Life Magazine from 1937

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Internet Archive has digitized versions of many Life Magazines. I have been browsing through them – slowly since there was an issue for each week. As I looked at the issues from 1937, I thought about my parents; they started school that year. They were probably still very focused on things going on within their family and small community rather than the broader world…but the world was heading into a time of turmoil. Looking at the way Life was covering those events seems relatively naïve now! The sample images (one from each weekly magazine) show a variety of topics the Life editors chose to cover over the course of the year. Most of the ‘color’ pages of the magazine were advertisements.

Life Magazine 1937-01-04 – a lot of public works projects in the past 4 years

Life Magazine 1937-01-11  - Margaret Sanger and birth control

Life Magazine 1937-01-18 – Chinese farmer in California

Life Magazine 1937-01-25 – US Army planes

Life Magazine 1937-02-01 – Roosevelt’s second inauguration  - a rainy day

Life Magazine 1937-02-08 – Mississippi flooding; levee dynamited at Cairo, Illinois

Life Magazine 1937-02-15 – US Supreme Court’s new building

Life Magazine 1937-02-22 – Marian Anderson

Life Magazine 1937-03-1 – Building the Golden Gate Bridge (accident)

Life Magazine 1937-03-8 – Sun Valley sky lifts

Life Magazine 1937-03-15 – British crown

Life Magazine 1937-03-22 – Irving parachute

Life Magazine 1937-03-29 – Palm Springs

Life Magazine 1937-04-05 – HMS Glorius in winter maneuvers

Life Magazine 1937-04-12 – Mussolini in North Africa…a Roman city in the sand

Life Magazine 1937-04-19 – Queen Mary with 3 grandchildren…Elizabeth II as a young girl

Life Magazine 1937-04-26 – Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer

Life Magazine 1937-05-03 – British rearmament

Life Magazine 1937-05-10 – Germans celebrate Hitler’s birthday

Life Magazine 1937-05-17 – Dionne quintuplets at 3

Life Magazine 1937-05-24 – Coronation Day at Buckingham Palace

Life Magazine 1937-05-31 – Golden Gate Bridge from one of the piers

Life Magazine 1937-06-07 – University of Virginia

Life Magazine 1937-06-14 – Washington DC from the air

Life Magazine 1937-06-21 – Dust Bowl

Life Magazine 1937-06-28 - Telephone

Life Magazine 1937-07-05 – River Jordan and Jewish farms

Life Magazine 1937-07-12 – Audubon Association protects birds

Life Magazine 1937-07-19 - British air fleet after rearmament

Life Magazine 1937-07-26 – Typical day for a 12-week-old baby

Life Magazine 1937-07-26 – US wheat belts

Life Magazine 1937-08-09 – Mapping the battle at dawn

Life Magazine 1937-08-16 – Wall Streeters commute by plane

Life Magazine 1937-08-23 – Niagara Falls

Life Magazine 1937-08-30 – Maine trotters

Life Magazine 1937-09-06 – Texaco advertisement

Life Magazine 1937-09-13 – Nephew of Geronimo

Life Magazine 1937-09-20 – Prime Minister’s Kitchen

Life Magazine 1937-09-27 – Nazi parades

Life Magazine 1937-10-04 – American Legion parade

Life Magazine 1937-10-11 – Joe Kennedy and merchant marine stagnation

Life Magazine 1937-10-18 – Armstrong Linoleum advertisement

Life Magazine 1937-10-25 – Natives of Northwest Canada

Life Magazine 1937-11-01 – Man O’ War…256 ‘children’

Life Magazine 1937-11-08 – 100-inch telescope for Mt. Wilson

Life Magazine 1937-11-15 – Flying Dreadnought

Life Magazine 1937-11-21 – America as an exporting nations: raw cotton, automobiles, fruits

Life Magazine 1937-11-29 – Nursery furniture

Life Magazine 1937-12-06 – Japanese depiction of dying afternoon of Manchu China and garish dawn of Westernized Japan

Life Magazine 1937-12-13 – Train engines (billions of dollars and millions of men)

Life Magazine 1937-12-20 – Christmas is in the air

Life Magazine 1937-12-27 - $300/minute to operate the set for MGM’s musical Rosalie

Project FeederWatch – April 2025

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The juncos seemed to have left a little earlier than I expected. We didn’t see any by the beginning of April. Our bird feeder area looks almost the same as it did in the winter since the hollies and cedar are evergreen. Now we have violets coming up (the small low clumps of green in the rocked areas); they seem to thrive in the rock with landscaping cloth underneath. I’ve noticed robins and doves collecting the fine stems from last season’s violets to build nests.

We were startled during the first few minutes of one of our Feeder Watch sessions by a Cooper’s Hawk flying in and landing on the patio table! I managed to get a picture before it took off. All the other birds had vacated before the hawk came – so it didn’t get a meal from our feeder area. They didn’t return until the later part of our 30-minute observation time.

The white-throated and white-crowned sparrows are still around. I didn’t take pictures of them. There are house finches and goldfinches. The goldfinches are sporadic visitors and the one we saw stayed at the feeder longer.

The light blue color when a dove blinks always surprises me. This one seemed to snoozing….making it easier to photograph. It was cold morning, so the feathers were fluffed.

The Carolina Wren is not a bird we see every single observation time…but we usually see it at least once during our 2-day Feeder Watch count. It likes the suet…and whatever is scatter on the ground….best.

There is a pair of downy woodpeckers. They like the suet and the seed….and our trees. I am hoping they nest nearby and produce young this year.

I saw a red-bellied woodpecker briefly, but the grackles came and it left quickly. On the plus side – the grackles are acting as a deterrent to the starlings.

This is the last month of the Project Feeder Watch season. I’ll do one last post in early May to close out what happens at our feeders (maybe we’ll see some migrants). We’ll start up again in the fall.

2 Months with my Nikon Coolpix P950

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The most significant experience with my newish Nikon Coolpix P950 was our trip to Loess Bluff’s National Wildlife Refuge; there were three blog posts from that trip (one, two, three). My favorite image that the new camera captured was a video of trumpeter swans…trumpeting!

There were a few photos I took around my spring yard – crocus and a pinecone in the grass. I notice the slight increase in weight from my previous camera…not a positive for the new one.

The camera autofocus is not as good in lower light as my previous camera…or maybe it is the ‘through the window’ aspect of the photos I take while we are making Feeder Watch observations.

I am determined not to revert to my previous bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) but I find myself using my small point and shot camera that I can slip in a pocket for times I don’t anticipate needing the additional zoom power of the heavier camera!

Sustaining Elder Care – April 2025

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My dad had his 94th birthday this past month – his second in the assisted living home. My sisters provided special foods and balloons over at least 3 days. One of the celebrations was shared with the staff and other residents of the assisted living home.

I visited before his birthday and was pleasantly surprised that the physical therapy sessions had improved his physical stamina since my visit in late February. He was able to stand up from sitting more easily…and we walked outdoors for about half the distance he had been doing last fall (so not fully recovered but trending positive).

He was a bit more alert when we worked on one of the puzzles I brought with me…for a little less than an hour. When he is tired and ready to quit, he complains about not being able to see well; there is probably a permanent impairment in one eye…and his readers always seem to need cleaning which might impact his sight in the other eye.

He talked a little more (although some of what he said was clearly gleaned from sometime long ago rather than recently). He admitted that much of what he thinks about seems to be happening recently, but it is too much to really all be in the past few weeks! He seemed more interested in the slideshow that one of my sisters put together to play on his television during the day. It doesn’t include people (which he would have trouble identifying) …it focuses on places he visited…farm machinery that he might remember from his growing up. The tractors are always a favorite.

I only see him once a month. Sometimes it seems like he is declining…and there is a slight recovery. The last visit was a “recovery” and I am looking forward to the next visit …hoping the trend continues.

Spring Yard Work

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There is always a lot to do in our yard after the winter months. Right now - mowing and cleaning up beds is not on my list. The temperature lows have not gotten reliably above 50 for enough days that the insects have emerged, so I am concentrating on all the rest – and enjoying some early blooms. The violets in the front (south) beds bloomed a couple of days before the ones on east side of the house.

The chive seeds I planted winter before last are now clumps of chives along the edge of the east facing bed as well. The seeds were from my mother’s garden. I’ll keep propagating them until they outline the bed. Maybe someday I will take out the metal edging completely. I like the way look and that, as soon as they are well established, they make excellent additions to salads. They are also a good reminder of my mother’s life and garden.

In the front flower bed, the space I cleared of rocks for the hens and chicks is overflowing with plants. Clearing more of the rocks (and the landscaping cloth underneath it) so that the group can expand further is on my list!

I picked up small branches around our yard – mostly from our neighbor’s river birch which is a prolific self-pruner. I piled them on the patio and made bundles of them to easily feed into our chiminea and

Waited for a calm day to burn them. I got about half of them burned before I felt thoroughly smoked and saved the rest for another day!

The highest priority task now is to remove rocks from around the hostas sprouting in the flowerbeds (some in places that are now under bushes), dig out the clump and divide them for transplanting into an area between a pine tree and the flower bed surrounding the patio. The area has been thoroughly mulched and is ready for them. I’ll not disturb the crocus bulbs that have multiplied there and have already finished blooming this season.

A challenge: the oak pollen is high and I am allergic. I’ll either wait a few days or wear a mask when I work on the hostas…or maybe I’ll be delayed by some spring showers.

Stress Reduction Strategies

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Late last summer, I started a lot of new activities and noticed that my stress level, as detected by my Garmin Lily, increased. My stress level and the quality of my sleep are related – when stress is high, sleep quality (and sometimes quantity) is low. At the time I thought I would acclimate, and my stress level would be reduced…but that didn’t happen.

I realize now that the new activities were not the only reason my stress level was high. My back was bothering me and the politics of the country were causing some anxiety as well. I asked my doctor for a referral for physical therapy to help with the back pain and started the PT sessions in December. They coincided with the holidays and a dramatic reduction of my new activities. By early January, I thought my stress level was trending downward along with the level of pain caused by my back.

It didn’t last. With the start of a new semester (geology class), an uptick in new volunteer activities, and the changes occurring at the Federal level….anxiety and stress spiked again and were even more volatile that before. Most of the time I was able to minimize my back issue (thanks to continuing the exercises I learned in physical therapy) so that was not usually a big component to my stress level. The strategies I am applying now (see below) seem to be helping…but I only have a few weeks of results so far. I suspect that I will be tweaking my stress reduction strategies for the foreseeable future!

  • No caffeine after 9 AM.

  • Limit TV news and news feeds. Be informed but not scrolling through news frequently.

  • Practice focusing thoughts on the present.

  • Continue physical therapy exercises focused on reducing back pain + at least 8,000 steps per day. Swopper chair (bounces) when sitting at my computer.

  • Move every hour….i.e. take a break from sitting. Use the time for a household chore.

  • Get some outdoor time every day.

  • 2 hours before bedtime: no screens. Read physical book and create Zentangle tiles. Do relaxing stretches.

  • Electrolyte drink 3 hours before bedtime.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 5, 2025

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

What’s Hiding Inside This 2,200-Year-Old Pyramidal Structure in the Judean Desert? - Alongside Nahal Zohar, a stream in the southern Judean Desert, archaeologists are picking through a large building they believe was used as a stronghold for protecting the caravan route bringing bitumen and salt from the Dead Sea to Mediterranean ports. To date, researchers have found a new Dead Sea Scroll, excellently preserved ancient Roman swords, and a 10,000-year-old basket and lid.

Which Native Plant Are YOU? - Take a moment to enjoy a bit of playful anthropomorphism as you take a Native Plant Personality Quiz, to see which native plant YOU are most like!

Ecologists document Utah's bee species and say beehive state is rich in bee diversity - 1,167 bee species are documented in the state of Utah!

Mud, water and wood: The system that kept a 1604-year-old city afloat - The city, which turned 1604 years old on March 25, is built on the foundations of millions of short wooden piles, pounded in the ground with their tip facing downwards. These trees – larch, oak, alder, pine, spruce and elm of a length ranging between 3.5m (11.5ft) to less than 1m (3ft) – have held up stone palazzos and tall belltowers for centuries, in a true marvel of engineering leveraging the forces of physics and nature.

From Wasteland to Wonder – A free eBook by Basil Camu about trees and how each of us can improve the places we love. It includes QR codes for instructional videos about how to do things. One that I viewed and will apply immediately is how to prune shrubs in a way friendly to the plant…and results in less frequent pruning!

Renewables Accounted for More Than 90 Percent of New Power Globally Last Year - Still, growth is not on pace to meet a global goal to triple renewable capacity by the end of this decade. Continuing its clean-energy dominance, China installed more renewable power than all other countries combined last year.

7 Ways State Wildlife Action Plans Save Species – From the National Wildlife Federation.

Women Played a More Important Role in Producing Medieval Manuscripts Than Previously Thought - Female scribes were responsible for producing at least 110,000 handwritten manuscripts between 400 and 1500 C.E. in the “Latin West,” or the Roman Catholic parts of Europe, researchers find. That represents roughly 1.1 percent of the total 10 million manuscripts produced during that period….and that is likely an underestimate.

Jamestown is Drowning - Millions of artifacts have been excavated from the site over the last century, helping historians to understand much of what we know about this historic early settlement. But untold numbers of other artifacts may soon be lost forever because of increasing water levels, not just from flooding but also from rising groundwater and migrating wetland areas. Among the most profound known impacts are the loss of human remains. The average sea level has risen nearly 1.6 feet in the tidewater region of Virginia—a trend that is now accelerating. Studies predict that about 14 of Historic Jamestown’s 23 acres—or 60 percent—could be permanently underwater within the next 50 years.

These Are the 20 Happiest Countries in the World - The United States dropped to its lowest ranking yet in the annual report. This year, America came in 24th, down from its peak at 11th on the 2012 list.

eBotantical Prints – March 2025

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in March - available for browsing on Internet Archive. This month includes 4 volumes of Dissertatio Botanica by Carl Peter Thunburg from the late 1700s and the first volumes of Recueil des plantes les plus usuelles peintes d'apres nature by Pierre de Savary (the second series will be continued in the April eBotanical Prints). My favorite image of the month is from the Album of Chinese flora executed by one or more Chinese artists for John Reeves (1774-1856).

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,083 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.

Click on any sample image from March’s 20 books below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the March 2025 eBotanical Prints!

Nova genera Plantarum  * Thunberg, Carl Peter * sample image * 1781

Dissertatio Botanica V1 * Thunberg, Carl Peter * sample image * 1781

Dissertatio Botanica V2 * Thunberg, Carl Peter * sample image * 1782

Dissertatio Botanica V3 * Thunberg, Carl Peter * sample image * 1782

Dissertatio Botanica V4 * Thunberg, Carl Peter * sample image * 1782

Flora Japonica * Thunberg, Carl Peter * sample image * 1784

Flora Japonica sive Plantae * Siebold, Philipp Franz von * sample image * 1835

Album of Chinese flora executed by one or more Chinese artists for John Reeves (1774-1856) * Chinese School  * sample image * 1820

Icones selectae plantarum * Kaemper, Engelbert * sample image * 1791

Medical botany; or, history of plants in the materia medica of the London, Edinburgh and Dublin pharmacopoeias. Arranged according to the Linnaean system V1 * E. Cox and Son (publisher) * sample image * 1821

Medical botany; or, history of plants in the materia medica of the London, Edinburgh and Dublin pharmacopoeias. Arranged according to the Linnaean system V2 * E. Cox and Son (publisher) * sample image * 1822

Standardized products - a descriptive list of drug extracts standardized by chemical or physiological means * Parke, Davis & Company * sample image * 1911


A brief treatise on various ailments and their treatment by nature's remedies * Medical Institute (Bradford, West Yorkshire, England) * sample image * 1895

The new British domestic herbal * Waller, John Augustine * sample image * 1822

Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des plantes * Dodart, Denis * sample image * 1676

Handbuch der pharmaceutischen Botanik. : Mit illuminirten Kupfern * Juch, Karl Wilhelp; Volckart, Johann Friedrich * sample image * 1804

The reformed practice of medicine * Rosen, Samuel * sample image * 1895

Recueil des plantes les plus usuelles peintes d'apres nature V3 * Savary, Pierre de * sample image * 1764

Recueil des plantes les plus usuelles peintes d'apres nature V4 * Savary, Pierre de * sample image * 1764

Recueil des plantes les plus usuelles peintes d'apres nature V5 * Savary, Pierre de * sample image * 1765

Another Event about Trees

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Last week I was one of 4 tables for a Scouting event (the other tables were about bears, skulls, and tracks). I used materials I have been collecting and used since last fall. It was the first time with small groups coming to the table and talking about trees for 10 minutes…then doing it all over again. I expected to be limited to one table but I had 2 – plenty of room to spread out.

The groups were K-4th grade…3-6 in each group. I was surprised at how many recognized the thorn (or pods) of honey locust, knew that trees produced oxygen, and knew that counting trees rings is a way to tell how old the tree was (even though most of them had never really tried to do it before)!

I had a slide show that emphasized things to notice about a tree if you want to identify the type of tree it is.

The different sizes of pinecones were fun….and the difference between the pinecones and the cone from a spruce was new to them. We talked a bit about escaped Bradford pears that we see blooming all over our area right now…and the redbuds that are also in bloom and are native. My white oak seedling was a good conversation starter too; one of the scouts had an acorn that had a root (so far) and was trying to figure out what to do with it next. It is probably one of the red oaks since they tend to sprout in the spring.

The pictures are from the end of the sessions…rearranged considerably from when I started!

Springfield Botanical Gardens – March 2025

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There were signs of spring at the Springfield Botanical Gardens last week when I made a short visit.

The daffodils were beginning to wane.

The grape hyacinths filled some niches in beds otherwise still bracing for winter.

The maple trees had new samaras – still colorful. There must be several different kinds of maples based on the different structure and color of the samara clumps.

The most dramatic were probably the deciduous magnolias. I always like photographing them. The most of trees that I found were very young.

I found some tulips as I headed back to my car. It was a little disappointing to not see more of them. They did not appear to be as densely planted as in previous years – or maybe a lot of them just didn’t produce for some reason.

The redbuds were blooming….making a haze of color in the gardens! This is a great time of year to visit botanical gardens frequently to see the transition from winter to spring to summer.

Zentangle® – March 2025

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31 Zentangle tiles for March….a single one selected for each day of the month.

After light blue and white tiles in February – I skewed to the colorful cardstock for the March tiles. Toward the end of the month I started making tiles as part of my daily wind down before bedtime – no blue light and some focused activity is a good way to end the day!

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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.

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2025

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Lots of early spring celebrations in March!

Trout Lilies. One of the high points of our hike at Cedar Gap Conservation area was seeing trout lilies blooming down by the stream…as celebration of the new season.

Bald Eagles. The serendipity of seeing two bald eagles soaring over Springfield was another celebration of our Cedar Gap field trip. They seemed to be heading north so might have been migrating through as eagles do in the spring.

Tenure. My son-in-law was granted tenure at Missouri State University. It’s a major milestone to celebrate.

Pinecones. The wind caused pinecones to fall from our shortleaf pine and I picked up a bag of them for my sister. We both celebrated in anticipation of the fun projects she’ll do with her grandson.

Redcedar. I transplanted a small eastern redcedar that came up in my flowerbed to the place in my yard that I want it grow….and celebrated that it stayed upright even with the high winds that came along in March. It will make a great addition to the bird habitat near our patio!

Physical therapy. I celebrated that the physical therapy my dad is doing seem to be helping him recover his mobility after an illness in February.

Covid booster. My husband and I both got a booster in March…celebrated how easy it is to do at our pharmacy. We both have managed to never have Covid.

Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. Celebrating snow geese and swans…and all the other birds at the refuge.

Orchids. The Missouri Botanical Gardens (St. Louis) Orchid Show is quite a celebration of flowers. It will probably become an early spring tradition for us from now on!

Volunteer opportunities. I am celebrating that there are so many great volunteer opportunities…lots of variety which I will continue to explore this year.

Zooming – March 2023

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I selected 22 images for this month’s zooming post. 7 were taken during our road trip to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge (going through Kansas City), 5 during the road trip to the Orchid Show (St. Louis), 5 at home, 3 during a hike at Cedar Gap Conservation Area, and 2 in Dallas. March was a good month to be out and about…typical for early spring!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 29, 2025

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

How long will you live? New evidence says it’s much more about your choices than your genes - Environmental factors influence health and longevity to a far greater extent than genetics. Environmental factors had the greatest impact on lung, heart and liver disease, while genetics played the biggest role in determining a person’s risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers, and dementia. The environmental factors that had the most influence on earlier death and biological ageing included smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity levels and living conditions.

'The ice melted beneath our feet': The huskies that revealed the rapid shrinking of Greenland's ice - Greenland experienced record ice loss in 2019, shedding a total of 532 billion tones from its giant ice sheet, according to a 2020 study. On average, Greenland loses 234 billion tons of ice per year. What's distinctive about Greenland is how much melting happens on the surface in the summer, because Antarctica doesn’t get anywhere near as much.

Humboldt Penguins on the Edge – Temperate penguins of Chile and Peru. They hunt in the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Humboldt Current, the world’s largest marine upwelling, that flows a few miles offshore. They are excellent swimmers and deep divers in their pursuit of anchovies and other fish. Humboldt penguins have come back from the edge of extinction before—it will take the continued efforts of local communities, governments and partners to bring them back again.

Study: 'Sustainable intensification' on the farm reduces soil nitrate losses, maintains crop yields - A nine-year study comparing a typical two-year corn and soybean rotation with a more intensive three-year rotation involving corn, cereal rye, soybean and winter wheat, found that the three-year system can dramatically reduce nitrogen -- an important crop nutrient -- in farm runoff without compromising yield.

These Everyday Artifacts Tell the Story of Harriet Tubman’s Father’s Home as Climate Change Threatens the Historic Site – The site is in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge – the first place I saw a bald eagle in the wild (in the early 1990s). My family visited there many times when we lived in Maryland, and we observed the transition of the marshes to ghost forests and then then open water over the next 30 years. The refuge is obviously changing with rising sea level.

Plastic recycling gets a breath of fresh air - The researchers used a molybdenum catalyst and activated carbon -- both of which are inexpensive, abundant and non-toxic materials. The mixture with PET was heated and, after a short period of time, the chemical bonds within the plastic broke apart. With the tiny bit of moisture from air, the material turned into terephthalic acid (TPA) -- the highly valuable precursor to polyesters. The only byproduct was acetaldehyde, a valuable, easy-to-remove industrial chemical.

This English Burial Site May Be Centuries Older Than Stonehenge - Flagstones, a burial site in Dorset, on the English Channel, may be the earliest known large circular enclosure in Britain. It is a perfectly circular ditched enclosure, with burials and cremations associated with it and may have even served as a prototype for later sites such as Stonehenge, which is located just 45 miles to the northeast. The ditched enclosure was created around 3200 B.C.E., with burials placed in it at that time. The scientists were also intrigued to find that a young man was buried under a large stone at the site fully a millennium later.

Climate change threatens future of banana export industry - It will be economically unsustainable by 2080 for many areas across Latin America and the Caribbean to continue growing bananas for export, because of rising temperatures caused by climate change.

Spring Spectacle: Thousands of Tulips Bloom at One of LA’s Top Gardens – Reminds me that I need to plan a visit to the botanical gardens near where I live in Missouri for tulips soon!

Portraits of women who 'shine a light': from an 'analog' astronaut to a watermelon farmer – Vignettes of women from around the world…what a range of activity!

Illustrations in Children's Books - Soviet Union 1980s

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Internet Archive has quite a collection of books for children published in the Soviet Union for export during the 1980s. I was very familiar with books for children published in the US during the same time because I was reading a lot of them with my young daughter in the early 1990s. The illustrations are the big draw – as the sample images from the books I browsed last January show. They are often colorful…sometimes artsy or whimsical…sometimes realistic. Enjoy browsing some children’s books!

Raggity and the Cloud

Sun Sews a Shirt

Fly away, seagull, fly away

My first book

Little Arthur's Sun Two Armenian Stories

Volunteering – March 2025

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Am I settling into my post-covid level of volunteering? I’m not sure. I’m still changing…I’m discovering that some of the activities at did pre-Covid are either not readily available here or I prefer different things.

I am enjoying the Friends of the Library used book volunteering once a month and then helping with the used book sales. Sometimes I can find used puzzles for my dad in the piles of donated books! On the downside, moving boxes of books is harder for me now; I am going to start loading books into boxes already on the stack rather than having to lift them after they are loaded!

The bulk of my volunteer time is as a Missouri Master Naturalist. There is a lot of variety in types of activities: chairing the programs committee (speakers for the monthly chapter meeting), volunteering with local stewardship non-profits like James River Basin Partnership, nature programs for elementary aged children (Cedar County Libraries) and citizen science (Feeder Watch). I am thinking a bit about the seasons of this type of volunteering. Feeder Watch is from October to April, for example. I am anticipating a few more nature programs this spring but the dominate volunteering over the summer might be the Butterfly House at the Springfield Botanical Garden that opens in mid-May. I’ve established a goal for myself to volunteer 250 hours in 2025 and, so far, that goal seems achievable!

Learning about Missouri Geology – March 2025

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We took two road trips over the past month --- opportunities to observe Missouri geology along the roadsides! My copy of Roadside Geology to Missouri has been a good reference.

The first was from our home near Springfield MO to St. Louis. Interstate 44 dominates the route and there are plenty of roadcuts first on the Springfield Plateau then the slightly lower Salem Plateau…finally down the northeastern flank of the Ozark Dome close to St. Louis. Our day trip was on a sunny day, so it was easy to take pictures.

One of the most interesting road cuts is at the north side of the rest stop near mile marker 235. The Roadside Geology book says – “Tilted blocks of Pennsylvanian sandstone and shale….are part of a down-dropped block of rocks along a fault zone or a filled-sink structure, or perhaps both.” I took pictures from the south side of the road as we were going toward St. Louis

And then one as we passed by on the return.

We noticed caves and state parks along the way and are planning a ‘field trip’ in April to see some of those.

The second was from our home near Springfield MO to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City MO. The route took us from the Springfield Plateau to the Salem Plateau…then the Osage Plains as we turned toward Kansas City and crossed the Missouri River…finally to the Glaciated Plains of Northern Missouri. The day was sunny, making photographs of road cuts as my husband drove possible. I even got two pictures of the roadcut near out home as we set out!

The road cuts were less pronounced as we got further along…and more crumbly. On a botanical note – the sycamores are easy to spot this time of year.

I was so busy photographing overpasses and the bridge at Kansas City that I didn’t realize the bridge was over the Missouri River!

The Loess Bluffs (in this case roadcuts) look very different than the roadcuts further south. The loess here is from the edges of glaciers of the last ice age. Plants sometime can take root…but often sluff off and the loess is revealed again.

And then we reversed toward home.

PT on my Own – month 2

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I am in my second month of continuing my physical therapy exercises without the rigor of twice weekly appointments. I’ve become somewhat inconsistent – and am determined to get back to a better routine. My biggest challenge seems to be the aspects of my everyday life that have me sitting for too long: road trips, in front of my computer, meetings and classes. Toward the end of the day, I realize I haven’t done enough of the exercises to improve…and maybe not even enough to maintain. And then I have a round of aches at night…poor sleep…a bad cycle begins.

I have been more consistent in getting at least 8,000 steps per day and that is helpful but does not work on all the muscles that need to be stretched and improved.

I’ve started a seated twist exercise that seem to be helping relieve lower back pain very quickly. It is easy to do when I am out and about.

I bought some slats for under the mattress of the twin bed I use for back exercises…to make it firmer. Now I need to open the box and get them in place!

It helps that the weather is warmer, and I hope in the next month to be outdoors more frequently doing yard work which will test how well the physical therapy exercises are keeping my lower back pain at bay.

Previous Physical Therapy posts

Road Trip to Dallas in March 2025

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I left home before 6 AM and, because of the shift to daylight savings time, it was very dark for the first hour of the trip. It had been very windy the day before and cold overnight…with snow flurries. Fortunately, it was too windy and not cold enough for any accumulation. I made my usual first stop at a Loves just west of Joplin, before entering Oklahoma. I have made the trek so many times that I am very familiar with the places I like to stop. The next stop is at the Loves when I get off the turnpike at Big Cabin to go south on US 69/75. I buy a protein drink for breakfast. Stop three is at a QT in Muskogee where I buy gas this time. I stop at the Loves in Atoka for a cookie and then the Anna TX Whataburger for lunch…and then I am at the assisted living residence to visit with by dad.

I find him awake and in his rocking chair in his room. We do a round of physical therapy, and he seems resigned to doing the exercises. I notice when he stands up from the rocker that he seems stronger than he did in February after he’d had a short illness. The PT seems to be helping. We walked a bit outdoors…not around the block completely but about half the distance and he didn’t seem exhausted afterwards like he did back in January. I noticed that the redbuds are beginning to bloom, and the evergreen shrubs are getting new leaves. Afterward we disassemble a completed puzzle and put it in its box….started a new one – almost completing the frame before he complained that he can’t see well enough to continue. It had been about 2 hours since I arrived…about the max that he can enjoy at this point.

When I get to the hotel – there is no one at the front desk so I use that as a prompt to walk around outside for about 10 minutes; the afternoon temperature was in the upper 60s and the sun was shining. It was a pleasant afternoon. I took a few pictures of river rocks in one bed… some fiber curves of a yucca, and some mistletoe in a tree. There were drifts of leaves in areas of the parking lot where cars don’t park frequently….and a cedar branch that got painted red when the ‘no parking’ curbs were re-painted.

I focused on my own physical therapy for part of the evening! The food for my dinner that I brought from home worked well – I was glad I didn’t have to go anywhere else once I got to the hotel. I was still feeling the impact of the walk with my dad – must have been enough of some kind of pollen that caused my sinuses to drain (runny nose and sneezes) that continued until the early morning hours.

The next morning, I was up at my usual time and having the hotel breakfast shortly after 6:30 AM when they opened. I headed to the assisted living residence by about 7:20. It was the morning rush in the Dallas suburbs. The route is a main thoroughfare with lights but there was more honking of horns than I remembered from previous trips. My focus shifted to my dad for the hour and half I was with him.

Someone had opened the blinds on his window, and he was noticing the sun shining on the neighboring house’s chimney and then roof. I remembered to water the outdoor raised beds that my sister has planted; it was too cool outdoors to take my dad with me. After I returned, he was ready to work on the puzzle. We finished the frame and made some progress on the interior. He complained that he couldn’t see well enough about the time the staff started serving breakfast and I left. I took pictures of the rocks around the circular driveway of the assisted living residence…mostly sandstone, I think.

I had noticed on the drive down, that my stress level while driving seemed high so I decided to try keeping my thoughts more concentrated on the present rather than planning for events and activities coming up in the next few weeks. I noticed more things along the way:

  • License plates – Maine and Wisconsin were two further afield ones. Most were Texas, Oklahoma, and then, once I was close to home, Missouri. The Cherokee and Choctaw license plates were the most numerous tribal plates.

  • The cars that seemed to be trying to go faster than anyone else – darting from lane to lane on the highway – had Texas plates until I got into Missouri. Then it was Missouri drivers going way over the speed limit (more than 10 mph faster). They tended to get on the bumper of the car not going fast enough in front of them too.

  • There are some trees I recognize going down the road. Sycamores are easy to spot in winter and they haven’t leafed out yet…so they are still distinctive. The Bradford/Callery pears and redbuds are blooming right now so they are easy to ID. The Callery pears (escaped Branford pears) are more frequently seen near towns…where Bradford Pears were planted, birds ate the seeds and then carried them nearby. Sometimes they are half the trees in abandoned fields…along with eastern redcedars. The redcedars are native but they are more numerous now than they were historically because they thrive in damaged soil without periodic fires to control their numbers. The native redbuds are blooming…full bloom in Texas and buds transitioning to bloom in Missouri.

  • There are the always some roadkill that I notice. The most frequent this trip was skunks, but I saw a few racoons as well.

  • There are train tracks along US 69 in Oklahoma. Most were moving. When they were moving in the same direction I was traveling, I could tell that I was going faster than the train!

  • The wind was picking up dust in some places. It wasn’t always visible, but I could hear it when it hit my car. There was more trash along the sides of the road…caught in fences and trees or it would have just continued moving. My eyes felt itchy for much of the drive.

  • As I go closer to home, I noticed several cars that were packed with belongings – the rear window filled with what looked like clothes. I wondered if it was college student going back to school after spring break – with a lot of clean clothes!

When I got home, I checked the ‘stress’ metric that is recorded by my Garmin Lily…and it was lower than it had been on the previous day while I was driving! So – focusing on the ‘present’ is helpful!

Cedar Gap Conservation Area

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My daughter and I took an early spring hike at Cedar Gap Conservation Area near Seymour MO this week. It is about 45 minutes from where we live along good highway…to a 2-lane road that heads into the country side for less than a mile before it turns to a gravel road, and crosses some railroad tracks just before the small parking lot. The Cedar Gap Plateau is the second highest point in the State of Missouri! Three watersheds begin from the plateau: Gasconade River, Finley River, and Bryant Creek.

WThe trail is downhill to a stream – the headwaters of Bryant Creek. The trail is gravel that is sometimes large enough and loose enough that going downhill is considerably harder than going uphill!

We noticed some redbuds with buds developing but not open year. I stopped to photograph a small nest left from last season and some very green moss.   

It was not long. Before we heard trickling water! The water stairsteps down over rock ledges into pools…some clogged with leaves and others clear to the rock at the bottom of the stream. It has not been a wet winter or early spring so there was not a lot of water.

We saw a few wildflowers coming up through the leaves left from last fall.

I attempted to photograph some water striders. Their shadows show up more than the insects.

I walked a little further up to take a picture of overhang and realized that water was dribbling off the top…maybe evaporating before it reached the stream.

We hiked back up the trail the way we had come. The hike is a loop, but I wasn’t sure that we were half way around….and didn’t want a longer hike. I made stops on the way up (a steep trail) but felt surer footed than when we walked down. My last picture was of trees on top of the highest area…still like winter…but we know they will leaf out soon.

My daughter and I enjoyed a Mexican food lunch in Seymour before we drove home.

My daughter and I enjoyed a Mexican food lunch in Seymour before we drove home. The grand finale of the trip: as we drove toward my daughter’s house in Springfield, we saw two bald eagles soaring overhead. Fortunately, we were stopped at a red light so we both were able to safely see them!