Volunteer Celebration Hike

The Howard Country Conservancy chose a great day for a hike in Howard County’s Western Regional Park for their volunteers. While we were gathering in the parking lot, a bald eagle soared overhead….starting the celebration!

It was an easy hike on paved trails for about 1.5 miles. The day was sunny and crisp…perfect for being outdoors. Most of the leaves had fallen but there were still a few trees full of fall color….and even the bare branches looked ‘new’ with their leaves recently blown away.

View fullsize

View fullsize

My attention for most of the hike was more focused on conversations with fellow volunteers than on the scenery of the hike. It was good to socialize…begin to emerge from the limited social interactions that happened during the pandemic.

One sighting in the woods: a large wasp nest high in a tree. It would not have been visible when the leaves were on the trees.  Now that it is no longer maintained by the wasps, it will begin to deteriorate. It seemed precariously attached to the tree branch; I wondered how long it would stay in the tree.

Overall an excellent morning and we all munched on cookies that looked like pumpkin pie slices before heading home!

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2020

I’m celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy and staying vigilant. We’re all in states that have a growing number of cases, though. As usual – I am looking back of the month and highlighting 10 little celebrations.

Large Monarch caterpillar. Toward the end of the month, there were caterpillars on the milkweed in our front flowerbed. One morning I walked out and saw a large one almost immediately.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

It was eating way…probably getting close to the size to pupate. I’ll look around for the chrysalis in the bushes nearby in a few days.

Cantaloupe in the CSA share. Yummy melons…one of the best foods of summer.

Regenerative landscaping webinar. Sometimes a webinar just comes at the right time. This one had so many interesting ideas. The one that I’ll probably try first is over seeding with mini-clover instead of grass seed in the thin places of our yard.

Morning hour on the deck. I love the quiet time on the deck first thing in the morning. I enjoy my morning caffeine, create a Zentangle tile, read a little….usually with our cat as company.

Neighborhood pond in the morning. Lots of interesting things at the pond --- different every time…birds, turtles, plants, insects.

Milkweed. Blooms, pods, insects (milkweed bugs and beetles, aphids (aargh!), Monarch caterpillars). The plants are little worlds of activity.

Summer sunrise. It’s getting easier to get up and out to catch the sunrise.

Mt. Pleasant. Venturing out just a little…early enough that there are not very many other people around.

Western Regional Park (Howard County, Maryland). A place I hadn’t been before but worth discovering.

Goldfinches. Looking out the window at the right time.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

NOAA Get into Your Sanctuary! Events. There was a post on the NOAA feed about this; relatively short notice but maybe ‘just is time’ is good enough. The events are live 7/31-8/2. I am planning to watch as many of them as I can. https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/visit/giys.html

Observations at the grocery store. When it got to the grocery store, the sun had only been up for about 10 minutes, so the short drive was scenic with the glow of morning light. As usual – there weren’t very many people in the parking area or in the store and everyone was wearing masks. I noticed that most masks were similar to mine but there two outliers: a woman that was wearing something that looked more like a gas mask and then a shield over that and a staff person that was wearing a mask that looked like it was very thin (had been through a lot of washings).

There was a sign saying that the carts were sanitized when I approached the area to get my cart – so I didn’t wipe the cart down again but did use the hand sanitizer station for my hands.

Things seemed well stocked although some of the store brand products we bought previously have not been replenished; the more expensive ‘name’ products are available.

I am enjoying the SCAN app my store provides. My bags are loaded as I shop (in the way I want them) and the checkout is as close to contactless as one can get inside the store! I wonder if all grocery stores will develop this kind of app for their customers.

Zooming – July 2020

I’m not taking as many pictures these days…but there are still plenty to choose from for the monthly zoom post. The locations this month are my yard, my neighborhood, Howard County’s Western Regional Park and Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. Enjoy the slideshow for July 2020!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

More Zentangle tiles with circular voids. I’ve continued to make tiles with circular voids…. another name for bubbles. It’s interesting how many variations there are with the starting point of a few circles on a tile.

Coronavirus uptick. We are having an uptick in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in Maryland. Hopefully, it will stabilize and decline but that might be tough with the surges happening elsewhere in the country as well. The decisions the local school systems made to be virtual for the first half of the school year are looking better and better. In the early summer we though that maybe the community spread would be very low by the time school started….and then we’d worry about the increase in cases as the ‘flu season’ started…maybe have to go virtual then. But the level of cases never went a low as we thought they might this summer…and now we are seeing an upward trend.

Outside hour to start the day. After a day of poor air quality kept me inside, it was great to return to being outside for the beginning of my day. As I passed by the front door, I stopped to step out and take a picture of sunrise…about 2 minutes after sunrise. The cat did not join me on the deck – preferring to stay indoors and meow loudly.

Scenic Drive 2

I headed out shortly after 9 AM --- late enough that the morning rush hour was over (even though traffic is still lighter than pre-pandemic). I had set my navigation system for Western Regional Park in Howard County, Maryland since the route would take me on some scenic roads I hadn’t traveled before and the park itself was new to me. The first bit of driving was at highway speeds (on MD-29 and 32) but then MD-32 narrowed to a 2-lane road and I turned off to curvy and narrower 2 lane roads toward the park. I had not anticipated as many bicyclists, but the morning was a pleasant temperature and there wasn’t much traffic. I slowed down to make sure I could go way around them and not meet another car coming from the opposite direction.

There were few people at the park when I got there – lone individuals and a mother with a child in a stroller and 2 children beside her – one looking very tired. I parked and got out to take some pictures of the meadow. As I walked toward the meadow, I heard then spotted a catbird in a tree overhead; it was too fast for me to get its picture.

There was a hillside dominated by milkweed. I wondered if the county had planted it as part of the overall effort in the schools and parks to help Monarch Butterflies. The plants are full of newly forming seed pods. A few weeks ago, the area would have been very fragrant with the flowers. Maybe I’ll return to the park in a few weeks to look for caterpillars.

There were a few other flowers mixed in with the milkweed. I didn’t notice the insect until I got home and looked at my pictures on my computer screen!

And then there was the Queen Anne’s Lace in every stage of seed production along the meadow’s edge.

There was a mockingbird getting a blackberry seconds before I took my picture…aargh!

I looked down a slope to a swampy area…a froth of purple flowers with an occasional bit of yellow!

I completed a loop back to home by putting the Howard County Conservatory’s Mt Pleasant location as a waypoint in my navigation system…to stay on scenic roads as much as possible.

My drive and short walk took about 1.5 hours and was very enjoyable. I enjoy getting out and finding natural places (that are new to me) near where I live – staying mostly in the car but getting out in places where there aren’t many other people around. I already have my 3rd scenic drive mapped out!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Kohlrabi fries. I had kohlrabi in the crisper and opted to cook it like oven fries. The seasoning I put on it (no-salt) browned well. This was the first time that I cooked kohlrabi this way; the fries tasted good with catsup, but they were almost too sweet. It occurred to me that maybe I should cook them as dessert fries with cinnamon, ginger and a little sugar.

CSA grounds. I took some pictures of the cutting garden and the flower beds near the barns on the way back to my car from the barn and the cutting gardens. Everything was looking very lush with just enough in bloom to add color.

My bags with the weekly share were heavy this week because they included a melon and cucumbers and squash and onions and beets.

View fullsize

View fullsize