I took fewer pictures in December…and shifted toward macro rather than zoomed. It was an indoor month because of the cold and the activities associated with holidays. Still – there were pictures of birds and snow – sunrise and sunset…the wintery scene. I’m going to bundle up to take more walks even in the January cold!
A month with lots of celebrations…with some old and new ways of celebrating.
Snow. My husband and I celebrated the first snow of the year by making snow ice cream, attempting snowflake photography, and having a fire in the fireplace. The way we celebrate snow is something that hasn’t been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic; maybe it was better because we didn’t bother to shovel the driveway since we knew we weren’t going to be going out!
Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference. I enjoyed two mornings of Zoom presentation that were this year’s version of the one-day conference held in December. This was another instance of something better in some respects than the pre-pandemic….no crowded conference rooms or not being able to see the bottom of the slides! I am still celebrating by reading Rita Colwell’s book (she was the plenary speaker) – one chapter per day!
CSA stevia. I thoroughly enjoyed putting a few stevia leaves dried from my collection of it at the CSA into pots of hot tea….a little sweetness to celebrate in something hot to drink on a winter’s day.
Getting stuff put away…given away. I am celebrating getting our basement a little cleaned out. There is still a lot of stuff we won’t ever use again (i.e. to give away…or somehow get it out of the house) or we won’t need in the next year or so and can be boxed up to better preserve it. Getting it sorted and organized feels good….like we are back in control rather than being overwhelmed by possessions!
Making haystack cookies. This was a first for me. I had eaten them at holiday events previously and remembered how much I liked them. None of those events are happening this year so the only option was to make them myself. What a great treat! They will probably be something I make every year…a new tradition coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sunny afternoon. The weather has turned colder but there was one sunny afternoon that was warm enough to open the windows a little and get some air exchange with the outdoors. I celebrated the day…so different from the others of the month.
Chipotle take out. I enjoy my own cooking…but also a change of pace. And my husband has something he likes from Chipotle too. We order ahead and he picks it up.
Sunrise moment. The color of sunrise light on our forest….always a few moments to celebrate when it happens at the beginning of the day.
Finale of Mandalorian season. We watched every new episode as it came out then celebrated the finale and the prospect of more Star Wars spin offs…nothing too serious but fun to watch.
Last big leaf falling from the sycamore. That last leaf signaled the end of fall…the beginning of winter. I celebrated the passing of the old season…and the new one too.
So much to see from my office window….
The resident Blue Jays come through several times a day. During the summer months I can only photograph them on the deck or at the bird bath. Now that the leaves are off the trees it is easier to spot them in other places in our back yard.
The Northern Cardinal pair are regular visitors as well. I see the female more often than the male.
The Carolina Wrens are around all during the year. They are easiest to photograph at the feeder since they are preoccupied with getting seed – stay for more than a few seconds.
The Chipping Sparrows and Tufted Titmouse are at the feeder almost every day. The titmouse often takes its seed to the gutter above the feeder to open the hull to get the good part.
The White-Breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, and Carolina Chickadee are all regular visitors.
American Goldfinch and Downy Woodpeckers are in our area all the time but they come to our deck and feeder infrequently.
There are birds we see primarily during migration times. Red-winged Blackbirds are at the neighborhood pond all through the year but only come to our feeder and forest in flocks during the fall and spring.
Sometimes we have Brown-headed Cowbirds around in the spring (laying eggs in other birds’ nests) but in the fall we just see them as they move through in small flocks when they stop to raid the birdfeeder.
Our resident Red-bellied Woodpecker comes to the feeder often. Right now - the female is all we see. Earlier this year there was a male and I hope there will be a pair next spring…another chance to see young birds.
The squirrels come to the deck for water and the seed under the feeder that the birds have scattered. Sometimes they try to dump the feeder but are generally not successful.
Now that the leaves are off the trees it is easier to see the Mourning Doves in the trees. Just before I wrote this post, I counted 7 doves preening in trees behind our house!
The sunsets are visible from my office window as well. The challenge is to look for it at the right time.
My favorite picture ‘through the window’ this month is the last big leaves on the sycamore. It was taken on the 23rd. One of the leaves fell shortly after I took the picture but one is still hanging on.
Another month…a selection of zoomed pictures. The only picture of the group taken a little further afield than we’ve been since the beginning of the pandemic is the rather stern looking Great Blue Heron which was from our field trip to Conowingo Dam. There will be a few more such field trips in November as we build up our confidence to make the treks safely. Enjoy the show!
The fall is in full swing around our yard. The oak and sycamore and tulip poplars are more than halfway through their fall. The red maple is about halfway through. I’m sharing our yard’s fall foliage in photos today….before we do another round of leaf mowing. This is the view from my office window…a pine on the left then a tulip poplar and then the red maple.
At ground level in the back yard you can see the understory of spice bush (yellow) and the dark tree trunks (the red maple in the foreground); it’s been foggy on most recent mornings. The brush pile catches a few leaves.
The maple does not seem to have as many pure red leaves this year. There is another maple behind the tulip polar that always turns yellow and I think one of the maple leaves below is from that tree.
The tulip poplar leaves turn brown very quickly once they are on the ground so it is a challenge to get some with lots of yellow.
I have taken a lot more sycamore leaf pictures this year. I’m not sure it is it the size variety of the durability of the leaves once they are on the ground. The leaves are large and leathery which make them easier to rake…and really need mowing keep them from killing the grass and clover in our yard.
The tree got a late start and didn’t manage to make very many seed balls because of the cold weather back in May…but there are certainly a lot of leaves to mow from that tree!
The Virginia creeper on some of our trees (oak and sycamore) and the exterior basement wall are changing color too.
The oak leaves that are falling now are brown…with an occasional flash of yellow.
And then there are invasive ground plants that are changing from green to yellow and red. I would rather not have them….but they are hard to eliminate.
There are things other than falling leaves that I found when walked around the yard.
A harvestmen spider
Lady’s thumb (another non-native plant)
Deer trimmed day lily leaves at the base of the oak tree
The micro clover is doing very well…still very green and spreading
A garden spider with 2 stink bugs in its web
Spider webs in the azalea bush…maybe funnel spiders?
Overall – a lot of evidence of the season in our yard.
It’s that time of year – our yard needs mowing more because the leaves need to be chopped up than the grass is high. Right now, the oak and sycamore are the ones dropping leaves. I wait for a day when the leaves are dry then make a pass around the places that have the most leaves. In the front of the house – I rake the leaves that are in the gutter up onto the grass before I start. I’m always pleased with the results. Our yard was in better shape this year because I did this same thing last fall – letting the soil benefit by keeping the leaf mulch from the trees growing in our yard.
The front flower bed is still green from the day lily leaves….and a few fading black eyed susans. I am not clearing it since the critters that need the cover for overwintering may already be in place.
While I was mowing the sycamore leaves, I ran over a puff ball! I didn’t see it until there was a big puff of brown dust. At first, I thought something was wrong with the mower! I must have come along whenthe puffball was primed to blow. The sycamore leaves are not quite as big this year as they get some years since late frost last spring killed a lot of the leaves that would have become the largest ones on the tree had they survived. Still – the leaves are substantial enough both in terms of size and thickness - that they make a the mower sound a little different when they are chopped. They tend to last too long on the grass if they aren’t mulched into small pieces.
I’ll probably have a few more leaf mowing rounds before the end of the season…probably one more for the oak and sycamore then the tulip poplar and red maple. By Thanksgiving – the yard will be in winter mode.
A porch full of stuff. Pickups of donations have started again in our area. I had a porch full. My husband kept the cat away from the open front door while I put all the bags out before 8 AM. The donation staging corner of the living room is now available to accumulate another load!
I did another practice with the digiscope set up (previous post about the apparatus) - inside the house this time. I set the tripod with the spotting scope and phone in the kitchen; the peacock feathers on the fireplace mantle were far enough away to focus. We’d taken the cover off the scope, so it was easier to reach the focus knob. I liked the results. It is easier get the macro type image without getting in the way of the light (i.e. getting close) and the depth of field is better.
The feathers are over 10 years old and they are showing some degradation, but the physical color is very stable…not fading like with pigment based color. I played around with shifting the color a little with slight adjustments in focus.
Now I am ready for a digiscoping field trip!
Cardinal juvenile update. The young bird now has orange beak and it’s managing the feeder roosts. The crest and some of the other feathers are still developing into the adult form for this female Northern Cardinal. It came all by itself, so the parents are free from their feeding duties at this point.
Falling sycamore leaves. Our deck is catching a lot of the sycamore leaves that are falling. The patterns of the fall changes in the leaves caught my interest. All the stems are brown…and often the area along the main veins is brown or yellow. It’s surprising how much green there still is.
Less that 1000 photos this month…but still enough zoomed images for this post: 16 images. 4 of the images were inside (the stained glass butterfly and the super zoomed flowers). There are 4 butterflies (Common Buckeye, Red Admiral, Palamedes Swallowtail, and Spread-winged Skipper) and a Monarch caterpillar. All 3 birds are somewhat unusual: the Northern Cardinal is a juvenile still begging to be fed by its parents but learning quickly to find seed on our deck, the Blue Jay is contorting itself to get seed from the feeder (the roosts are too close together for him), and the Caroline Wren is tailless. Other animals in our yard or deck are also included: a chipmunk with very fat cheeks and a deer. And lastly are our trees: the sycamore leaves beginning to change against a blue sky after the smoke from the west coast that past over Maryland at 30,000 feet cleared out and an oak leaf that might be an indication that our oak tree has the infection common in our state (and not something we can treat…may eventually kill the tree).
All the pictures were taken at our house or the CSA.
Green tomatoes. I got 2 green tomatoes in the CSA share last week; they have been near the kitchen window since then. One began to turn red almost immediately and the other has stayed green. I’ll make green salsa with the one that is still green (or something else that cooks the green tomato so that it is edible) and let the other one finish turned red to eat like a regular tomato.
I found a cicada on a sycamore leaf in our yard and carried it to the steps of our deck before continuing to trim the low branches of the tree. By the time I came back to photograph the insect it was walking around the steps…no longer on its ‘sit upon’ leaf. Fortunately, is stayed around long enough for a few pictures.
Comparing the pictures to various species of cicada’s in Maryland, I think it is probably a swamp/morning cicada. I’ve seen this type before in our area…and its supposedly widespread in the eastern US.
Hearing cicadas somehow reminds me of my childhood trips in the summer to my grandparents’ house where we spend a lot of time outdoors – under the shade of the big trees (elms mostly….that were dying or dead by the time I was in my late teens). I don’t remember seeing cicadas then but remember the sound. The sounds are still more evident so seeing one (and being able to photograph it) makes the day a special one.
Yard work…it never seems to be completely done. I’ve come to appreciate the wheelbarrow as a metric and a step (and back) saver. Tree trimming fills it up fast. I was focused on cutting branches that were growing low enough to be in our way we mow the grass. This was my first 2-wheelbarrows full yard work hours!
I took a few pictures in between loads. There seemed to be a lot of small mushrooms in the grass that were all in about the same stage of development.
I couldn’t resist photographing the sycamore leaves…the ones with holes and the ones that were still tiny enough to be unmarked. The tree is already beginning to show some signs of fall; it is late to leaf out in the spring and early to begin changing color…before ‘fall’ starts for other trees.
There are chives growing in the chaos garden! I’ll have to remember to cut some next time I want to add flavor to a salad.
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.
Performance of the Year | The Prairie Ecologist – Video of an Eastern Hognose Snake pretending to be dangerous.
Millennia-Old Rock Art in Israel Offers Window into Lost Culture | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Monuments 4,000 years old…dolmens. There are more than 400 in the same area. A survey of them started 2012 after the first rock art engravings were discovered (14 trident-like shapes on the ceiling of a large dolmen).
Backyard Birding in Central India to Beat Lockdown – Backyard birding - something that is happening around the world during the pandemic!
Granite tors evidence of ice-free Alaska - The Field - AGU Blogosphere – Tors mark the Pleistocene pathway that was free of glaciers for plants and animals during the ice age.
Great, Warm Lakes – This is an article from a month ago…I’m just getting around to reading it. The surface temperatures were warmer than usual as of July…in some of the lakes there are areas warmer by more than 4 degrees C (including most of Lake Michigan)!
Restoration of Sicily’s Temple of Zeus Continues - Archaeology Magazine - A 26-foot-tall sculpture of Atlas dated to the 5th century BC…and there might have been as many as 40 such statues.
Winners of International Photo Contest Celebrate the Art of Movement – Capturing a moment…freezing motion.
Blood-thinner with no bleeding side-effects is here – Still work to be done….the current formulation is filtered out by the kidneys very quickly. It has applicability in artificial lungs (used to bridge the time between lung failure and lung transplantation) currently.
Poor Everglades Nesting Season A Result of Climate Change and Untimely Storms – It appears that 2020 isn’t a good year for roseate spoonbills and wood storks in Florida.
This Medieval Potion Kills Stubborn Bacteria – “Bald’s eyesalve” – garlic, onion, wine, cow bile. It appears to be effective at combating antibiotic resistant bacterial strains…biofilms that are particularly challenging to kill…including diabetic foot infections.
3 racoons. Our birdfeeder camera made a video of some visitors to our deck just before 2 AM on Wednesday, 8/5: three racoons! They looked smaller than the female that came several times earlier in the summer. Perhaps they were her young….out foraging on their own (maybe she was nearby). They were no more successful than she was getting seed from our squirrel proof birdfeeder! The action started with one up on the deck railing under the feeder and another 2 directly below on the deck floor. The one on the railing comes down almost on top of one that was on the deck floor. The one that was on the deck railing stayed in the video the longest…thoroughly searching under the feeder after going down to the deck floor.
Sycamore branch. Back on August 2nd I posted about a dead branch in our Sycamore tree (picture on the left). My husband discovered the branch on the ground near the base of the tree when he went out to use the weed eater and it took both of us to pulled it to our brush pile at the edge of the forest. It came down without bringing a lot of other branches with it….a little sooner than I expected but probably brought on by the thunderstorms that have been sweeping through the past few days.
Yellow wooly bear. My sister sent me a picture of a caterpillar from her garden in Carrollton, Texas. It appears to be a yellow wooly bear that becomes a Virginian Tiger Moth. Evidently, they are common but neither one of us had seen one before.
I took a pictures of sycamore leaves with holes through the window of my office. They are easy to find on the tree; I estimate that 25-30% of the leaves have noticeable holes. I looked at the pictures enlarged on my computer screen…searching for caterpillars…but didn’t find any. There are probably several different insects making the holes. Notice that sometimes the hole leaves the vein intact….other times the hole crosses a vein. Sycamore leaves are tougher than tulip polar and maple so it takes a caterpillar with stronger mouthparts to eat the leaves.
The tree seems to be mostly recovered from the damage of last spring (cold weather late in the spring) but there are still some dead branches and brown leaves from that time. They are increasingly covered with green leaves getting larger and larger as the summer progresses and new leaves are still forming on all the branch tips. Every time a thunderstorm comes through, we have some leaves on the ground. I walked around the deck and took pictures of some leaves that fell recently….and found holes in every one!
I also noticed that a branch broke in the upper part of the tree. It is too high to get down without a tree crew. It’s in our back yard so I am leaving it for the time being. I’ll watch it during the next storm. It appears to be firmly wedged in the other branches (i.e. going no where soon). If it falls, it will go on the yard or chaos garden….and it appears to be mostly leaves.
Interrupted lawn mowing. My husband tried to mow the grass between rainy days even though the ground was still very wet. He did the front and sides…then started on the back. It stays wet longer than other areas of our yard since water drains in that direction. He stopped about halfway through. Hopefully, he’ll be able to get it mowed before the rains from Isaias get to the Maryland area.
I walked around my yard and looked for interesting things on the ground. I was a little surprised at how many things I found! My rule was to not move anything…just take the photo as it appeared on the ground. Toward the front and north side of the yard, I found oak leaves from last fall that had blown into the garage, a wasp nest that had blown down from someplace, an arc of grass clippings, some plants overflowing into the concrete trough below the gutter’s downspout, an anthill, a sycamore leaf and some mushrooms in our neighbor’s yard (I used the zoom for the last one).
In the back and the south side of the house there were tiny yellow flowers (weeds), sycamore leaves (rust and decaying green), a cabbage white butterfly enjoying the tiny yellow flowers, a tulip poplar leaf, the invasive plants under the trees at the edge of the forest, a mushroom, some clover, a cherry leaf and water droplets on a weed.
It was a short walk on a morning that was heating up; already warm enough to have the cabbage whites active. I was glad there were still water droplets too. Overall – I’m always pleased that there seems to always be something interesting in our yard.
Looked at a reference from last week’s Zoom meetings… savored The MoMA exhibition Safe: Design Takes on Risk from 2004 (19 short audios and then pictures).
Our yard is entering its summer exuberance. We’re still getting enough rain to enable rapid growth of grass and bushes. Even the shade loving plants are lush at this time of year. I take a round of pictures every time we mow the lawn. My husband always starts the mowing, so I have time to take pictures and complete a few other chores before it is my turn.
I took the kitchen scraps that had accumulated in the garage container back to the compost bin and took a picture of a fly on a leaf of the nine bark bush before I shaped it with the pruners (and then carried the clippings back to the compost bin).
There were small mushrooms growing in the grass that I noticed on my way back from the compost bin. I was glad I noticed them then since they probably didn’t survive the mowing.
There were black-eyed Susan buds and clover in the front flowerbed (along with the day lilies). The black-eyed Susans will provide some color once the day lilies are done for the year although I did notice that there are several plants that have already had their buds eaten by deer.
The small holly that I trimmed a few weeks ago is growing a lot of new leaves right now. They’ll get a darker green as they mature. The prickles on the leaves keep the deer away.
And then there were a lot of small plants thriving in the deep shade under the deck: ferns and mosses primarily.
There is a Virginia Creeper on the sycamore trunk. It looks good against the peeling bark.
Our screened deck is on the west side of our house, so the afternoon sun has always been a challenge. We had two sets of rolled shades that lasted about 10 years each before they began to fall apart (we’ve been in the house about 25 years). This time we opted for indoor/outdoor drapery. The drapes we purchased are light green and have metal grommets for hanging. Our initial experiment was to see if the hooks already above the windows would hold them (and, if so, we would simply add a few more hooks to make sure the last gromet on each side would have a hook).
We hung two of the panels up just before a blustery thunderstorm came through. The drapes got wet, but they stayed on the hooks!
So – our next step is to add the additional hooks and create some tiebacks to use when we don’t need the shade (there are already some hooks that were used to tie the pulls for the old rolled shades that can anchor the tie backs). Even on sunny days we’ll enjoy our deck in the afternoons (when it’s not too hot).
Sycamore leaves. There were thunderstorms and winds…..and then sycamore leaves on our deck. And down in the yard.
I arranged a size sequence of leaves to show how much the size varies. The leaves continue to grow larger as long as they are on the tree so as the season progresses there are more very large leaves. This year the tree is scraggly with the damage from the late frost in May. It still has lots of new leaves developing and – I hope – will look better as the season progresses.
There were leaves on the stairs from the deck down to ground as well. Note the dark mass under the leaf on the right side of top step. It’s racoon poop!
I looked at the bird cam videos and the racoon visited early Sunday morning (6/21)…and left a ‘present.’ (Two views of what the bird cam captured are below). I think the racoon must come through the yard relatively often since I found 2 poop piles when we mowed the grass on the 13th.
Another color of day lily. The darker orange day lilies are beginning to bloom. Once the buds are developed enough to continue opening, I cut them…denying the deer a flowery treat.
Sycamore in the morning. I was out on the deck before 6 AM. The temperature was already in the 70s and the sun had come up a few minutes before. It was the best time to be out since it was already humid, and the temperature was only going up. I ate my breakfast while enjoying the birds waking up in the forest. A squirrel came up near the bird feeder and looked through the screen at me – leaving again. Our cat was keeping me company. The sun came up enough that the top of the trees of the forest started catching the morning light. I took some pictures of the sycamore: the leaves that had blown off, the leaves damaged by low temperatures in May (or maybe something else), bouquets of perfect green leaves against the blue sky, Virginia Creeper growing up the twin trunks.
Window into the forest. I was back in the house about 7 and happened to look out the kitchen window at the prefect time to see the sun stream into the interior of the forest – the red maple and tulip poplar and black walnut in the foreground. It happens for a few minutes every morning.
It’s tangler’s choice today. Instead of trying a new pattern – pick ones from the last week to make again – in a new combination or as a monotangle. Take your pick from: FAUX WEAVE, FEATHER FALL, MEER, ROSCOE, SAND SWIRL, SAFFLOWER, SQUID, TRIADZ, GINGO, TUMBLEWEED, TWISTEE, and UNDLING. Or maybe decide to take a break and just admire a mosaic of your tiles made over the past 6 days. Here is a mosaic of my tiles for the past week.
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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.
Blue Jay photo shoot. I was in my office early and responded to a nearby blue jay call by grabbing my camera and going to the window. The bird was on the deck railing but on the move before I could get my camera turned on. It flew down to check the seed scattered under the feeder. Unsatisfied with that, the bird flew into the sycamore and started some great moves…quite the model bird. There were times I thought that he saw me through the window and treated me as an audience.
The temperature was still in 50s and the bird sported fluffed out breast feathers to provide more warmth. It is surprising how much fatter a bird can look when they are cold – all with a small reorientation of their feathers.
It all happened in just under 30 seconds. The bird flew off to the left.
A code orange air quality day. I spent an hour on the deck reading before the temperature climbed into the 70s (and kept going) …. already aware that there was an air quality alert for our area. I opted to not work in the yard. My husband took a walk in the neighborhood a little later and came back saying that it felt hot and humid even though the temperature was only about 75. We stayed indoors for the rest of the day. I wonder what caused the air quality issue. I heard pre-pandemic level traffic noise while I was out on our deck; our part of Maryland is in stage 2 of COVID-19 recovery as of last Friday at 5 PM. I’ve been at home since then so the traffic noise from outside my neighborhood is my first direct observation of the change.
Experiment with the DIVA DANCE pattern in all its forms: waltz, foxtrot and rock ‘n roll! So many possibilities.
Here is a tile I made yesterday based on the prompt: Make a tile with TWISTEE and UNDLING
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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.
Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….
There are 16 new books this month. The volumes are all freely available on the Internet by clicking on the hyperlinked title. The whole list of 1,895 books can be accessed here. Sample images and links for the 16 new ones are provided below. (click on the sample image to see a larger view). Enjoy!
There’s quite a variety this month starting with 6 volumes of Florists Journal from the mid-1800s and 3 books that could be finished with watercolor paints (or Zentangles) from the later 1800s. Following that come two botany texts from the 1800s (the one with the color illustrations was published more than 40 years before the one with drawings) and a book about trees with photographs of winter/summer versions of the same tree (this is a good book to learn the shapes of different kinds of trees with the oak being the ‘sample images’). Then there are two volumes by Hooker of northern British American plants and the last one with a sample image is plants from around Paris. The last volume for the month is a website and I included it because it is a current – and excellent – reference for the northern forest…lots of detailed illustrations.
Florists Journal V. 1-2 (1840-1841) * How and Parsons (publishers) * sample image * 1841
Florists Journal V. 3-4 (1842-1843) * How and Parsons (publishers) * sample image * 1843
Florists Journal V. 5-6 (1844-1845) * How and Parsons (publishers) * sample image * 1845
Florists Journal V. 7 (1846) * How and Parsons (publishers) * sample image * 1846
Florists Journal V. 8 (1847) * How and Parsons (publishers) * sample image * 1847
Florists Journal V. 9 (1848) * How and Parsons (publishers) * sample image * 1848
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (poem) * Whittier, John Greenleaf * sample image * 1883
Flower Designs * Bradford, Marcia A. * sample image * 1882
Floral Birthday Book * Sharrad, Alice B. * sample image * 1888
Fourteen weeks in botany : being an illustrated flora * Wood, Alphonso; Steele, Joel Dorman * sample image * 1879
Bingley's practical introduction to botany * Bingley, William; Frost, John * sample image * 1831
Trees and their life histories * Groom, Percy; Irving, Henry (photographer) * sample image * 1908
Flora boreali americana, or, the botany of the northern parts of British America V1 * Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1829
Flora boreali americana, or, the botany of the northern parts of British America V2 * Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1829
Atlas de la Flore des environs de Paris * Cosson, Ernest; Germain de Saint-Pierre, Ernest * sample image * 1882
Woody Plants of the Northern Forest - A Digital Atlas * Jenkins, Jerry * 2019
Noting the sycamore recovery from May frost damage. There are small dead leaves on the tree but there are also green and growing leave of all sizes.
Processing mint. I worked on the front flower beds pulling grass and cutting vines growing up through the bushes. I also cut a basket full of mint. It’s growing fast right now and the tender leaves are excellent additions to smoothies, salads, and tea. They smell so good! I rinsed the whole ball of leaves and stems, let it dry a bit, separated leaves from tougher stems and processed all those tender parts in the Ninja. Small pieces compress a lot. They are now in a gallon Ziploc in the freezer, pressed thin so that I can easily break the contents into whatever size I want.
Day lily buds. There are day lily buds coming up through the leaves. I was excited to see them. I’ll have the flowers to bring indoors soon. Maybe the milkweed that is in the same flower bed will hide the buds from the deer (in prior years, the deer had gotten most of the buds before they could bloom). I’ll cut the buds this year as soon as they’re big enough to bloom in water. There are also black-eyed susans amongst the day lilies and milkweed. Hopefully, they’ll provide flowers later this summer. The deer generally leave them alone
Here is a tile I made yesterday based on the prompt: GINGO and TUMBLEWEED
Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.
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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.
Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….
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.
Volunteers Spot New Sites in Aerial Images of England - Archaeology Magazine – Volunteers and lidar scans…a productive combination!
Seven highlights from 70 years of the National Science Foundation - The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy - AGU Blogosphere – Deepwater Horizon oil spill, public radio and television, ozone hole, strong curricula for introductory science, deep-sea exploration, student opportunities, and COVID-10 response. It seems like the list it too skewed to recent years.
We don’t need nearly as much protein as we consume - BBC Future – Another recommendation of getting nutrients from food rather that highly processed food or supplements….and moderation too. Skewing the diet toward protein at the expense of other nutrients is not healthy!
The Coolest Kingfishers from Six Continents – I’ve seen the first three! All three in south Texas and the Belted Kingfish elsewhere too. Kingfishers are an easily recognized shape….heavy bill, bigger head relative to body…etc.
How Americans are coping with COVID-19 stress -- ScienceDaily – This report was prior to the additional stressor of George Floyd’s death….the racism of police evident in the videos of the event and the response to protests that seems too militarized. It seems like 2020 will be a pivot point in our nation’s history and how we all respond to the stressors of the year is important in the outcome. I hope that we can show the best of ourselves…our utmost caring for all people and our planet that is our home.
Ice Arch Persists Despite Warm Arctic – It won’t last long…the ice arch which prevents sea ice from drifting south generally breaks up in June or July. Last year it broke up in mid-April.
'New' Footage of Benjamin, the Last Tasmanian Tiger Ever Seen Alive | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A 21-second video from 1935.
Top 25 birds of the week: Seabirds - Wild Bird Revolution – I’ve seen most the North American birds in these photographs….except for the puffins.
Babies know when you imitate them -- and like it -- ScienceDaily – Most parents probably realize this to some extent…but the research teases out more specifics about how babies respond to knowing they are being imitated.
The remarkable power of the prickly pear - BBC Future – Grown as a crop for food in arid areas and then using the waste left after the food is extracted to generate biofuel. Wish we had more processes like this.
Aftermath of thunderstorm. I did another early morning in the outdoors – noting the aftermath of the thunderstorm the night before. Both birdbaths had been filled by the rain. The one in front is surrounded by day lily leaves…I’m not sure how often it is used by birds, but I like the way it looks from our front door.
The sycamore tree trunk still looked very wet. I had forgotten the Virginia creeper climbing up. There were a few sycamore leaves that were blown into the yard…but the wind must not have been too bad.
The wetness of the leaves kept some of the maple leaves flipped over. It’s always surprising that the underside is so light in color.
Finally, I noticed a dead bee just before I settled into my chair. It must have gotten into the screened part of the deck and not been able to escape.
The rest of my outdoor time I spent making a couple of Zentangle tiles….and listening to the birds.
Mint as a fresh veggie. Mint grows so easily and comes back year after year. My front flower bed has a lot of it…enough to use it for more than a garnish. I cut a handful of stems and strip the leaves – it is the leafy green in a smoothie with chocolate protein powder. Yummy!
Make a two tangle tile today with ROSCOE and SAND SWIRL.
Here is a tile I made yesterday based on the prompt: Three patterns to combine in a tile today: FAUX WEAVE, FEATHER FALL, and MEER.
Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.
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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.
Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….
Here are the unique activities for yesterday:
Catching up on a Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:
Making Zentangle tiles while listening to astrobiology videos. I made tiles that start with curvy strings that create spaces to fill with color…the coloring using the ‘pattern’ of connecting spaces via corners. I made two tiles while I listened to the 6 videos.
Celebrating a new low weight for the year with dark chocolate. Being at a new low weight for the year is s great metric to start the day. I enjoyed the dark chocolate right away - for ‘breakfast.’
Beginning of sycamore seed balls. The light was good in the afternoon to observe the newly forming sycamore balls through the skylight in the master bathroom. I turned the screen on my camera so that I could point the camera straight up and brought in a chair to sit on (help me hold the camera steady). I was surprised at how red the tiny balls looked.
A wary downy. I was looking through pictures I had taken recently and found some of a downy woodpecker on our deck railing. It sat there relatively still for longer than I expected. As I reviewed the pictures, I realized that maybe it was being still to escape a predator from above.
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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.
Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.
I was in kindergarten…walking home with a bean seedling I’d sprouted in a paper cup. It was a warmish spring day in Texas, and I was excited to show the small plant to my mother. She met me when I was about halfway home but didn’t seem interested in my plant which surprised me. She told me that my grandfather had been hurt and was in the hospital.
Those moments became my most vivid memory of my kindergarten year. The details around the moments are missing. Did I usually walk home by myself? Where were my little sisters when my mother came to walk with me? Had the accident just happened, and she was still assimilating the news herself? What happened to the bean plant?
I was at the age where memories start to become more plentiful. By the time my grandfather came home of the hospital – a leg amputated and much thinner - I remember the first time we saw him at his home (my sisters and I were not allowed at the hospital) and thinking how different he looked. He lived another 16 years – helping me and my sisters all along the way…showing us life well lived. Today I am feeling how fortunate we were that he survived 1960.
Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….
Here are the unique activities for yesterday:
Looking for sunrise. I am always up before sunrise, but I often get busy with other things in my office (which is on the west side of the house) and miss the sunrise. Yesterday was not a spectacular sunrise because it was clear….but I did like the bit of color and the silhouettes on the horizon.
Frost warning. We had a frost warning until 9 AM yesterday. Even with the heat keeping us warm enough, both my husband and I opted for a hot breakfast. I had oatmeal cooked with cinnamon and pecans…and then a bit of honey added for flavor and sweetness.
Being fast enough to photograph a pileated woodpecker and a phoebe. Birds are often very active in the morning. Yesterday I was fast enough to photograph 2 birds that are often elusive.
The pileated woodpecker flew in silently to the trunk of the black walnut – I just happened to see the bird as it flew in. By the time I got the camera turned on, it was searching the forest floor…almost out of the range of my camera.
I heard the eastern phoebe and went to the window to see if I could see it. Yes! It was in the sycamore – saying its name over and over.
Catching up on Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:
Sycamore buds bursting (outside). The buds are beginning to open on the sycamore outside (following the pattern observed more than a week ago on the branch I brought inside to observe more closely). The buds on the tree are at varying stages right now…and there are some that look very round. Maybe those are going to be flowers rather than leaves?
Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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