Gleanings of the Week Ending January 6, 2018

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.

30,000 Shards of Historic Stained Glass Found in Westminster Abbey’s Attic | Smart News | Smithsonian – Glass found in the dust and dirt that accumulated in the deep cone-shaped pits of the interior of the triforium. Evidently most of it is from the Medieval period.

Streams can be sensors -- ScienceDaily – Using streams to assess the health of a region’s landscapes my lead to more focused actions for sustainable agriculture and development. This research highlights that basic concept but also points to some way to improve the way streams are monitored.

Stunning Images of Hokkaido Covered in Snow by Photographer Ying Yin – It is very cold in Maryland while I’m creating the post…fortunately we only have a dusting of snow.

BBC - Future - The mosquitoes that are fighting dengue and Zika – Increasing mosquito born diseases….new measures.

John Wesley Powell: Soldier, Explorer, Scientist and National Geographic Founder – National Geographic  - A little history – one of the founders of the National Geographic Society.

Scientists find surprising evidence of rapid changes in the Arctic -- ScienceDaily – Chemical changes in the arctic ocean…open waters, increased wave action, stirred sediments. There is a need for international collaboration to understand what is happening.

Hawai’i Volcanos National Park – A reminder of our vacation a few years ago to the Big Island

The Race North – Cool Green Science – Some trees may not be able to move north or up fast enough as the climate changes. Will foresters for the future step in?

New desalination method offers low energy alternative to purify salty water -- ScienceDaily – In places where water shortages are happening (and projected), desalination may become a very important technology.

The Year Climate Change Began to Spin Out of Control - MIT Technology Review – An aspect of 2017 in review. When will everyone decide climate change is an existential issue rather than a political one?

A Cold Road Trip to Pittsburgh

We drove to Pittsburgh last Friday for a quick visit with my daughter and son-in-law…returning home on Saturday. It was a very cold trip. The trek from our house to the first rest stop (South Mountain) was cold but the sun came out from behind the clouds occasionally.

As we were leaving South Mountain, the clouds thickened, and we didn’t see the sun for the rest of the day. We stopped at a truck stop between I-70 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Breezewood). It was miserably cold. I took one picture of a car carrier pulling out through the windshield.

By the time we stopped at the New Station rest area on the turnpike, there was snow on the ground.

As we got closer to Pittsburgh, there was more snow on the ground and almost every road cut had ice flows. On the plus side, it wasn’t snowing….just very cold.

Overnight it snowed. We were staying at the Hampton Inn Waterfront; I took a picture through the window of our room before sunrise.

During the day the snow was supposed to stop but it kept on longer than was forecasted. We started back a little earlier than planned. I didn’t take any pictures on the way back; the light was too dim. The rest stops were overcrowded, and we were glad we had some protein bars in the car, so we didn’t need to stop for food!

More about what we did in Pittsburgh over the next few days…

Zooming – December 2017

December was not a big month for photography. Still – it was not difficult to find zoomed images to feature in this post. From early in the month, I selected two fall walk-in-the-woods images: a seed pod bursting open and a rock cliff in a hillside forest.

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Then there was the small amount of snow during the month – caught in vegetation and on top of sculpture…evidence of animals out and about.

The last picture was taken on one of those snow days, but the white fluff is seeds – not snow. I like the curls of leaves along the stems and the hints of color in the background.

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2017

Merry Christmas!

It’s be a month full of little celebrations too! I’ve picked 10 to highlight.

There has been luscious food all through the month. I managed to spread it out and enjoy it more:

My birthday slice of carrot cake has so much icing that I saved half of it to spread on toast for two days following my birthday!

There were a large variety of homemade cookies to enjoy at the annual Howard Count Conservancy (HCC) Natural Holiday sale. It’s wonderful to enjoy just one of my favorite kinds rather than having to bake a whole batch myself.

A few days afterward there was a surprise event for HCC volunteers…as celebration of our 2017 activities.

I did make oatmeal cranberry bars and enjoyed the cookie dough first…and then the bars (another multiple day celebration).

I celebrated a hike in the woods…seeing a lot of different kinds of shelf fungus…

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And a conference about water monitoring….well worth the registration fee and time.

We had our first snow – it was easy to celebrate because it didn’t snarl traffic but stuck enough to make a surface for animal tracks.

There is something to celebrate in almost every shift I do with the Brookside model trains because there are always young children there enjoying the trains – a vicarious celebration.

I also celebrated a special engine during one of the shifts: it has smoke swirling out of its smokestack!

Finally – we’ve had such dry weather recently, I found myself celebrating a rainy day – realizing that even in winter, plants need moisture. I also celebrated that it was a day I was spending at home.

Mt. Pleasant – December 2017

I took a short walk around Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant Farm yesterday morning after delivering the reports of the conservation easement monitoring. This was probably the last trek there until January, so I took the opportunity to look around at the signs of winter. There were still some patches of snow in shady places and I realized this was the first time I’d been at Mt. Pleasant when there was snow on the ground.

Montjoy Barn has its doors closed. The ramp retained some snow.

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The path to the meadow was soggy and icy at the same time.

I walked a little ways down toward the stream until I decided the wind was making it feel very cold. I did a quick zoom series on a round of hay in the field on the other side of the trees that mark where the stream divides the meadow from what’s beyond.

There was a large clump of grass with curly seed heads moving in the wind. I headed back toward the parking lot.

The high point of the walk about was tracks in the little bit of snow. There would have been more and better ones if I’d gotten there earlier.

Just as I turned to leave I noticed a fluffed cardinal in a tangle of branches. He was on his way to the bird feeders in the Honors Garden.

First Snow of the Season

We had our first snow of the season on Saturday and I got up early enough yesterday to catch some color from the sunrise.

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It was the non-disruptive kind of snow: melted quickly on the streets and sidewalks but stuck to the trees and grass. On our asphalt driveway, there were clumps of snow on Sunday morning and they all were associated with a leaf!

It was very cold on Sunday morning, so I took pictures through my office window of the backyard – the sun making the forest look rosy in the background, the pines and tulip poplars holding clumps of snow, a junco comfortably sitting on the snow-covered deck railing waiting for a turn at the bird feeder.

A few minutes later – I took a few pictures through a picture from another room. The color of the morning light was fading but the pines and forest were still a pleasant scene.

I opened the garage door and leaned out to take a picture of the milkweed that are still standing in our garden. In past years the plants have lost their leaves before the frost but this year the leaves are still there, and their curls catch the snow.