New Mexico Dreaming

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My daughter had a conference in Albuquerque, NM in June…took advantage of a tour to the Very Large Array (astronomical radio observatory) offered. She sent two pictures.

And started a whole sequence of thoughts about traveling to New Mexico again. The last few times (pre-COVID) were for Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in the fall/early winter; they included a lot of birding field trips around Socorro, NM plus tours of the VLA. Prior to that we made vacations that featured Sandia Peak, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Conservation Area, and Bandelier National Monument. As early as the 1970s, we took road trips from Texas to New Mexico….to Santa Fe, Taos, Los Alamos, Albuquerque.

Now we live close enough to enjoy a road trip to the state. I’m contemplating a loop that would start with an almost straight drive from Missouri across Oklahoma to Albuquerque…and come back through Dallas. Between the long drives…a lot of shorter drives to see areas we’ve been to before and maybe some that we haven’t too! We’ll wait for the temperatures to cool down…and maybe for the birding festival event…to make the trip.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 17, 2022

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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.

Winners of 2022 Environmental Photographer of the Year Use Art to Tell Important Stories of Our Planet – Photography with a message

Rare good news from the Amazon: gigantic fish are thriving again – Pirarucu, an air-breathing fish that must rise to the surface every 15 minutes or so…can grow to be 10 feet long, weigh up to 450 pounds…are valued for their meat. The fish are making a comeback thanks to sustainable fishing programs in northern Brazil.

Stunning Winners of the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest – Capturing a place…and a tiny amount of time.

Top 10 Discoveries of 2022 – from Archaeology Magazine

Remains of last surviving Tasmanian Tiger discovered in museum cabinet – Finding and following the trail of an older female thylacine that was trapped and sold to the Beaumaris Zoo in mid-May 1936. She died in September 1936. The zoo transferred her body to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery where taxidermist preserved the hide, and the skeleton was broken apart and positioned on 5 cards. Both hide and skeleton were used by the museum for educational purposes…and then forgotten. They were found recently in a cabinet in the museum’s education department.

Best of 2022: Top Astrophotography That Captured the Beauty of the Cosmos – Quite a few from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Volcanic activity increases worldwide – There are 47 volcanoes around the world that are in ‘continuing eruption status’…more than double the normal. The article includes short videos of several of them.

The rich marine life under frozen ice – Phytoplankton and organisms that eat it….discovered by geologists trying to get a mud core, hitting rock, then seeing organisms when they reviewed what the camera on their equipment recorded!

Top Websites for Urban Planning – 2022 – From Planetizen. This year they highlight an increased attention to the social and environmental outcomes of planning…enabling identification/resolution in the intersections between the built/natural environment and the lives of people.

Exploring a forgotten Jewish Land – The Beta Israel in northern Ethiopia. The 100,000 strong population fled to Israel in the 1980s to escape war and famine.

11 years of Blogging

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I started this blog 11 years ago this month – November 2011. It was one of the activities I started as I prepared to leave my career behind….anticipating that I needed new rhythms to take the place of work days. Writing a daily blog was one of the first ideas I had for a new daily rhythm, and it has continued to be an outlet for the evolution of my post-career years.

The broad categories of my favorite activities – reading, writing, traveling, photography/art - have been reflected during the 11 years…with the shifts I’ve experienced over the years evident in the posts:

My reading is almost entirely digital media now – dominated by Internet Archive and website feeds (via Feedly). I’ve gone through spurts of multimedia learning/reading (Coursera courses and webinars with details charts and references) but am in a multimedia lull right now. My interest in botanical prints has continued…with a goal of finding/browsing 20 new books on the topic each month. My interest in climate change has ramped up…and I have taken/plan personal changes; I’d like to leave the earth a better place…or at least not a worse place (that idea is getting more and more challenging).

Writing has been a way to reduce stress for me since the 1980s; I’ve trained myself to ‘write it down and let it go.’ The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated cultural divisions in the US has been a greater strain on that training than ever before and there was some faltering in late 2020/early 2021. I am realizing now that writing is, again, my most effective way to bolster my resilience to whatever happens.

Traveling for the first few years of the blog was motivated by my daughter’s location (in Tucson) with road trips to and from Arizona and traveling with her to Hawaii…then helping her move to Pennsylvania and then to Missouri more recently. My volunteer work (leading themed hikes with elementary school children, coaching high school teams doing water quality assessments in streams/rivers, etc.) enabled me to discover natural places close to home. Birding festivals became a favorite travel motivation (to New Mexico, Florida, and Texas) in the few years before the pandemic. Then it all stopped. Since the pandemic, our travel is day trips or for family visits (my parents and daughter) and then our moving to Missouri….and it has all been road trips.

My expertise (and equipment) for photography has increased dramatically over the 11 years. I go through phases…most recently an uptick in macro photography (with my phone). I have refined my Zentangles over the years…and going through phases: new tile shapes (other than square), white highlights, coloring (with different kinds of pens). There is a lot more artist creation in my life now than during my career and my blog has reflected that increase over the past 11 years.

That sums up the state of the blog 11 years in!

Here is a summary of the regular posts (weekly and monthly):

Gleanings 1st one was for week ending 12/31/2011…use the gleanings tag to see all the posts

eBook(s) of the week – 1st monthly post was in October 2012 (i.e. started out as monthly transitioned to weekly on October 9, 2020)…use the book of the week category to see all the posts

eBotainical Prints – 1st post with the eBotanicalPrints tag was on December 17, 2018…use the eBotanicalPrints tag to see all the monthly posts

Zoom – 1st monthly post was in August 2013…use the zoom tag to see all the posts

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – 1st monthly post in October 2012…use the celebration tag to see all the posts

Previous anniversary post: 10th anniversary

Looking back at London, Ontario

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The week in London, Ontario was a different sort of week away from home. I had anticipated several aspects and intentionally took steps on others.

More alone time. My daughter was busy with her conference, and we had separate hotel rooms…so I was alone more – and I anticipated that that it would be that way. I brought activities with me for the time the hotel room and planned at least one activity away from the hotel room for each day. Because it was cold in the morning – I usually waited to leave the hotel until mid-day. I saw the sunrise from the hotel window almost every morning and

a few sunsets with the moon visible too.

There was even some fall foliage visible from the window.

I made a lot of Zentangle tiles, wrote more than 3,000 words per day, and read novels. My favorite morning time was sitting with my feet in the sun coming through the window…feeling warm and cozy….reading novels. It was good to have a week to simply spoil myself.

Walking everywhere. I originally thought I would take the car and visit some parks in the area, but I opted instead to just walk everywhere. I went to Covent Market frequently but also down to the Thames River path, to Banting House, to Museum London, to the RBC Center. And my daughter and I walked to buy at least one meal a day…mostly take out but we ate twice at Crabby Joe’s Bar and Grill. The COVID-19 infection rate was lower in London, Ontario that most places in the US, but we were still being careful – masking when we were in indoor public places.

The slower pace of walking allowed me to see more things – the street sculpture and murals I posted about earlier…and the changing color of leaves.

From my hotel window, I noticed the street sweeper machines in the early morning…and the streets did seem cleaner than in the US. I appreciated being around people after the aloneness of the hotel room….people watching as I walked:

  • The city’s homeless were evident in this downtown area; some had strollers or battered trailers to pull behind a bicycle to carry their things. One slept in a sunny doorway of a building before the store opened.

  • There were waves students that came for snacks or lunch from the local high school…some in uniform and others not.

  • One evening there must have been an event that required costumes since there several people walking along in exaggerated outfits and makeup.

  • Part of the street was closed to vehicular traffic and there was a mini-concert one evening there.

  • The picnic area at Covent Garden had an Autumn Festival at mid-day on our last day in London, Ontario. They had decorated with squash and gourds…country music filled the air. People were enjoying the sunshine, music, and food.

  • The street was modified for handicapped access and there were people in wheelchairs maneuvering easily through the area.  I also noticed a few sight-impaired people. The crossing lights made sounds as well as visual countdowns.

  • The hotel next to ours had a fire alarm and people streamed from the building…multiple fire trucks arrived. A person in our hotel lobby commented that he was getting his passport just in case the fire spread. But it was all over quickly. We never saw any smoke or fire.

Less online time. I intentionally spent less time online. I didn’t take a complete break, but I wasn’t checking news or email frequently…and I didn’t turn on the television at all. The strategy made for a calmer…less stressful week.

Canada. I found myself looking for differences between where I live in the US and London, Ontario. It seemed that the small city was cleaner than similar places in the US and that the downtown area was more vital…that infrastructure was in better shape…basically that the government was more effective. In general, people seemed less stressed. Yes – there were people looking at their phones, but they didn’t seem as distracted by the device – the high school students were generally spending more time talking to each other than looking at their phones!

One of my themes going into the week was thinking about what I want to change. I thought about it…but didn’t come up with definitive answers. I’m changing the idea to ‘what I want to change in 2023’ to give myself a little more time to decide.

Settling in, developing new routines – 4th month

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Our 4th month in Missouri was calmer than the first 3. There is still a lot to be done but we stopped pushing ourselves to keep the pace we had earlier. There are boxes to be unpacked but they are in the storage area and not things we use frequently.

The kittens got their first visit to the vet and are engaging in all our indoor activities. More about them in an upcoming post.

Our yard is looking much better than it did earlier in the summer when it was so hot and dry. We have a yard service for this season so all I am doing is pulling weeds in the flower beds. I am cutting roses to bring into my office. I am also making big plans to transition caring for the yard to myself (the new lawn mower will be electric!) and putting in more bushes (American Beautyberry and oak leaf hydrangea are at the top of my list).

The morning routine in my office has changed slightly because it is dark when I first get there – no watching the birds at the feeder while I enjoy my 1st breakfast (dark chocolate). It is also cooler. I’m using the halogen lamps to flood the room with light and provide a little heat.

Our thermostats in this house are not as sophisticated as the one we had in Maryland. We’ve stayed on ‘Cool’ so far; it’s chilly in the morning but comes on once or twice in the late afternoon and evening. The wall heater in the main bathroom is wonderful – something we haven’t had in any of our previous houses…another aspect to appreciate about this house.

Travel. I did my monthly trip to Carrollton TX…and we made several local outings. We haven’t started the day trips as quickly as I thought we would but October is a prime month for being outdoors and enjoying the fall. I am anticipating my first travel not associated with the move or family in the coming month.

I got out our Halloween decorations (one of our neighbors has a very elaborate Halloween yard) and discovered that they don’t work very well for the front porch in this house; the front door is a muted red…does not go well with orange…and there is not nail in the door. I may just put the decorations inside. On the plus side – the front door will work very well for our Thanksgiving Indian corn and our Christmas wreath…once we add a nail.

I’ve decided to wait for volunteer activities or in-person classes. I would miss too much since I already am committed to be away from home a week of every month. When I am at home…I need to finish the unpacking and continue the hone everything about this place into the home we want.

Town Planning in 1909

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Raymond Unwin’s 1909 Town planning in practice: an introduction to the art of designing cities and suburbs is available in Internet Archive…a snapshot of the ideas of period with illustrations of examples. The illustrations I found most interesting were town/city plans. The ones from Moscow and the excavated part of Pompeii are the two samples I picked from the book.

Of course – a lot has changed in all the places shown in the book in the years since it was published but there are anchors in the built environment that are still around….sometimes perturbing modernization efforts and making infrastructure improvement more challenging. And there are some concepts that are still very much in evidence in modern cities – like ring roads (interstates) that surround all our major cities!