallas, I drove to a friend’s house near Decatur, TX. We’d been exchanging Christmas cards/notes for over 55 years but hadn’t seen each other since she moved away from Wichita Falls while we were in Junior High. We discovered there was a lot to share that hadn’t made it into the annual exchange! We had been communicating via text messages for more than a year and a half trying to find a time to meet in person…and we finally did. What a joy to reconnect like this! We are already planning a next visit…in Decatur again since she has family obligations that keep her at home.

After the visit, I continued to Wichita Falls. I spent some formative years there in the 1960s (grades K-10 for me) but had not been back for a long time. I opted to stay in a hotel near downtown. The blue clad building – the most distinctive of the skyline – was the bank where I had my first savings account (in elementary school); I was pleased that I could see it from my hotel room window. I was also impressed with the plantings around the hotel…lots of plants that thrive in higher heat and less water.

I drove by the house my parents built in the early 1960’s. It is well maintained except for some missing (decorative) shutters. The elementary school that I attended for grades 3-6 is still an elementary school. One difference that is noticeable from the outside is that the windows no longer open and some have been blocked rather than just covered with blinds; when I went to school there, it was not air conditioned, so the windows opened, and fans were in every classroom.  I’m glad that the students today have air conditioning!

I had done some research about Wichita Falls and opted to see the River Bend Nature Center – something that was built after I moved away. The conservatory was being renovated and not open…maybe I’ll have to visit again to see that.

Some of the animals normally in the conservatory were in the large classroom/store area of the nature center.

I decided to spend most of my time walking around the paved trail (there is also a rustic trail but I was wearing sandals and opted to stick to paved this time). What a wonderful place! Lots of trees, some benches (an Eagle Scout project), an area for outdoor gatherings (including a nature play space), native plantings. If I still lived in Wichita Falls, this would probably be the primary place I would volunteer!

It was good that I was at the nature center the first hour they were open since the day was going to be a hot one. I headed toward home – 6 hours….I-44 the whole way!