Springfield’s Artsfest

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Last weekend we enjoyed the Springfield, Missouri Artsfest. My daughter has enjoyed it in years past and I’ve been on the receiving end of some of her purchases; we missed it by about a month last year when we moved to the area in June. So – we anticipated a great spring outing this year.

The day we went was forecasted to get to the high 80s, so we chose to go in the morning before it got too warm. There were enough people around to make it a festival but not too many to impede browsing the arts. Artsfest is held on a street with older houses that are now businesses and (Missouri State University) student housing. Food trucks and canopies for artists lined the street (that had obviously been closed to traffic). It was a great opportunity to buy local!

We wandered all the way down the row enjoying the artists on the right side then worked our way back as we looked at items on the other side. I bought some earrings for myself right away…before my daughter reminded me that she intended to buy my Mother’s Day present at the fest!

She bought the next pair from an artist that upcycles glass; the glass I the ones I bought is from a jam jar!

My husband bought a turned wood plate for my daughter and son-in-law (they seemed very drawn to it…we were happy to indulge them)!

I found am stainless steel yard ornament that I plan to give to my mother next time I go to Carrollton. I chose to get one with pink speckles to pick up the color of the oxalis and hydrangea in her garden.

After a little more than an hour at the Artsfest, we made the decision to find a restaurant rather than getting something from the myriad of food trucks and sitting on a curb to eat it! Overall – an excellent outing!

Later in the day, the Allen, Texas mall shooting occurred. It put a damper on the joy of the day. We are reminded again and again that mass shootings are unpredictable…can happen anywhere (evidently more frequently in the US than anywhere else in the world, and more frequently when there are few/no limits on guns). Thoughts, prayers, and more guns aren’t reversing the trend. If something does not change dramatically, we will eventually modify the way we live to make ourselves less vulnerable (i.e. not gather in larger groups, order items to be delivered rather than shop or go to an Artsfest, interact differently (or not at all) with anyone we don’t know)….a dystopian vision for the future.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 11, 2023

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

800-year-old hoard unearthed in northern Germany – The picture of the earrings made me wonder how they were worn…and what stones once were held in the empty enclosures.

Firewood theft: The forests where trees are going missing – Evidently it is happening around the world…maybe caused by increasing heating costs and/or other fuels not available after a disaster or during a war.

Bald Eagles aren’t fledging as many chicks due to avian influenza – Oh no! I had gotten used to seeing bald eagles frequently near where I lived in Maryland. I had assumed that I didn’t see as many in Missouri because I didn’t know where to look – but it could have been that there are fewer birds to see anywhere.

New thought on Chaco Canyon Construction – A demonstration of how the timbers for building the complex structures at Chaco Canyon could have been carried the 60 miles from where the trees grew.

Sustainable process to produce vanillin from lignin makes further progress – Making the popular flavoring agent from lignin (a waste product from the wood pulping industry) rather a chemical process using petroleum.

Quilts from the Second World War tell the stories of the Canadian women who sewed them – A little Canadian history…the spirit of giving during a stressful time…sending artful warmth. Quilts have always appealed to me because they are functional art. My great-grandmother (in the US) made wedding quilts with/for her 5 daughters in the 1930s and 1940s…and now one of my sisters is talking about quilting being something she plans to do when she retires.

More Than Half Of New US Electricity Generating Capacity In 2023 Will Be Solar – Good! Evidently California and Texas are the states adding the most solar capacity.

Archaeologists Find Elite Residences at Mexico’s Chichén Itzá – Prior to this discovery, experts didn’t know any residential structures! What they found was a complex…two houses and a palace.

Air pollution speeds bone loss from osteoporosis – A study of a diverse cohort of over 160,000 postmenopausal women. The study found that nitrogen oxides are a major contributor to bone damage and that the lumbar spine is one of the most susceptible sites to this damage. This is another reason to improve air quality!

Photography In the National Parks: Capturing Atmospheric Phenomena – Being in the right place…noticing atmospheric phenomenon…and capturing the image. It reminded me of a trip we made back in 2007 to Cumberland State Park in Kentucky where we saw a moonbow; maybe we should go again!

Macro Photography (indoor)

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I got a new macro lens for my phone over the holidays – a Kase Smartphone Macro Lens. It comes with wih a U-shaped clip which didn’t fit over the phone + case so I am using the clip that also came in the package. I leave the lens attached to the clip and store it in the small bag that was also included.  The advantage of this lens is the increased distance from the subject (i.e. I don’t have to get as close…a very good thing if the insect has a stinger!). It is a little heavier but, so far, it seems to be easier to hold the phone and lens steady…no tripod required.

My first experiments were indoors around the house. I started with flowers I’d bought recently. My favorite of this group is the yellow rose.

The acrylic yarn of my 40+ year old crocheted chair blanket shows how long lasting the fibers are! A macrame hanging my sister made is the same vintage. The material is twine-like and I wonder if she had to wear gloves while she was making it.

Some images printed on paper are pixelated when magnified…others are not.

Peacock feathers are like abstract art in macro view.

I looked at the way different surfaces with patterns appear in macro: pulp paper (Zentangle with Sharpie ink), plastic, an ivy ceramic coaster (I never noticed the yellow mark in the pattern before), a bamboo back scratcher handle…a joint of the stem, and a clear plastic ribbon with a gold pattern.

Two objects with inlay: a box and an earring. On the earring, the black piece that looks like the arms on a clock…is (unmagnified) a bird flying over a landscape.

And continuing with some other earring…small objects made large with magnification.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/5/2020 – Our Yard

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Wearing Sherman TX earrings. I hadn’t worn them recently. I bought them in a boutique on the square after lunch at Fulbelli’s. Savoring the memory!

Seeing a Carolina Wren with nest material. The bird (probably a male) appeared to be looking around to see if a female was noticing his find. I didn’t see exactly where he went but it was in the general direction of our gas grill. We had a Carolina wren nest built in the grill a few years ago. I hope it isn’t happening again!

Loosening sense of the day of the week. It’s harder to remember which day of the week it is because the days are so much the same. I try to include some variety every day, but the activities are not pinned to a day of the week (except for laundry which, for some unknown reason, we still do on Saturdays). If the pandemic was not raging, I’d be volunteering 3-5 days a week with Howard County Conservancy’s outdoor field trips for school groups, guiding Robinson Nature Center visitors at the salt water Touch Tank, and (by mid-Month) morning shifts at the Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy (butterfly) exhibit. None of those organizations are open now. The calendar for April is a big blank.

Mowing the grass…doing some yard work. It’s the first mowing of the year…not really grass, mostly weeds. My husband did the mowing after I picked up twigs and small branches under trees to make the mowing easier. I also started a new compost pile with kitchen scraps and paper shreds.

Photographing the best of our yard. The trees are pretty this time of year. The red maple samaras are ripening. Soon the squirrels and birds will enjoy them, and they’ll helicopter off the tree. From afar the tree looks golden brown…looking more closely the colors are more appealing.

The tulip poplar is full of new spring-green leaves. Soon the buds will open. Right now, the buds are surrounded by small leaves. The trees themselves are far from the ‘wall of green’ they will become.

There are a lot of violets blooming in the thin grass under the trees.

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The cherry tree is still full of blooms, but the petals are beginning to fly.

The plum has lost its flower petals, but the rest of the flower is still visible among the new leaves that are a red-purple color.

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I heard a cardinal high the oak tree. The buds are larger than they were a week ago…but there are no blooms or leaves yet.

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Trimming hair. My hair was short enough going into the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ mode but my husband needed to have the hair on the back of his neck trimmed. Fortunately, we have clippers and it was easy for me to do; it bothers him when he wears a shirt with a collar so wanted it gone. Otherwise, he’s letting his hair grow too.

Looking at the COVID-19 cases per 10K population map from the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. It goes down to the county level. There is also a social distancing activity map down to county. Interesting….and scary at the same time. I try not to spend too much time looking at them.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.







Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/23/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday – a rainy day in Maryland:

Wearing copper feather earrings from New Mexico. I bought them on one of our trips to the state…more than a decade ago….maybe more than 2 decades. It’s fun to shift through earrings, finding a pair that I haven’t worn in a long time, remembering where they came from, enjoying them for a day. Repeat with another pair tomorrow.

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Cooking a meal in the oven. We usually cook on the stove top or grill or have meals that don’t require coking at all. Today we had a meal from the oven:  chicken and potatoes (sweet for me, russet for my husband), and spice cake muffins (the recipe called for applesauce and they were yummy). It felt a little like a holiday meal – which was a boost on a cold rainy day.

Deciding to do curbside pickup at the grocery store rather than going into the store. This is big deal for us but probably a good ‘next step’ in increasing our social distancing. It will take a little longer for us to get our groceries and I’ll just have to accept the produce that is selected for me. The services are stressed right now in our area; evidently a lot of people are going this route and the hiring of extra personnel has not kept up.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/17/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

  • Picking earrings to wear that I haven’t worn in a long time. Yesterday I wore some from Orlando FL and today they are from Watkins Glen NY. Earrings are my favorite item to purchase when I travel…small keepsakes that I can wear! Both are over 10 years old, but I still remember where I got them.

  • Maintaining the compost pile and walking around the yard. I’m trying to get out of the house at least once a day….enjoy that it is springtime here!

  • Watching the second installment of the Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safari (about Rico the Porcupine). They have established a website where all the videos will be available after they air live. I am watching the recorded version, so I don’t have to pay attention to the time to be online at 3 PM EDT!

  • Calling family far away, I had planned to be in Texas this past week…but I was already ‘staying at home as much as possible’ a few days before I was going to get on the airplane. Talking on the telephone is the next best thing for keeping in touch until it is not as risky to be out and about in larger groups of people.

  • Making a Zentangle® butterfly. I was straightening up my office and found a few extra butterfly tiles left from last summer’s experience with summer campers. I couldn’t resist using the tile…thinking that this would be a good activity for anyone needing a quiet calm time. If you want to learn a new pattern, checkout out https://tanglepatterns.com/ . Later in the afternoon. it was warm enough that I saw a real butterfly - a cabbage white.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16

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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.

Lunch in Sherman TX

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While I was Texas, we made a trip to Sherman to visit my sister and lunched in downtown Sherman. We parked on Courthouse Square and then walked about a block to the restaurant – past some wall art on one of the old buildings. I liked the colors and curves.

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The building the restaurant was in (Fulbelli’s) was in from the 1870s and has been restored for use by small shops and eateries. The light wells bring light from above down through the building – as intended when the building was initially built before electric lighting. The restaurant is on the second floor and we were taken up (and back down) on the antique elevator by an attendant – an adventure in elevator history!

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After lunch we browsed through the hallways (Sherman history pictures on the walls) and small shops.

I found some interesting earrings made by a local artist from leather and metallic paint. I’m going to try wearing them to my next Wings of Fancy shift…see if the blue morphos are attracted to them. The blue looks the same in certain light, but it tends to shift toward green in certain light and the blue morphos shift toward pink; they are both a structural color probably but not the same.

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New Mexico Earrings

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There are still more Festival of the Cranes posts to come, but I am taking a break for a few days to do post on other topics….and to do a little history of our travels to New Mexico via my earring collection.

I have some New Mexico earrings from as far back as the 1970s but I’m going to focus this post on the ones I’ve collected this century.

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I bought the pair of black and silver M design (like a pottery shard) at Bandelier National Monument in 2005. My husband, daughter, and I had met my parents in Albuquerque and used that as a base to see north central New Mexico: Santa Fe, Bandelier, Petroglyphs, and Chaco Canyon.

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On a road trip between Dallas and Tucson, we stopped at White Sands National Monument in 2013. I posted about the barn swallows and yuccas!

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During our first experience with Festival of the Cranes back in 2016, I bought some radio telescope earrings at the Very Large Array Radio Telescope,

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Two pairs of earrings including some stylized cranes at Vertu, the local artist store in Socorro,

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And three more pair in the Albuquerque airport.

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I bought four pair of earrings this year during our second experience at Festival of the Cranes. Starting at 12 o’clock position: there are the polished stones purchased at Vertu (they are thin enough to not be heavy), the dragonfly in cattails at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge gift shop , the bird flying over water and mountains from a shop on Socorro’s square, and the mosaic type earrings at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge made by an artist from the Santo Domingo Pueblo.

Overall – I don’t remember the years all that well (I must look back at notes), but I easily remember where I bought them. Earrings are still the best keepsake for me to buy, pack, and enjoy – savoring the memory from the time I bought them every time I see them.

Macro Lens on a Smartphone

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I bought a clip-on macro lens for my smart phone – something to use when I want to photograph macroinvertebrates in the field (or river). The lens (a 15x macro and 0.63 wide angle combo) is attached to a clip that is easy to position on my phone…and then take off again when I don’t want it.

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I experimented a little this weekend – with an earring and a peacock feather. I discovered that it is easier to get the focus right without the case on the phone.

I am looking forward to trying it during the break between sessions in the river with students…hope they find a lot of macroinvertebrates that I can photograph!