St. Joseph MO

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Our hotel for our visit to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge was in St. Joseph MO. After an afternoon on the loop at the refuge, we checked into our hotel and made the decision to go see the Holiday Lights at Krug Park rather than spending time going out to dinner!

It was another loop through a large park with lots of vegetation to act as a backdrop to lights. We got to the park shortly after they opened at 6 and waited in line for a few minutes for the drive through. It was a popular event in St. Joseph and has evidently been happening since 1981.

The next morning, I was impressed with the breakfast at the hotel because they used silverware and ceramic plates rather than plastic! Kudos to Holiday Inn Express! I had scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, and a blue berry muffin (as usual I raided the oatmeal fixings for a few walnuts and cranraisins).

We waited a little later than we originally planned to leave since the fog was so thick. Everything was very wet (note the pattern of moisture on my car window) as we left the hotel hoping that the fog would be less dense by the time we got to the refuge.

I remembered to have my husband stop on the road to the refuge where loess is visible….something left behind when the glaciers melted and the sediment dried out…and was carried/sculpted by wind.

After one more time around the wildlife loop and a trip to visitor center (it had been closed the previous day), we headed toward home.

Zooming – December 2025

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The slideshow for this month includes some pictures I took at the Rio Grande Birding Festival in November but didn’t get posted about until this month. There are a few pictures from my visit to Dallas and the holiday lights too. Enjoy the slideshow!

Plastics Crisis – Holiday Plastic

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Plastic is everywhere…so it isn’t hard to spot in our holiday preparations.

For example – if we buy holiday desserts at the grocery store, they are likely to be in plastic clamshells which are not generally recycled even though most of the manufactures try to say that they are. My curbside recycling company does not accept them and the city recycling center doesn’t either. They are plastic that touches food (not good) …and they go immediately into the trash since there are very few ways to reuse them. The only way to avoid them it to make your goodies from basic ingredients (no weird additives) that come in less toxic packaging.

My sister made homemade goodies for the family and the staff at my dad’s memory care facility this year. The party mix (a tradition in our family for decades) is in Ziplocs so some plastic…but all the other things are contained in tins that are reused. The version she gave me had the party mix in a tin of its own so mine had no plastic.

I selected some boxes of tea bags to give to my sister (paper/cardboard packaging) and reused a bag I had from a soap shop….hiding the logo and covering the top with Christmas cards!

Later I tried wrapping a present with no tape…and wasn’t quite successful (I had to add 2 pieces of tape). I used cotton crochet thread to tie around the package. So – not plastic-free but less plastic than I would have used previously.

It’s hard to avoid plastic but it occurs to me that at least some of the time there are benefits to thinking about it beyond reducing plastic in the environment – reduced cost by reusing something I already have, healthier treats with known ingredients, and more thoughtful presents!

Happy Holidays!!!

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Lights and good food…wishing a joyous season and happy new year for all (enjoying old Christmas cards too even though we don’t send or receive them anymore)!

Happy Holidays to all!

Gardens Aglow

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The seasonal Gardens Aglow lights are a wonderful evening activity. They continue until December 28th (check the website for dates and times) at the Springfield Botanical Gardens’ Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Online tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for children…but admission is free to Friends of the Garden or Springfield Sisters Cities Association! My husband and I are Friends of the Garden so the passes for the show I got in the mail because of my volunteering at the garden were given to 2 of my daughter’s students.

Our first visit was last week (we’ll probably go again before the end of the season). It was a cold and cloudy day, and we opted to arrive shortly after they opened at 5; we were early enough to park in the parking lot rather than the grassy area parking which is opened for the event. It didn’t take long before it was fully dark. I opted to use my small Canon PowerShot SX730 HS in night scene mode (stacks images in the camera) rather than my phone because the camera is easier for me to hold for the duration of the longer shot and the mechanism to zoom is easier too. There seemed to be a higher density of lights than I remembered from previous years. It is always well done; I liked that they have added lights to direct people to stay on the paved walkways…less chance of people trampling plants in the dark.

I enjoyed getting shots of lights and their reflections in water. There were plenty of opportunities!

Our walk took a little under an hour. The temperature was in the low 40s, and I was comfortable in my winter gear. My daughter bought some spring rolls at one of the food trucks – which she enjoyed but her hands got cold without gloves; she bought some hot cider just before we left to warm up her hands and to drink on the way home. My husband said his coat was great, but his gloves and shoes were not quite warm enough. It was a good first test of our winter clothing selections.

Top of the Rock’s Nature at Night

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My husband, daughter, and I took the seasonal Top of the Rock’s Nature at Night tour last week. It’s a 2.5-mile trail via plastic enclosed golf cart through light displays, waterfalls, bridge crossings, a cave, and classic holiday scenes.

On the drive south from our home in Nixa MO, the sun was going down. I tried a few sunset pictures. There were enough clouds to provide some added structure.

The first lights we saw were before the gate to the property…2 bison. The car was moving as I took the picture, which made their hides look furrier!

The first lights we saw were before the gate to the property…2 bison. The car was moving as I took the picture, which made their hides look furrier!

We had bought our tickets ahead of time, so I took a few minutes to take pictures of the lights below, the sunset, and the lake before we got in the line for the golf carts.

The temperature was in the low 40s, but we were bundled up and the plastic cover helped too. My daughter did the driving. There were some sharp turns, inclines, and shallow water in some areas along the route. We stayed in the cart the whole time as instructed so all the pictures I took were through the plastic cover.

My favorite display included a waterfall with a giant wolf and orb in lights.  I took the scene from several angles and magnifications.

The activity was the grand finale of our ‘holiday’ season!

Elder Care – December 2024

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There is always a flurry of activity during the holidays. My sisters and I are striving to make the activities we do with my dad enjoyable for him – rather than confusing/traumatic which can happen when a person does not understand the world as well as they did previously.

My sisters decorated his room for fall/Thanksgiving. I’m not sure how much he noticed because he didn’t comment about them. But they were decorations from his home before before he moved to assisted living. We all felt that continuing with the decorations was better than stopping the tradition.

He seemed to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast at my sister’s home. Another sister brought him from the assisted living place, there were only 4 other people for the feast, the meal was simpler than our Thanksgiving meals from the past (fewer choices), and he was back ‘home’ in about 3 hours.  I celebrated that the thoughtful accommodations seemed to work!

Now his room has been decorated from Christmas and a version of the display that was on the mantle of his home in previous years in on the mantle at the assisted living home where all the residents can enjoy it. Even if he doesn’t remember it from before – I hope that he enjoys the beauty of it now.

There are some rooms that have become available at the assisted living home; my sisters and I briefly talked about whether we want to move him to a different room – either slightly bigger or with a window with a better view; we decided it was not a good idea. It would be hard for him to adjust to the move …remembering where his new room was located would be challenging for him. He seems to feel secure and comfortable where he is now and knows where his room is from the shared areas of the house.

I’ll see him after Christmas this month!

Thanksgiving

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I am thinking of Thanksgiving ahead of time – planning a quite holiday with family with activities planned before and after:

  • The holiday light display is open for Friends of the Garden the Monday before Thanksgiving…so we will enjoy our first walk through of the season unless the weather is wet. I missed seeing them at all in 2023 because I was in Dallas for the later part of the year.

  • I am not a black Friday shopper…but enjoy being outdoors (maybe working off some of the calories from the day before). Our November has been relatively mild…good hiking weather.

There is also plenty in my life to be thankful for right now:

  • My dad is comfortable at his assisted living home; my sisters and I are able to visit him frequently.

  • I have finished my Missouri Master Naturalist training, and the volunteering opportunities seem to be coming along as I expected. There is much to learn and do even during the winter.

  • The Identifying Woody Plants class at Missouri State is about over…and I thoroughly enjoyed the field trips – learned a lot about great outdoor places close to where I live.

  • Our home is snug – ready for winter…the sprinkler system winterized and the heating system checked.

  • Both cars are performing well. Both have been used for road trips recently. My husband and I both appreciate the driver’s aids on modern cars when we make longer drives.

  • The fall has been prolonged by the milder temperatures. The color might have been muted from less rain in the summer, but the length of the display made up for that.

  • Internet Archive is back online. I missed it a lot while it was down and realize how much I savor browsing through its digitized old books; many of them are not available otherwise.

Life is good….

Drive Thru Holiday Lights (Vicariously)

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My husband and daughter drove through two light displays recently and sent me pictures --- another chance for me to enjoy the Springfield, MO area’s holiday decorations vicariously.

Candy Cane Lane at Rutledge-Wilson Farm Park can be experienced as a regular light display or with special glasses that make points of light into candy canes! My daughter is bringing the glasses she purchased when she comes to visit before Christmas; it will be fun to see how they work with the lights on the wreath and reindeer in my parents’ house.

Ozark’s Festival of Lights at Finley River Park is becoming a family tradition. We drove through it last year too. Kudos to Ozark for continuing the display.

Holiday Decorations

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This December is going to be a unique one for me…away from home….focused on other priorities…somewhat stressed by the situation. I am savoring the decorations two of my sisters arranged at my parents’ house:

The wreath on the door…

The reindeer and poinsettias on the mantle…

The big wreath on the wall…

These are all decorations that have been used in previous years…associated with pleasant memories of past Decembers, prompting us to prepare for celebrating an anniversary, a birthday, and Christmas that are all part of our family celebrations in December. The month has always be an emotional high…and this year there is the overlay of realizing that it is probably the last one for my parents in this house.

Gardens Aglow Vicariously

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I am in Carrollton, Texas this December working with my sisters as we increase the daily assistance for my parents. It is going to be a very different December this year. The yearly tradition (started last year…our first December after moving to the Springfield MO area) of walking through the Springfield Botanical Gardens Gardens Aglow display will be a vicarious one for me this year. My husband and daughter did the walk last week and sent pictures.

It was a drizzly night so they both just used their phones rather than more expensive cameras. There were not many people walking the garden (probably because it was wet) so the pictures don’t have as many silhouettes of people as we had last year. The pictures put me in a holiday mood….even while I accept – even savor - that I am where I need to be, doing what I need to do here in Carrollton this December.

Zooming– December 2022

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Kittens – holiday lights – plants in winter – a great blue heron….pictures made possible by the Zooming capabilities of my three cameras: phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e), small point and shoot (Cannon PowerShot SX730 HS), and bridge (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS). The one I have with me all the time is the phone; the point and shoot fits in a coat pocket so it is easy to take along, the bridge camera I need for the optics (i.e. the greatest optical zoom of my cameras). Enjoy the December zoomed images!

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2022

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Ten little…and big…celebrations for December 2022. The big ones include:

A 70th wedding anniversary. That’s a lot of years for a relationship to thrive….and for both to still be healthy enough to enjoy life and the celebration!

Winter holiday. They happen every year, but it doesn’t reduce the joy of the virtually back-to-back family celebrations that flow into January: a birthday, an anniversary, Christmas, New Years and then another big anniversary. I’m celebrating now and savoring the anticipation of more still to come!

And then there are the little celebrations that are more like the other months of the year:

Finding puzzles. When I first started looking for puzzles, I didn’t find any that I likes and then I found 2 at a thrift store and another 4 at a pharmacy….and celebrated the finds!

Gardens Aglow at Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Celebrating a walk-through holiday light display in Springfield MO. If we hadn’t found it, I would be missing the Brookside Gardens lights in Maryland.

Getting the wreath on the door. The kittens prolonged the time it took to get our house decorated this year (some trial and error with how they would respond). The wreath was one of the last things we did…and I celebrated that the decorating was done!

Getting to stay home on a rainy day. Celebrating that I can usually rearrange plans to avoid getting out on a cold, rainy day!

Hot tea with orange peel. Celebrating a little hint of citrus….and probably the vitamin C as well.

Macro photography at Springfield Conservation Nature Center. Celebrating the beauty of native plants through all the seasons…..particularly close-up.

New glasses. This is my first time to get transition lenses. I am celebrating not needing to juggle my sunglasses on and off on road trips!

The plastic vase works. I was a little skeptical that the flat plastic vases would expand and hold a large bouquet....celebrated when the one I tried worked great! Now I feel more confident giving them as gifts!

Happy Holidays!

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I don’t send cards anymore, but I’ve been saving cards for a long time. Every December, they decorate the house: attached to metal doors with magnets, attached to giant scrunchies with miniature clothespins, and under plastic mats on the kitchen table. The collection is large enough to always have a few extra and I’ve scanned some to share in a slideshow….wishing everyone a great holiday season!

Finley Park Light Display

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My daughter recommended the drive-through light display at Ozark, MO’s Finley River Park. She had gone with a friend and then had dinner at the Ozark Mill Restaurant on the other side of the river.

The park was not crowded when we got there, and we enjoyed a leisurely drive through the lights – many of them animated.

Ozark is a suburban community south of Springfield…population of about 22,000. Kudos to the community for providing this display!

Our short drive from our home and the park was a good experience too – on curvy two-lane roads in the dark. It provided the ‘over the river and through the woods’ vibe for the evening!

Gardens Aglow

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We walked through the Gardens Aglow event at the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield, MO last Friday. It was a wonderful way to celebrate our first winter holidays in Missouri…will become an annual tradition from now on.

We got there shortly after the opening at 5 PM. There were a steady stream of cars arriving but there were people directing parking which eliminated confusion; it was a short walk from where we parked to the entrance and there was no line although next year I will plan to buy tickets in advance.

My husband and I had enjoyed the Brookside Gardens lights during the many years we lived in Maryland and found ourselves comparing the two displays. The lights in both places used the gardens as a theme and the trees as scaffolding. The lights at Mizumoto seemed brighter (maybe slightly larger LEDs?) and they had more water to use for reflections/dark areas of the display.

In some ways it was easier to photograph the lights this year because the animations were changes in light color within a fixed grid rather than across a space. I liked the wall of color…watching as it moved through a cycle of colors.

There was a weeping cherry in lights; the tree underneath was probably a weeping cherry too!

The arched bridge over a water feature became magical with all the lights and a shed looked like a gingerbread house.

I managed to notice two Japanese lanterns and maybe next year I will try to photograph more of them. They don’t have lights themselves but offer a link to the place that is not as obvious looking at the lights.

There were several butterflies along the way that were photo opportunities…a person could become the body of the butterfly! This was something new to us…lots of fun; I was glad they had a small butterfly too (but didn’t see any children getting their picture taken).

We spent about an hour strolling the loop through the garden…enjoying the lights and happy noises of people around us.

Decorating for the Holidays – Part 2

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Once we made the decision to not have a tree this year (see part 1), there was only a little more decorating to do before we declared it ‘done.’

We hung a wreath on the door with a magnet hook (since it is a metal door). The hook worked very well and will be easy to take off when we don’t need it. This wreath worked well on our Maryland house, but its lights are not dense or bright enough to look good on our Missouri house with its covered porch. We opted to turn on the front porch light in the evenings and the wreath looks great.

I continued to add decorations to my office: a garland of silver bells around pinecones from the tree in our back yard, some red glittery swirls in a tall vase on the hearth, old Christmas cards attached to the frame of the fireplace with magnets, and a garland of red bells on the door to the outside!

Oranges!

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This time of year, I always look for (and usually find) a bag of organic oranges….and then proceed to use the whole fruit (peel and pulp)!

Usually, the first way I enjoy the oranges is to eat the pulp then process the skin in a small food processor and dry it to enjoy later.

This year I have already used some dried orange peel as an addition to the loose tea in the filter of the ‘coffee’ maker. My office smells of tea and citrus (and the flavor is good too). I can always use it as a seasoning in mulled cider or a stir fry…it’s not possible to have too much dried orange peel!

The recipe I like for cranberry orange relish uses the whole orange. I cut the ends off and any large areas of pith…but most of the orange is cut in chunks and put into the food processor along with cranberries and a little sugar. The relish is good on its own or combined with other things:

  • With tomatillo salsa and heated…used as a sauce for meatballs or stir fry

  • With some oil to make a dressing for salads…particularly for salads that include other fruit

  • In muffins

  • In soup

Cold or hot…cranberry relish is one of my favorite winter foods (I sometimes prolong the season by freezing cranberries and sometimes the cut up oranges as well)!

Oranges are one of the great flavors of winter!

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2022

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Like June, July was a high stress month because of our move to Missouri - but with much to celebrate.

Family holiday gathering. The 4th of July was our first ‘holiday’ celebrated in Missouri…having my daughter and son-in-law over for veggies with hummus, steak, corn-on-the-cob, and watermelon.

An easy drive home…and being home again. The drive to Maryland and back was long…but once back in Missouri we celebrated only having one house again…and clearly it was ‘home.’

Dragonfly posing for pictures in our back yard. We seem to have more dragonflies around our yard in Missouri and I celebrate every time I manage to photograph one. The closer location to a pond might be why we are seeing them more frequently.

Being indoors during the hot part of the day. Every day that gets above 100 degrees is one I celebrate being indoors! We’ve had quite a few hot days this July – more in Texas than Missouri.

Getting boxes cleared from the garage. Once the pile gets annoying we make a trip to the recycle center – celebrating that it is convenient and that the garage is clear…until the boxes pile up again.

Springfield Botanical Garden. This is probably my favorite place for a walk in Springfield. It is a place I want to see again and again…through the seasons…finding a little celebration every time.

Little fixes completed. There were some little fixes identified when our Missouri house was inspected. I celebrated when they were completeed – particularly the one in the basement bathroom (since my office is also in the basement).

Josey Ranch green heron and ducklings. I only walked around the place once because it was so hot while I was in Texas…but celebrated the birds that I saw there (blog post coming soon).

Getting car inspected/registered…and MO driver’s liscense. It has been a very long time since I moved to a new state and I anticipated a lot of red tape. I was relieved when we managed to get the cars registered, our driver’s liscense….and register to vote…celebrated when they were all done…and glad that the process was not as difficult as I thought it might be.

Establishing the compost circle. I celebrated finding edging that was high enough to make a circle  to hold the small amount of compostable material I have from my kitchen….just in time to start it off with watermelon rind!