January was a busy month but not one that included any big photography opportunities! My selections for zoomed images this month have some themes: sunrise/sunset, snow, birds, and lights. They are mostly from Missouri (although there are two that are left over from my trip to New Mexico in December that I didn’t post about until January). Enjoy the photographic mosaic.
I started a second semester at Missouri State University in January – taking a geology course (online) and lab (in person). The semester did not start out as well as the one in the fall:
Unfortunately for me, the department had made the lab optional so the university’s program for people over 62 only applied to one part – make the semester considerably more expensive than the fall semester.
I also mistakenly signed up for an online lecture course that didn’t begin until March (it didn’t occur to me that there would be a schedule like that) so I had to make a quick adjustment to get a course that matched the lab duration.
The lecture part of the course (online) had a digital textbook that include study aids that was required for the course….that cost over $80. It was quite a ‘sticker shock.’
The first lab happened before I got the lecture course situation fixed, but evidently it was also before most people in the lab had attended a class too. The instructor walked us through the lab as a group, but she talked to fast that I wonder how many of the students understood it very well. Fortunately it was a topic I was familiar with.
I’ve completed the first two chapters of the textbook that have been assigned – and the associated questions/quizzes. There was one short YouTube video that was included in the assignments. I am disappointed that the professor does not include any recorded lectures for the online course; she did invite us to a similar course that she is teaching in person if we wanted to hear a lecture on particular topics…and I have gone to one.
The course and lab both reference field trips but there were none listed on the schedule for either one. I asked the lab instructor…they only knew that there hadn’t been field trips since COVID. When I emailed the professor, I was told that there would be a field trip in early April. Would it have happened without my query? Geology field trips are some of my favorites. When I was in high school, I went on several field trips with Southern Methodist University’s geology department since I had a friend whose father was a paleontologist there…and then in college I tagged along with my husband’s geology class at El Centro (community college) and University of Texas (rock roses and marine fossils and caves). In Maryland, the master naturalist training included a hike in Patapsco Valley State Park with a geologist! So – I really want at least one geology field trip from this course.
The professor also sent out a pdf with a self-guided geology tour of the campus. I did it last week; the day was too cold to do it leisurely although I did notice non-geology things along the way too.
As I walked from the lecture building toward the first stop on the tour – I made a slight detour to photograph Ozark Witch Hazel that blooms in January. The buds were open but the streamers were still curled…probably because it has been very cold during the past week.
The first stop was to see the “Carthage Stone” (limestone) façade of Carrington Hall. The foundation of the building is Missouri Red Granite from the St. Francois mountains of southeastern Missouri.
Inside the building, there is a tile floor (not a geological feature) and steps/decorative spheres of marble….a grand staircase.
I photographed tiny fossils in the polished limestone stairs of Hill Hall. The building was constructed in 1924…one of the older buildings on campus.
The Memorial Garden near the student union building has a gabbro slab (igneous like granite but with larger crystals and dark silicate minerals like plagioclase feldspar). There is also as sandstone ramp/wall along the walk to the Memorial Garden. The stones are from northwestern Arkansas and reminded me of some sandstone my grandfather used to construct some benches back in the 1960s.
There are dolomite rocks in some of the planting areas – ugly but interesting.
At the southeastern door of the student union, the slab to the right of the door is more Carthage Stone…this time with more visible fossils! The step up to the door is granite porphyry…with different crystal sizes indicating that it had 2 phases of cooling and crystallization.
It had been a cold walk but the exercise of being out and about felt good as I walked back to my car to go home. I am thinking of the walk as the first field trip of the course.
After the field trip to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum, I set a goal for myself to learn more about Missouri Geology in 2025…hopefully make field trips throughout the state. January was a month to do some research. I already had two books (Roadside Geology of Missouri by Charles G. Spencer and Geology of Missouri State Parks by Max W. Reams and Carol A. Reams) that I was reading – already referencing to plan the coming months.
I found that my local library had several other books. They were older and out of print. Two of them could only be used in the library. Sitting in a comfy chair in the library browsing them was an hour well spent. I took pictures of the cover/title page and some of the maps/pictures/tables – realizing that this was a better option than the copier machine.
Missouri Geology by A.G. Unklesbay and Jerry D. Vineyard
Springs of Missouri by Jerry D. Vineyard and Gerald L. Feder
The third book was available for checkout so it was actually read: Gargoyle Country – The Inspiring Geology of Springfield & Greene County by Jerry D. Vineyard.
I also discovered a great overall Geology resource – a National Park Service website! It’s not specific to Missouri though.
My husband and I signed up for two birding field trips this winter that are in very different areas of the state. They will both double as geology field trips! The first one is in a prairie area of Missouri and the second is far north in the state in an are that was glaciated in the last Ice Age. I’ll take my reference books and look at roadcuts along the way (since my husband will be driving)….and geologic features while we are out of the car.
Previous Missouri Geology posts
The temperature was in the teens when we made our drive down to Branson to see the Aquarium on the Boardwalk. We were early enough in the day that there were not a lot of people already there. The entrance was a little daunting…too much plastic…but the displays of fish made up for that first impression. So many shapes and colors of fish! The signage could have been better; often there were fish on display without any signs to help identify them. One of my favorite tanks was the one with seahorses – some of which looked pregnant!
They had eels that looked menacing! There were also white margin unicorn fish which I had never seen before…and which I had to look up once I got home since there were no signs that I saw for it.
My favorite place in the aquarium was the display of jelly fish in cylinders and surrounded by mirrors on the walls…creating an infinity room with jellyfish everywhere! I made a short movie.
We spent about an hour at the aquarium and saw everything. It would take longer with a child…spaces to crawl into/see the fish from a different perspective, a touch tank, and a ‘kelp’ tower of platforms/netting to climb which we didn’t do. We did enjoy the Submarine Adventure (3-D glasses, cartoon, special seats) and it would be even more fun with children in the audience.
The building was purpose built for the aquarium – with a huge stainless steel clad octopus over one end of the building. I found myself wondering if they ever do behind the scenes tours. It must take a lot of work to keep the fish healthy over time and it would be interesting to understand more about how they do it.
This initial visit was an enjoyable ‘field trip’ on a cold morning.
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.
A looming 'demographic cliff': Fewer college students and ultimately fewer graduates – Universities are already experiencing declining enrollment. In the first half of last year, more than one college a week announced that it would close….and the projection is that the pace of college closings could accelerate. This does not bode well for the US economy.
Charging Ahead: Key Geographical Clusters for Electric Trucks – The realistic sequence looks like: The west coast of the US up to British Columbia and New York to Virginia will be the first wave of green charging corridors for trucks. Virginia to Florida and then Texas to California with be the second wave. I am bummed that Missouri (where I live) is not positioning itself to be in the second tier which would facilitate a complete cross county route.
Severe Cold Spells May Persist Because of Warming, Not in Spite of It – Evidently, we have a weaker, more meandering jet stream that allows frigid air to reach further south because the Arctic is heating up and there is not as much difference between the Arctic and warmer air to the south.
A Quarry Worker Felt Strange Bumps While Digging. They Turned Out to Be the Largest Dinosaur Trackway in the U.K. – I remember going to see the dinosaur tracks at Glen Rose, Texas. Somehow the huge tracks make it easier to internalize how big these animals were!
U.S. Surgeon General offers 'parting prescription' to heal America's division – Thought provoking.
Seven key climate and nature moments to look out for in 2025 - Big moments in 2025 that could shift the dial on climate and nature….while extreme weather continues.
Who built Europe’s first cities? Clues about the urban revolution emerge - Around 6,000 years ago, a group known as the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture developed egalitarian settlements north of the Black Sea and created the region’s earliest urban centers. Then, after two millennia, they vanished. Cucuteni–Trypillia has always stood out as something of an anomaly, because its settlements seemed to have been egalitarian societies that were devoid of social hierarchies. Their distinctive pottery was discovered almost simultaneously in two locations in the late nineteenth century: Romania (where the culture was named after a site in Cucuteni) and Ukraine (where the same culture was named Trypillia, also after a community where artefacts were found). The group made pots, hunted and gathered, farmed, raised cattle and lived in settlements where all the houses were the same size. People ate legumes and cereals grown on the rich soils of Ukraine, which were well manured by cattle. Livestock animals were also eaten, although isotope analysis of rare human remains shows that meat made up only roughly 10% of people’s diets. Despite the organized urban design of Cucuteni–Trypillia megasites, there were no palaces, no grand temples, no signs of centralized administration and no rich or poor houses.
Looking Back on Geological Activity in Yellowstone During 2024 - Hydrothermal explosion in Norris Geyser Basin in April, July explosion of Black Diamond Pool at Biscuit Basin, Economic Geyser(in Upper Geyser Basin) experienced a series of eruptions for the first time since 1999, Abyss Pool began to heat up and overflow/its color changed from dark and somewhat murky to a deep blue as the summer progressed, Steamboat Geyser continued to be active although with many fewer eruptions than in previous years…but the year was seismically calm!
Citizen science reveals that Jupiter's colorful clouds are not made of ammonia ice - The abundance of ammonia and cloud-top pressure in Jupiter's atmosphere can be mapped using commercially available telescopes and a few specially colored filters and the instrumentation/analysis showed that the clouds reside too deeply within Jupiter's warm atmosphere to be consistent with the clouds being ammonia ice.
Photographer Highlights the Importance of Monarch Butterfly Conservation Through Stunning Images – Photographs from Jaime Rojo. The monarch butterfly isn’t just a pretty sight—it’s an essential pollinator that keeps our planet healthy. But in the last 40 years, their population has dropped by a staggering 90%, leaving them on the brink of extinction.
My husband, daughter, and I took the seasonal Top of the Rock’s Nature at Night tour last week. It’s a 2.5-mile trail via plastic enclosed golf cart through light displays, waterfalls, bridge crossings, a cave, and classic holiday scenes.
On the drive south from our home in Nixa MO, the sun was going down. I tried a few sunset pictures. There were enough clouds to provide some added structure.
The first lights we saw were before the gate to the property…2 bison. The car was moving as I took the picture, which made their hides look furrier!
The first lights we saw were before the gate to the property…2 bison. The car was moving as I took the picture, which made their hides look furrier!
We had bought our tickets ahead of time, so I took a few minutes to take pictures of the lights below, the sunset, and the lake before we got in the line for the golf carts.
The temperature was in the low 40s, but we were bundled up and the plastic cover helped too. My daughter did the driving. There were some sharp turns, inclines, and shallow water in some areas along the route. We stayed in the cart the whole time as instructed so all the pictures I took were through the plastic cover.
My favorite display included a waterfall with a giant wolf and orb in lights. I took the scene from several angles and magnifications.
The activity was the grand finale of our ‘holiday’ season!
My monthly trek to Dallas and back is never boring! This time I left at 6 AM (normal for me) expecting darkness but dry weather. It turned out to be foggy. The density of the fog seemed to increase as I headed west from my home near Springfield MO toward Oklahoma on I-44. It was reassuring to see taillights ahead or other lights along the road…and I appreciated my navigation system since the usual landmarks were not visible. The traffic was light enough that I was surrounded my darkness and fog for short periods --- but then some lights would appear out of the gloom, and I realized the fog had not thickened to the point of blocking out all light!
There was no color at sunrise. The fog and clouds blocked the light although it was obvious that it was lighter. Driving became a little more fraught because some vehicles did not have their lights on (and they really should have). I almost passed the QT in Muskogee where I had planned to stop because they did not have any external lighting on either. The fog finally dissipated by the time I got to McAllester OK – which is about 2/3 of the way to Dallas!
I stopped at the Texas Welcome Center on US-75 – finally all the way through Oklahoma. I took a few pictures of the plantings. It appeared that the leaves had just fallen from the oak trees.
When I got to the assisted living home, my dad had just finished lunch and was ready to go for a walk. It was about 68 degrees and sunny…very pleasant for a late December day. He wore a light jacket. We made our way slowly around the block seeing other neighborhood residents enjoying the warmer day. He is the only resident of the assisted living home that is still taking walks into neighborhood; he is using a walker with 4 wheels which is easier to maneuver on the rough pavement than his 2 wheeled version. We avoided puddles with rafts of wet leaves (mostly oak).
When we returned, we finished a puzzle that he had started with other visitors. I took a picture just after we finished it ….with his 93-year-old hands.
I visited again the next morning – making the frame of the next puzzle and talking to him while he ate breakfast.
The drive home was easier – sunshine…no fog. I saw an osprey, 2 bald eagles (not at the same place), soaring hawks…and a red-tailed hawk that was gliding down to the side of the road with its tail spread. I was tired when I got home but realized that my PT is paying off: my back was not hurting!
December has so many big celebrations. My little ones ended up not being as associated as usual with the big ones. Half the celebrations were at Festival of the Cranes…perhaps because my husband and I were so glad to be there again after a long hiatus beginning with the COVID years.
First frost. I celebrated noticing frost crystals on a car next to mine in the parking lot of the clinic where I go for physical therapy….and photographing them!
Warm drinks on cold days. Hot chocolate is my favorite, and I celebrated figuring out that the cocoa will dissolve better in a small amount of hot water before adding the other ingredients. I enjoy a cup every morning. Hot cider is my other hot drink on cold days.
PT exercises for the Road. I anticipated asking my therapist for some exercises I could do during our road trip to New Mexico…and celebrated that they worked!
Easier drive than expected to New Mexico. My husband I celebrated that there was no heavy traffic or construction along our route during the long day of driving from Missouri to New Mexico. It was a great beginning for our Festival of the Cranes experience.
Cranes at Sunset. We celebrated two great sunsets photographing cranes. The first one was my favorite because we thought the clouds were going to block too much of the sun at first…and then a hole appeared at the perfect time.
Bluebirds and green heron. Campuses are quiet places in the early morning…great places to see some birds – at least in the case of New Mexico Tech in Socorro. We also saw a great horned owl!
Harris’s hawk. These are probably my favorite raptors because they hunt in groups…are beautiful birds. I celebrated seeing two of them at close range with their falconer.
Sunrise in Tucumcari. As we headed back toward Missouri in the early morning, the sun was rising as we neared Tucumcari, NM. The clouds were in perfect position to keep the sun from shining directly in our eyes and the color (and reflection of color) spectacular.
Red velvet cake. Celebrating just the cake – no icing!
Joplin Mineral and History Museum. A day trip with my daughter…celebrated the time to talk, the museum (interesting display of minerals along with galena which was mined in Joplin), and the Mexican food for lunch.
My husband and I were excited to get to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge last week. This was our third time to attend…the first since the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first time we drove rather than fly since we had moved to Missouri – a bit closer that where we lived previously (in Maryland). We made the drive over 2 days.
The first day was a 10-hour drive. We left the house at 6 AM and drove in the dark at first…and then it was foggy for most of the route through Oklahoma although I did spot a harrier (hawk) flying near the road in western Oklahoma). I didn’t take any pictures.
By the time we got to the Texas panhandle, the sun was shining. The rest stop building had a berm on two sides and dramatic white walls with a star cut out. It was very windy and cold – we were walking fast to and from the car! The mosaic in the bathroom was a lot like the scene outside; the old Texas rest stops all had mosaics and I am glad that they have continued the idea in the new ones.
The panhandle of Texas has a lot of wind turbines. They were almost all in motion!
As we crossed into New Mexico, there was a welcome center. I took a picture of the front and back of the sign…but it was still very cold.
We stopped for the night at Santa Rosa NM…about 2.5 hours from our destination.
I observed the changes in vegetation as we drove on toward Albuquerque. The interstate curves around through the mountains just before getting to the city…a very scenic stretch of highway. Since I wasn’t driving, I took some pictures. There is a lot of rock – but vegetation too…and highway art.
We got to Socorro NM, ate lunch, made a reconnoiter drive around the Bosque del Apache wildlife loop, checked into the hotel, and then my husband headed out to a nighttime photoshoot at the Very Large Array; maybe he’ll share his photos with me, and I’ll post the best ones. I appreciated an evening on my own to unpack and get ready for the flurry of Festival of the Cranes events.
Previous Festival of the Cranes posts
My daughter and I visited the Missouri Institute of Natural Science on Black Friday! Neither of us had been there before even though both of us had heard about it and were interested. We got there just after 11 and spent about 45 minutes looking at their exhibits and shop.
Their triceratops (name Henry) dominates the center of the largest space they have. It is part fossilized bones and part 3-D printed ‘bones’ to make a complete skeleton. Awesome!
There were some 3D printers to the side of the displays…it probably takes considerable time to create the pieces of a complete skeleton; there are pieces of a second dinosaur that they are printing and collecting under Henry.
A prehistoric fish was still in rock. I zoomed in for a closer view of the front fins.
Evidence of past eras of plants were also on display. Pinecones and dawn redwood!
A raptor (dinosaur…not modern bird) egg nest was in one of the cases.
And, of course, there were shark teeth…and modern shark jaws to compare. There were obviously sharks in the past that were much larger than any we have today!
Ammonites….the rock was donated and there no indication where it was found.
The display case of coprolites (dung that has been fossilized) was in a corner of one the museum bathrooms!
There was a case of trilobite fossils. I remember one of my teenage friends being keen to find them!
There is a display of lead mining equipment – part of the history of this part of Missouri.
It was worth the visit and I might take guests from out of town to the place (a good choice on a rainy day!).
There were more people arriving as we were leaving…we headed to lunch. The timing was great since by the time we finished our lunch there was a line out the door of the restaurant (the Black Friday shoppers had worked up an appetite).
I walked around our yard before the killing frost last week…to capture the colors of late fall. There is not much to do in the yard right now. I am following the ‘leave the leaves’ strategy. The winds swept away most of the leaves in the front yard but there are two drift areas in the back which may thin the grass. I don’t mind at all if that happens. I’ll plant black-eyed susans, cone flowers, golden rod, asters, bee balm, golden alexander, etc. I am inclined to let the pokeweed grow at will since I have seen mockingbirds eat the berries this fall.
There were still a few dandelions in bloom….and insects. The morning I walked around was in the 40s so the insects were not moving very fast.
Of course there was lots of color…including aromatic sumac, a young maple, our Kousa dogwood…as well as other plants that are probably not native.
The seeds of the chives are easily falling out of their husk. The pods on the crape myrtle will probably freeze before the can mature; the plants have died back to the ground every year we have lived in Missouri so far. The big buds on the rhododendron look great and will likely make it through the winter to bloom next spring.
Both the Eastern White Pine and Short Leaf Pines are doing well in our back yard – pokeweed growing underneath them. There is also a small Eastern Redcedar that has come up in my wildflower bed; I’m thinking about where to move it next spring…maybe to the area where I planted a button bush…which a squirrel promptly clipped to the ground.
My husband got the barn swallow nests removed from under our deck. We succeeded in not letting them build a nest on the brick of our house last summer…but they found a place on the deck supports and we didn’t notice soon enough.
Our maples in the front yard have lost their leaves. Our neighbor’s river birch has also lost its leaves and it looks like there is a squirrels nest in the tree. The oak in our neighbor’s yard (a pin oak) still has a lot of leaves but seemingly has dropped a lot as well; most of the leaves in our back yard are from that tree.
Even though the drought of the summer made the fall not as brilliantly colored, fall lingered lingered…and the transition to winter was worth noticing.
The zooming images for November are mostly a celebration of fall in our area of Missouri. There are a few animals in the group that could have happened at other times – a robin bathing in a stream, a grackle at our feeder, and a small red-eared slider in our neighborhood pond.
Can you find the poison ivy seeds (hint…they are white), the glorious fall Virginia creeper, a chestnut husk, 4 kinds of oak, and a maple?
I enjoyed searching out little bits of nature to photograph…fill frame…using my camera to ‘see’ better than I do with just my eyes. My camera’s optics are the great enabler!
My monthly 2-day road trip to Texas to visit my dad was sunny and full of fall sights. The temperatures were decidedly cool. On the first day, I noticed more hawks that usual on high branches of roadside trees – particularly in Oklahoma. Some of them were probably red-tails but some were obviously smaller. Going 70 miles an hour, I only get a quick glimpse (avoiding becoming a distracted driver).
I stopped at the Texas welcome center on US 75 after leaving Oklahoma to eat my lunch and enjoyed their native plant garden. The Turk’s cap was still blooming.
The American beautyberry has clumps of purple drupes but some that were on the top part of the clump looked burnt. I wondered if they got the most summer sun…and were damaged by many days of the high temperatures.
There was a small tree that had a lots of red berries. I managed to ID it: possumhaw (Ilex decidua). It is a native deciduous holly. It grows in Missouri and I might plant one in my yard…maybe replacing a non-native.
It was very windy the next day on my drive back to Missouri. I didn’t see hawks perching….but did see some soaring. One was flying low over a field near the highway --- obviously hunting.
The sun was going down by the time I got back to Missouri. The light from the setting sun gave the roadside trees and orange glow. It was a good scenic finale for the road trip.
I sorted used books for Friends of the Library at two of our county libraries this month.
The first library was not one I had been in before and the sorting was done in a small windowless room lined with shelves --- table in the middle with bins underneath --- a narrow walk space around the table. The door is left open; otherwise, it would be very claustrophobic. There was one bag of donated books that was in bad shape (water damage, detached covers, a musty smell); most of those went into the recycling bin. The other volunteer and I quickly sorted everything and boxed up over 10 boxes to go into storage for the next book sale. It was a good experience but not the place I want to do book sorting very often.
The second library was one that is close to where I live and one I had worked in before. The room is without windows but is large…plenty of room to move around and the boxes of books are kept in the middle of the room.
There aren’t as many puzzles being donated these days so I didn’t find any while I was sorting to buy from the library for my dad’s assisted living home.
Last week marked two ‘milestones’ in my Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) volunteering:
My tree educational trunk capstone project (part of the MMN training) is finished (or at least at a good stopping place). I had intended to leave it at the Springfield Missouri Department of Conservation for storage…and I savored the fall foliage from my car when I got there. The fall has lingered this year without a hard frost to hurry the end. By the end of the morning, I was taking the trunk home along with some additional educational materials since there is a plan to use the trunk for outreach sessions in January and maybe the Osage orange would be dry enough to add to it by then. I’m still thinking about it as ‘finished.’
I also started a new project: creating a collection of soft pith stems in a bucket (suggestion from Wild Bee Lab Facebook Page). I’ll check it periodically to see if any bees use the stems for nests. My initial collection includes pokeweed, forsythia, bush honeysuckle, and goldenrod. Yes – some are non-native but if the bees use them, I’ll be even more vigorous in getting rid of the non-natives around my yard and doing this with the stems rather than burning them in my chiminea.
The last field trip of the Identifying Woody Plants class was to McDaniel Park – a convenient commute from the campus. It had a lot of invasive plants (Japanese honeysuckle, Winter creeper, Bush honeysuckle, White Mulberries) but some native species too --- lots of good review. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my bridge camera so only had my phone for photography.
One of the review trees was Osage orange – Maclura pomifera – Moraceae. None of the trees had fruit under them. Had it been picked up or were they all male trees?
A new species was Rose of Sharon - Hibiscus syriacus – Malvaceae. I was as fascinated by the insects on the seed pods (Hibiscus Scentless Plant bugs?)as I was the plant. This is a plant I am familiar with…not native but widely planted. The seeds are hairy!
The River birch - Betula nigra - Betulaceae is an easy one to id from the bark and catkins.
Did you know that poison ivy seeds are white? It was something I learned this semester…not sure why I had never noticed before.
Arcuately veined and opposite fall leaves of a silky dogwood – Cornus obliqua – Cornaceae.
And the variability of Sassafras leaves – Sassafras albidum – Lauraceae. For some reason, I got stuck years ago on ‘mitten’ leaves but the leaves are not always like that!
Our teacher collected seeds and twigs for the lab next week and that included Winged sumac – Rhus copallinum – Anacardiaceae. I am intrigued that it is used to make tea. We previously saw smooth sumac but there were no seeds on those plants.
I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of fall foliage and a recently cut tree trunk (the tree was around 50 years old).
The field trip was a pleasant fall afternoon – a good finale. I am realizing I that will miss the weekly classes and am solidifying my plan for the spring semester.
There were still some leaves on the trees when we visited Garrison Springs Community Forest in Ozark, Missouri last month. It is a newly opened natural area snuggled into the developed area of Ozark. The vegetation makes it feel much further out; the ‘noise’ of the place is only the gurgle of water from 3 springs and the sounds of birds singing and leaves moving in the breeze.
Our area had gotten very little rain the past few months, but the springs still were flowing, and robins were bathing along with the newly fallen leaves.
A daddy long legs (harvestman) crossed our path as we headed back to the car. We stopped to get a picture.
This place is small but not that far from where we live…a place to visit again for a quick nature fix…and to see the improvements as they happen in the next few years.
The first frost at our house was on 10/16; the low was 29 degrees, but ice crystals only formed on part of our yard…and I went out shortly after sunrise to capture the event. Some of the crystals seemed to outline the leaves (and their holes) while other leaves seemed to be more thoroughly dusted. There were no crystals on taller plants.
The freezing temperature did not last long enough to wilt vegetation. The violets outside my window are still mostly green…with a few yellow leaves. The maples still have most of their leaves. Our area has not had much rain recently so we are anticipating that the fall color might not be as vibrant as usual.
On another outdoors note…we have been viewing Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas (A3) from our front sidewalk!
Continuing the blog about the Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) field trip taken last weekend…
My second rotation was nature journalling. I made a Mindmap on the page of my journal during the intro – and decided to do some leave rubbings first. I had brought a stool for the session (a lesson learned from last time when I stood the whole time…and wore myself out). I quickly discovered that the journal book did not have a hard enough cover to support rubbings. I managed to use my phone to provide a more sold surface for the notebook and did 4 rubbings. I found some leaves with galls and other spots…decided to so some macro photography with my phone. I couldn’t resist documenting what the inside of a spicebush seed looked like.
I walked around taking a few pictures of the surroundings…remembering to look up! All the while I was making notes in the journal about what I was thinking as I took pictures.
Then I noticed a shed with moss and leaves on the top. I took some pictures of it…remembering the concept of intimate landscapes from a book read years ago and decided to so some of that kind of photography.
The black walnuts in various forms of blackness were an obvious subject. I took several different black walnut ‘landscapes.’ The one I liked the most was an empty husk in the moss with a violet and some brown leaves….did a squirrel take the nut? The second favorite was a group of plants that formed an arch…with red fruits. It looked like a good start for a fairy house.
The last rotation was at the stream to look for macro invertebrates. It was my first time in my river boots since we moved to Missouri…they didn’t leak but I need to practice walking in them!
The water was very low and that made it harder to effectively use the seines although we did find a lot of water pennies. The other group found a couple of small hellgrammites…but the big find was right at the end: a dragonfly larva that looked like a leaf! What a great finale for our field trip activities.
I made my monthly trek to Dallas and back late last week. It was a cold morning as I left Missouri…getting away well before 6 and my nav system routing be around a nighttime road closure before I even made it to the highway! It was almost sunrise by the time I made my first rest stop. The color in the sky changed even in the short time I was in the building getting a protein shake for breakfast.
The color was mostly faded when I stopped the second time although it was still within the hour after sunrise.
The drive was uneventful although it seems like there is more active construction on some parts of my route than a month ago. Perhaps they are trying to reach a milestone before winter weather or maybe previous work had been hampered by very high temperatures in southern Oklahoma and Texas.
I visited with my dad and then headed to the hotel to relax…recover from getting up a little earlier than usual and driving for almost 7 hours.
The next morning, I was up and ready for a breakfast at the hotel at 6:30 then arrived to visit my dad shortly after 8 AM. We took a walk around the block. The weather was coolish (he wore a quilted vest over his long-sleeved shirt) and the sun was bright. Some of the houses had fall/Halloween decorations. The bald cypress trees I had noticed last time I walked with him were beginning to lose their needles. They will be ‘bald’ soon!
I was on the road heading home shortly after 10. The drive between the assisted living residence in Dallas and the border between Texas and Oklahoma is the most stressful part of the route – the speed limit is 70 mph for most of the way and people are trying to go that fast and beyond even when the traffic is too heavy to allow that safely.
I got home by about 5:30 and my husband informed me that we might be about to see the aurora after it got dark. We went out about 8…and there it was…faint but definitely some color in the Missouri sky!
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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