Robert Louis Stephenson’s classic – A Child’s Garden of Verses – has been illustration many times. I recently browsed 6 that were published between 1895 and 1919 that are easily available on Project Gutenberg. Enjoy art associated with familiar poems! The links below show the artist and date and publication.
I made the trip down to Texas and back without taking any pictures. The garden around the Texas welcome center was mulch beds and woody plants (nothing blooming)…even the cone flowers that had been there last month had been removed. The pond near my hotel had no egrets or great blue herons as it had occasionally in the past; trash (plastic) had blown into the pond, and the wind dad swept it into two floating mats. Both places were a disappointment.
Fortunately, there were some good moments with my dad.
He was asleep when I got there and I didn’t wake him immediately. I could tell he was not soundly asleep because he would move his legs to cause his chair to rock. I talked to him during one of the times he moved and he did wake up. He almost immediately commented that it was very bright outside when he looked toward me (based on where he heard me); there was a window beside me looking out to a bright sunny day. It is a small thing…but magnified since my sisters and I have been thinking that he might be blind. We now think he can see light which helps keep his circadian rhythm going even if it isn’t helpful for him to move around with his walker without running into things he can’t see.
The next morning, I got to the memory care facility when he had almost finished breakfast and was drinking his coffee. I noticed there was some orange juice and realized that he didn’t know it was there! I asked if he wanted it and handed it to him….and he drank the whole thing without stopping! My sisters and I always are concerned that he might be slightly dehydrated because he doesn’t feel thirsty. This time he looked like he did feel thirsty….or he simply really liked the taste of orange juice.
Next – he acquiesced to going for a walk. I opted to do it inside since the day was already heating up. I guided the walker and reassured him that I wouldn’t let him run into anything. He started out very slow but seemed to move easier as he got warmed up….nothing like his rapid walk that I remember from when I was growing up or when he walked in his neighborhood up until about 5 years ago. But – he is still moving with the help of his walker.
We relaxed a bit back in his room – him dozing off almost immediately….and I left for the drive back to Missouri.
Continuing my series on my progress toward transitioning my yard to a suburban savanna…..
This month I am focusing on water. My yard has a sprinkler system that was installed in the late 90s. We get it checked at the beginning of each season and replaced the controller last year so that it doesn’t come on if there was rain recently (prior that that we often manually turned if off earlier in the growing season when our area gets enough rain for plants to thrive).
This year I am watering as I have in years past since so many of the plants are new. Next year I will likely reduce either the duration or the frequency since the plants are native and should thrive without extra water. In subsequent years when most plants are well established, I might simply turn on the sprinklers manually…only when there are very long periods with no rainfall (i.e. in drought conditions).
The only plant that will likely need extra attention is an Kousa dogwood (planted by a previous owner) that is growing in full sun. Even with the watering I do now, it tends to get some dry/brown leaves in summers with high heat and little rain. It’s not a native so obviously is not honed to our Missouri climate! I might put a soaker hose in to specifically provide water to the roots of the tree….or plant some green native ground cover (something like golden ragwort on the north and south, Missouri evening primrose on the western side, violets on the eastern side) under the tree that will keep the soil cooler than the mulch that is currently there.
In a few years, if something on the sprinkler system breaks enough that it would required replacement – maybe I will decide I don’t need a sprinkler system often enough to warrant the expense!
More about my suburban savanna and blooms for pollinators next month.
Previous Suburban Savanna Posts:
April 2026 – Overview
May 2026 – Planting Natives
June 2026 – Shade Garden
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.
07/01/2026 Clean Technica Southeast Missouri Smelter Announces Intent to Restart This Year - Not mentioned in the release today is how the smelter will be powered, and whether the smelter will be in compliance with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources plan to reduce sulfur dioxide pollution to levels that are safe to breathe. New Madrid County recorded the worst air quality in the United States before idling.
07/01/2026 Yale Environment 360 A Home Battery Revolution Is Reshaping the Power Grid - As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are storing their excess solar power. Now, utilities and energy companies in dozens of countries are buying up those electrons, bundling them together, and using them to balance the grid.
07/01/2026 Planetizen Replacing lead pipes in Chicago costs more than 6 times the national average - Chicago has the nation's largest inventory of lead water pipes. Officials say replacing each one costs about $31,000 on average — more than six times the Environmental Protection Agency’s national estimate of $4,700 a line. The most significant factors driving up costs include inefficient early contracts, cumbersome permitting requirements, and the city’s reliance on one-off replacements rather than undertaking whole blocks at once.
07/01/2026 NPR Lone star ticks are covering much of the U.S. Here's what you need to know - The lone star is spreading across vast regions of the U.S., and the illness it carries, the alpha-gal syndrome, is spreading in more than 30 countries on six continents, often spread by various other ticks. The alpha-gal syndrome is more difficult to diagnose and treat than lime disease, and the symptoms are more severe. In many cases, the victim develops an allergy to all red meat, including nearly microscopic particles of it. The allergy can become so extreme it can kill you.
06/28/2026 BBC What watching the sunset really does for your health - There's growing evidence that sunsets – and sunrises, for that matter – can have a meaningful impact on our brain and mental health: diminishing anxiety and depression while boosting memory, creativity, sleep and even altruism.
6/25/2026 The Conversation Most bees are solitary and don’t live in hives. Climate change risks them starving - Currently, most of what we know about bee nutrition comes from highly social species such as honeybees or bumblebees. Yet most bees are solitary or communal (group living but with no queens and workers). They might experience the nutritional landscape and nutritional stress in very different ways.
06/22/2026 NASA A Turquoise Tint for the Black Sea - The Black Sea sits at the boundary between Europe and Asia and connects to the Mediterranean Sea via a chain of waterways. Its surface often appears dark, but each spring and summer it transforms into a striking expanse of swirling turquoise. The turquoise color is likely caused by coccolithophores, a type of phytoplankton covered with calcium carbonate plates that can give surface waters a milky-blue appearance. These types of phytoplankton tend to dominate in late spring and early summer. Other times of the year, diatoms—a type of microscopic algae with silica shells—can become more prevalent, and they tend to darken the water rather than brighten it.
6/24/2026 NWF Blog 7 Moths that Make Butterflies Look Boring – The only one I haven’t seen is the Texas Wasp Moth!
06/30/2026 Artnet These 10 U.S. Landmarks Are At-Risk - As America gears up to mark the 250th year of its independence, the World Monuments Fund (WMF) is throwing a spotlight on 10 historic places that it says are most urgently in need of preservation.
6/27/2026 Science Daily Yellowstone’s supervolcano may be fueled by something unexpected - Instead of a deep plume rising from near Earth’s core, a broad “mantle wind” may push hot rock beneath Yellowstone, generating magma closer to the surface. This process helps create a massive underground magma network and may explain how supervolcanoes remain active for long periods.
The week’s eBook was published in 1922…and has great illustrations of birds in flight created by Roland Green. The books is available on Internet Archive. Enjoy browsing!
Birds in flight by William Payne Pycraft and illustrated by Roland Green
During my career – there were development plans that addressed ‘what do I want to be doing 5 years from now…and what can I do to prepare myself?” I am trying to apply the idea to my post-career life – which does not have salary as a motivating factor. My overarching goal is to become wiser every year…to care for my family…to contribute to the well-being of my community….to blend the things I do rather than trying to separate them.
In 5 years, I want to be much as I am now…but better prepared for whatever health/infirmity develops as I get older and take more action to leave the world a better place.
Here is my high level “what I can do to prepare myself:”
Continue doing what I am doing now with some changes
Consciously increase activities that sustain or improve my physical resilience (i.e. targeted exercise primarily)
Decrease my carbon footprint. Here are some things I have in mind:
Replace my plug-in hybrid car with an electric. This will probably happen in 2027.
Put solar panels with battery on my home. This will probably happen in the next 2 years.
Eat more from my own yard (I already eat seasonal greens from the yard….and am looking forward to elderberries and pawpaws in the coming years).
Gradually replace my wardrobe with clothes made from natural fibers.
Reduce the turf in my yard to 30% or less.
Allow an oak to grow in both the back and front yard (they as seedlings now).
(Maybe) Begin to skew from outreach/education type volunteering toward advocacy. This could mean that I would decide not to continue as a Missouri Master Naturalist.
Now that I have written this down, I realize that my trend is good….that the plan is simply tweaks that will take some disciple/energy to implement.
I’ve been volunteering for the weekly maintenance sessions at the Lake Springfield Boathouse Garden this year. It’s been a learning experience. Recently the ‘taskmaster’ sent some pictures from 3 years ago – around the time I first visited the place.
The next time I volunteered, I took some similar pictures to document the way it looks in 2026. The plants are much more established now.
Of course I couldn’t resist taking some closer photos – cone flowers, button bush, cup plant, and some mushrooms that reminded me of roasted marshmallows.
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.
06/24/2026 I’m Plastic Free How to Tell if a Company is Actually Reducing its Plastic Footprint? - In the 2020s, it is no longer enough for companies to say they care about the planet while their products, packaging, and supply chains continue to leak plastic into the environment. Plastic pollution is not only a litter problem. It is a materials, design, energy, waste, and accountability problem.
6/24/2026 NWF Blog Go Plastic Free This July - Reducing our plastic waste helps the environment by not only ensuring it’s pristine, but it also prevents plastic from being ingested by wildlife, where injury and death are common outcomes when they interact with plastic. Plastic is also a known hormone disruptor, which can and does affect wildlife and humans.
06/23/2026 The Conversation We found microplastics in hedgehogs – then we traced them back to pet food - The story began in 2021, when we collected 189 hedgehog faeces samples from residential gardens and rehabilitation centres across the UK. We found plastic in 19% of them. Research suggests that food left out by people is the single biggest reason European hedgehogs visit residential gardens. Many hedgehogs have even become reliant on it, especially during the autumn and winter. We found microplastics in 29 of the 38 pet food products we tested. In 18 products, contamination appeared in more than one retail unit. Although plastic was found across the products tested, those in the “value” price category had more positive samples.
06/23/2026 The New York Times Former NOAA Employees Revive Climate Site Shut by Trump Administration - The new site, climate.us, is an effort by former staff members at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to present climate science previously housed at climate.gov, including data, reports, articles, and congressionally mandated national climate assessments. The new site is effectively the “first full clone” of climate.gov.
6/23/2026 Clean Technica How you fight climate disinformation – Several strategies….including Pope Leo XIV has called “the drug of fake news” a threat to a health society and has called on journalists to “safeguard voices and faces, cultivate seriousness in every report and every analysis, preserve the beauty of cultures and territories.”
6/25/2026 BBC Droughts are transforming the Turkish landscape with massive sinkholes - The "breadbasket" of Turkey, Konya's valleys are filled with the farms needed to feed a growing nation. But the available groundwater is drying up and causing fields to collapse. Turkey has been seized by ongoing drought, with a United Nations report predicting that Turkey would become a water-poor country by 2030. Konya's sinkhole problem is a perfect storm of geology, drought and intensive agriculture draining the groundwater.
6/25/2026 Science Daily Osteopenia is silently weakening bones in millions of people - Exercise, adequate calcium and vitamin D, and other healthy habits can slow or even partially reverse the decline.
6/23/2026 The Conversation Earth’s oldest crater really is over 3 billion years old - Zircon is tiny, tough and unusually good at keeping time. It contains uranium, which slowly decays into lead. By measuring uranium and lead in a zircon crystal, we can estimate when that crystal formed, or when something strongly altered it. Apatite can grow when hot fluids move through broken rock – exactly the kind of system an impact creates, as heat and fractures drive water through a crater. The apatite gave the same age as the modified zircons. Two clocks, in different minerals and different rocks, pointed to the same event about 3.02 billion years ago.
6/22/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Authorities Investigated Reports of an Illegal Excavation in Rome. Then, They Stumbled Upon an Ancient Villa Adorned with Mosaics - In mid-February, residents of Castel di Guido, a village on the outskirts of Rome, notified police of unusual activity taking place nearby. Locals had spotted people digging at night, seemingly without authorization. When authorities investigated the site, they realized that looters had used a backhoe to access an underground cavern protected by fencing. Archaeologists jumped into action to prevent further damage—and soon discovered a well-preserved set of ruins that may have been visited by Roman emperors. Emergency excavations revealed the ancient structure’s entrance hall, which featured a central impluvium, or marble basin at the center of the room, and a mosaic floor adorned with botanical and geometric designs.
6/17/2026 Yale Environment 360 A Missing Piece in Climate Models: Nature’s Own Emissions - For decades, climate scientists have issued warnings about positive global warming feedbacks, vicious cycles in the Earth system in which rising temperatures from burning fossil fuels beget more warming. Feedbacks in which ecosystems emit more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere are so complex that they are often left out entirely. For example, how much more carbon dioxide will be emitted as wildfires increase? How much more methane will bubble up from fermenting wetlands or seep from thawing permafrost? Remarkably, these so-called warming-induced emissions are poorly represented or absent from the most influential climate models. Climate modelers are scrambling to catch up.
Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in June – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive. 16 of the books are a continuation of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletters; there are 4 volumes per year so this month includes 2013 to 2017; I’ll continue browsing this periodical in July. There were a few miscellaneous volumes at the beginning of the list – with a wide range of publication dates (1660 – 2001).
My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,383 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.
Click on any sample image from June’s 20 books 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 2026 eBotanical Prints!
6 Maine Trees * Goodale, Rebecca * sample image * 2001
JARDIN DE RARES ET CURIEUX FLEURS FAICTES * Geest, Julius Francois de * sample image * 1660
Sketch book of flowers in watercolor * Dabney, Beatrice Penati Adams * sample image * 1960
Practical directions for learning flower-drawing. Illustrated by coloured drawings * Syme, Paterick * sample image * 1810
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.42:no.1 (2013) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2013
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.42:no.2 (2013) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2013
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.42:no.3 (2013) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2013
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.43:no.1 (2014) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2014
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.43:no.2 (2014) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2014
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.43:no.3 (2014) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2014
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.43:no.4 (2014) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2014
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.44:no.1 (2015) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2015
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.44:no.2 (2015) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2014
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.44:no.3 (2015) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2015
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.44:no.4 (2015) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2015
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.45:no.1 (2016) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2016
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.45:no.2 (2016) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2016
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.45:no.3 (2016) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2016
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.45:no.4 (2016) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2016
Carnivorous plant newsletter v.46:no.1 (2017) * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2017
The beginning of the month was very hectic….but I recovered in the later weeks. There was a lot to celebrate.
Violet leaves with spaghetti sauce. It’s such a joy to simply walk outside in the back yard and cut a few leaves to eat almost immediately!
Microplastics talk to Missouri Master Gardeners. The audience was not large, but they made up for it in enthusiasm. I celebrated that I’d gotten it done!
Clumps of mushrooms around native plant garden. The edges of the oak mulch are evidently perfect for mushrooms. I celebrated that they looked like a natural ‘edge’ to the bed.
Hummingbird and squirrels and chipmunk seen from my office window. Hurray! We finally have a chipmunk visiting our yard…the first time I’ve seen one here. The hummingbird is coming to our feeder regularly and the squirrels run along the fence tops and through the pine to get to the holly just out of my view.
New glasses. I celebrated new single vision glasses for distance….and really like them for driving.
Hellbender tour. The hellbender conservation lab at the St. Louis Zoo was a great opportunity to see an animal I’d heard about but never seen….and the two flamingos on nests were another sight to celebrate.
Audubon Center at Riverlands. It was too hot to truly enjoy Riverlands and confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers…but I celebrated that it will make a great birding trip for next winter.
Telecon about data centers in Missouri. I celebrated an interesting telephone conference on data centers in Missouri; I now feel more knowledgeable about the issue.
Yellow and white wildflowers between Missouri and Texas. The yellow and whites along the roadside are the colors of summer along my route…celebrating the season.
Glorious summer yard. There are so many good things happening in my yard – so many reasons to celebrate native plants!
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.
06/17/2026 Science Daily Scientists say most of what’s in your food is still a mystery - Most chemicals in food are invisible to us in terms of research. We consume them every day, but we have little idea what they do. Projects such as the Foodome Project are now attempting to catalogue this hidden chemical universe. More than 130,000 molecules have already been listed, linking food compounds to human proteins, gut microbes and disease processes. The aim is to build an atlas of how diet interacts with the body, and to pinpoint which molecules really matter for health.
06/17/2026 The Conversation Levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in dolphins and whales are rising globally - Whales and dolphins inhabit some of the largest and seemingly most pristine environments on Earth, from tropical coastlines to Antarctic waters. Yet even they cannot escape PFAS – persistent “forever chemicals” that leak from our homes, factories and waterways into the sea. Whales and dolphins inhabit some of the largest and seemingly most pristine environments on Earth, from tropical coastlines to Antarctic waters. Yet even they cannot escape PFAS – persistent “forever chemicals” that leak from our homes, factories and waterways into the sea. Some dolphin studies have reported changes in immune-related markers associated with PFAS exposure. The highest concentrations tended to be found in coastal dolphins and porpoises, suggesting animals living near urban and industrial areas face greater exposure.
06/15/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Venus Flytraps Snap Their Traps Shut in Less Than a Second - A team reports that the chomping motion happens when rigid walls of cells on the leaves’ outer surface suddenly soften. The findings provide new insights into plant biology and could inspire new robotic designs.
6/16/2026 The Conversation Microplastics are everywhere in Pennsylvania’s water – but the tide may be turning - Microplastics are nearly everywhere, their concentration in sediment has been doubling every 20 years, and some of the most common types are among the most toxic. More than 80% of mismanaged plastic waste - plastic that’s littered, dumped or otherwise not properly contained - is estimated to be transported by rivers to coastal environments. What can you do to decrease your exposure to microplastics and help decrease their spread? You can stay informed about which plastics carry the greatest health risks and check the recycling number on the bottom of containers before you buy. You can also swap out single-use plastic cups, straws and food containers for alternatives, such as glass, stainless steel or unbleached paper.
06/11/2026 NASA Air Pollution’s Daily Pulse Over the Northeast - More than 35 million people live along the New York–Washington corridor and breathe the region’s air. While air quality has improved significantly in recent decades, outbreaks of ground-level ozone remain common, particularly in the warm summer months, when the chemical reactions that produce the pollutant accelerate and stagnant air allows ozone to accumulate. A reminder of this seasonal phenomenon came earlier than usual in 2026, when a mid-May heat wave prompted the New York State Department of Health and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to issue a health advisory on May 17 over concerns about ozone.
06/13/2026 Clean Technica Solar & Storage Provide Over 90% of All New Power Added to the U.S. Grid in Q1 - The United States added 7.8 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing 6 million cumulative installations as solar remained the leading source of new power added to the grid. Despite changing tax policy and regulatory actions targeting clean energy, solar and energy storage represented 91% of new capacity installed in Q1 as utilities, homeowners and businesses seek energy security amid global gas and gas turbine supply disruptions.
03/17/2026 National Geographic To study microplastics, Cassandra Rauert first had to build a plastic-free lab. It wasn't easy - An air-locked, 250-square-foot facility built almost entirely from stainless steel and nicknamed “the submarine”—though it feels less like a sub and more like a starship from a galaxy where plastic never took over modern life. Known as the Minderoo Plastics and Human Health Laboratory
06/09/2026 Science Daily An invisible forever chemical rain is falling across the planet - Researchers found that refrigerants and certain anesthetic gases have generated more than 335,000 tons of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a highly persistent "forever chemical," that has been deposited across Earth's surface since 2000. The pollutant is now showing up everywhere from rainwater to remote Arctic ice, and scientists expect levels to keep rising. Scientists are still working to fully understand the long-term effects of TFA. The European Chemicals Agency classifies the chemical as harmful to aquatic life. Researchers have also detected TFA in human blood and urine. In addition, the German Federal Office for Chemicals recently proposed classifying TFA as potentially toxic to human reproduction.
06/09/2026 National Wildlife Federation Data Centers are Driving Up Your Energy Bill - Clean energy has become the cheapest form of energy, but wind and solar still only account for 17 percent of the country’s energy generation. The biggest barrier to deploying clean energy is usually transmission. Without enough transmission to deliver cheaper clean energy to where it’s needed, over 900 GW of solar and wind projects sit waiting in queue, and utilities often default to more expensive fossil fuel generation instead. We can double down on outdated systems that pollute our air and water and drive up prices, or we can invest in the resilient energy solutions that have proven to be the cheapest, build the grid needed to deliver them, and ensure the largest electricity users pay their fair share of the costs they trigger.
06/08/2026 National Parks Traveler Young Mountains, Old Rocks: A Geological Overview of the Teton Range - The Tetons continue to grow. The tectonic forces that built the range are still active, and stress continues to build even if the Teton Fault has not experienced major movement in recorded history. Evidence of ongoing stress appears east of the Teton Range, where the Snake River does not flow down the center of its riverbed. Instead, the river flows preferentially along the western side of its banks as the extensional stress builds and the eastern block of the fault (the block underlying Jackson Hole) tilts more westward.
Project Gutenberg has the two Rootabaga books published by Carl Sandburg in the 1920s. Both books were illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham. I remember hearing about these books when I visited Carl Sandburg’s last home in North Carolina with my daughter in 2003…but didn’t encounter them again until this year. Enjoy the text and the illustrations!
My first lecture associated with the Missouri Master Naturalist state conference was Jean Ponzi’s Ecological Practices with Native Plants. It followed my morning at the Zoo and Center for Hellbender Conservation tour. It was good to spend the afternoon indoors!
I remembered that I could use my phone to photograph some of the key charts. The first was to remind me that Grow Native! has a model ordinance about native plants and urban landscape design. It is unfortunate that is necessary – but modern urban/suburban yard ‘rules’ tend to skew toward shallow rooted turf and result in relatively sterile outdoor spaces….not what we want to sustain the planet. The second photograph was the definition of ‘green infrastructure.’
Doug Tallamy’s work was cited….and the https://homegrownnationalpark.org/ was talked about. I had heard of it before and, now that I am reducing the turf in my yard – maybe I should look into it more.
One of the quotes I liked from this speaker: “Turf is living concrete!”
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.
06/06/2026 New York Times Looking for Love in the Big City? It’s Tough for Bowerbirds, Too. - The birds will choose artificial (plastic) accouterments over natural ones when given the choice.
06/05/2026 CNN Health Ultraprocessed food scientists say Americans are ‘fed up’ with industry and government inaction - Up to 70% of Americans want companies banned from advertising ultraprocessed foods on children’s television, while up to 87% want government safety testing for all laboratory-made chemicals long before they can be used in any food product, according to the survey published in the American Journal of Public Health. According to the US Centers for Disease and Prevention, 53% of American adults get most of their calories from ultraprocessed foods. For children ages 1 to 18, the percentage rises to 62%.
06/04/2026 The Conversation Poison or poverty: the impossible economic choices facing Ghana’s e‑waste workers - Agbogbloshie, in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, is a sprawling, open-air scrapyard located next to a lagoon and a growing informal settlement. Roughly 6,000 people dismantle, recycle and burn old and broken electronics there. Informal recycling provides an income for workers which is often relatively better than other available work. But the side effects of burning plastic and metal or using acid to extract minerals from the e-waste are devastating to human health and the natural environment.
06/05/2026 The Conversation A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems - A large amount of plastic waste gets shipped overseas. A new study analyzed what happens when plastic waste is shipped to lower- and middle-income countries, where open burning is a common way of dealing with excess waste. The study found pronounced increases in toxic air pollution. When plastic burns, it releases particularly toxic air pollutants. Fine particles can penetrate deep into people’s bodies, along with gases that include carbon monoxide, styrene gas and hydrogen cyanide. It also releases persistent organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins. These particles and gases have been linked to health risks ranging from respiratory and cardiovascular disease to cancer and reproductive and neurological disorders. Since 2021, seven states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws focused on packaging: Maine, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland. However, it will take time to see the effects.
06/02/2026 YaleEnvironment360 Tire Pollution May Threaten Human Health, Study Finds - Tiny particles of rubber cast off by car tires, which have long been known to harm wildlife, may also pose a risk to humans.
05/06/2026 Toxic-Free Future Endocrine-Disrupting Plastic Chemicals in Breast Milk - Testing found bisphenols, melamine and related chemicals, and triclosan in breast milk samples, pointing to widespread exposure from everyday products and materials, including plastics, food-contact materials, receipts, antimicrobial treatments, and many other products. To understand the potential health risks from tire pollution, researchers exposed human immune cells to a mixture of tire-derived pollutants as well as 6PPD-quinone (one of the known pollutants from tire rubber) on its own. The mixture caused rapid cell death, among other harms.
05/18/2026 NPR Thousands of U.S. countertop workers could have damaged lungs - Occupational health experts who have petitioned California to ban quartz say this material "is too toxic to fabricate and install safely, and education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by this product. A few weeks ago, in the first quartz and silicosis lawsuit to come to trial outside of California, a jury in Colorado awarded damages to an injured worker - finding that actions by several companies led to his illnesses.
05/19/2026 Planetizen Public works officials indicate alarming decline in condition of water and sewer systems - According to a survey in the National League of Cities’ 2026 Municipal Infrastructure Conditions Report, the confidence of public works and city officials in their water systems has dropped significantly, with just 39% of officials surveyed saying their own water and sewer infrastructure is 'satisfactory,' down from 82% in 2022.
06/03/2026 Artnet Crystal Bridges’s New Expansion Makes Room for More of Its Story - Crystal Bridges is now set to unveil its new 114,000-square-foot expansion on June 6–7, complemented by five acres of specially landscaped trails, gardens, a stream, and a 15,000-square-foot pond, all situated within the greater 134-acre forested park that the museum calls home. (Maybe time to make another visit the museum/Bentonville, AR).
05/28/2026 NASA A Shift in What’s Shaping U.S. Landscapes - For most of the past four decades, observations from the Landsat satellite record show that humans have dominated changes to the U.S. landscape. Recent research revealed a shift in that trend, suggesting that disasters might be catching up.
Continuing my series on my progress toward transitioning my yard to a suburban savanna…..
This month I am focusing on the shade garden since it is closest to being complete. The plants there will continue to develop…without a lot of work on my part. It is on the east of my house and includes an eastern white pine and a group of holly trees with low branches; a neighbor’s river birch and oak add to the shade in the summer.
There were a few violets near the house when we arrived 4 years ago and they have spilled out to take over what used to be struggling grass (I stopped mowing and the violets took over); they have progressed about 6 feet into the yard and I will further reduce my mowing to allow them to take over more!
I noticed last winter that several birds – particularly mourning doves and wrens – seemed to spend a lot of time finding tidbits to eat in the brown debris of the violets; I wondered if they were finding the tiny Great Spangled Fritillary (butterfly) caterpillars.
I planted American Spikenard, spice bush, and pawpaw to provide some taller plants to break the thick violet groundcover. I might eventually add another spice bush since the one I have is male (i.e. no red fruits!). The American Spikenard was one of the first native plants I added to my garden (where it is visible from my office window) and it gets bigger every year…this year it is over 5’ tall so it must be happy in its location. It blooms in June – attracting pollinators; the fruit is eaten by birds.
The spice bush had black swallowtail caterpillars eating it last summer…a great indication that the shade garden is supporting wildlife that had not been in the yard previously. I also noticed more fireflies in the summer beginning last year.
The pawpaw trees are still very young: one was planted as a seedling last year, 2 came up from seeds this spring, and 4 were planted as seedlings this spring. Hopefully most of them will survive and eventually host zebra swallowtail caterpillars. It will be years before they bear fruit….but I am excited about the prospect.
Around the white pine there is a mix of native and non-native plants. The natives are another American Spikenard, black raspberries (that came up on their own), violets, grapevine (which I cut to keep it out of the tree), hackberry (which I take out periodically, there is a neighborhood tree so the birds plant the seeds everywhere), and, unfortunately, an occasional poison ivy. The non-natives offer some color/shape contrast: hostas and lambs ear now…earlier in the season crocus, daffodils….later in the season chives.
I like that there are plants in the garden that are edible…that I can easily harvest and eat immediately: violet leaves and flowers, grape leaves, and chives.
The maintenance I anticipate on the garden is mainly controlling things like grape vines, poison ivy, and hackberries….keeping an eye out for invasives like poison hemlock and wintercreeper (removing immediately). I will eventually begin removing the lower branches of the pine (they are already sparsely needled because they only get enough light at their tips); it could reduce the shade a little in the morning, but the hollies will shade the area in the afternoon and the pine needle mulch sustains the soil moisture). The violets will grow out into the yard at least a little further but that just requires me to stop mowing the area where I want the violets to take over! My sprinkler system still waters the area when it hasn’t rained but I envision that I might turn off the zone once the plants are all well established.
More about my suburban savanna and water next month.
Previous Suburban Savanna Posts:
April 2026 – Overview
May 2026 – Planting Natives
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.
06/1/2026 Science Daily Your kitchen sponge is releasing microplastics every time you wash dishes – Use sponges with lower plastic (or no plastic) content! Using less water for dishes has and even greater environmental impact.
05/30/2026 Clean Technica Illinois First Great Lakes State to Enact Plastic Pellet Pollution Law - Just days before the end of the 2026 legislative session, the Illinois state legislature passed HB4418, which defines pre-production plastic pellets as a pollutant and gives the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency the authority to establish policies to prevent them from being released into the environment. eople complain about government overreach and faceless bureaucrats, but the truth is that without legislation such as this and governmental organizations like the Illinois EPA to enforce it, the world would be a much more toxic and dangerous place. It is long past time to stop giving polluters a free pass so they can maximize their profits.
05/11/2026 RNZ Is it really possible to live a plastic-free life? - Our lives are riddled with plastic, and growing evidence suggests it is affecting our health in myriad ways. (New Zealand)
04/27/2026 Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Endocrine-disrupting chemicals in breast milk and early life exposure for infants in the United States – Melamine, cyanuric acid, BPA, BPS, and triclosan were detected with high frequency in breast milk samples in the study, and our study suggests that breast milk is an important exposure pathway for these chemicals among nursing infants. Given the importance of breastfeeding for infant health, our study highlights the need to investigate potential health effects of these chronic exposures.
04/26/2026 Earth.com Plastics are entering food crops and stunting their growth - Farmers, waste managers, and regulators now face a harder truth: plastic in soil can slow crops, gather around roots, and enter plants. The next step is tracing whether weathered nanoplastics reach edible tissues at harvest and deciding which plastic inputs should be cut first.
04/02/2026 Medical Xpress Seven days without plastic contact slashes phthalates and bisphenols in body – A clinical trial investigating levels of plastic chemicals in the human body has found that a low-plastic diet could be a fast and effective way to reduce exposure. (Australia)
05/31/2026 The Conversation Trees and greenery can cool cities by as much as 18°C – but only if it’s the right type - Field measurements from Melbourne, Munich and Hong Kong were compared to test how different kinds of urban planting changed the heat people experience outdoors. Layered vegetation – where trees are combined with shrubs and ground cover – often cooled cities more effectively than trees alone. We also found local climate and street design strongly shaped whether greening worked well. Cities need planting strategies tailored to local conditions rather than universal greening formulas. In parks and open green spaces, layered vegetation can provide strong cooling while also supporting biodiversity. In dense streets, planners may need to balance shade with ventilation.
05/28/2026 My Modern Met Hand-Colored Photos From 19th-Century Japan Offer a Glimpse of Traditional Life - Photography arrived in Japan very early—a little less than a decade after it was invented in Europe. Throughout the 1850s, as Japan opened up to foreigners, the images from this time capture not only a nearly forgotten moment in history but also a rare transitional time in which traditional Japanese life was being affected by rapid modernization.
05/20/2026 BBC Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the darkest places on Earth. But now the light is intruding - The battle against encroaching artificial light in the Atacama is a microcosm of a global problem. As electric bulbs have proliferated, around 80% of Earth's population now lives under light-polluted skies. A recent study of star visibility found that, on average globally, the sky brightened due to light pollution by almost 10% a year between 2011-2022. If a person could see 250 stars at the start of the period, the researchers found, they would only spot 100 by the end.
5/28/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Giant, Destructive Hail Is Becoming More Common with Climate Change - A new study finds that these giant hailstones will become more common as the climate warms from human-caused carbon emissions. In models of predicted future warming, the researchers found that the frequency of hail larger than a marble will increase 47 percent by 2100 in a worst-case scenario. Even in a more optimistic model of future climate change, the potential for storms producing giant hail will rise 38 percent.
This week’s featured eBook is by Moses Harris and depicts English moths and butterflies – along with the plants on which they feed, their lifecycle changes, where to find their adult forms, and the common names in the mid-1700s. The author was an entomologist and engraver…and secretary to the Aurelian Society. The book was printed by the author!
The Aurelian: a natural history of English moths and butterflies
I’ve been keeping up with the changes occurring with my dad through text messages with my sisters…my June trip to Lewisville is still a week away.
He fell twice at night (getting up to go to the bathroom). The first time he was examined and then put back to bed…and then when the morning crew arrived, they found his bed was a mess because he had not been taken to the bathroom after he fell! The second time he fell was a few days later. His knees took the brunt of both falls (bruises…some scratches).
My sisters worked with the hospice and memory care staff to make changes. His room was rearranged to make navigation easier, and the memory care staff proactively get him up to use the bathroom at night. He hasn’t fallen again….so perhaps the changes are sufficient for now.
His eyesight has been failing and now he apparently is totally blind – cannot see light. He can’t articulate the change, but events have helped us conclude that it has happen. For example, my sister discovered him in the bathroom facing the back of the shower when she arrived one morning; fortunately, his walker has a seat, and he had thought to sit down. He told her there was nowhere for him to go! The combination of dementia and blindness is probably an insurmountable challenge for him; his blindness is a change, and his mental confusion makes it impossible for him to learn ways to deal with it.
The memory care staff try to include him in activities that he previously enjoyed just a few months ago. They put him in a wheelchair for a live music event, but he slept the whole time.
My sisters have commented that he is sleeping more (his sleeping had already been increasing before the falls). There are times when they visit that he is asleep most of the time now.
We all think he is winding down…and are thankful that when he is awake, he is courteous even when he is frustrated that his body will no longer work well enough for him to move about easily. He still enjoys frozen desserts (ice cream or lemon ice)!
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.
05/18/2026 The Scientist How Extreme Heat May Be Raising the Risk of Gestational Diabetes - A growing body of research shows that climate change-driven extreme heat may be increasing the risk of GDM. Studies from around the world are also pointing to critical windows of vulnerability, suggesting that rising temperatures may be shaping maternal health in overlooked ways.
05/19/2026 BBC Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame - Large-scale afforestation after World War II was carried out by public works, funded by tax revenues, to prevent soil erosion. Aiming for rapid reforestation, the government chose to plant reams of only two different native, fast-growing evergreen species that could quickly reforest landscapes and provide wood for future use in construction: the Japanese cedar, sugi, and the Japanese cypress, hinoki.
05/26/2026 Planetizen Two years after California reintroduced beavers, they are transforming the landscape into a 'climate-resilient powerhouse' – Collaboration between California Native American tribes and California Department of Fish and Wildlife….a beaver created wetland complex created since 2023.
5/26/2026 Yale Environment 360 Warming Is Raising the Risk of Encounters with Venomous Snakes – When I went through Master Naturalist training in Maryland more than a decade ago – we were told that cottonmouth moccasins were not found in Maryland….that they were found as far north as Viriginia. I wondered at the time how long it would take for temperatures to warm enough for them to move northward. The post says that “Cottonmouth moccasins in the US are forecast to head as far north as New York” although it does not say how soon.
05/14/2026 The Scientist Bioelectric Contact Lenses Alleviate Depression in Mice - This wearable, drug-free approach holds promise for transforming how depression and other brain conditions are treated, including anxiety, drug addiction, and cognitive decline. The problem is, sugi and hinoki trees also produce large amounts of lightweight pollen which can easily drift into cities. It's this pollen, often released all at once from the monoculture plantations, that is responsible for most seasonal allergies in Japan.
05/26/2026 Science Daily Scientists say they’ve reversed brain aging with a simple nasal spray - The therapy relies on microscopic biological particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs). These tiny structures naturally transport genetic material between cells. In this case, they were loaded with microRNAs, molecules that help regulate important biological processes in the brain. Once inside the brain, the treatment targeted immune cells involved in chronic inflammation. Scientists also found that it restored activity in mitochondria, the tiny structures inside cells responsible for producing energy. Aging and inflammation can damage mitochondria, leaving brain cells less efficient and more vulnerable to decline. (More work required before the treatment can be testing in humans).
5/26/2026 BBC The hidden dead zones spreading across the Baltic Sea floor - Cod fishing has collapsed. It may take more than 400 years for the maritime environment to recover from factors such as overfishing, oxygen depletion and rising sea temperatures. Some believe it may not happen at all.Areas of the sea floor with little or no oxygen, known as "dead zones", appear to be creeping closer to Bornholm's beaches. This is due to human pollution from fertilizers and sewage creating huge algal blooms, which, when they die, sink to the sea floor and cover it. Their decomposition uses up the available oxygen, kills the living organisms that depend on it, and – as a result – creates dead zones.
5/25/2026 Our World in Data Five million children die every year — what do they die from? – Worldwide 44% die from infectious diseases and 42% die from birth disorders….but there is a huge difference between low and high income countries.
5/21/2026 My Modern Met Amazing Winners of This Scientific Microscopic Imaging Contest Capture the Unseen Beauty of Life – I always enjoy magnified photography of life…the world we cannot see without our technology that often is quite beautiful.
5/22/2026 Artnet A 4,500-Year-Old Building Near Stonehenge Has Been Brought Back to Life - More than 100 volunteers have built a 20-foot high structure using the tools and techniques of Neolithic England - ecreating stone tools, using a woodland management technique known as coppicing, and creating a cement-like mixture of chalk, water, and straw called chalk daub.
Ronald Carson’s Forever Plastics poem is worth a look…I keep coming back to read it again to help shift my perspective…to enable better communication about the looming ramifications of our current (and projected) plastics usage.
He says: “In this poem, I wanted plastics to speak in the first-person plural, tracing the path from postwar convenience to biological saturation, where the environment is no longer outside us but lodged within us.”
The last stanza sums is up:
We are the heirloom you did not ask for,
the inheritance that cannot be refused,
the future fossil of your present,
already here.
See the whole poem here.
Copyright © 2026, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
Copyright © 2026 Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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