Views from an Airplane Window

I had a window seat on the flight between Tucson and Las Vegas on the way home from Baltimore last month. That is a scenic stretch from the air. Taking off from Tucson – one notices how flat the area of the city is…and how it is almost surrounded by mountains – some of them with snow at the top.

I saw one of the mines that we saw from the highway as we drove between Madera Canyon and Tucson earlier in our vacation. It is easier to see the pit and the slag from the air.

This looks like another mine – one that is literally taking the top off the mountain.

A little further on I noticed a different pattern in one of the circular irrigation fields. How could that happen. Did the waterline fail in some patterned way?

And then there were massive housing developments with red or white roofs – some around artificial lakes. They seem to build right up the base of the low mountains.

We flew over Lake Mead! I took a lot of pictures but the two below were the best.

As we turned toward Las Vegas there was more snow on the mountains. Sometimes the snow made a crest stand out…snow on one side and not as much on the other – a visual of the ‘rain shadow’ effect that applies to snow too.

Tohono Chul

Tohono Chul was another destination while we were in Tucson in January. We had been there before – in March 2013 and December 2011. The dust and gravel paths through the gardens are pleasant during this time of year when the weather is cooler that in the heat of summer. Some of the paths and courtyards are shady from overhead growth. I enjoy the occasional metal sculptures (the deer in the image below) in some of the more formal areas.

The eye is drawn to unusually looking saguaro. I’ve photographed two of them on previous visits and named them for what they remind me of: Gumby and elephant.

There were two others that I noticed this time. One had no arms but an unusual configuration at the top with a proliferation of pleats and then, seemingly, a bunch of small arms growing straight up.

There was also a saguaro that has fallen over on the ground; the outer part had dried and split apart to reveal the ribs underneath. It provides some protection to the small cactus growing close beside it.

I noticed a new looking wall with cactus growing on it; there are ‘holes’ built into the wall to provide some soil for the cactus.

There was also a wall with accompanying signage that showed the geology of Arizona…the state has a lot of geologic variety!

There were birds about too: the black bird with a crest and red eye is a phainopepla (this one is a male)

And goldfinches feeding at a mesh bag full of seeds.

The most surprising cactus I saw was one that looked like something had eaten the top! What kind of animal would have a tough enough mouth to do that? On the plus side - it does provide a view of what the inside of the cactus looks like.

There were architectural elements to enjoy too: a purple wall in a meditation garden with vines growing on it

And stairs to a roof with pots and lush vine spilling from above.

I spotted several butterflies in the garden. This one seemed very intent on foraging – even with a very battered wing.

I used the zoom on my camera to document some Century Plant seed pods – some already split open and some still ripening.

All in all – there is always something to notice anew at Tohono Chul.

Raptor Free Flight at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

We saw the morning and afternoon Raptor Free Flights at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum when we were there in January. The museum brings out birds that are trained to swoop for bait providing great views of the birds in flight and out in the open area of the desert museum’s land. The views of the birds during the free flight would be very time-consuming to duplicate in the wild and lots of people – including me – were taking pictures.

We saw two different kinds of owls: A Barn Owl

and a Great Horned Owl. I couldn’t resist taking several perspectives of this bird. The wings are more complex structures.

The Prairie Falcon was probably my favorite...swift and beutiful.

There was a ferruginous hawk at the end of the morning program - quite a size contrast to the praire falcon!

All of these are solitary hunters. The Harris’s Hawks, the last birds in the afternoon Free Flight, live and hunt as a group so their free flight is as a group. Their acrobatic interactions were too fast for me to photograph!

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a favorite outing during our Tucson vacations. The drive through the Tucson Mountain Park to get there just sets the stage for a day enjoying all the wonders of the museum. There are lots of different kinds of cactus – of course. I tend to look for cactus that have something a little different: bigger spines or spines in an interesting pattern, colored fruit or spines…or outer flesh that is not green at all. I like the landscapes of different kinds of cactus growing on hillsides.

 There is a hummingbird aviary and hummingbirds outside too.

There was an Anna’s hummingbird at a feeder that moved slightly and the color of the head changed completely. Hummingbirds have prism-like cells within the top layers of feathers on their heads…and the color we perceive varies based on the refraction from those prism-like cells.

Some other birds that we saw:a female Gila Woodpecker (since it did not have any red on its head)

And male Gambel’s Quail.

There were a few plants that were blooming. I didn’t notice the aphids on the close-up I took of one small flower until I looked at the image on my computer monitor!

And then there are rocks…some with brilliant colors

And some just a collection of small stones between plants

And an outcrop on a hillside – red with its iron.

Tomorrow I’ll write a second post about the Raptor Free Flight programs we saw on our visit to this museum last month.

Saguaro National Park – Rincon Mountain Distract

Our January visit to Tucson included a morning drive in Saguaro National Park – Rincon Mountain District. It was quite different than the last time we visited in June 2013. It was too early for the desert spoons or saguaro cactus to bloom although the cholla provided some rosy/orange color to the landscape.

Here is a close up of the cholla – the brightest colors of the winter landscape.

I like the whites and greens of some of the plants of the desert…but these leaves are not for touching any more than the cactus with their spines.

There was snow on the peaks of the Catalina Mountains to the north. The ocotillos looked like gray thorn sticks; some had a few remnants of last year’s seeds. In a few months the ocotillos would be green thorn sticks with orangey red blooms at their tips.

The visitor center is low and has enough vegetation around it to be almost hidden even in this desert landscape. The loop road beings at one end of the parking lot.

I noticed young saguaros with nurse plants still protecting them from the harshest heat and sun.

The accordion pleats of the cactus body are not always as orderly as I’d assumed. Sometimes they need to grow more pleats as they get larger!

The beginnings of the saguaro ‘arms’ almost look like another cactus growing on the main trunk.

The plants on the rocky slope of the Rincons from one of the loop road overlooks have water nearby this time of year – probably from snow that melting higher up in the mountains.

From our vantage point we could not see any snow in the Rincons. Either it had melted or was still on the peaks out of our sight. We think of deserts as having very few plants but this one has quite a few plants…all that survive with very little water as look as they are undisturbed.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 06, 2016

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.

Tranquil Oil Paintings Reflect Peacefully Ripping Water Scenes – Gives me an idea for a photo project. And this one does too: Seeing the Trees through the Forest: Vestiges of Ancient Woods

7 Easy and Delectable Vegan Quick Breads – Goodies in winter!

Joyful Portraits of Centenarians that are Happy at One Hundred – Hurray! To be happy and 100!

This Is What 17 Different Foods Look like Growing in Their Natural Habitats – All these images are ‘beautiful food’!  The majority of these do no grow in Maryland (except in conservatories)…and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cashew tree even in a conservatory.

America’s Broadband Improves, Cementing a “Persistent Digital Divide” – Rural areas are still problematic….maybe stratospheric drones and balloons will be deployed.

Why the calorie is broken – It turns out that the concept of ‘a calorie’ is not a clear cut as we expect….that there are lots of ways the amount of energy we get from food can be changed. In general – the processes or cooked a food is, the more energy we get from it!

The Scientific Outreach Gap – This was a study done in the UK but the same is true in the US and it isn’t that the public is not interested. My daughter has volunteers for outreach events for astronomy and astrophysics for the past few years and the events have been well attended – almost overwhelmingly so.

Beyond Half Dome: Five Yosemite Sites – Adding to the places I’d like to go (eventually)

The Mycobiome – There has been a lot of research on the human microbiome but most of it, so far, has been about surveys and studies of bacterial species. There are fungi that are there too…and research about them has just started to appear in papers in the past 5 years.

Evidence-based health care: The care you want, but might not be getting – Yes! This is what I want but it seems very hard to get. The study was specifically about hospital settings but it matches my experience everywhere in the US health system. The survey revealed that things like ‘quality’ and ‘safety’ was at the top of the priority list…but how is that achieved without being ‘evidence based.’  I think what is being measured is not skewed toward the patient but to what is easiest to measure (and that could actually be detrimental to the patient).

Madera Canyon

The drive between The Paton Center for Hummingbirds and Madera Canyon was scenic … through the Santa Rita Mountains. We had visited the canyon back in June 2013 and headed straight for a bird watching area near a gift shop that we had stopped at previously.

I saw a woodpecker as I was getting out of the car…did not manage a good picture…and then did not see it at the feeders at all.

Then again – is this an Arizona woodpecker? They are brown and the female does not have any red at all so I think it is. I didn’t realize what I was getting when I took the picture.

There were squirrels cleaning up the seen under the feeders --- but the feeders are positioned to keep squirrels from getting the seed directly.

There were quite a few Mexican Jays at the feeders

And the nearby trees and railings. Some of the railings have numbers to help people talk to each other about the location of a bird they are pointing out to someone else.

The biggest birds were the Wild Turkeys. They too were under the feeders although the adults spent most of their time parading. Two of the juveniles managed to fly up to the feeders – perch on the roof – and eat the seeds.

There were a few hummingbirds. This is the only one I saw well enough to identify – as an Anna’s Hummingbird.

The Yellow-eyed Juncos were fast but I was patient enough to get one good picture! I had a hard time identifying it as I was writing this post because it is not in All-About-Birds!

Mourning Doves in our Back Yard

I am interrupting my planned posts about our Tucson experience to share some photos from our backyard this week. The weather was warm enough that the snow was melting…and the birds were very active. I was busy photographing some blue jays through my office window when I noticed a mourning dove on the deck railing. We almost always have a pair around our house. Another dove joined the first almost immediately.

Their feathers were fluffed

And they continued to preen themselves.

Then they preened each other.

The courtship continues with a beak lock ‘kiss.’

The finale of mating follows quickly and is over in a few seconds.

The male spreads his tail feathers briefly (so fast that my photo only caught them slightly spread).

And so the cycle of doves around our house will continue in 2016. I hope they don’t build their nest in one of our gutters like they did one year – only to be flooded out at the next rain.

Paton Center for Hummingbirds

Tucson Audubon’s Paton Center for Hummingbirds is located just outside of Patagonia, Arizona. January is not the best time to visit but that is when we were in the area. We didn’t see hummingbirds but there were plenty of other birds around although they were in winter plumage – so not very colorful.

There are numerous feeders and benches. The birds are not as wary of people as they are of potential predators. We say a larger bird fly over and all the birds disappeared from the feeders into the brush piles.

There are different kinds of feeders…with different kinds of seed. The feeders for the hummingbirds had no birds around them while we were there but it was a cold morning.

There were tussles at the popular feeders…lots of acrobatics to either keep or find a place at the feeder.

Sometimes it was uncomplicated…with only one bird at a feeder…munching.

This is definitely a place I want to visit again – in another season. If I lived in the area – I’d volunteer to help keep the feeders full. Kudos to the Tucson Audubon Society for acquiring it in early 2014!

Learning Log – January 2016

January was a month of varied learning opportunities.

Udemy. I finished one course: Unearthing the Trojan War: The Life of Heinrich Schliemann

And started another (Photography Masterclass: Your Complete Guide to Photography).

I prefer the Coursera type courses over Udemy. The Udemy courses have less depth and the range of materials is limited to videos (often voice over charts)…without a robust list to references outside the course.

Lecture. I went to a one-hour lecture about Black Bears in Maryland and enjoyed it thoroughly. The presenter had a trunk of materials to pass around. One was a pelt of a largish black bear (obtained from a road kill); it took two people to hold and examine. I realized that I fall back into my long standing habits as a student in the classroom very easily: taking notes to pay attention – it works for me and always has. Now I’m prepared to trivia questions about black bears. Did you know that in the fall bears need to eat at least 20,000 calories per day to prepare for hibernations?

Coursera. I’ve finished 2 weeks of the Soul Beliefs course. This is the first in a series of courses which I will make my way through over the next few months. This is a good time of year to take courses since the weather encourages indoors activities.

Raptor Free Flight. My favorite experiential learning in January was the Raptor Free Flight at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We saw Harris’s Hawks, a Barn Owl, Chihuahuan Ravens, a Great Horned Owl, and a Prairie Falcon. The Harris’s Hawks live and hunt in small groups; their coordinated efforts while hunting are quite different than the solitary owls and falcon.

Beautiful Food – January 2016

It’s been cold this past month. That has translated into beautiful foods that are warming. Even my light lunch of stuffed pitas and cucumber slices had a little warmed from the toasted pitas. The stuffing was a hardboiled egg mashed with roasted garlic hummus. It looked and tasted to good I ate one of the pita wedges before I remembered to take a picture!

And there is the standby quick meal of stir fry with eggs. This one had bell peppers, celery and cauliflower. I cooked the veggies first and let the onion flakes and no-salt seasoning sit in the whisked eggs. Then I poured the eggs in and stirred until they were cooked. It is a very quick meal and looks good on green glass.

Soup is one of my favorite foods in the winter. This one included tomatoes from the freezer and sweet potatoes – both from the bounty of last summer’s CSA. I cooked them for 5 minutes in chicken broth (with added seasoning like basil, dried onions, dried garlic, pepper) then added some soba noodles. After another 5 minutes I used my potato masher to turn some of the chunks into broth thickener. I poured it in the bowl and topped it with some pumpkin seeds. I like the brilliant color of tomatoes and sweet potatoes.

Of course there is still the clean-out-the-crisper stir fry. This one has zucchini, red bell pepper, savoy cabbage, onion, and dry roasted peanuts.

And that’s the highlights of the ‘beautiful food’ I ate in January.

Tucson Botanical Garden

We visited the Tucson Botanical Garden back in January 2015 (did three posts about it: butterflies, garden and poison dart frogs. There is a new building that is the garden entrance and gift shop – with a lot more room than the older structure that was originally a house. We knew about the butterfly exhibit from last year and headed for that as soon as it was open since the air temperature was still pretty cool outside. Inside the greenhouse it was steamy and warm. I enjoyed the orchids and other tropical plants.

There were fewer butterflies than last year but one sat on my husband’s hat for a very long time. Can you see the curled proboscis?

Another sat high on some foliage and posed with wings wide open. The markings make the upper wing look pleated.

I only saw one poison dart frog and did not get a good picture. Disappointing. But….the docent told me that they have tadpoles; if they are successful raising them the population will be larger next year. The poison dart frog live multiple years and were originally brought to the butterfly house to eat fruit flies attracted to the fruit put out for the butterflies.

Outdoors, I noticed better signage this year for birds, lizards, and material for basket making. The signage is tile or protected by glass to survive the very hot temperatures of Tucson in the summer.

I saw a tiled bench with a pomegranate motif

And then the plant itself!

Arizona is famous for its geology and its deserts so I took a number of rocks/minerals along with desert plants.

Some of the colorful rocks look like they’ve been painted but the crystals of the mineral are often visible!

There were two special cactus images this time: a colorful one

And a dead one (for some reason – the curves in this piece of cactus stem appealed to me…maybe I should use it as a starting point for a Zentangle pattern).

Digging Out

Schools are closed again today although our immediate neighborhood is probably clear enough to support the children getting to school. The school system has to make the decision for the whole county and there probably are some areas that are still problematic. We did the heavy digging out on Sunday. The backyard didn’t matter – but it does show that we got a lot of snow. There is a bench and several pots under the snow on the deck….all covered over by snow!

But we got our drive way shoveled (or rather we shoveled about a third of it and a neighbor with a snow blower did the rest).

The temperature did not get above freezing but the sun caused some melting and icicles began to form.

We walked through the neighborhood noting the benches overlooking the water retention pond with snow covering their seats

The raggedy cattails around the frozen pond,

The fire hydrants that were visible (did someone do a little shoveling?),

And the sidewalks neatly cleared by one of the many snow blower guys in the neighborhood.

By Tuesday – there has been some additional freezing and thawing. There were some larger icicles but most had fallen by the end of the day…water could be heard trickling normally in the downspouts

And the heated bird bath managed to melt the crusty snow that had made a high rim around it for days.

We got out to pick up a pizza. Our neighborhood street was in pretty good shape but not everyone had cleared the area around their mailbox and we noticed a few mailboxes that had been knocked over. Fortunately, ours survived the snow plow and we got is cleared enough for mail delivery.

A two lane road near us was clear but the snow was still up to the lower rail of the split rail fence. We noticed that people in townhouses and apartment buildings were digging out and some of the sidewalks in the area had not been touched – hard to image the how the children could walk to their bus stop.

By Wednesday morning the melt was more noticeable. The temperature had stayed above freezing all night and the bench reappeared on the deck and the railing was totally clear.

Last night it froze again – so maybe it’s wise that there is no school again today. I’m going my normal Thursday grocery shopping.

Zooming – January 2016

The zooming post has more birds, cactus and butterflies this month. Can you find the turkey…the quail…the hummingbird…the barn owl…and the blue jay?

If you want to see an enlarged version of a collage – click on it and a window with the enlarged version will appear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intimate Landscapes – January 2016

This is the fourth month for my Intimate Landscapes series (after reading Eliot Porter’s Intimate Landscapes book (available online here)) featuring images from January that are: smaller scale but not macro, multiple species, and artsy.

There is only one picture from Maryland this month – the frozen edge of a stream with pebbles showing, dark leaves caught on the surface, green and brown plants around the edge.

All the other images are from Arizona this month…I’ve saving the wintery ones for February since I had so much to share from Arizona. The colors are often subdued- the greens of saguaro and desert brush, the browns of twists of dead wood and occasional water, the whites of rocks.

And then there are sudden bursts of color that draw the eye – oranges…and yellows.

I made a slide show of the other intimate landscapes that appealed to be in Tucson – a vine growing on a purple wall, the color variation in prickly pear, a lone flower in front of a white wall, a very small cactus surrounded by black rocks and fallen leaves from its nurse tree that shades it during the hottest part of the summer, small saguaro getting big enough to show among the palo verde and cholla, groupings of cactus with colorful spines, young saguaros lined up in rows between lighter leaved plants and yellow flowers with palo verde in the background….such are the intimate landscapes around Tucson.

Snowy Weekend in Maryland

Friday afternoon: It started to snow at mid-afternoon – just as the forecast has predicted. I had made my trek to the grocery store on Thursday so we were well prepared to just stay home for the duration of the snow storm. The birds seemed to be chowing down. There were a few at the feeder but they all could eat more rapidly at the bowl we had filled on the deck

Even as the bowl started to fill with snow.

Saturday before dawn: The front porch light cast some light across the snow on the porch and the front yard. It was about a foot deep.

The light in the back showed evidence of drifting. The snow extended well over the gutter from the roof of our covered deck. The large pot on the deck near where the bowl of bird seed was yesterday was a mound. The bowl is under the snow – buried too deep for the birds today. The screens of the covered deck are flocked with snow that the wind has blown around. There were already deer tracks in the backyard!

Saturday 8 AM: The cardinal was back. He didn’t stay long. The seed bowl is buried in snow and the feeder only works for smaller birds.

There are hummocks on the deck (snow heaped over pots and drifted by the wind) and more snow is sticking on the outside of the windows when it is picked up and swirled from the roofs by the wind.

The juncos are still frequent visitors to the feeder.

Evidently they are heavy enough that only one can feed at a time so take turns.

Saturday 11 AM: I measured the depth of the snow at the driveway as 17 inches

And 24 inches on the deck. The wind is creating drifts so there is significant variability.

I made snow ice cream! I used a non-dairy creamer then added vanilla, coconut flavoring, and red food coloring. My husband thought the creamer was not quite thick enough but I thought it was just right.

Saturday 1 PM: Another bird that was too big for the feeder stopped by. Maybe a cowbird?

All the hummocks on the deck are filling in with the snow falling and the wind smoothing out all the curves. The deer tracks from this morning are mostly gone and the one lane that was plowed this morning is half full of snow already.

Sunday morning: The sky is clear. The sunrise was boring with no clouds on the horizon. The neighborhood was very quiet before 7 AM; everyone was still snuggled indoors.

The deer had already made fresh tracks across the backyard and the juncos were visiting the feeder.

The snow on the driveway measured just under 22 inches – a bit less than my husband’s last measurement late Saturday. The wind had worked a little in our favor.

The shoveling of the driveway will take us hours – and probably not all at once. We’ll take breaks for warming up since the temps started out in the teens today and will only get into the 20s. There was already some melting from the gutters that were getting sunshine.

It looks like one lane has been plowed in the street. The mailbox is blocked by snow that fell and the snow pushed up by the plow. It needs to be cleared today so that the mail can be delivered on Monday.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 23, 2016

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.

Breakthrough discovery reveals how thirsty trees pull water to their canopies – It is cohesion and gravity rather than atmospheric pressure that is the driving principle. I always thought it was due to ‘capillary action’ but that term is not mentioned in the article at all.

Giant Clams Light Up Like Plasma Screens, Only Better – Potential for organic displays…..using the giant clam mechanism for power and color.

Photography in The Parks: Accessible Zion Through the Seasons – Nice to know that Zion has something for everybody. I missed it a few years ago when the government was shut down while I was in the area….want to try again.

How do birds stay warm on a cold winter’s night? – Huddling together seems to be popular. The article suggests providing nesting boxes to help the birds find a good place just after sunset. And another post about birds - Snow birds: 10 birds to look for in winter. The feeders at Sapsucker Woods (Ithaca, NY) have a camera on them; the video feed is here. The birds in this post are not what is visiting my feeder and bird bath right now; I’m seeing cardinals, juncos, blue jays, and doves almost every day.

Scientific Illustrator Hand-Paints Giant Mural Featuring 243 Modern Bird Families – Next time I am in Ithaca NY (Cornell University) – I’ll want to see the mural.

Infographic Offers a Valuable Guide to Feeling Happier in Your Life – Lots of variables…and this is all a matter of statistics. There are happy people that don’t meet all these….and the genetics part is something we can’t change anyway! Another perspective on the same topic from BBC Futures: A 7-day guide to the pursuit of happiness.

Arthropods Abundant in American Homes – The average US household contains 62 distinct families of arthropod species. They range from cockroaches and fleas to carpet beetles and book lice…ants. They are our (mostly) quiet and benign roommates.

Why do we get ‘eye floaters’? – Many people notice them…but they impact vision in very few cases. They are causes when small debris gets into the vitreous humor – the jelly like mass between the retina and the lens in our eyes….that is not replenished or replaced.

The Chemistry of Bread Making – A graphic from Compound Interest.

Tucson Mountain Park Sunset

We managed to get to our favorite sunset location twice during our recent trip to Tucson: Gates Pass in Tucson Mountain Park. The first time we managed to get there just as the sun was going down – got the last parking spot with no time for set up. I still managed some reasonable pictures of the west horizon,

The light reflected off the mountain to the north east almost behind me, and

Then, as the sky darkened, some saguaro on a mountain in the foreground silhouetted by the fading color.

Five days later – the evening before we were flying home – we tried again. We got to the location early enough but the clouds were thick enough at the horizon that we didn’t see much at the time the sun was supposed to be setting.

Then the show started. The lower the sun got, the more the sky filled with color.

At first it was a haze of pink

Then the color intensified.

What a colorful crescendo to our last day in Tucson!

Mount Lemmon

We drove up the Catalina Highway from Tucson (about 2000 feet above sea level) to Summerhaven (about 8000 feet above sea level) last week. It is the curvy two lane road that goes up Mount Lemmon. Starting out in Tucson – the Saguaro and ephedra are common.

The pattern of spines on this barrel cactus was full of complexity

Making the prickly pear spines on the flat pads look relatively simple.

A little further up the mountain – there are more ocotillo and water gurgling the stream beds. The snow was melting above.

Further still there are desert spoons and grasses with hardy trees.

Here there was a prickly pear with some fruits still attached.

And then the vegetation changes to pines and there are waterfalls cascading down the mountain.

Sometimes the slope is so steep that there is not much vegetation at all.

Finally - we get to snow! The temperature is still in the 40s but the sound of water trickling down the slopes surrounds us.

The overlooks have more people. There is something about snow this close to Tucson is a draw for tourists and natives alike.

The white of the snow drapes over rocks – in every nook.

When we got to Summerhaven we stopped for a big cookie and hot cider….and then came back down the mountain.

A Sad Journey

Traveling for a funeral is difficult. There is a preoccupation with what has happened – sometimes denial, sometimes anger, eventually acceptance. For me the stages of grief sometimes jumble all together. I can be savoring memories of the person and in the next second noticing something that I want to share with them….jerking myself back to the reality that they are not going to be there.

My journey a little over a week ago started at the airport on a very foggy and wet morning. I appreciated the busy-ness of the airport and the bustling of the many other passengers. Everything went smoothly and I realized that handling a lost bag or a flight delay would have been difficult. I was already very close to being overwhelmed.

The next day was sunny and that helped my mood too. Bits of greenery in the garden around collections of stones

And birdhouses and toy construction equipment helped too.

The next morning we were up early for a 4 hour drive to the funeral. When we started out before sunrise the clouds looked thick – almost ominous – in the direction we were going. By sunrise they were clearing although I was still as blurry as the picture and was glad someone else was driving on the first leg.

I felt better after the sun was up…stressed then calm during the funeral itself…the remembered another funeral in the same cemetery at the graveside. My grandmother was buried there almost 30 years ago. On that day is sleeting and the ground was icy. For this funeral, it was sunny, cold and the ground was muddy. The shoes I worn for this funeral were flats – much better than the heels I’d worn at that funeral long ago. I noticed that there was lichen growing on the top of my grandmother’s headstone….another indicator that time has passed.

Afterwards – the family ate a meal together. We all felt better for the sharing of stories. Some of us that live further away don’t see each other as often as we did in our growing up years.

And then is as another 4 hour drive and a flight back home. The flight home provided some quiet contemplation time (being alone in a crown of people) from the Texas landscape in the security line to the waiting area at Love Field ... and then a wonderful conversation with a woman sitting next to me on the plane. It was just what I needed emotionally – even though I didn’t realize it before it happened.

In the end – it was a sad journey…but the lowest points were brief with memories of so many happy times to savor and help me move on.