3 Free eBooks – February 2016

There are so many excellent resources out there. My biggest sources of eBooks are Internet Archive and Hathi Trust.

One theme for this month was vintage wallpaper. The Internet Archive has a lot of old catalogs. One of my favorites is:

Roche, David. House of Decoration. Halifax, Nova Scotia: David Roche. 192? Available here. I liked the texture (all the better to hide any imperfections in the wall underneath) and the colors of the designs. There were other wallpapers in the same book that looked like crewel embroidery.

Another theme was flowers and birds:

Smith, C. E. and Janet Harvey Kelman. Flowers: Shown to the children. London: T. C. & E. C. Jack. 1910. It is available from Hathi Trust here. I liked the books because of the labeling of the images. This book could still work well since the common names of flowers have stayed consistent while more detailed classifications may have changed over the years.

Another theme was pictures of places – snapshots in time.

D’Auvergne, Edmund Basil. Switzerland in sunshine and snow. London: T.W. Laurie. 1912. It is available from Internet Archive here. I read this book on a particularly cold day this month – that was sunny. It seemed to fit the day so well that I selected it for this post. I am attracted to the drawings and paintings rather than photographs of the period. Sometimes that approach works of art – and they often smooth over imperfections of lighting and landscape that mar photographs of the period.

Conowingo in February 2016

We thought the day was going to be sunny - lots of light for photographing birds - but it became cloudy not long after we got there. And it was cold and breezy. The birds seemed more interested in hunkering down and staying warm than fishing even though the dam’s generator were running and churning up lots of water.

There was still some snow on the ground from a snowstorm over a week before. When I took this picture I thought the rock on the right looked like a floppy eared animal coming out of a winter’s sleep!

And what about the maze of ice in this close up of a snow bank over gravel. The melt pattern was not uniform at all.

The river water was moving swiftly and all the snow along the lower bank had melted. The color variation of the rocks has a lot of visual appeal sandwiched between the monotones of water and snow.

There were several birds that flew into the trees. This one has a fish that it finished off from its perch in the tree.

Another just seemed to survey the photographers that were along the fence between the parking lot and the Susquehanna River.

The most interesting of the birds in the trees was the black vulture. Its feathers were fluffed against the cold and ruffled by the wind. I was interested to note the white in the feathers; it is noticeable when they are viewed from below when they are soaring but I had not seen the white when they were on the ground. And look at the claws – they look like evil-looking curved fingernails.

The only Bald Eagle I managed to photography was a little too far away. The eagles are the main reason we go… so I was glad to get at least one picture.

There was another larger bird that caught a fish near the dam….but it flew off to the other side of the river. It was quite a bit larger than the gull.

There was a tree that had some velvety buds. After I got home I did some research. Aargh! It is a Princess Tree - a non-native, invasive species.

As we headed home, I noticed that the ice patches on the road has mostly melted. I drank some more of my hot tea from the Thermos – using the cup to warm my hands.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 13, 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.

Lava flow crisis averted (for now) – We saw the cooling flow described in this article from Science Daily when we were in Hawaii last December!

We must better communicate the health benefits of nature – Not everyone is outdoors as much as I am --- or has a great view of the outdoors from their office window. I remember an instance when I was outdoors with students on a middle school field trip and realized that many of them thought about the outdoors in terms of streets and parking lots rather than hiking paths, trees, and birds. The hike and what they were seeing was a new experience for them.

Sally Ride reminds us that one thing has not changed for female astronauts – An interview from 1983… the types of questions she got from the press.

Inside the Eye: Nature’s Most Exquisite creation – From National Geographic.

In New Anti-Aging Strategy, Clearing Out Old Cells Increases Life Span of Mice by 25 Percent – A good thing or the modern equivalent of ‘snake oil’? If it does increase life span – how healthy is that extra time?

Sign of early settlement in the Nordic region date back to the cradle of civilization – We think of the transition from nomadic to settlement living happened first in the Middle East but this find in Sweden indicates that it may have happened about the same time in Nordic prehistory.

This uncrushable robot cockroach just wants to rescue you – Building a robot that can compress itself in much the same way a cockroach can…. Another instance of observing nature and implementing the same solution via technology rather than biology.

The Truth about Processed Foods – Every wonder what the difference is between highly, moderate, and minimally processed foods in articles about healthy diet? This article provides some definitions. I changed my food log for a few days to put categorize foods and discovered that most of the foods I consume at home are unprocessed or minimally processed because I make most of what I eat from scratch. There are a few moderately processed foods. The highly processed are things like salad dressing or stir fry sauces; I also drink almond milk which is ‘highly processed.’

Organic Farming could help feed the planet and protect it – A good graphic comparing conventional to organic farming based on some research from Washington State University. One of the authors is quoted as saying: “The challenge facing policymakers is to create an enabling environment for scaling up organic and other innovative farming systems to move towards truly sustainable production systems.” As a consumer – I have already made the decision to buy organic as often as I can.

Tucson Souvenirs

Earrings! They are my favorite souvenirs – not too expensive and small enough to be easily packed for the trek home.

The most unusual earrings I purchased this time were the ones that used cholla cactus stems as a large ‘bead’ (upper left). I noticed the cholla cactus around Tucson because they seemed to be more colorful than just about anything else.

I bought the hummingbird earrings since we did see quite a few hummingbirds during our walks…. again, the earrings are a good reminder of one of our trip highlights.

The bear earrings were a serendipity. I bought them as a reminder of the excellent black bear lecture I attended just before our trip….and I liked the symbolic representation. When I saw the arrow inside the bear symbol I thought of the 20,000 calories a day the bear needs to eat in the fall (does the arrow represent the digestive tract?)!

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!

Zentangle® – January 2016

Last year at this time I was taking my first Zentangle® class. I’ve branched out in several directions from the ‘purity’ of those initial black ink, standard size efforts. Not I like to experiment with colors – inks and colored pencils. The images sometimes take on the look of something ‘real’ although in a very abstract way. I have favorite patterns that tend toward tentacles rather than squares. I take inspiration from just about everything – plants, pottery, tiles, art.  Even the size and type of paper title has varied – sometimes because I am trying to use up materials that have been around the house for ages and sometimes because the paper is just handy. The last two in the collection for this month were done in a blank book with a regular ball point pen while I was in an airport! Everyone could us a little Zen in an airport….

 

 

 

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 30, 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.

What will power tomorrow’s spacecraft? – Lots of options – some ready now and others being developed.

Stock Your Pantry with Plant-Based Protein – I’m not as keen on soy products (except for the nuts themselves) but I have most of the rest in my pantry already; they store well and can be easily be used for quick meals.

Tea or coffee: Which drink is better for you? – Does it matter? This analysis says it is a draw. Tea does not interfere as much as coffee with sleep but is does stain tea more.

New Bioplastic Mashup Spells Doom for Petrochemical Industry – DuPont and Archer Daniel Midland join the flurry of activity in the bioplastic arena….and they may be big enough to overcome the entrenched political interests supported by the petroleum industry. It is good to understand that as we move to a more sustainable tech….plastics will still be around.

A natural beauty: American geoheritage – Geoparks (a UNESCO designation) are becoming popular around the world but not in the US because of political differences within our country. There are over 100 areas in 34 countries that are designated as Geoparks at this point. Over the next year, we’ll be hearing more about them culminating in the 2016 Earth Science Week (Oct. 9-15). A list of countries and sites is available here.

So You Want to Eat Snow. Is It Safe? We Asked Scientists – I do enjoy snow ice cream….but I wait until it has snowed for a while before I collect the snow.

20 Indoor Air Pollution Tips – I heard most of these before….but it is good to see them collected into a single list. I’m glad they included scented products and sprays on the list.

Women Asked to Avoid Pregnancy as Zika Epidemic Worsens – A story to follow since the mosquitos that carry the virus are relatively widespread….it is just that they are not infected with the Zika virus yet in the US. Asking a population to avoid pregnancy is not a solution…but 3,500 (and probably growing) cases of microcephaly will impact lives and economies for years to come.

8 Great Benefits of Walking – A good list with links to the research that backs up the claims.

Best Things about Electric Cars – Results of a survey of electric car owners.

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.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – January 2016

I enjoy the big celebrations of the year....but the little celebrations that happen daily are the ones that keep me going all year long. Here are my top 10 for January 2016:

The most recent celebrations have to do with snow:

• Getting home from the airport in the ice and snow (it had just started coming down…so nothing had been treated yet)
• A snow big enough to cover everything and close just about everything – snow days and snow ice cream

I travelled to Tucson, Arizona this month and about half the celebrations are associated with that trip (and I still have a lot of posts in the works about that travel):

• Birds of southern Arizona (hummingbirds and turkeys!)
• Mount Lemmon (snow at the top)
• Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (plants and free flight raptor programs)
• Tohono Chul (steps to the roof as plant stand, rocks, small meditation garden)
• Tucson Botanical Garden (butterfly exhibit…cactus…rocks)

January 2016 included my 43^rd wedding anniversary....maybe that should be a ‘big’ celebration!

There was also a funeral in the family this month – a sad event but also a celebration of a person’s life and of continuity of family over long periods of time.

And last but not least, I spent more than a third of the month away from home ---- so it was a celebration just coming home again (in time for the big snow).