November 11, 2020

9th Anniversary for my Blog

November 11, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I started my blog on November 11th, 2011.

The very first post was about making Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins. Maybe I’ll make the recipe again this year. Brookside Gardens and Longwood Gardens had wonderful displays for fall gourds and squashes that year. I was doing some photography then, but a good portion of the blog posts weren’t illustrated. Now the majority of posts have a illustrations and sometimes the topic is the illustrations themselves.

Travel has continued to be a blog topic all along…which has made this year different from all the preceding ones; it’s been a year dominated by being ‘at home.’ The most frequent destinations in previous years were where my family lives – the Dallas, TX area for my sisters and parents….and then a sequence of places for my daughter: Tucson, AZ for grad school, Pittsburgh and State College, PA for post doc, and Springfield, MO for faculty position. During some of the years I travelled with my sister…to South Carolina, Tennessee, and Rhode Island. My husband and I discovered Birding Festivals as a travel focus beginning in 2016 with Bosque Del Apache’s Festival of the Cranes. As soon as the pandemic wanes (probably with the wide availability of a vaccine), we’ll be traveling again and the blog will pick up that thread again.

Books have also been a blog topic all along. The trend has been toward eBooks which are now about all I read. The botanical eBooks list has grown to over 2,000 volumes at this point and is still growing! I’ve become more interested in images of all kinds – photographs, paintings, etching, sketches – and I appreciate viewing them online rather than in a museum or physical book; I like to take my time, sometimes enlarge a particular portion of the image, view them on just about any device and almost anywhere!

I have made pattern-like doodles for as long as I can remember, and they have been part of the blog posts for most of the 9 years. Now they follow the Zentangle tile process – most of the time. I’ve diverged in several ways and that will change over time. At present I am making tiles in black ink with the idea of coloring them….adding white highlights as the last step. I am not using a pencil at all (for strings or for shading).

Gleanings have also been in the blog for most of the 9 years. My feeds have changed slightly but are still skewed toward science related topics. One trend I noticed is that the solutions to address climate change have matured over the past 9 years. There are a lot of effective technologies available to choose from (see Project Drawdown) – which add some hope to an otherwise dystopian future for the Earth and humanity.

My outdoor volunteering ramped up over the 9 years and I enjoyed writing about it…then that aspect of life came crashing down with the pandemic. I am hopeful about it starting again sometime in 2021. Giving back to the community, interacting with schools on field trips and people visiting Brookside’s butterfly exhibit is a joy I’ve missed in 2020.

I’ve been in my same home office for the entire 9 years and the view through the window is always fabulous – out to the bird feeder/bath on our deck and back into the forest. The view is inspiring and pictures I take through the window often make it into blog posts. Probably my favorite sequence is of bluebirds bathing from back in February 2018. I collected a sequence of ‘through the window’ pictures from 2012 through 2019 for the slideshow below. The feeder was added in 2015 which was a big attraction for November birds. I also noticed that the zoom on my cameras improved over the time period!

The very first post about little celebrations was back in August 2012 and then I started the listing of 10 each month in September 2012. Noting the joys of life is one of the ways I keep myself optimistic…which I’ve needed more than usual in 2020. Stream through the ‘celebration’ posts via this link.

The blog continues on….documenting my post-career journey. These pandemic and political upheaval months of 2020 have probably been the most unusual – and anxious - of my life; I am looking forward to the new year and documenting the events that unfold – finding celebrations.

October 12, 2020

7 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

October 12, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Today marks the 7th month since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic. I started a monthly post taking stock of the impact on my day to day life back in July (previous posts: July, August, September). Here’s the one for the 7th month!

There were few ‘new’ activities for us in the past month:

Propane taxi. We are using our gas grill again! We were glad the service to get it delivered was available in our area since the pre-pandemic process required a lot of contact with other people to trade in the old tank and get the replacement.

Voting. We would have been voting at this time even without the pandemic but we requested a mail-in ballot and put it in a Maryland drop-box at a nearby early-voting place rather than voting in person. We are checking the ‘status’ online; right now they are listed as ‘received’ and we anticipate that they’ll be ‘accepted sometime after the 12th when our country begins counting.

Conowingo field trip. We ventured out on a short road trip to Conowingo Dam which is a little over an hour from our house. It was the first time since February for an outing like this. It was good to get outdoors in a place other than the immediate neighborhood where we live….and we did some bird photography. It turned out to be very easy to wear our masks the whole time we were out of the car and we had plenty of hand sanitizer. The visitor center was open; everyone wore masks, and the bathrooms were clean/well supplied (as they were pre-pandemic too).

Gathering a pile of stuff to donate…to be picked up from our front porch. Charities are beginning to pick up donations again in our area. I have accumulated a pile of stuff and realize there is a lot more that I am willing to part with. The key decision questions for me are:

Have I used it in the past year?
Does it give me joy?

**Indian corn on the front door**. I put the three ears of Indian Corn we’ve had for years on the front door to provide some seasonal decoration. There are some fall related chores as well like mowing the leaves that are falling. I have ended the work in the flower beds and brush piles to let overwintering critters settle in; most of what’s in the beds will be easy to clear away in the spring when the early spring flowers start to emerge.

Overall the ‘new’ activities, have continued our strategy of choosing low risk ways to go about our lives. There are things that we’ve continued -

Cape May Fall Festival (virtual). The fall is full of birding festivals that have gone virtual. The Cape May event was intense and we learned a lot….are all ready to go in person sometime in the future. There are others coming up that we are looking forward to. These have become our alternative to travel during the pandemic.
Groceries every other week and CSA pickup every week and curbside pickups. The routines of replenishing our supplies are functional and also provide us an opportunity to leave the confines of our neighborhood. Sometimes I use the opportunity to photograph a sunrise or the plantings at the CSA. As the weather has cooled, wearing a mask has become even easier.

It’s always good to have plans. We’re assuming that the pandemic will be the status quo at least through the end of the year (and probably beyond) and we plan to continue our strategies to reduce our risk. We are also assuming that the area of Maryland where we live will continue to adhere to CDC guidance as well as is happening now.

We’ll probably take a few fall foliage road trips like the trip we made to Conowingo – maybe to Catoctin/Cunningham Falls or Dan’s Mountain.
At some point we might get a POD container to load up with non-essential furniture and boxed items to make it easier to re-carpet our house as soon as COVID-19 is controlled.
And then there are the holidays….with special food and creative ways to enjoy our family even though we will not be in one location.

October 02, 2020

Chinese Teahouse in Newport

October 02, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I was browsing through the Architectural Record publication for 1916 (via Internet Archive) and discovered the June issue featured the Chinese Teahouse that I’d seen in Newport RI behind Mable House in 2014. In 1916, it was relatively new – having been added to the Marble House grounds by Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. According to Wikipedia – she hosted rallies for women’s suffrage there.

According to the article in the Architectural Record article, the structural members had lacquered surfaces written in Chinese characters. Two examples:

A woman of strong character is said to be a hero among women.

Women with pretty faces and fascinating manners really may overthrow cities.

How appropriate for this 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage! I’m belatedly disappointed that the teahouse was closed when I visited so I didn’t see them.

Here are a few pictures that I took back in 2014. I think I remember that the Treehouse has been recently renovated at that time and we being used as a place where tourists could get refreshments/take a break from tours of the Newport Mansions.

September 30, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2020

September 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Another month in 2020…celebrating that we’ve stayed healthy (keeping up the mask wearing – distancing – hand washing regime)….and finding plenty of little celebrations during September.

2020 09 IMG_1811 (11).jpg — **Finding Monarch caterpillars.** After not seeing Monarch butterflies or caterpillars much during the summer…there were caterpillars in September. I never did find the chrysalises…but the caterpillars were so big that I hope they made it to butterflies and are now making their way south.

Watching Enola Holmes. My husband and I enjoyed the Enola Holmes movie on Netflix…celebrating having high quality movies available for low-risk viewing (at home).

Grilling again. After months of being out of propane, we finally got a full tank (via Propane Taxi) and celebrated with hamburgers and corn on the cob.

Watching virtual birding festivals. It’s such a treat to see and learn about birds vicariously (next best to being there). In September we enjoyed Yampa Valley (Colorado), Puget Sound (Washington), and Bosque del Apache (New Mexico). We are making plans for post-pandemic but celebrating that we didn’t completely miss September birds outside of our immediate area.

2020 09 IMG_1743 (4).jpg — **Collecting a maple seedling**. I collected a maple seedling for my office window – celebrating the new life (although it came up in a place where there wasn’t room for a tree) and savoring its presence in my office through the fall.

Emptying crispers. I am finally not completely overwhelmed by the CSA share…which is good since the freezer is very full. It’s great to be cooking and celebrating the bounty of things like butternut squash and hot peppers.

**Eating potato soup**. Just as the CSA started providing potatoes…it got cool and potato soup was the perfect meal. I celebrated the great timing.

Getting car maintenance. Both cars got their delayed regular maintenance…in a relatively low risk way. We’re celebrating that it’s done….hoping the vaccine for COVID-19 will be available before maintenance is due again.

Appreciating Project Drawdown. The recent webinar was uplifting….the solutions available to address climate change are cause for optimism and celebration…and then action.

September sunrise. Celebrating a beautiful start to the day…timing is key to see it!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Fitbit moved from wrist to ankle. My Fitbit was bothering me on my wrist, so I moved it to my ankle. It doesn’t measure my heart rate as reliably but seems to count the steps about the same. A side benefit - I am enjoying the freedom of being ‘watchless’ again (I also turned off the silent alarm). I seem to be the type person that does too much based on what time it is. When I started my post-career, I stopped wearing a watch for a time and now remember how good it is to be on my internal clock when I don’t have to sync to someone else’s schedule.

Racoon again. Our birdfeeder cam got video of a racoon in the early morning hours of 9/19 (between 2:43 and 2:54 AM). It does reasonably well in low light. The racoon clearly is attracted to the feeder…tries several approaches to get seed…and leaves frustrated. The feeder wins again!

August 30, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2020

August 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy….staying vigilant with masks and distancing. And then there are 10 little celebrations for August.

There were three celebrations associated with melons which are always a big part of August **– a sweet cantaloupe, a yellow watermelon, and the 6-part symmetry** **in a red watermelon.**

2020 08 IMG_1318 (9).jpg — **Sunrise at the neighborhood pond.** It was a celebration to begin the day.

**Photographing a cicada.** I always celebrate a cicada that I manage to see…and that remains still long enough for me to photograph!

The (clean) glass birdbath. The glass birdbath is always pretty….but when it’s sparkly clean it’s even better.

Sweet potato sprouts. Finding new life in the pantry….letting the roots start growing…planting them outside. I celebrated that it happened…would have been eve better if it were earlier in the season.

Best picture of our cat. The cat is 18 years old and I finally managed a picture of him in motion that captures his overall personality.

Dryer fix. My husband I celebrated that our dryer is fixed (that we didn’t have to buy a new one).

Kombucha bottles with flowers. I celebrate the flowers on my windowsill every time I look out the window. It’s a mood brightener every time.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Smartphone replacement. I noticed that the side of my phone has spilt….the case was holding it together; otherwise it might split the rest of the way. It’s over 3 years old (I posted about it here back in 2017). My husband ordered a new phone for me and I found a case that I like…ordered a screen protector at the same time. More about the adventure of getting a new phone in a contactless way over the next week….

July 31, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2020

July 31, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I’m celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy and staying vigilant. We’re all in states that have a growing number of cases, though. As usual – I am looking back of the month and highlighting 10 little celebrations.

Large Monarch caterpillar. Toward the end of the month, there were caterpillars on the milkweed in our front flowerbed. One morning I walked out and saw a large one almost immediately.

It was eating way…probably getting close to the size to pupate. I’ll look around for the chrysalis in the bushes nearby in a few days.

Cantaloupe in the CSA share. Yummy melons…one of the best foods of summer.

Regenerative landscaping webinar. Sometimes a webinar just comes at the right time. This one had so many interesting ideas. The one that I’ll probably try first is over seeding with mini-clover instead of grass seed in the thin places of our yard.

Morning hour on the deck. I love the quiet time on the deck first thing in the morning. I enjoy my morning caffeine, create a Zentangle tile, read a little….usually with our cat as company.

2020 07 IMG_0551 (26).jpg — **Neighborhood pond in the morning.** Lots of interesting things at the pond --- different every time…birds, turtles, plants, insects.

2020 07 IMG_0551 (15).jpg — **Milkweed.** Blooms, pods, insects (milkweed bugs and beetles, aphids (aargh!), Monarch caterpillars). The plants are little worlds of activity.

2020 07 IMG_0777 (6).jpg — **Summer sunrise.** It’s getting easier to get up and out to catch the sunrise.

2020 07 IMG_0875 (37).jpg — **Mt. Pleasant.** Venturing out just a little…early enough that there are not very many other people around.

Western Regional Park (Howard County, Maryland). A place I hadn’t been before but worth discovering.

2020 07 IMG_0688 (4).jpg — **Goldfinches.** Looking out the window at the right time.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

NOAA Get into Your Sanctuary! Events. There was a post on the NOAA feed about this; relatively short notice but maybe ‘just is time’ is good enough. The events are live 7/31-8/2. I am planning to watch as many of them as I can. https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/visit/giys.html

Observations at the grocery store. When it got to the grocery store, the sun had only been up for about 10 minutes, so the short drive was scenic with the glow of morning light. As usual – there weren’t very many people in the parking area or in the store and everyone was wearing masks. I noticed that most masks were similar to mine but there two outliers: a woman that was wearing something that looked more like a gas mask and then a shield over that and a staff person that was wearing a mask that looked like it was very thin (had been through a lot of washings).

There was a sign saying that the carts were sanitized when I approached the area to get my cart – so I didn’t wipe the cart down again but did use the hand sanitizer station for my hands.

Things seemed well stocked although some of the store brand products we bought previously have not been replenished; the more expensive ‘name’ products are available.

I am enjoying the SCAN app my store provides. My bags are loaded as I shop (in the way I want them) and the checkout is as close to contactless as one can get inside the store! I wonder if all grocery stores will develop this kind of app for their customers.

July 03, 2020

Enjoying 4th of July Weekend at Home

July 03, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

No fireworks for us this 4th of July. Our gas grill ran out of gas a few weeks ago and we haven’t discovered a low risk way to get a refill…so we won’t be grilling either. We’ll be spending the holiday weekend savoring home – like all the days the past few months. Two ways I’m celebrating: 1) I made a series of red, white, and blue Zentangle tiles in the days leading up to the holiday.

2) And melons! When I did the grocery shopping this week, the grocery store had both cantaloupe and watermelon, so I bought both! Now that I am thinking about it – maybe I like melons better than much of the other ‘traditional’ 4th of July food! And we’ll have corn on the cob when it’s in-season locally – because it’s another big favorite.

It’s going to be hot and humid here on the 4th so we’ll probably do our outdoor meal for breakfast on the deck (I’m thinking hash browns and sausage or scrambled eggs….maybe some zucchini muffins)….then be cool indoors for the hottest part of the day.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

3 new day lily stalks. Three more stalks cut this morning. I now have two vases of day lilies – enjoying them inside since they don’t last in the flower beds once the buds are large. They are deer candy!

Learn your eastern USA birds. Video flash cards of 84 birds…a quick 14 minutes. All of them were familiar (many come to our yard) …but this video will improve my ID skills for the ones I don’t see as often!

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.

June 28, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2020

June 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

We are still at home almost all the time, so the celebrations are mostly based there. There are two that celebrate the changes that we made in June that are away from the house….creating a sustainable new normal for the coming months.

Double rainbow. Seeing a rainbow is such a great way to celebrate summer! We’ve been having last afternoon thunderstorms and one of them was moving fast enough that the sun came out while it was still raining in the east….and it created a double rainbow! The arch was interrupted by our oak tree – but the colors were vibrant for enough time that I got a good series of pictures. I was so engrossed in taking pictures from our front porch that I didn’t notice our 18-year-old indoor cat escaping until he meowed; I was able to catch him before he escaped into the bushes.

**Day lilies.** I enjoy having flowers in my office. It’s a way of bringing a bit of the outdoors into a place I can celebrate at closer range.

Ice maker fixed. My husband and I installed the part he ordered to keep our ice maker from allowing water to overflow into the rest of the freezer…..and it worked. We are both celebrating that we were able to do it ourselves rather than requiring a maintenance person.

Deck drapery. The deck drapery turned out to be a great project for us and we are celebrating the extra time we are already spending on our deck.

2020 06 IMG_0317 (7).jpg — **Black squirrel.** The black squirrel has only come to our deck once. I celebrated seeing it when visited because it was different than our usual squirrels….and it didn’t try to raid the bird feeder.

2020 06 IMG_0238 (15).jpg — **Fledgling red-winged blackbird.** If I hadn’t seen the parents nearby – I don’t think I would have seen it or be able to identify it. It’s a celebration of new life at the neighborhood storm water retention pond.

Plastic containers. The cabinet where we keep plastic containers in the kitchen had gotten so disorganized that it seemed to be overflowing…with us not adding anything new. I took about 30 minutes to reorganize it – putting the things we use most in the easiest to reach places…and putting some things in the recycle, trash, or give away. Moving from disorganized to organized is always something I celebrate.

Pleasant early mornings on the deck. Even on hot days, the early morning is wonderful on the deck. It’s a great way to start the day – often feeling like we are in the middle of a bird celebration.

Grocery shopping. Beginning to do my grocery shopping again is worthy of celebration. I take precautions (wear a mask, lots of hand sanitizer, go in the early morning, use self-scan and checkout, shop for 2 weeks rather than 1) but getting out just that little bit has made the new normal a lot easier to sustain.

CSA season. I always celebrate the beginning of our Community Supported Agriculture veggies. Picking up the share requires a mask and hand sanitizer…just like the grocery store. It’s an adjunct to the grocery shopping that makes the summer foods easily and abundantly available.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Rearranging deck furniture. The first afternoon I sat out on the deck to test the effectiveness of the deck drapery, I discovered that the table and chairs were not well positioned. They were in the patch of sunshine coming through the triangle of undraped screen near the ceiling.

It was too hot to rearrange furniture that afternoon, so I did it during the cooler morning temperatures. I am also going to buy another prong to tie back the drape near the bird feeder (in the far left of the above picture) so that we can see the bird feeder when the drape is tied back.

June 21, 2020

Pinning the Day

June 21, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Does it matter what day it is? During this time while we are still not leaving home very often – there are fewer things that prompt us to keep track of which day it is. Some are self-imposed:

We do the laundry on Saturday. It is a habit not a requirement at all.
I do the grocery shopping on Thursday. Since I retired, that has been the day most of the time. It’s changed slightly now to every other week rather than weekly.
I call my parents on Tuesdays. My calls used to be ad hoc and sporadic…but I opted to set an item on my calendar to remind me as the pandemic stretched on.

Then there are the calendar items that are externally determined. These are the ones that are so reduced at this time.

The time slot for our CSA share is Wednesday afternoon…every week until the end of October.
The two-day Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference virtual sessions are 2 days later this month.
The Climate and Sustainability Webinars are every other week through the end of August.

And that is all that is on my calendar! There are the recycle (Wednesday) and trash (Friday) that prompt us to remember the day of the week; they are not on the calendar and, so far, we have remembered them. I guess that is an indicator that we are still syncing with the calendar – pinning the day – even as we have less interactions that demand that we do so.

In general, I think we are more focused on the present…enjoying whatever we are doing now and for the next few hours…savoring our time today rather than thinking about the weeks ahead. There is an appeal I haven’t experienced all that often in my life.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Watched Stonehenge’s Summer Solstice Livestream. English Heritage had a Facebook Live event from Stonehenge. The summer solstice is a big event at the stones each year, but the pandemic has forced its closure…so this was a great opportunity to see the event without traveling! There was thunder and birdsong…and the stones. I clipped a couple of images from the sunset as I watched. Hopefully they’ll make the video available for playback from their Facebook page.

May 29, 2020

Zooming Photographs and Tripoli Prompt

May 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Zooming

Last May I took over 2,500 pictures…this May there are just under 1,000. There are still a lot to choose from…and I do use the zoom on my camera a lot. All the pictures this month were taken from around my house. Enjoy the slide show!

A Zentangle Prompt

Make a tile with TRIPOLI as the central tangle. I found this pattern to be challenging the first time I did it a few years ago. So give it a try. Feel free to try some patterns inside the triangles and/or use another pattern (like TIPPLE or CRESCENT MOON) to file some of the tile.

Here are some tiles I made yesterday – savoring the patterns from the last six days. The first was a hodgepodge of almost all the patterns. Then I settled down to 2 patterns (and auras). It was the beginning of a trend because the next one was two patterns with more obvious shading around the edges…and the last was a montotangle tile (gingo)! I enjoyed Tangler’s Choice day and I hope you did too.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Last grocery delivery. I’ve decided to go back to venturing out to the grocery store in June after more than two months of almost weekly deliveries…so this was the last delivery. I’m glad the option was available to us but found it stressful to be online while my shopping was done (to OK or reject substitutions) and then sorting through the bags left on the porch to put away the refrigerator items and leaving the rest to sit a few days (usually in the back of one of our cars) before unpacking. And I didn’t like the quick accumulation of so many plastic bags. All the shoppers seemed keen to do a good job but some were very inexperienced with grocery shopping/the store.

Low weight of the year. I didn’t have any dark chocolate on hand, so I celebrated with sweet potato custard with pecans on top – the making and enjoying warm from oven.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

May 28, 2020

Little Celebrations, Tangler’s Choice, and a Fledgling Woodpecker

May 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

10 Little Celebrations in May 2020

Today I am highlight 10 small things I celebrated this month. Half of them involved birds!

2020 05 IMG_9511 (9).jpg — **Rose-breasted Grosbeaks** were a new bird at our deck this year; my husband both celebrated their appearance. They came for the first half of the month both males and females. Now they are probably raising young in a nest a little too far from our feeder…but maybe they’ll bring their fledglings!

Virtual Cape May Spring (Birding) Festival. It was two days of rewarding sessions….celebrating a place we enjoyed last spring (Cape May, New Jersey) in the best way possible in 2020!

Downy woodpecker fledgling. We had a fledgling downy…bumbling to the deck but not the feeder – yet. Celebrating new life in the forest.

2020 05 IMG_9442 (3).jpg — **American Goldfinches**. The males are in their summer plumage. It’s always a day brightener to see them.

2020 05 IMG_9613 (6).jpg — **Indigo Buntings** were another new visitor to our feeder this year. Like the grosbeaks – they were around for the first half of the month. Hopefully, they will return with fledglings…and built their nest far enough away to not have a cowbird nestling.

And there were other things I celebrated…many probably obvious from my previous posts.

**Irises**. I celebrated every single one that came up in our garden. The rhizomes appear to be recovering from a collapse a few years ago. I hope that cutting the stalks will make it easier for them to build up even more for next year – anticipating more flowers to celebrate.

Poem sent from my Mother…30 years ago. I found a poem my Mother sent to me as I started my daughter in day care 30 years ago. I must have celebrated it at the time….and did again when I found it again.

Providing a Zentangle session at Howard County Conservancy. Celebrating sharing something I enjoy.

2020 05IMG_9919 (2).jpg — **Chipmunk on the deck**. Celebrating the rodent that has Oreo cookie stripes on each side!

Flower Designs from the 1800s. Celebrating Marcia Bradford’s book of flower designs for watercolor…that worked very well with Ultra-Fine Point Sharpies with Zentangles filling in the background! I completed 2 in May.

A Zentangle Prompt

Instead of trying a new pattern today – pick ones from the last week to make again – in a new combination or as a monotangle. Take your pick from: GINGO, MEER feathers, ANTIDOTS, ELIROB, BATON, PHICOPS, RIBBON ROSE, and SHARD. Or maybe decide to take a break and just admire a mosaic of your tiles made over the past 6 days. Here are mine (including the RIBBON ROSE and SHARD tiles from yesterday.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Fledgling red-bellied woodpecker. The fledgling was on the roof of the covered deck while the mom was at the feeder! It first came about 8 AM and I watched for it all through the day. It wasn’t quite coordinated enough to utilize the bird feeder directly.

**Chicken baked in spicy spaghetti sauce.** I’m not sure why I hadn’t tried this before…it’s easy to make and delicious. I simply put boneless chicken breasts in a Pyrex baking dish, poured some spicy spaghetti sauce over them, sprinkled on some garlic and coarse ground pepper….cooked for an hour at 350 degrees (included some potatoes in the same oven). The baking dish has a lid, so the leftover chicken is in the refrigerator in that container (easy cleanup after our meal). My husband – a somewhat picky eater – liked the chicken so much he even volunteered to eat the leftovers!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

May 11, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/10/2020

May 11, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Nice surprise first thing in the morning: 4 irises. When I went to bed the night before, there was one open iris and another that was just beginning to unfurl. I expected there would be two irises open the next morning.

But there were two more than I expected! What a great start to Mother’s Day!

Photographing a spent iris flower. The first iris bloom (that had broken off the stem and was in a small glass of water) wilted and I decided to take it apart to learn more about iris flowers. I quickly discovered that they are three types of petals…and 3 of each kind. Going from the outside inward: falls with beards and stamens attached, standards, and style arms. The falls are the largest and the style arms are the smallest.

20200509_164317 falls with beards and sepals.jpg

I took some macros shots of various parts of the petals. They were thinning and watery…had started to degrade with age.

The last picture is of the cut stem. (Reference)

Seeing two Scarlet Tanagers in the red maple. We are seeing birds we haven’t seen before in the forest behind our house…because we are looking more frequently. Scarlet tanagers are insect eaters, so they don’t come to the feeder. We didn’t notice any females, but they are harder to spot. I wonder if there is a nest in the maple. (The picture looks ‘painterly’ because it is near then limit of the zoom on my camera).

Opening a new supply of bird seed. We used up all our bird seed we’d purchased from the local bird club. The new supply I ordered from Amazon came a few days ago. There was only a small amount of seed left in the feeder, so I emptied it for the doves to enjoy and opened the new bag to fill the feeder with fresh seed.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

April 29, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/28/2020 – Little Celebrations

April 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

**Making echinoderm prompted Zentangle**® tiles. *Jurassic echinoderms France* is full of plates and worth browsing; it’s available on Internet Archive here. Four sample images are below. I’ve only made one Zentangle so far but I’m sure the patterns will pop up in the tiles I make over the next few days.

Starting the What is Contemporary Art? Coursera course. It is my 3rd class from MoMA. For some reason – I am interested in classes that are different from my typical science or history classes I’ve taken in non-pandemic years.

Watching a Glenn Randall Photography webinar on light for landscape photographers. It was something my husband found out about and set up for us. We watched on the television in the den. Now I have some vocabulary for some of the type of light I enjoy early or late in the day! I realized that some of the wonderful light on the sandhill cranes in the early mornings at Bosque del Apache is ‘glow light’ from the sun 20 minutes away from coming up behind us.

Making sweet potato custard. Probably my favorite food creation during our ‘stay at home as much as possible’ time has been sweet potato custard. This is the second time I’ve made it. I cook the sweet potato in the oven when we are baking something else…then peel it and save it in the refrigerator until I’m ready to make the custard. The sweet potato goes into the Ninja food processor with 4 eggs, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cloves and 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (this time I was trying to use up some powdered sugar so I used the higher amount). After processing and scrapping down the sides, I add in enough almond milk to make the consistency about right….processing again to get it thoroughly blended. After pouring it into the backing dish, I cover the top with chopped pecans. It cooks for 15 minutes at 425 degrees and 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

It never lasts long since both my husband and I like it a lot.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the monthly post about 10 little celebrations. Again – the overwhelming celebration (the same as in March) is that in April 2020

Everyone in my family (in Maryland, Missouri, and Texas) is well…and taking all the recommended precautions to stay that way.

Now for 9 other celebrations….all from home (or easy walking distance):

Talking to family far away. It’s such a boost to talk with family – know that they are doing fine – that we all have pleasant homes and a few people with us. It’s good to let whatever anxiety has accumulated to melt away and celebrate family.

Grocery delivery. At first the idea of grocery delivery made me anxious. Now I find that the arrival of another delivery to our front porch is a cause for celebration. We have good food at low health risk.

Fashion as Design Coursera course. The whole course was interesting. I learned a lot more – and maybe differently – that I anticipated. I celebrated the whole course.

My history in wardrobe terms. The Fashion as Design prompted a whole project - thinking about my wardrobe from the 1960s to today. It was a fun project and I celebrated the memory of my favorite clothes.

Life in the Universe Pandemic Series. I’m a fan of Charles Cockell’s mini-lectures on astrobiology and I enjoyed his book (Bruntsfield Brook) as well. I watch/listen to the videos in clumps…glad I became aware of them shortly after he started.

Hiking into the forest. The whole hike was one big celebration. I am already looking at the forecast and planning another hike.

And then there are three birds I am highlighting as April celebrations: rose-breasted grosbeak, piliated woodpecker, and goldfinch. I celebrate the view from my office window each and every day. It is becoming a wall of green now that the trees are leafing out.

March 30, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2020

March 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Every month I write about 10 little celebrations. There is a big celebration as I write this –

Everyone in my family (in Maryland, Missouri and Texas) is well…and taking all the recommended precautions to stay that way.

Now for 9 other celebrations….

2020 03IMG_8320.jpg — *Brookside Conservatories*. Early in March, before the state and counties started closing facilities, I went over to Brookside Gardens…already taking the social distancing and handwashing/no face touching precautions. The conservatories were warm and lush as usual – always a cause for celebration. I’m glad I got to see them before they were closed.

*Sunrise on grocery day.* For the first 3 weeks of March I was still going to the grocery store but even earlier than usual so there would not be many people in the store. The sunrise on a couple of those trips was glorious and started the day off wonderfully!

Virtual birthdays. There are family birthday’s in March…celebrated with alternatives to gathering in one place!

Dutch chocolate protein powder. It’s always worth celebrating finding something that tastes good (in smoothies) and adds a nutritional punch!

Grocery delivery. As the month progressed there were more people in the store even at the early time…even during senior shopping hours. I was skeptical that I would like grocery delivery, but my first experience late in the month was positive. It’s something to celebrate since we’ll be doing it for at least the next month or more. I am feeling more confident that we are doing everything we can to stay well.

Spice cake muffins with applesauce. The muffins made a chicken dinner into a celebration.

Crocus in the yard near the oak tree and daffodils 4 feet out of the flower bed. Replanted by squirrels? It’s always a celebration to find flowers growing in an unexpected place.

Thundercloud plum in bloom. The week that the plum blooms is always a celebration. It’s usually the first tree blooming in our neighborhood.

Achieving a 1st weight loss goal. Finally – getting the weight I gained over Thanksgiving and Christmas off! I celebrated with dark chocolate and will push forward to get lower…down into the ‘normal’ range for my height.

February 26, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2020

February 26, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

So many things to celebrate in February…I’ve picked my top 10 that are in roughly chronological order during the month.

I started out the month in Carrollton, Texas.

2020 02 IMG_7856 (10).jpg — **Red Yucca.** The seed pods always look interesting to me. I like their curves and points. The warm brown and burnt black colors.

Fried catfish and okra. Sometimes a high-fat splurge is OK….delicious.

A sunny and warm day. In February, the days are often gray and cold….so when the weather bucks the trend…it’s time to get outdoors to celebrate.

The Laredo Birding Festival was not that long…but there was something to celebrate every day.

2020 02 IMG_7905 (3).jpg — **Roadrunner.** What a way to start a birding trip…seeing an iconic bird of the area at a rest stop before we even got to Laredo!

2020 02 IMG_4880 (2).jpg — **Great Horned Owls**. We saw these owls on two days! What a thrill.

Sunrise on the Rio Grande. Celebrating the start of another day….the beauty of a river that draws life to a dry area.

2020 02 IMG_3928 (5).jpg — **American White Pelicans ballet.** I had never witnessed pelicans feeding together in a coordinated way. They were synchronized and graceful…the joy of watching the natural world in action.

Audubon’s Oriole. Celebrating a colorful bird that just appeared while we were relaxing on a veranda after lunch.

And then we were home again.

A Day at home. I always celebrate being at home after I’ve been away. The view from my office window…fixing my own favorite foods…relaxing.

NISE Training. Robinson Nature Center provided a class on some kits they’ve purchased from the National Informal STEM Education Network. I enjoyed the gravity well (Exploring Universe Orbiting Objects) activity and hope there are opportunities to share it with visitors to the nature center. I also passed the information (here) along to my daughter since it had potential for physics related outreach activities her university does. So multiple reasons to celebrate this training!

January 29, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2020

January 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

2020 has started out with more activity than I anticipated….more volunteering, more classes, more events…and some travel at the end of the month.

2020 01 IMG_7039.jpg — **Bluebird passing through:** We don’t see bluebirds around that much….so it’s a special day when we do see one.

47th wedding anniversary: It doesn’t seem like such a long time…compared to my parents celebrating 67 years. I’m going to think of something special for our 50th coming up in 3 years!

**Children enjoying the Touch Tank**: There are moments in every hour that I spend volunteering at Robinson Nature Center’s saltwater touch tank that are little celebrations for me and for the children. Whether it is awe from something an animal does…or how they feel…or just understanding something new.

Conowingo Eagles: Even on a morning I don’t get any particularly good pictures – I enjoy every trip we make to the Conowingo…and that the eagle population is back from the brink!

Hot tea with cream: Or maybe with just milk. It’s my favorite winter beverage.

**Middle Patuxent Water Monitoring**: I always enjoy getting in the river and then doing the gleaning of the macroinvertebrates to identify. Since it was winter, I was braced to get very cold…but we had a wonderful sunny (not too cold) day!

Honing skills for volunteer gig: None of the classes were very long but were informative and applicable to me becoming a better volunteer. The topics ranged from autism, Howard Country Green Infrastructure Network, sensitivity training (impact of microaggression), outdoor wear fashion and function, and the spotted lantern fly. Wow – quiet a range of topics and all the presentations were excellent.

2020 01 IMG_7080.jpg — **Snow in the afternoon**: So beautiful. I celebrate every snow these days because I don’t have to drive in it!

Zentangle® with Howard County Conservancy volunteers: I love guiding group Zentangle sessions. This particular group seemed to enjoy the session…and had some ideas about ‘next steps’ in a practice. And like the campers last summer…got a little Zen as well.

Cooper’s Hawk on a Snowy morning: Often a ‘little celebration’ is a surprise that just happens. Seeing the Cooper’s Hawk fly into our sycamore was that kind of celebration – although I am glad the hawk is not around my backyard more frequently (since I enjoy the other birds).

January 03, 2020

Putting Christmas Away

January 03, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

We put the Christmas decorations away on New Years Eve. This year it was easy because they were less complex than usual. I took my Zentangle ornaments off the tree after I enjoyed the tree one last time while I ate my breakfast. I left the hooks attached to their string hangers – ready for next year. They fit nicely in a snowman tin I had previously used for the hooks.

We took the wreath off the door and put it into the box it came in several years ago after taking the batteries out (it will get fresh ones when we unpack it next year). Our cat approved its packaging. The whole thing went into a big trash bag to keep the dust off until next December.

My husband took the lights off the tree and coiled them into a plastic bin. We stuffed the tree into the box the it came in 24 years ago. We used tape to close it up for many years then switched to bungee cords in more recently. It’s a two-person job to close it up and carry it downstairs to the closet in the basement.

Now we are gathering up the smaller decorations and taking them downstairs an armload at a time to go into storage bins until next year: cards and door scrunchies and curly ribbons.

December 29, 2019

Spiced Molasses Cake (Muffins)

December 29, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

I always like to try at least one new recipe during the holidays. This time I started with a very old recipe that I’d found in a cook book on Internet Archive here. It is a collection of recipes from Williams, Arizona published by their library association in 1911! The recipe is a scant paragraph for Spiced Molasses Cake

One-half cup sugar, one cup shortening (butter or cottolene) ; one cup molasses, one cup boiling water, one teaspoon soda, one teaspoon ginger, cloves and cinnamon, two eggs, two and one-half cups flour. Beat the eggs well and put in last. Mrs. Amos Adams, Williams. Arizona

I modernized the recipe by using olive oil rather than shortening (butter or cottolene). I also made it my own by pureeing a whole orange (cutting off the ends but otherwise including the peeling and pith) to replace part of the hot water, using whole wheat flour, and adding a dash of cayenne pepper.

The batter cooked well in muffin tins…crispy on top, soft and airy underneath. I enjoyed them hot from the oven with butter on my Christmas dinner plate then for breakfast for days after…a lingering flavor of the holidays.

Christmas dinner: broccoli with garlic butter, spiced molasses muffins, roast, cranberry orange salad, baked potato

Some more thoughts about this old recipe:

The amounts are easy to remember since they are either 1 cup or one teaspoon. Experienced cooks would guess 2 eggs and would have added enough flour to get the batter to the right consistency. This was a recipe the writer probably learned from her mother or developed on her own…not something learned from a cookbook. It reminded me of the way my Grandmother cooked.

The airiness of the finished product is not from baking powder like many modern recipes! The last sentence about adding the beaten eggs last is probably important. Something to remember for future sweet muffin experiments.

December 27, 2019

Brookside Gardens – December 2019

December 27, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

I walked around Brookside Gardens on Christmas Eve. It was sunny, but still only in the 40s with a little breeze; I was wearing my coat and gloves…put my hood up for part of the time. I noticed a tree has been cut down recently near the junction of the boardwalk to the Nature Center with the path from the Conservatory parking lot toward the Japanese Tea House (Brookside map here). The shelf fungus growing on the stump still held the saw dust!

I noticed some birds too. The only two I managed to photograph were a White-throated Sparrow that was searching a mat covering electrical cords for the seasonal lights (the bird found at least one snack) and

A Northern Cardinal near the fragrance garden. I saw a lot of Cardinals…or maybe it was the same one following me around! Their color certainly makes them stand out.

The gardens are full of dried flowers and seeds. The sumac is the most colorful. I find the shapes of the dried ferns very appealing. They have a feathery look to them. Some of the grasses do too.

2019 12 t IMG_6836 (13).jpg — The Conservatories were my last stop – for poinsettias and the model train.

There were quite a few families enjoying the garden while I was there. The excitement and joy of the children in the model train exhibit is like experiencing a seasonal group hug!

December 19, 2019

Christmas Trees at the Maryland State House

December 19, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

Another holiday themed outing – driving over to Annapolis to see the trees decorated by garden clubs for each of the counties in Maryland. It’s evidently the traditional display in the central hall of the Maryland State House this time of year. We did it yesterday – a cold but sunny day…and before the wind picked up in the afternoon. I took pictures of just about every tree.

My favorite was the one done for Worcester County – lots of natural material. I particularly liked the pinecones that were cut and painted to look like flowers (they reminded me of zinnias).