September 23, 2021

Our Oak

September 23, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

Looking up into our oak that grows near our mailbox, it looks like fall is well underway. The flags left from the periodic cicada larvae this summer have dropped their leaves and the rest of the leaves are turning now too. I’ll need to do a round of mowing soon to keep the leaves from getting too thick on the grass. The Virginia Creeper has grown a lot this year…reaching higher into the tree than ever before. It’s a native and climbs with suckers rather than rootlets; it only damages the tree if it gets too heavy; right now, it is well within the range that the tree can handle.

That’s not to say that the tree is in great shape. Oak decline is happening all over the Mid-Atlantic. There are stressors are thought to weaken the trees: climate change, tree age, site conditions, history of disease. Our tree is probably 30-40 years old (the house is about 30 years old but the tree was planted as a sapling)…not very old for an oak. There is pavement on two sides of the tree (the street and our driveway) so soil compaction might be a problem. It has always had mulch and grass around its base and there are no exposed roots.

The stressors might have weakened our tree enough to make it vulnerable. The way some of the leaves look is indicative of Bacterial Leaf Scorch. It will be years before the tree succumbs – finally starving (i.e. leaves turning brown and falling early…not continuing to produce food for the tree during the entire growing season). We’ll shore up its defenses by watering it during drought…keeping the fallen branches and debris picked up around its base. And eventually cutting the Virginia Creeper.

September 22, 2021

High Key at Conowingo

September 22, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

On Sunday morning we left our house about 7:30 AM to drive to Conowingo – about a 1.5 hour drive from where we live. Below the dam is our favorite place to see bald eagles. This is not the best time of year, but it was a sunny fall morning – a good time for a short daytrip.

There were some black vultures on top of a car parked near the entrance gate at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park. I had heard about it happening but hadn’t see it before. There didn’t seem to be many photographers along the fence however there were cormorants and gulls over and on the water. There were more cars than usual but apparently the owners were mostly there for fishing. We saw several with very large catfish (looked like the invasive flathead catfish). The spillways on the far side of the dam were active…but it didn’t seem like there was much water churn on our side of the river.

I had just started surveying the abutment, rocks and island with my bridge camera mounted on a monopod, when the battery connection problem that I had experienced previously began. I had to take the camera off the monopod and remove the foot to open the battery compartment and try to increase the thickness of the paper wedge I had been using to hold the battery more firmly on the contacts. I put everything back together and it still didn’t work consistently. I was able to see an adult bald eagle on the abutment and a great blue heron on a spit of rocks and gulls flying over the water --- but the camera would not work for long enough to get a good picture. So – I gave up and pulled out my small Point and Shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS). I was very disappointed in what I could do with less zoom than the bridge camera. So --- I opted to try some high key pictures. My first subject was large sycamore with branches that hang over the water. The color variation in the leaves was more visible with the background mostly bright white although I did one with the water partially visible.

My favorite is the one below with the foliage in the lower right corner. I can image this in a presentation with some words in the upper left!

Next --- I chose to photograph the electrical towers. I was not aware of the blue (vignetting) in the upper corners until I looked at it on the monitor at home….but I like the little bit of color!

One of the towers on the island in the river contained a surprise that I didn’t see until it was on the larger screen: a bald eagle standing on a nest! It is not a good eagle shot…the bird is facing away and blurry….too far away for the Point and Shoot to get a crisp image. But it shows how the eagles use of the manmade structures!

Overall – I was pleased with the morning…even though it was quite different than I’d planned!

August 19, 2021

Precursors to Fall

August 19, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

It is not fall yet but we already have a few leaves falling; the majority are oak or sycamore. There are always the precursors to the big fall that happens in a few months…usually reaching a crescendo in October in our part of Maryland.

s 2021 08 IMG_5006 (4).jpg — There is always one corner of our deck where the leaves accumulate. The wind sweeps them into the corner and the only way they leave is with some effort on our part with a broom or rake. Right now - they are mostly sycamore leaves but later the tulip poplar leaves will be there too.

The sycamore leaves are sometimes bigger than dinner plates this time of year. The big ones have been growing all summer. There are still smaller, younger ones on the tree….and sometimes they fall off while they are still green. I noticed an odd leaf that was very dark around the edges…not the normal look to a sycamore leaf on the ground and I’m not sure what caused it.

The oak leaves are changing color on the tree – looking glorious in morning light.

There are some unusual looks for the oak leaves too – green at the stem area then brown in the upper part of the leaf or green in the center and brown around the edges. These leaves might indicate the tree is somehow challenged – hopefully something it will recover from.

I am trying to separate what is normal for our trees and what I might notice that is an indication of climate change. One thing I am starting to monitor is when the big last big swirl of leaves happens from the tulip poplar; in fall of 1994 (the year we moved into this house), it occurred on Halloween. I wonder when it will be this year.

December 24, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2020

December 24, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

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.

2020 12 IMG_3145 (4).jpg — **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.

2020 12 IMG_3144.jpg — **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.

December 01, 2020

Zooming – November 2020

December 01, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

November is the month that transitions our forest from fall to winter. As I write this on the last day of the month – it is raining, the forest is wet and dark. It is a wintery scene from my office window.

Of course – the muted colors overall cause me to notice color that much more – in flowers…fallen leaves (that are brown by now)...birds…sunsets. Shapes also come to the fore – the fluffy parachutes carrying seeds away from pods…the disk of the moon in the sky. Overall – there are still lots of subjects for my zooming!

November 17, 2020

Neighborhood Pond – November 2020 – part 2

November 17, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The high point of my walk to and from the pond was a gingko tree. My husband and I had spotted it on the day we took his car to get a new battery – a flame of yellow leaves in a yard along the main street of our neighborhood. In the few intervening days, most of the leaves had fallen. I took pictures of them on the street – in the grass – drifts in the street gutter.

The graceful shapes are one of my favorites (I make the Zentangle pattern frequently and these pictures give me some ideas of variation of the pattern!). This time of year, the color is yet another reason to enjoy the gingko trees. They are not natives to our area but have been planted as ornamentals in yards and parks.

On the way back from the pond I photographed one branch of the tree that seemed to have held on to more of its leaves. Some of them still have smudges of green.

November 13, 2020

8 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

November 13, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

It’s a challenge to stay vigilant with masks…handwashing…distancing from other people – but even more important now with the cases spiking all over the country. Maryland is back to numbers we haven’t seen since June and the trend looks like it will go higher. The metrics that were established to open restaurants and bars are now indicating that the capacity needs to be reduced…and the governor did that this week.

My husband and I got our first haircut of the pandemic in mid-October; our logic was to get it before the anticipated increase in cases as people began spending more time indoors….anticipating that our next haircut would be after we are vaccinated. Our timing was good based on what is happening now…just 3 weeks later.

The CSA ended the third week in October. That was my only weekly errand away from the house and it was one I enjoyed. I am considering some kind of outdoor foray that I can do every week --- someplace not far from home…but a change of scenery once a week. The end of the CSA impacts my grocery shopping as well. I’ve already started buying more produce; it will increase as I clear out the veggies I froze over the course of the summer. I’ll still be shopping every other week rather than my pre-pandemic weekly habit; I’ve discovered that every other week works well for me.

After the CSA ended and I didn’t have a dusty gravel road to traverse, I got my car washed (drive thru) --- it’s a joy to have a clean car. It’s good for the winter now. I also bought gas – the first tank since January. So now I am back to charging the car and doing my driving as an EV. It was low risk since everything was self-service and I wore a mask just in case someone else pulled into the slot next to me; and used hand sanitizer after I got gas…and after I put the code in for the car wash. My car is probably set with fuel and maintenance until after the vaccination is available.

I had a porch full of stuff to donate. It feels good to get rid of items we no longer need. We also made a trip to the county landfill for some larger trash items and hazardous waste (large fluorescent bulbs). The charities and county facility are probably at lower capacity but functional at this point. Their processes for protecting their employees and the public are established.

My husband and his doctor have changed his prescriptions from mail delivery to pickup at a local pharmacy based on the challenges with timely delivery from the postal service in our area. I’m not sure if this is related to the pandemic at all…but it is all happening at the same time. There are layers of anxiety that sometimes are separate…but tend to meld together over time, stretching our ability to cope with more and more and more.

We made a field trip to Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant for birding. It was outdoors, small group, distanced, mostly masked. It was OK…but now that the cases in our state are spiking, we might not do something like that again. We can still go to places like that but just on our own.

There were joys of virtual events over the past month. My favorite was the Hawaii Island Festival of Birds. It was good for the moment…and gave me ideas about the future…things I want to do post-pandemic.

It’s fall. We thought we would take some fall foliage drives but we missed the peak so the main fall activity has been mowing leaves in our yard! Still – the continuity of the natural cycle is something that buoys my spirits.

Right now, I am aware that there are multiple anxieties beyond the pandemic. After 8 months – the pandemic is the one I am coping with the best; I know how to reduce my risk and I have developed habits that are easy to maintain because they incorporate activities in my every day activities that are joyful…it is easily sustainable until the vaccine is available.

My hope for the next few weeks is that several of the other anxieties will reduce dramatically (since I have not discovered good ways to cope with them – who would have guessed that the transition from one US President to the next would be so fraught) and that we’ll be settling in for Thanksgiving and then Christmas with lots of virtual interactions with far flung family and the usual good food/decorations…savoring home and health…looking forward to a post-pandemic sometime in 2021.

November 10, 2020

Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 2)

November 10, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The Davis Branch was serene as usual in the rocky beach area. A family with children was at the water’s edge so I focused more on the shed with beech trees still retaining a few leaves, the upstream and downstream view, and the path up the hill.

I noticed that the treey with the damaged trunk (maybe from a lightning strike) had been cut at the top. Or perhaps the top fell and it was the sawed pieces that I photographed were facing the path.

2020 11 IMG_6292 (10).jpg — A path that was mostly grown over last year at this time is now a clear track…maybe a little too close to the stream, but everyone likes it too much to close it off. I enjoyed some colorful leaves along the way back toward the stone wall.

2020 11 IMG_6292 (13).jpg — There is now a new bridge across the Davis Branch! I had missed that news and found it by accident. There are riffles right at the bridge then deeper water. I hope the little trees planted around the bridge survive. It is a great vantage point now and will get better as the trees get bigger.

Overall – our little field trip to Mt. Pleasant was too short to do everything. Maybe we’ll go again some weekday morning ….when there will be fewer people around.

November 09, 2020

Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 1)

November 09, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Our second field trip of the pandemic – birding at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant. We met the group at the Robbins Skywatch – distancing and wearing masks - to watch for hawks flying over. It was not an optimal morning with calm sunny weather. In terms of numbers we saw more vultures and crows than hawks…and the high point – for me – was a raven. I wasn’t trying to get pictures of the birds…felt lucky enough to track them with my binoculars.

I took some pictures from the vantage point of the skywatch: horse nettle fruits,

Fall foliage across the meadow and on the other side of the Davis Branch,

And some new houses that have been built in the past year or so (they change the feel of that area of the meadow for me…I prefer areas of the conservancy where surrounding development is not visible).

2020 11 s IMG_6292 (17).jpg — I took a break to walk down to the Davis Branch ‘beach’ area (more about that area tomorrow). Along the way I started taking pictures of seeds spilling out of seed pods.

I walked across the meadow on the path where the chunk of quartz was taken out of the path to keep it from damaging the mower – has been just to the side of the path since. The indentation where was until a couple of years ago has almost filled in now.

On the way back to the car I noticed that there are new doors on Montjoy Barn.

2020 11 IMG_2827 (1).jpg — I also walked around the other areas near where we had parked…taking in scenes from previous falls when I volunteered to hike with elementary school field trips: the old farm house,

The leaves under the gingko tree in the picnic area,

The witch hazel blooming in front of the Gudelsky Environmental Center.

And then we were heading home after a pleasant fall morning at Mt. Pleasant.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

The sound of fall leaves. I ate lunch outdoors on our covered deck…listening to the leaves. The ones still on the trees are getting drier… and they make a different noise as they bump into each other than spring or summer leaves. They are the wind chimes of nature this time of year.

November 04, 2020

Patuxent Research Refuge – Part 2

November 04, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing on about our field trip to the Patuxent Research Refuge --

The colors of fall were muted on the trees and boardwalk in the bright sunlight

But still vibrant in closer looks.

It had rained a lot the days before our visit, so the low places had standing water and the trails were muddy.

The cattails looked fuzzy from far enough away but were soggy blobs when I zoomed in for closer look.

It was mid-morning so past the time when there might have been more birds at the feeders (someone is keeping them filled). A lone red-winged blackbird was enjoying a feeder all to himself.

There was a flash of yellow near the feeders…a fall flower.

And the redbud leaves on the ground were recent enough to still be mostly yellow. I looked up to see if there were seed ponds on the tree; it didn’t have any.

The clouds were gathering, and we opted to not go onto muddy trails. The short time out and about was enough of a field trip.

I usually try to take a picture of the visitor center signage at the beginning…but it was the last picture for this field trip!

By the time we got home it was cloudy. Our timing for being at the refuge was near perfect.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

2020 11 IMG_2751.jpg — **Sunrise on election day 2020.** Just as I was getting my 1st breakfast….noticed the good color in the sky…took the picture through a window because it was windy and in the 40s (didn’t want to go outside)…timing was critical too. It was a great start for the day.

My daughter texted a few hours later that she had gotten in the line to vote about 30 minutes after the polls opened…and there wasn’t much wait – all done in about 15 minutes. 66 people had voted before her at the polling place.

November 03, 2020

Patuxent Research Refuge – Part 1

November 03, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Our second field trip during the pandemic was to Patuxent Research Refuge last weekend. It is about 30 minutes from where we live. The forecast had changed to mostly cloudy, but it seemed more like mostly sunny when we were making the decision to go or wait for another day. We headed out. The nav system in my husband’s car listed both parts of the refuge – we chose the South Tract…Scarlet Tanager Loop.

The loop is one way, one lane with the parking lot/visitor center at the point furthest into the refuge. There was one couple that has chosen to use the loop as a hiking trail and it is scenic enough for that (the non-paved trails were probably muddy because of the rains from Hurricane Zeta). I took pictures of the road as my husband drove into the refuge (slideshow below). The trees had dropped a lot of their leaves but there was still some color and there were leaves on the road in some places. There where ‘turtle crossing’ signs periodically. The turtles are active in the spring…we drove slowly…noticing squirrels periodically.

There were more people that we expected – but it wasn’t crowded. Everyone was wearing masks and groups were distancing from each other:

A meditation group had walked around and was finding a dry place for their mats to begin their session
A couple with their young daughter stomping around in her boots…accepting a warm cap for her head
A man doing short drone flights
A few couples with leashed dogs
A family with older children crossing the pontoon bridge

More tomorrow about what we saw walking around Patuxent Research Refuge.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

2020 11 IMG_6281.jpg — **Moon in the morning**. When I walked into my office just after 6, the moon was casting shadows. I photographed it through the window. Outside the temperature was in the 30s…our coldest day yet of the fall.

October 30, 2020

Marguerite Henry

October 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I was browsing through children’s books available on Internet Archive and encountered a familiar name: Marguerite Henry. My family discover her Misty of Chincoteague book back in the 1990s when my daughter was at the perfect age to enjoy the story; during one of our visits to Chincoteague, we purchased a set that included the book and some of the sequels. One that I had not seen before was A Pictorial Life Story of Misty. It can be borrowed for an hour from Internet Archive…and since it is mostly pictures…that’s plenty of time to browse through it.

The author wrote a lot of other books and quite of few of them are available on Internet Archive – mostly for an hour checkout and, if there is another copy available, it will show as available for a 14 day checkout after it has been initially checked out for an hour.

One of my favorites of these ‘other’ books was Brighty of the Grand Canyon.

I also enjoyed Auno and Tauno – a Story of Finland – which was one that was available without checking out. The illustrator was Gladys Rourke Blackwood who, according to Wikipedia, illustrated some other Henry books.

The stories are dated at this point…but I enjoy the historical perspective – directly from the book and thinking about children enjoying the books when they were written and for 20+ years after. Misty of Chincoteague was published in 1947 – and my daughter and I were enjoying it in the 1990s and I assume the book is still stocked in books stores around Chincoteague! It has remained ‘current’ because the Pony Penning depicted in the book still happens annually.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

A wet day. There was a lot of rain from Zeta in Maryland on Thursday. There were flood warnings from 11:30 AM to 5:30 PM; we didn’t get out and our neighborhood had no flooding, so it didn’t impact us directly. And the wind was not bad either. We still have a few leaves on our trees.

October 29, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2020

October 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

When I wrote the blog post about October 1990, I realized what a happy month it had been and now looking back at October 2020 and the things I recorded as little celebrations…the same is true. Maybe October is always my favorite month of the fall….lots of things that make me happy in this transition time of the year.

The celebrations that are could happen in any October:

The grand finale of the CSA season. The abundance of the last weeks of veggies from the farm….I have a freezer full to enjoy well into November…plenty of winter squash puree to make Thanksgiving dessert and breads and soups (maybe not all for the same meal). It happens every year….the celebration of the bounty.

2020 10 IMG_5926 (3).jpg — **Conwingo outing**. We didn’t know about the bald eagles congregating at Conowingo dam 30 years ago, but now that we do…there is almost always a trek to the place every October. Even if it isn’t a great day for lots of eagles (which it wasn’t this year)…we celebrate the field trip. This year it was appreciated even more because field trips have been such a rarity for us this year.

Fall leaves. Yes – cleaning up the leaves and acorns is a fall chore…but it also is a joy: the colors, the textures, the breeze made visible by leaves wafting from the treetops. The trees in our yard and in the forest behind our house fill our views; I’m realizing that I am celebrating the extra time I’ve had this year to observe them. Home has become more special during this pandemic year.

Wild turkey in our back yard. I missed it – but my husband saw it. He said there may have been more than one, but he only saw one clearly. We’d heard that there were wild turkeys in the forest but had never seen any until a few day ago. I am celebrating that they really exist…and hoping they return so I can see them too.

Flowers still available in the cutting garden. I thought the cutting garden might fade before the CSA ended…but it didn’t. I love having cut flowers in my office and on the island in the kitchen. Seeing them is an automatic mood brightener. Now I am beginning to realize that the strawflowers will last long into the winter – dried and arranged on a blue glass plate they remind me of water lily flowers.

**Letting go of more stuff.** Cleaning out stuff that has collected in over 25 years we’ve lived in our house is tough. But I managed a big pile that I donated (picked up from our front porch) and am working on another. It feels good to clean out the house…particularly if it is something others could use.

And then there are the celebrations that are unique to 2020:

Cape May Fall Festival (virtual). I celebrated the whole festival of videos but particularly the roving reporters at the morning flight of songbirds. It would be wonderful be there some future year to see it in the field.

Hawai’i Festival of Birds (virtual). When I first discovered that the festival was going virtual, I thought it was a great opportunity because I probably would not make the trek to the Big Island again….but now I’m wavering…leaning toward making the trek for the festival and to see how things have changed since we were there in 2015. Maybe next year…or the year after. It’s an opportunity to celebrate an environment very different than the one where we live.

Telephone conversations with family. I normally take telephone conversations for granted…they happen often enough. During this pandemic year when I am not traveling to visit with my family, phone conversations have increased in importance….worthy of celebration.

Voting. In years past, we voted but it wasn’t something that made it to my little celebrations list and we usually did it on election day. This year we requested a mail-in ballot and returned it to a drop box….and checked the online site to track that it was received and accepted/counted. Voting is a celebration this year because of the challenges the country is facing on many levels….and a heightened awareness on our part of how much it matters.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Old monitor heading off to a new home. I’ve had my old monitor mostly idle for the past year – since I got a new one – and finally found a way to give it a new home. There was an article in the Baltimore Sun about a teacher in our area trying to find monitors for teachers that need a second monitor as they forge ahead teaching virtually. I sent an email letting them know I had one to donate and someone came to pick it up! I’m thrilled to let it go!

October 27, 2020

Our Neighborhood Pond – October 2020

October 27, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

It was cloudy and damp when I started out at midday for a walk to the neighborhood pond. I keep telling myself that I should make the trek more frequently because there is always something of interest along the route or at the pond itself. Maybe I will do it over the next few weeks…until the weather gets too cold.

The first surprise was a stalk of day lily buds. This is the second year that one plant has tried to bloom in the fall. If these buds get far enough along toward blooming – I’ll cut the stalk to bring them inside since otherwise the deer or a frost will get them. It would be wonderful to have the flowers indoors.

I also noticed that not only are the mock strawberries getting some reddish leaves…they are also producing new fruits!

The walk to the pond was full of walkways intermittently filled with leaves or pine needles. (There is a curb concealed under the pine needles!)

I got to the pond and took pictures of plants gone to seed and reflections in the water. The largest tree at the pond’s edge is a willow. Part of the tree has a lot of shelf fungus and no branches with leaves…standing deadwood. The pond was very quiet…the raucous red-winged blackbirds are gone and the frogs too cool to be calling.

The milkweed pods in the meadow next to the pond were disappointing. It has been so wet that the even the pods that have split open are not spilling their seeds. I did notice one plant with some early instar milkweed bugs. I’ll go again after we have some dry days --- and hopefully see lots of fluffy milkweed seeds swirling away in each little breeze.

As I started back toward home, I noticed that the oak that had some dead lower branches has been trimmed. Maybe the trim will help the tree survive. Unfortunately, it’s not the only oak in the neighborhood that has had problems in the past few years.

Overall – a good walk on a damp fall day!

October 25, 2020

Fall Foliage in our Yard

October 25, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

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.

f 2020 10 IMG_2511.jpg — 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.

m 2020 10 IMG_2526.jpg — 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.

t 2020 10 IMG_2524 (1).jpg — 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

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.

October 22, 2020

CSA Bounty – October 2020

October 22, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

There were three CSA shares this month…all full of fall veggies: winter squash, cabbage, leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula, bok choy), peppers and special items like ears of popcorn and fennel. The last one was this week. I took some pictures of the bins as I walked around – appreciating the beauty of fresh food. I had a choice of turnips or radishes….got the turnips but appreciated the color of the radishes in the bin.

And then it was on to piles of broccoli, garlic, sweet potatoes, a choice of lettuce or arugula (I got arugula), carrots with their leafy tops, spinach, bok choy, a small pumpkin, cabbage, spaghetti squash, cauliflower and stevia from the cutting garden. I got fennel with a huge feathery top as a choice item too. The bags were almost as heavy as when melons are distributed during the summer.

While I was out in the cutting garden getting some cut flowers and the stevia, I noticed at least 4 black swallowtail caterpillars on the fennel; I wonder if they will make to it to a stage that will allow them to survive the winter.

The picture below is the last share on our counter after I got home - quite a pile which is now filling the refrigerator!

I’ll eat as much as I can of this last share over the next week then freeze the rest….even though I might have to do some creative processing and rearranging to fit it in. I still have zucchini for the early summer in there. I’m going to pay attention to how long it is before I draw down enough on the veggies in the freezer from this summer to require purchases from the produce section of my grocery store. My estimate is that it will be well into December or maybe January!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

A few minutes at our bird feeder. I found a short segment (about 1.5 minutes) on our bird feeder camera when 4 birds visited the feeder and appeared satisfied. I didn’t see the sequence when it happened because the Downy Woodpecker is not noisy when he comes to the feeder like the red-bellied woodpeckers are. A Carolina Chickadee shows up and the two birds position themselves on opposite sides of the feeder.

The chickadee leaves, the downy woodpecker finally gets enough seed…and leaves.

Then an American Goldfinch arrives…followed very quickly by a White-breasted Nuthatch. The nuthatch strikes a classic nuthatch pose.

The two birds move to opposite sides of the feeder, the nuthatch quickly finds the seed it wants, and leaves.

And the goldfinch continues calmly nibbling on seeds with the feeder all to himself.

October 14, 2020

Mowing Leaves

October 14, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

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.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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!

October 12, 2020

7 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

October 12, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 07, 2020

Voting

October 07, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Early voting has started in Maryland. My husband and I made a small outing yesterday to take our ballots to the drop box located at the early voting location closest to our house. We did that to reduce the workload on the Post Office. We had followed directions from the state of Maryland and requested a ballot to be mailed to us rather than printing it since that makes it easier for them to validate and count the ballot. The directions that came with the ballot were easy to follow So – we are confident that our vote is going to be counted and we’ve done what we could to reduce the overhead.

The drop box was located just outside of the polling location and there were no other people around when we first got there but as I got back in the car someone else drove up and put their ballot in the box as we drove away. It’s good to have done our voting early…and with low risk of COVID-19 encounter.

On the way home, I noticed that the red maples are changing in our area. I took some pictures through the car windshield as we drove down the street of our neighborhood. I was a coolish fall day….sunny and beautiful. It was a good finale to our small outing.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Sweet potato custard. The uncured sweet potatoes I have gotten the past 2 weeks from our CSA have been huge so I cooked them and then made custard (I’ll have to freeze some of the puree but that just means we’ll have plenty to last…probably through Thanksgiving with the addition of the butternut and acorn squashes as well. I had some left-over spaghetti squash for this first custard and it provided a coconut flake texture (without coconut flavor).

2 wheelbarrows full. I did some quick clean up on the front flowerbeds and some thick leaf piles. I did the last trimming of bushes since it is getting cool enough now that they are probably the way they will be going through the winter. Then I got some leaves off the driveway and quickly discovered that I should just mow the leaves. I quickly filled 2 wheelbarrows!

September 25, 2020

CSA Bounty – September 2020

September 25, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Fabulous fall veggies. Our shares have been full of them all month.

This week we got

The last of the tomatoes (green) which I have ripening near the kitchen window,
The first butternut squash and sweet potatoes (both on the large side),
Maybe the last of the shishito peppers (I picked a few snacking peppers in the cutting garden),
And the fall staples of potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, garlic, hot peppers, and kale.

I love the orange veggies (squash and sweet potatoes) and will probably use them for custards or hearty soups…although I like sweet potatoes grated and used in salads and stir fries (as I would carrots). I might have to cook them and then freeze portion sizes since their size is overwhelming to eat in one week!

I cut stevia in the cutting garden and have it drying on the counter. I’ll use it to sweeten pots of hot tea – maybe I’ll have enough to use for the remainder of 2020.

There were still a few flowers – more on those in another post.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Sweeping acorns and oak leaves. The driveway was covered again. I noticed a squirrel sniffing the acorns and maybe taking a few….there are way too many acorns to rely on the squirrels to do the clean up! I swept the driveway and then the gutter in the street which filled the wheelbarrow. The load made a nice addition to my compost pile (lots of browns to overwhelm the few ‘green’ kitchen scraps I have.

I am discovering joy in everyday activities….that might be considered chores. The clear driveway plus the knowledge that I’ve kept the acorns and twigs from clogging the storm drain are two positives for the day!

September sunrise. I always do the grocery shopping early and this time I was on my way to the store before sunrise. I stopped at the CSA turn out to take a picture. It was a great way to start the day.

Mini-clover. The clover is filling in the bare spots in the yard and is still short enough that the mower doesn’t touch it. So far – it had worked better than our attempts to overseed with grass seed. We’ll see what happens over the winter. I hope we’ll still have enough warm days that it will grow a bit more and be firmly established before the first frost.