1973 Day Trip to Platt National Park

Ever heard of Platt National Park? It was around from 1906-1976 and is now part of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. My husband and I took a day trip to the place in November of 1973 not realizing that the area was destined to lose it designation in just a few years. It was only a little over 2 hours each way from Dallas following I35 into Oklahoma and a popular park at the time we went. The closer we got, the more interesting the road cuts along the highway became.

In the park itself, the road dipped down into streams – that overflowed the road when it rained,

Water flowed over ledges,

Rocky hillsides had trees growing in every crevice,

Water thick with filamentous algae fed into the larger waterways,

Rocky cliffs supported trees at the top,

And most of the trees had already lost their leaves by November.

We hiked, had a picnic lunch and hiked some more. My husband experimented trying to capture water ripples and sprays in photographs. It was learning in slow motion compared to photography today since the film had to be developed before the results were known. Now we just play back the images on the camera….and learn immediately.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 20, 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.

Sweat: How to Keep Your Cool – This post seemed to fit with the hot, humid weather we’ve been having since late July here in Maryland.

How millennials are shaping the future of work – I think it is more than just millennials that want these things. I can remember wanting the latest tech for my entire career….and when I didn’t always get it, being frustrated. I remember in the 1990s wanting a laptop rather than a desktop PC as my primary work machine because I was traveling a lot…and being told that laptops could be checked out when I traveled but were not available for in-office use!

From Tree to Shining Tree – The wood-wide-web that is the forest under the forest…made of roots and fungus. A Radiolab Podcast just over 30 minutes long.

Fresh look at burials, mass graves, tells a new story of Cahokia – Skeletal evidence was re-evaluated. The publications in the 1960s assumed all the skeletons were male….but they were male and female. And the motifs with the graves have to be interpreted differently too.

Pressure Mounts to Reform Our Throwaway Clothing Culture – I’ve been donating clothing for a long time…but this goes a step further.

Questioning the Presidential Candidates on Science – 20 questions sent to the candidates with answers requested by September 6^th. I’m interested in seeing those responses.

Plastic bag usage has 85% decrease in England after government starts charging per bag – Hurray for England. Wish we were doing more in the US to reduce plastic bags. I’ve been using usable bags for the past few years but there are still a lot of people that aren’t.

Wind power fiercer than expected – I was surprised that evidently there has not been a lot of research on the wind patterns at turbine level over the east coast where a number of wind farms are being planned….including off Maryland’s coast.

The Secret Lives of Horseshoe Crabs – We often see horseshoe crabs on Chesapeake Bay beaches…this was a good post about their life cycle and the current challenges to the species.

New Wondrous Photos of the World’s Beautiful Diverse Fungi – Nature photography and eye candy all in one!

Photographs through a Window – August 2016

August has been hot, humid – punctuated with thunderstorms. Photography through the windows of our house has still be good. The doves are still around – coming for water at the bird bath frequently.

There always seems to be a wasp that leans too far into the bird bath and ends up drowning. I watched one for several minutes and saw that even when it maneuvered itself close to the side, the wasp could not get enough leverage from only 2 or 3 of its legs touching the side to lift itself out of the water.

There has been an uptick in gold finch visits. The bird bath is popular with them just like it to the doves.

But the gold finches like the zinnias

And the high narrow perch of the hanger for the bird feeder (empty during the summer) that the doves are too big to enjoy.

There was a molting American Crow on a neighbor’s roof.

We had more butterflies around in August. The zinnias were visited by spicebush swallowtails and

Tiger swallowtails.

The tiger swallowtails are probably our most prolific large butterflies because we have so many large tulip poplar trees in the forest behind our house (tulip poplars are host plants for the tiger swallowtail caterpillars).

August was a good month for through a window photography!

Almost Hidden

Sometimes I take pictures and capture something unexpected – like the katydid in a day lily taken back in July.

Or the tiny spider in a black eyed susan (during the ‘Black Eyed Susans in the Morning’ photo shoot).

Sometimes I take the picture knowing that there is something more – like this tiger swallowtail almost hidden behind a sunflower. I had been taking pictures of the butterfly on the zinnias just beforehand…and decided to do the hide and seek picture just to be different.

And then there are the milkweed bugs that are hiding on just about every milkweed seed pod I find – but they are rarely positioned to be completely visible!

Deck Garden Challenges – August 2016

This August has been very hot and dry – punctuated with downpours. The deck garden is dominated by green since the day lilies finished their bloom cycle in July. The hose says arced up the stairs and across the deck all the time because the downpours are not frequently enough.

I use the bird bath to decide when to water. Certainly when it starts to dry up the pots are dray too. So far – the bird bath water has not been around long enough for any mosquito larvae at all. There are always dead wasps floating in it.

The pleasures of the August deck garden are smaller than the day lilies – things like zinnias,

A cantaloupe vine (no fruit…but lots of flowers), and

A sweet potato vine (I’ve already harvested some of the leaves for a salad).

The butterflies and birds are noticing the zinnias and sunflowers….that’s another reason to keep the deck garden watered in August.

Colorado Vacations in the Early 1980s

Before we moved away from Texas in 1983, we made two summer road trips to Colorado. We loaded up the car and headed to the mountains where it was bound to be cooler that Texas! We were always thrilled to get into Colorado and away from the very flat – often boring – land between Dallas and Colorado.

The first trip was in August of 1980 and everything in Colorado was new to both of us.

We spent some time enjoying the sand dunes (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve) that collect at the edge of the Rockies before we headed along the southern part of the state camping at National Forest campsites along the way. There was a beaver lodge on a pond near one of the campsites and we saw beavers actively working on it and slapping their tails on the water’s surface.

In July 1982, we made a second road trip to Colorado and focused on Rocky Mountain National Park – further to the north than we had been before. We camped again but in the National Park at a more developed campground than the campgrounds we had stayed in before.

It was thrilling to see the snow on the peaks and the lush growth in the valleys.

Above the tree line – the tundra was a new experience for us and so was the occasional wildlife sightings.

After the national park, we camped again in the National Forest and roaming backroads. Just as we do now – wildflowers,

Interesting clouds,

And birds were topics we chose for photography.

Zinnias

I can remember my grandmother planting zinnias in her vegetable garden – to give the mostly green vegetation some extra color. They work well for me in pots on my deck now. I enjoy photographing the flowers…and have picked some of my favorites from recent weeks. I’ve been experimenting with using the zoom on the camera rather than getting close. It makes a nicely blurred background (green from trees) and sometimes there is a surprise insect (an early instar of something that is almost clear on the underside of the rightmost petal). At the highest magnification - past what the lenses of the camera support and essentially cropping in the camera - the image has a painterly soft-focus.

Sometimes the background is black because of the way the light is – or isn’t.

I try to get above the flower so that inside shows.

The one with multiple rows of petals also has a spider web! All of the flowers that have petals attract butterflies. Tiger swallowtails are the most frequent visitors.

Once the petals begin to fall off, the seeds are beginning to form and that means that the goldfinches will visit more frequently.

I let them eat their fill. There are always enough left in the seed heads to crumble into the pots for another round of zinnias next summer.

Chaos Garden

The plot of ground in the back of our house that is not covered by the deck that is a story of the ground is my chaos garden. It is a haphazard production. The two hydrangea bushes that we planted almost 20 years ago two blooms on them this year after being almost killed by a late frost and heavy deer grazing last year. In early July they looked wonderful against the white brick of the exterior of the basement. A closer look showed the green tinges on the petals.

By early August – the flowers are fading. Many times they will dry on the bush. I bring then inside in the autumn for dried arrangements.

A close up of the leaves show deer are still around this year too.

The cone flowers come up every year on one side of the plot – and attract butterflies. On the day I was doing the photographs for this post last week there was a persistent spicebush swallowtail. There is some honeysuckle that photobombed a couple of pictures. I periodically pull all the honeysuckle to keep it from taking over.

There is a sycamore that came up in the corner of the plot furthest from the house and I have left it there to shade the big dining room and master bathroom from the sun in the afternoon. It has helped make the house easier to cool – but having a tree as large as the tree will be in another 10-15 years might be problematic. Sycamores have peeling bark…leaves that continue to get larger and larger throughout the growing season.

The garden also has two types of milkweed which I planted to help Monarch butterflies but that are enjoyed by lots of other insects as well. The common milkweed had all its mid-range leaves eaten by something. The lemon balm grows all around both milkweeds.

There are also several clumps of chives. I harvest just enough to use immediately. Somehow herbs that are cut fresh always taste better!

Mating Bugs

Warm mornings are popular times to photograph mating bugs. I happened upon three when I was really looking for other things.

These  Japanese Beetles were on a blazing star next to the milkweed were the tussock moth caterpillars were my primary subjects. The Japanese beetle is an invasive species – and damages a lot of plants. The green and bronze iridescence of the adult forms do a have a beauty all their own….if only we had some predators to keep them in check.

The milkweed bugs seems to be everywhere – even on plants other than milkweeds. These two were mating but there were others just enjoying the flowers. They are seed eaters and the huge numbers of earlier instars will be seen on developing milkweed seed pods soon.

Red milkweed beetles are interesting to watch because their antennae are so long and – when they are not mating – they tend to move around the plant a lot. They vary in color from orange to red.

The most interesting thing about them is that each eye is bisected by an antenna!

Lizard on the Front Porch

I see lizards more frequently when I travel (to Hawaii, to Texas, to Arizona) than I do at home. So I was pleasantly surprised to see one on my front porch a few days ago. It was in the later afternoon on a warm day – not overwhelming hot.

It appears to be an American five-lined skink, one of the most common lizards in Maryland – although its tail does not look particularly blue. It stuck around long enough for me to take a few pictures through the long narrow window beside the front door.

It another good indicator of the overall health of the habitat around the immediate vicinity of my house!

Black Eye Susans in the Morning

Yesterday I realized the days were getting shorter because it was really dark when I got up about 5:30. I was keen to do some morning photography by the time the sun came up and decided to try the patch of Black Eyed Susans in the front of the house. The first one I zoomed in on looked like its petals had been eaten by something. Are deer that adept?

I liked the curves and folding of the petals just beginning to expand from this bud.

The lemon light of morning makes the color of the flowers look like a deeper yellow than the mid-day light will show. The petals also do not all keep to the same plane from the central core of the flower.

The tips of the petals are not all rounded – and that gives the flowers more variety…and a sense of movement.

I couldn’t resist the curlicue of these petals!

Baby Hands

Have you ever noticed - baby hands have dimples rather than knuckles! Their hands have a very different distribution of fat than they will as they get older. This picture was taken in the last ‘80s when my daughter was a few months old. The chubbiness of babies overall feeds their growth spurts so I wonder if the knuckles start to show more than the dimples by the time they are walking around – and usually take on their childhood slimness.

Now that we have digital photography where experimentation is ‘free’ – the idea of taking a series of baby hand pictures weekly or month would be a good project to try….next time I am around a baby on a daily basis.

Chipmunks around our House

There are more chipmunks around our house this year than I can remember. I think their base is under our deck but they make their way all around the house and up onto the deck as well. They used to come up to get seed when we put it in a bowl but now that we have stopped putting out seed for the summer, they still come to sample the plants in the pots. They enjoy themselves, even if there is a cat on the screen deck watching them! They don’t scamper away until we open a door to walk out to the deck ourselves.

They are equally confident in the front garden. I photographed one standing very still under the hose reel. As long as I didn’t move…neither did he.

I don’t mind having the chipmunks around. They are small and I enjoy watching them….and remembering the description I heard in a lecture years ago that they have ‘Oreo markings’ on each side.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 6, 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.

Kathleen Clemons Instagram – Instructor for some of my favorite Creative Live classes….sharing photos taken with her iPhone. Beautiful images…mostly flowers.

Milkweed Meadow posts from What’s That Bug? – A cluster of milkweed plants is a great place to look if you want to find insects. This series of blog posts is focused on typical insects you’ll find.

How to Prevent Mosquito Bites – I am paying more attention to articles like this since Florida is reporting more Zika cases…and I’m planning a trip to Florida this fall.

Did We Used to Have Two Sleeps Rather Than One? Should We Again? – Maybe we were not meant to sleep all the way through the night!

The New Green Grid: Utilities Deploy ‘Virtual Power Plants’ – Sprawling networks of independent batteries, solar panels, and energy efficient buildings tied together and remotely controlled by software and data systems….a trend boosted by California’s natural gas shortfall that will become the norm?

Third Severe Flash Flood Hits Maryland/Delaware – The Ellicott City flash flood on the evening of 7/30 (just a week ago) was close to home…lots of destruction of the history main street.

Mystery Mechanisms – Many drugs appear to work…but we don’t know exactly how they work. This post discusses lithium, acetaminophen, and modafinil.

Why do we get bags under our eyes? – No stunning revelations in this article – but interesting that there are multiple reasons that people get them.

Awesome Video Compares the Size of Different Plants and Stars in the Universe – The video is a sequel to Star Size (and distances) which is also included in the post.

Earth’s ‘Annual Physical’ Lists Symptoms of a Hotter World – State of the Climate in 2015 from NOAA (and internationally peer reviewed). The indicators of a warming planet that are: greenhouse gases highest on record, global surface temperature highest on record, sea surface temperatures highest on record, global upper ocean heat content highest on record, global sea level highest on record, extremes were observed in the water cycle and precipitation. The post includes links to download the report – chapter by chapter.

More than an Oak

I noticed a strange looking structure on the trunk of an oak at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. It is easy to imagine that it is the head of monster coming out of the tree with orange eyes!

It is probably a crown gall caused by a bacterium (Agrobacterium tumefaciens) which enters the tree through a wound; in this case it could have been a branch that broke. The bacterium transfers a portion of its genetic material into the oak tree cells causing the unusual growth and some substances that the tree does not normally produce – but that the bacterium utilizes! The gall can impede nutrient flow in the tree -particularly if it girds the tree.

In this case, the gall itself appears to be hosting some shelf fungus – the bright orange structures. The tree looked robust overall and the only place where shelf fungi were growing was on the gall. So maybe the shelf-fungi are doing their normal decomposer role on the gall only! I’ll look for the tree again summer when we go to see the lotuses at Kenilworth.

Nature Photography with Mt. Pleasant Summer Camp

The day after I volunteered at Belmont – I was at the other Howard County Conservancy location - Mt. Pleasant – for the same activity. The situation was easier because I had more assistants and the day was not quite as hot. It was harder because there were 15+ more campers (3 groups instead of 2). I started out with a short loop hike before the first group – just to check out what might be interesting topics. I focused on a stand of milkweed after I noticed a smallish Monarch caterpillar. It was the only one I saw on any of the plants but one is better than none!

There were very active red milkweed beetles – mating and foraging.

There were aphids too.

I took fewer pictures with the campers since the groups all had 15 children. The two youngest groups needed a lot of attention. With the oldest group – ages 9-12 – more of the campers had some experience with cameras and were more independent taking pictures so I took some pictures of my own. My favorites were of ripening blackberries,

Horse nettle (with thorns visible…and obviously a plant that is buzz pollinated),

Milkweed bugs on butterfly week (the orange of the bugs matches the flowers quite well!),

Spice bush swallowtails on cone flowers,

Tiger swallowtails on cone flowers (the ones with blue are females, without blue are males),

And my favorite image – a black eyed susan flower just opening amid a lot of greenery.

Photography with Belmont Manor and Historic Park Summer Camp

Last week I volunteered to lead a nature photography activity the Howard Country Conservancy’s Summer Nature Camps at Belmont Manor and Historic Park. The day was hot, humid and there was an air quality alert as well. I got there early and took a walk along the path I planned to take with the first group…and that is when I took most of the pictures for the day. I noticed the Norway maple’s ripening samaras (invasive tree that was planted as part of the landscaping around The Cottage),

The wineberries (good to eat but watch out for the thorns),

Thistle seeds ready to blow away with the next strong breeze,

Caterpillars making their tent in the morning sun,

And chicory (from afar it looks like it is mostly stem but the small blue flowers are lovely at close range).

Later in the morning when I was hiking with the 6 to 8 years old campers, I managed to capture a picture of ripening Jack-in-the-Pulpit seeds and

The forest canopy reflected in a mud puddle. It was getting hotter all the time and our hike lasted less than 45 minutes.

With the older group (9-12 years old) we headed to the formal gardens. It was after lunch and me tried to stick to the shade as much as possible. It worked for a little while. We took a lot of pictures at the water lily pond. Many of the children were as patient as I was to get a picture of a dragonfly on a water lily bud.

I liked the margins of the lily pads – the green, the black water, the glint of the sun…and tiny piece of brown debris.

We misted everyone with water we’d brought to make spider webs more visible and managed to stay out as long as the morning group even though the temperature was hotter than in the morning. Everyone welcomed the cool of the nature center building when we got back!

Microphotography from the 1970s

I found some microphotos from the 1970s when I was scanning some old slides and prints. The first set is algae from my last year of high school. It was a new school and the microscopes were new too. My boyfriend (a year later he became my husband) was the one with the camera and he had an adaptor to attach the camera to the microscope. The color images did not turn out as well as I wanted – the lamp was not bright enough or the film was not fast enough to make the background as white as it looked to the eye and the greens did not stand out. Still you can see the spirals of the spirogyra. I had collected samples from streams near where I lived; in one case the filamentous algae were growing on a rusting sewing machine that someone had dumped in the water (the algae had picked up the rusty color too).

The black and white image was actually better although some of the filaments look battered.

Several years later, I was taking a mycology class and had slides from various kinds of cultures fungus spore structures. We evidently didn’t bother with color slides although I wish now that we had since the dye used was a very nice blue.

Of course, all was film during that time period. There was a time lag between taking pictures and finding out if they were any good and it was relatively expensive. I’m glad we made the effort and managed the expenses. But it also increases my appreciation of digital photography!

Lotus Seed Pods

By mid-July many of the lotuses had dropped their petals and the seed pods were green with mounds where the seeds were developing underneath.

There were some that already had a single seed that was mature. This one also had one co-joined mound; I wonder if the seed was a double seed that was joined underneath.

Gradually more seeds mature and mounds become holes.

And then even more of the seeds are open to the air.

Many of the pods still seem to follow the sun just like the flowers do. Some are relatively smooth from the back

While others are convoluted.

Eventually the pod will be emptied of seeds and dry. The pods are often used in dry flower arrangements in the fall.

More Dragonflies (at Kenilworth Gardens)

I posted some dragonfly pictures from Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens earlier in the month but then we made more visits to the place and I got some even better pictures by zooming in even more (and using a monopod to stabilize the camera). It is easier to see wing damage (lower left wing) and how the wings attach to the insect.

Their heads and legs have more bristles than I expected…and there is a ‘face.’

The eyes bulge out – dominating the head. The wings have an intricate pattern of supports for the wing membrane and the wings are not exactly flat.

The different kinds of dragonflies have a different pattern of wing structures.

The opening in the mid-back where the wings are attached looks so alien - or not the smoothed structure of other things like fly (butterflies, birds, or airplanes).

Enjoy the slide show below of more dragonflies!