2024 in Review: Travel and Classes

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2024 was a year we ramped up our travel and educational activities – almost to the pre-COVID levels. Both involve being out and about with groups of people….great opportunities to enjoy the place and engage social skills more frequently. Since we now live in the center of the country rather than the east coast, our travel has been via road trips rather than flying; we are not missing the hassle of airports and rental cars!

The travel included two birding festivals (Whooping Crane Festival and Festival of the Cranes) and a solar eclipse…and frequent trips (at least monthly) to Dallas for family visits.

There are accommodations my husband and I (4 years older than when we travelled pre-COVID) are developing for ourselves to ensure that we feel good when we travel:

  • stretch breaks every hour or so when we are driving

  • exercise regime that works in hotels to minimize aches and pains

  • eating almost the same as we do at home (big meal in the middle of the day, extra veggies for me)

  • keeping our sleep time on central time (if possible)

Both my husband and I have been doing online webinars for a long time. This last fall I re-started in-person classes with the Missouri Master Naturalist Training and a class at Missouri State University (Identifying Woody Plants). The master naturalist training was a path toward creating the level and type of volunteering I had enjoyed in Maryland; it lived up to my expectation of continuing the transition to ‘Missouri as home.’

The university class was the first time I had taken a university class since the 1980s and was something to savor because of that and the topic/professor/other students; I found that taking a university class without the pressure of needing a grade or hurrying off to my job was pleasantly different from any of my prior experience.

2024 was a year that saw us settled in our new home in Missouri and increasing both our travel and in-person classes activity. The travel will be sustained (or increased slightly in 2025). The in-person classes might be reduced since there is nothing equivalent to another master naturalist core training, but my volunteering in 2025 is likely to be significantly more than it was in 2024.

Making Hot Chocolate

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It’s a cold morning as I write this, and I have just made myself a cup of hot chocolate…a great way to start the day.

I start out with water (about 25% of my cup)…microwave it for 30 seconds…then add a rounded teaspoon of cocoa powder. I enjoy watching the powder melt! The clumps are like little melting icebergs that eventually disappear under the surface.

Then I add milk (about 50% of my cup) and then more water (another 25% of my cup). Most of the time I also add a very light sprinkle of cayenne pepper too – a nod to the way Aztecs made their chocolate drink although they didn’t use milk, and they made their drink at room temperature.

The cup goes back in the microwave for 2.5 minutes.

I’ve gotten used to not adding any sugar at all! I like the flavor with just the milk and cocoa and cayenne. On cold mornings, it is the first calories of the day…but not as many as the traditional hot chocolate or hot chocolate mix packets.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 11, 2025

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Dogs trained to sniff out spotted lanternflies could help reduce spread – Dogs sniff out egg masses that overwinter in vineyards and forests. This is some good news in the fight against this invasive insect.

Farmers are abandoning their land. Is that good for nature? - Small-scale farmers with rocky soil, steep hills, or scarce water "give up because they cannot compete." By one estimate, the area of farm land that's been abandoned around the world since 1950 could be as much as half of Australia. Without people, cattle or sheep around, meadows filled with wildflowers and butterflies give way to shrubs and trees, which ecologists say are often less biologically diverse. There is an effort in some regions where humans are moving out to help wildlife move in (i.e. rewilding).

Seven proven ways to help the planet in 2025 – Some of the ways are easier than others. I have done 3 of the 7 for at least the last 5 years…and maybe now I should think about what more I want to do. The beginning of the year is always a good time to take stock on things like this.

This Mysterious Pyramid Dominated a Prehistoric Mexican City—and Still Guards Its Secrets – The Pyramid of the Niches in El Tajin….built by indigenous groups that predate the Aztec and Toltec. The Wikipedia article about site says it became a World Heritage site in 1992.

Aerial Photos Highlight Surreal Beauty of Kazakhstan’s Mangystau Plateau - Colorful canyons and mountains, dramatic salt flats, and surreal rocky outcrops…photographed by Daniel Kordan.

The Year in Energy in Four Charts - Solar is driving the shift to renewable power, and it continues to outpace the projections of both analysts and industry experts owing largely to China. Global EV sales reached a new high. In China, the sticker price for EVs is now generally lower than for conventional cars. Along with EVs, the growth of electric heating and cooling and the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers globally are driving up demand for power. Wealthy nations have all but stopped building new coal plants, and coal burning is expected to continue its decline in the developed world as countries move to wind and solar. We’re now moving at speed into the Age of Electricity, which will define the global energy system going forward and increasingly be based on clean sources of electricity.

Photos of the Year – December 30, 2024 – From The Prairie Ecologist

A Year of Climate Extremes, In Photos - 2024 … the hottest year ever, with warming reaching new extremes worldwide. These photos from Greenpeace show the profound impact of severe weather, which scientists are increasingly connecting to climate change.

Squirrels Are Displaying ‘Widespread Carnivorous Behavior’ for the First Time in a California Park – In California’s Briones Regional Park (not far from Oakland and Berkeley), California ground squirrels there are now known to hunt, kill, decapitate and consume voles. Squirrels of all ages and sexes took part in the vole hunt, an indication that this dietary flexibility is widespread across the species and may serve as a crucial survival mechanism in response to fluctuating environmental conditions

Vampire hedgehogs, pirate spiders and fishy fungi - the strangest new species of 2024 – New species are discovered every year….so much we don’t know about our world!

La vie et les paysages en Egypte

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My choice for ‘book of the week’ is La vie et les paysages en Egypte – a group of 60 heliotype prints of Egypt published in the 1870s by Photoglob Co. in Zurich. The prints are from The New York Public Library Digital Collections and can be browsed in a thumbnail view or book view.  I picked 4 images of structures from Ancient Egypt to share in the post – but recommend browsing the whole collection.  

Photography was relatively new and labor intensive when these images were created…and yet we already see elements of excellent composition. They show what Egypt was like at the time in a way that drawings and paintings could not

Top of the Rock’s Nature at Night

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My husband, daughter, and I took the seasonal Top of the Rock’s Nature at Night tour last week. It’s a 2.5-mile trail via plastic enclosed golf cart through light displays, waterfalls, bridge crossings, a cave, and classic holiday scenes.

On the drive south from our home in Nixa MO, the sun was going down. I tried a few sunset pictures. There were enough clouds to provide some added structure.

The first lights we saw were before the gate to the property…2 bison. The car was moving as I took the picture, which made their hides look furrier!

The first lights we saw were before the gate to the property…2 bison. The car was moving as I took the picture, which made their hides look furrier!

We had bought our tickets ahead of time, so I took a few minutes to take pictures of the lights below, the sunset, and the lake before we got in the line for the golf carts.

The temperature was in the low 40s, but we were bundled up and the plastic cover helped too. My daughter did the driving. There were some sharp turns, inclines, and shallow water in some areas along the route. We stayed in the cart the whole time as instructed so all the pictures I took were through the plastic cover.

My favorite display included a waterfall with a giant wolf and orb in lights.  I took the scene from several angles and magnifications.

The activity was the grand finale of our ‘holiday’ season!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 4, 2025

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Uplift Underway in Finland’s Kvarken Archipelago - Some 20,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum, the Baltic Sea sat under a sheet of ice as thick as 10,000 feet. Since the glaciers receded and the weight was lifted, the land has been bouncing back. The rates of uplift, known as glacial isostatic adjustment or isostatic rebound, in this region are among the highest on Earth. By one estimate, land about twice the size of Central Park in New York City rises from the sea each year along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea’s northern arm.

Silent Threat: America’s Abandoned Oil Wells and the Danger Beneath - Abandoned oil and gas wells across the U.S. pose significant environmental, health, and safety risks, with many leaking hazardous gases and chemicals, highlighting regulatory failures and the immense financial burden of remediation.

Lymphoedema: The 'hidden' cancer side-effect no one talks about - Lymphoedema is a chronic, incurable condition that causes excessive swelling due to a damaged lymphatic system, a network in the body responsible for maintaining fluid balance in tissues. It occurs when lymph fluid is unable to properly drain from the body, due to a dysfunction or injury to the lymphatic system. The condition is a common consequence of certain cancers and the treatments for them. It can also be a genetic condition, which people are born with, or it can be the result of injury, obesity, or infection. There are some clinicians who regard lymphoedema as an overlooked pandemic due to the significant chronic public health problem it poses globally.

Hazelnut DNA Study Challenges Misconceptions About Indigenous Land Use in British Columbia - Starting some 7,000 years ago, Indigenous people actively cultivated hazelnuts across the continent, disproving the settler-colonial notion that Indigenous peoples were simply hunter-gatherers. People were actively transplanting and cultivating hazelnuts hundreds of kilometers from their place of origin. People were moving hazelnut around and selectively managing it to the point that it increased genetic diversity.

Extreme Heat May Cause People to Age Faster - Researchers looked at such aging markers in 3,800 Americans over the age of 55, comparing the data with local weather records. They found that people living in places with more hot days tended to have more genetic markers of age.

An inexpensive fix for California's struggling wildflowers - California's native wildflowers are being smothered by layers of dead, invasive grasses. Simply raking these layers can boost biodiversity and reduce fire danger.

The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2024 – From Smithsonian Magazine.

Fluorinated “forever chemicals” and where to find them – Infographic and text. Studies have linked PFOA to some health conditions including cancers and hormone disruption. There’s also still plenty we don’t know about their potential effects. PFOAs are human-made compounds which do not occur naturally, so we’re only seeing the effects of their accumulation in the past decades.

Brighten Your Day with These 15 Photos of Beautiful Balloons from Around the World – Mexico, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Turkey, Spain, and the US (Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Wyoming).

How an Extreme Combination of Fog and Air Pollution Brought London to a Standstill and Resulted in Thousands of Fatalities - On December 5, 1952 (a little more than a year before I was born) as cold weather in London prompted residents to burn more cheap coal, a high-pressure wind system known as an anticyclone settled over the city, trapping cold air beneath warm air. Pollution from coal fires, diesel buses and factories could not travel up in the atmosphere, instead hovering in a deadly, stagnant smog. When the Great Smog of 1952 finally lifted on December 9, 4,000 people were dead from the effects of the extreme pollution. Retrospective assessments estimate that the number of fatalities could be almost triple that. While the government’s response was sluggish at first, the Clean Air Act of 1956, passed in response to the Great Smog, heavily regulated the burning of coal and established smoke-free urban areas throughout England. In the years that followed, a host of other industrial nations were inspired to follow suit.

eBotanical Prints – December 2024

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in December - available for browsing on Internet Archive. They cover a range of botanical topics: medicinal plants (9 volumes), ferns (2 volumes), plants of China (2 volumes), and fungi of Scotland (7 volumes).  Overall - the 20 books were published over less than 100 years (1760-1852).

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,023 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here. Click on any sample image below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the December 2024 eBotanical Prints!

Plantes de chine * Buc'hoz, Pierre Joseph * sample image * 1760

Herbier ou collection des plantes médicinales de la Chine d'après un manuscrit peint et unique qui se trouve dans la Bibliothèque de l'Empereur de la Chine * Buc'hoz, Pierre Joseph * sample image * 1760

Icones filicum ad eas potissimum species illustrandas destinata V1 * Hooker, William Jackson; Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1831

Icones filicum ad eas potissimum species illustrandas destinata V2 * Hooker, William Jackson; Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1831

Flora Edinensis, or, A description of plants growing near Edinburgh * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1824

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V1 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1823

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V2 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1824

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V3 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1825

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V4 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1826

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V5 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1826

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V6 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1828

Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum cum earum fructus ususque descriptione V1 * Vietz, Ferdinand Bernhard; Alberti, Ignaz * sample image * 1800

Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum cum earum fructus ususque descriptione V2 * Vietz, Ferdinand Bernhard; Alberti, Ignaz * sample image * 1804

Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum cum earum fructus ususque descriptione V3 * Vietz, Ferdinand Bernhard; Alberti, Ignaz * sample image * 1806

Flora medico-farmaceutica V1 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1847

Flora medico-farmaceutica V2 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1847

Flora medico-farmaceutica V3 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1848

Flora medico-farmaceutica V4 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1850

Flora medico-farmaceutica V5 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1850

Flora medico-farmaceutica V6 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1852

Joplin History and Mineral Museum

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My daughter and I picked a sunny day before Christmas for a ‘field trip’ to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum. It was the first of my planned geology field trips in the coming months; as soon as I realized that the Missouri Master Naturalist training did not include a geology segment, I started thinking about how I could educate myself and field trips are probably my favorite options.

Joplin has a lead-mining history so many of the minerals on display include galena (black cubes usually). There were big chunks of rock and crystals. The smaller items were in glass enclosed cases around the edge of the room…large pieces on stands in the center. The labeling was well-done with numbers by the specimen and then signage nearby with the information about the specimen.

On the landing of the stairs was a case of Missouri fossils and ancient Native American artifacts. I liked the poster of different types of arrowheads.

The history side of the museum included a cookie cutter museum. I was intrigued by a circular one from Mexico with multiple shapes inside….very little dough to roll out again. They used a set of state shaped cookie cutters as part of the transition to the Route 66 part of the museum.

There was a room with models of circuses and a Victorian doll house. The doll house has plastic over the open side…but it looked like the model dog had run around and knocked over things (the Christmas tree on its side…a book and lamp pushed off a table); I told the person at the desk and we both chuckled. The doll house has had the plastic barrier on it for a long time, but the house has been moved recently and the jostling might have been enough to knock over the items.

There was also a display of the very destructive 2011 tornado in Joplin which tried to show how destructive tornados can be. The twisted muffin tin was the first item that caught and held my attention. Not far away there was a tree that had been splintered. I read more about the event when I got home and discovered that the tornado’s upheaval of the soils along its route caused re-contamination from lead mining remnants in southern Joplin…so the natural disaster recovery had a linkage to the city’s lead mining history too.

Outside there was a bench painted with wildflowers and towers of Missouri rocks. There was a metal sculpture that was interesting too.

My daughter and I had a pleasant lunch at Los Primos Mexican Grill in Joplin….sharing guacamole at the beginning and flan at the end of the meal.

Our next stop was Grand Falls – not far off I-44 west of Joplin. The lower falls is Grand Falls Chert, at 20 to 30 foot think bed of pure chert in an area otherwise dominated by limestone. The chert is extremely resistant to erosion because it is made of silica. The falls is the state’s broadest continuous flowing waterfall.

On the way home toward Springfield, my daughter looked closely at the road cut at mile marker 27.0 as I drove by and saw that the Chesapeake Fault Zone displaces the beds by a few feet toward the western end of road cut on the north side of I-44.

Both the Grand Falls and Chesapeake Fault Zone geology minutes were prompted by a few paragraphs from Roadside Geology of Missouri by Charles G. Spencer.

Overall – a good first ‘geology’ field trip.

Zooming – December 2024

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20 images – using the camera’s zoom to fill the frame. The moon in a dark sky, sandhill cranes at sunset, a Japanese lantern with yellow ginkgo leaves around its base. There are lots of favorites in this set for me.

Themes for the zoomed images of December: fall/winter and birds.

Locations: Springfield, Missouri and Socorro, New Mexico.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 28, 2024

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Garden – All 5 are good ideas! I am on my second year of ‘turn an area of turf grass into a native garden.’ If the native trees/shrugs I planted last fall survive…it won’t be hard at all to reduce some turf in 2025. I haven’t used pesticides since we moved to Missouri and we already use electric or hand-powered tools. We have a bird bath. I am not at 70% native plants – yet. That one could be hard although I am going making some progress; I will eliminate a Japanese barberry and forsythia in the spring to make way for more native plantings.

Best of 2024 – Square Meter Prairie Photos – Macro photographs from The Prairie Ecologist.

Scientists Unlock the Secrets of Crocodile Skin and Its Irregular, Mystifying Patterns – Research that discovered that the uniqueness of crocodiles’ head scales is driven from mechanical processes, such as growth rate and skin stiffness, rather than gene expression.

The Case of The Missing Cinders from Yellowstone's Cinder Pool - What happened to the cinders that used to float atop Cinder Pool in the One Hundred Spring Plain area of Norris Geyser Basin? Cinder Pool was one of the few known cinder-producing pools in the world. Using historical water chemistry data, the pH (4.1 ± 0.2) of Cinder Pool was fairly constant from 1947 to 2015, and the sulfate concentration was relatively low (80 ± 20 mg/L). Cinders were last observed in 2018. By April 2019, the pool was lacking cinders and had become significantly more acidic, with the pH dropping to 2.6 and the sulfate concentration increasing to 350 mg/L. Cinders were no longer being generated, and the appearance of the pool changed drastically. Dynamic Yellowstone!

Animals That Turn White in Winter Face a Climate Challenge – There are some snowshoe hares that stay brown during winter…and they may be surviving better in areas that are now getting less snow in the winter. Animals that are adapted to winter by turning white…might find the adaptation a hazard if there is no snow!

Natural disasters killed thousands around the world, caused billions in damage in 2024 - In the United States alone, there have been at least 24 weather-related disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damages each according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since 1980, the annual average number of events is 8.5. When counting the most recent five years alone -- 2019 through 2023 -- that average increases to 20.4 events per year. The cost of climate change is increasing around the world…impacting everyone.

The global divide between longer life and good health - Life expectancy, or lifespan, increased from 79.2 to 80.7 years in women and from 74.1 to 76.3 years in men between 2000 and 2019, according to WHO estimates. However, the number of years those people were living in good health did not correspondingly increase. The average global gap in lifespan versus healthspan was 9.6 years in 2019, the last year of available statistics. That represents a 13% increase since 2000.

Scientists Just Dissected the World’s Rarest Whale in New Zealand - Only seven spade-toothed whales have ever been identified, and the species has never been seen alive. When a 16-foot, 3,000-pound carcass washed ashore on the South Island of New Zealand in July; it was in remarkably good condition and appeared in a region of New Zealand that allowed researchers to perform the first-ever dissection of the species. The research and dissection process was under the guidance of both scientists and members of local Māori tribes on the South Island. Some discoveries: vestigial teeth, 9 stomach chambers, and head trauma was cause of death.

Interior Department Signed 69 Tribal Co-Stewardship Agreements In 2024 - The agreements cover a range of ways designed to bring tribes into management of public lands. That includes efforts by Interior to expand bison habitat and entering into bison co-management agreements with tribal leaders, shifting historic preservation responsibilities from federal agencies to tribal agencies, carefully weighing the impact of federal agency action on sacred sites, and expanding and reforming self-governance as part of the Practical Reforms and Other Goals to Reinforce the Effectiveness of Self-Governance and Self Determination for Indian Tribes (PROGRESS) Act.

Study likely to change standard of care for deadly strokes - Endovascular therapy, or EVT, -- a minimally invasive surgery performed inside the blood vessels -- is 2 ½ times more likely than standard medical management to achieve a positive outcome after vertebrobasilar stroke that affects the back of the brain, including the brain stem.

An early 1900s collection of art from hunting days in the Himalayas

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Lieutenant Lionel Bickersteth Rundall’s The Ibex of Sha-ping was published in 1915, the year after he died at the beginning of World War I in the trenches at Festubert, France because of a blundered order. He was 24 years old. The joy he must have felt in the Himalayas during his years in India shows in his artwork included in the book….a glowing reminder of a life that ended too soon. The book is freely available on Internet Archive and is well worth browsing.

The ibex of Sha-ping, and other Himalayan studies

Raptors and Photography

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Our last session at the Festival of the Cranes was titled “Deadly Beauty Photography” with falconer and wildlife rehabilitator Matt Mitchell. We saw three different trained raptors. The falconer had raised all the birds from their birth.

The first was a hybrid gyrfalcon and several different peregrine subspecies. It was a challenge to follow in flight, so I was thrilled to get even one good picture. The others are portraits which are still better photos of raptor sightings in the wild. My favorite image is the one with the falconer and the bird…obviously a bond there.

The native peregrine was the second bird and I didn’t manage an image of it in flight. The one of the peregrine on the ground shows how it hides its meal from prying eyes!

My favorite raptors were the pair of Harris’s hawks (sisters). The species hunts in groups. We moved to a location with more shrubs to give the birds places to perch. The two responded to prompts (and treats) flying around the area…plenty of opportunity to get them in flight.

One of the birds discovered at a young age that she got a treat very quickly if she perched on a person’s head…so she has done it since. I took a picture of my shadow when she was on my head. We had been instructed to wear a hat to the session…for just this situation!

It was a great finale to our Festival of the Cranes 2024 experience.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Other Birds at Bosque del Apache

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There are birds other than cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge too. They didn’t seem quite as numerous as when we were there pre-Covid…but we didn’t spend as much time looking for them either.

In a trip around the wildlife loop, we saw Northern Pintails, Buffleheads, Northern Shovellers, American Wigeon, White-crowned Sparrows, Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, and Ruddy Ducks.

Winter plants/landscapes are also abundant…water, mountains, cottonwoods, cattails….knobby ice on the surface of shallow ponds.

There are two bird feeder areas near the refuge visitor center. Sparrows (white crowned and house), Gambel’s quail, starlings, Red-Winged blackbirds, Curved Bill Thrasher, Spotted Towhee, and White-winged Dove were frequent visitors either on or under the feeders!

My favorite non-crane sighting was the Spotted Towhee.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 21, 2024

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

6 Things You Should Never Wear on a Flight – Most of the suggestions are good for road trips as well.

What Your Last Name Says About Your History – Interesting…a different perspective on names.

Photos of the Week – December 6, 2024 – Winter sunrise/sunset beauty on the prairie.

German Archaeologists Discovered the Iconic Bust of Nefertiti in an Ancient Egyptian Sculptor’s Studio – One of the most famous of ancient Egyptian artifacts…’ownership’ has been questioned from the beginning.

Lifesaver for wild bees: The importance of quarries – Research done in Germany, but Missouri has considerable limestone…perhaps we should be striving to keep quarries open rather than overgrown with woody plants. Many wild bees in Germany and in Missouri nest in the ground and often need open, sunny areas to do so.

Archaeologists discover key tool that helped early Americans survive the ice age - Tiny artifacts unearthed at a Wyoming site where a mammoth was butchered 13,000 years ago are revealing intriguing details about how the earliest Americans survived the last ice age. Archaeologists found 32 needle fragments made from animal bone buried almost 15 feet (nearly 5 meters). Analyzing the bone collagen of the needles revealed they were created from the bones of red foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, lynx, the now-extinct American cheetah, and hares or rabbits!

Here Are 2024’s Best Northern Lights Photographs - From a purple and green sky in Canada's Banff National Park to an unexpected, fiery orange appearance in Namibia, this year's auroras took us by surprise. While called the Northern Lights Photographer of the Year, there are plenty of Southern Lights represented in this year's collection too.

The Arctic Could Have Its First ‘Ice-Free’ Day by as Early as 2027 - The first summer on record in which practically all the sea ice in the Arctic melts could occur much earlier than previously expected. In a new study, scientists warn that the ever-increasing greenhouse emissions may bring us closer to an ice-free Arctic by the end of the decade.

Water Infrastructure, Disasters, Water Scarcity & Security, Potable Water, & Conflict – A post about what happened to Ashville, NC. Water-related disasters currently make up over 90% of all disasters on Earth, with record-breaking floods and droughts making headlines around the world. Over the past ten years, the number of fatalities from these catastrophes has doubled. Climate change, warming surface water temperatures, and more aggressive hurricanes making their way up to some of the planet’s oldest mountains in North Carolina have all contributed to a growing awareness that rising temperatures have disrupted the entire water infrastructure of the Appalachians.

Meet the Mysterious Woman Who Shaped MoMA – A biographical post about Lillie P. Bliss and the creation of the Museum of Modern Art as an exhibition focused on her opens.

James Bolton’s Birds

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James Bolton was a naturalist in the 1700s that published books about plants, fungi, and birds. He was a talented illustrator. The week’s eBook is his book about birds. He was a keen observer of the birds themselves and their nests. The book is available on Internet Archive.

 Harmonia ruralis, or, An essay towards a natural history of British song birds V1 and V2

James Bolton’s botanical books were included in my monthly botanical posts for August (flowers and ferns) and September (mushrooms) 2024.

Macro Photography in Bosque del Apache Desert Arboretum

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The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge’s Desert Arboretum is near the visitor center…and was the location of our first formal activity of the Festival of the Cranes last week: macro photography.

I started out with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) and a tripod. I learned very quickly that the tripod was too heavy and unwieldy for me. I struggled to get myself positioned without stepping into the beds to get close enough to the plants. The macro lens that I’d added to the camera did not work well enough for me either,  so I reverted to hand held and using the zoom from just far enough away to allow the camera to focus. I photographed cactus spines, screwbean mesquite…white crowned sparrows.

I had the best results with my phone (iPhone 15 Pro Max). Cactus fruits and spines dominated but I also managed to photograph some creosote bush seed pods and some bark. I challenged myself to pay closer attention to focus and background along with overall composition.

The session would have been more enjoyable had a opted to bring my collapsible stool so I would not have been standing the whole time (my back was painful by the end)….a lesson learned that I will (hopefully) remember for next time.  

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Road trip from Missouri to New Mexico

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My husband and I were excited to get to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge last week. This was our third time to attend…the first since the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first time we drove rather than fly since we had moved to Missouri – a bit closer that where we lived previously (in Maryland). We made the drive over 2 days.

The first day was a 10-hour drive. We left the house at 6 AM and drove in the dark at first…and then it was foggy for most of the route through Oklahoma although I did spot a harrier (hawk) flying near the road in western Oklahoma). I didn’t take any pictures.

By the time we got to the Texas panhandle, the sun was shining. The rest stop building had a berm on two sides and dramatic white walls with a star cut out. It was very windy and cold – we were walking fast to and from the car!  The mosaic in the bathroom was a lot like the scene outside; the old Texas rest stops all had mosaics and I am glad that they have continued the idea in the new ones.

The panhandle of Texas has a lot of wind turbines. They were almost all in motion!

As we crossed into New Mexico, there was a welcome center. I took a picture of the front and back of the sign…but it was still very cold.

We stopped for the night at Santa Rosa NM…about 2.5 hours from our destination.

I observed the changes in vegetation as we drove on toward Albuquerque. The interstate curves around through the mountains just before getting to the city…a very scenic stretch of highway. Since I wasn’t driving, I took some pictures. There is a lot of rock – but vegetation too…and highway art.

We got to Socorro NM, ate lunch, made a reconnoiter drive around the Bosque del Apache wildlife loop, checked into the hotel, and then my husband headed out to a nighttime photoshoot at the Very Large Array; maybe he’ll share his photos with me, and I’ll post the best ones. I appreciated an evening on my own to unpack and get ready for the flurry of Festival of the Cranes events.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 14, 2024

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Unusual Foods People Used to Eat All the Time – Poke (as in pokeweed) salad, turtle soup, cream chipped beef on toast, limburger sandwich, and vinegar pie. I remember my mother serving cream chipped beef on toast in the 1960s. She also served canned chicken or hard-boiled eggs in cream sauce over toast! It was a quick meal in the days before microwaves.

Incredible Winners of the 2024 International Landscape Photographer of the Year – Take a look and pick a favorite. I like the ‘sunrise on the Atacama Desert’….its crisp lines. The lightning and double rainbow over the Grand Canyons is awesome too.

The ancient significance of the date palm - Phonecia translates to the “Land of Palms” in ancient lands, where palm growth and harvesting dates to approximately 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, growing along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Date palm trunks and fronds were used as the roof for homes of Akkadians, Sumerians, and Babylonians. Mature palm leaves were made into mats, baskets, screens, and fans.

'One of the greatest conservation success stories': The 1969 mission to save Vermont's wild turkey - Vermont's wild turkeys are a successful restoration story, and one that stood the test of time, unlike elsewhere in the United States where wild turkey numbers are now declining.

Here's how much home prices have risen since 1950 – I bought my first home in 1978…bought subsequent homes in 1983, 1986, 1994, and 2022. I remember the interest rates on mortgages in the 1980s being high (the article says 13.7%) and 1990s (the article says 10.1%). In 2020 the interest rate was low, but we didn’t need a mortgage to purchase our last house! Every house we’ve purchased over the years has been above the median home price (unadjusted).

VA offering 'green burial sections' at national cemeteries – Hopefully ‘green burial’ will become the norm everywhere soon. We don’t need chemicals/embalming fluids leaching into the environment.

When Did People Start Eating Three Meals a Day? - In ancient Roman times, dinner was the one large meal everyone ate, although it was consumed earlier in the day than it is today — sometime around noon. This extended into the Middle Ages in Europe. Laborers often ate a small meal of bread and ale early in the morning before starting a day’s work on the farm. Their main meal of the day, called dinner, was served around noon, and a light snack, known as supper. By the end of the 18th century, many people were eating dinner in the evening after returning home from work. It wasn’t until around 1850 that lunch officially began filling the gap between breakfast and dinner. By the turn of the 20th century, lunch had become a defined meal, typically eaten between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., and consisting of standard lunch fare even by today’s standards: sandwiches, soups, and salads.

Can we avert the looming food crisis of climate change? - The study integrates key concepts of the dynamics of atmospheric CO2, rising temperatures, human population, and crop yield…and highlights the urgent need to address CO2 emissions to maintain agricultural productivity. It also uncovers a promising strategy to mitigate crop loss caused by climate change: developing crop varieties with a higher temperature tolerance. Next steps for the team involve refining their model to include more variables like insect population, water availability, soil quality, and nutrient levels, which also impact crop yield under climate change.

US Grid Operators Kept the Lights on This Summer with More Solar, Storage, & Wind - In summer 2024, grid operators in all regions maintained enough capacity to keep the lights on during periods of peak demand, even as they retired older generators, and an increasing number of regions used more solar and storage to meet peak demand. Because it is one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions and had near-record peak demand in 2024, the new report concentrates on ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) to analyze summer grid operations.

Square Meter Photography Project – Autumn – Macro photography on the prairie.

Francis M. (Madge) Fox – Children’s Author

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The week’s featured eBooks are six historical books for children - written in the early 1900s (1903-1924) by Francis Margaret (Madge) Fox. It’s interesting to think about how childhood has changed in the past 100+ years…and the books available to them. My grandparents were children during this time and their families were settlers/farmers of the prairie; they likely did not have any children’s books in their households and lived in very rural communities. There were not as many libraries in the US in the early 1900s as there are now and books were beyond the means of many families. Now  we have whole sections of libraries dedicated to books for children! When I volunteer at the used book sales at the library, the ones for children are our most reliable sellers.

 Carlota, a story of the San Gabriel Mission

Adventures of Sonny Bear

Brother Billy

Madge Fox’s papers are held by the University of Michigan Library. Their site has a short biography of her life.

 

Frost Patterns

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On one of the mornings I had an early Physical Therapy appointment, the temperature was in the teens and sunny. When I parked, I noticed the car parked next to me had frost on all its non-vertical surfaces. I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures with my phone!

A little magnification made the variations in the crystals more visible. Some looked like feathers, others like brittle stars from the sea. In some places the crystals had become so dense that they became an aggregate. The sun was beginning to melt some of the crystals; I thought about why some areas were melting and others were not.

A few seconds of photography and I hurried into the building feeling grateful for the little bit of creative time – one of my favorite ways to start the day.