Zooming – April 2024
/Flowers (Nixa and Springfield MO, Sherman TX), – birds (Nixa and Springfield MO) – solar eclipse (Poplar Bluff MO)….a lot of zoomed images this month. Enjoy the 2024 slide show!
Irises and other Yard News – April 2024
/The irises, that were already growing in flower beds when we bought our house, are blooming profusely; the ones I transplanted last fall/winter will take another year to build up the energy to bloom. I was surprised that the most prolific bed this year grew very elongated stems that fell over as soon as they started to bloom; I didn’t remember them being so tall last year. The irised in another bed looks the same, but the stems are very short!
I ended up cutting the long stems to bring indoors and enjoyed photographing them: macro shots with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and
And Canon Powershot SX70 HX high key shots (almost white background) and
Some warm glow shots of a group.
Of course, there other plants active in the yard. Hostas are growing well – both the original clumps and the ones I started this year by dividing some older clumps.
There are lots of dandelions in various stages of development. I tend to let them alone since the bees like the flowers and the roots are deeper than the grass root which helps hold the soil – particularly on slopes.
There are more violets that ever spilling out of flower beds and into the yard. There are some places that I have stopped mowing because the violets are so thick!
The irises I transplanted into the area where the pine tree was cut down last summer are growing vigorously. Maybe one or two will bloom this year although it won’t be great until next year. The lambs ear is growing well and should fill in more around the irises over time. The beautyberry does not have leaves yet but we’re still having some cool days/nights; hopefully it will leaf out in May.
I took some ‘art’ pictures of an iris bud and new rose leaves early in the month.
A lot is growing in the wildflower garden from last year. Some might be weeds…hard to tell until the plants start blooming.
Pokeweed is coming up everywhere. I am going to cut down plants that get above a certain size. I also plan to rake pine cones that are around one of pines toward the fence so that I won’t mow over them (they are a little tough for the lawn mower to cut!).
Overall – a great month in our yard. The rhododendron is full of buds…but not blooming yet…a lot more beauty coming in May.
Solar Eclipse – Part 1
/We traveled from our home near Springfield MO to Poplar Bluff MO for the solar eclipse on April 8th. There was a flurry of activity on the day before the event to finalize our destination; the weather forecast was the key driver for us to choose Poplar Bluff (along with Whitely Park being a good location that was not included as part of the event planning by the city).
We left our house at 5:30 AM to pick up our daughter and son-in-law before heading east; it wasn’t long before sunrise. I took some pictures of it through the windshield of the car (my husband did all the driving).
We did not encounter any heavy traffic during our morning drive…got to the park 2 hours before the first contact…plenty of time for set up and looking around the park. We set up on an asphalt parking lot that never completely filled up so we spilled over onto the two spaces on either side of where we were parked next to a fenced soccer field.
I walked around to look at a few low growing plants…
And trees that were just beginning to leaf out. I realized that the trees did no have enough foliage to make projected crescent patterns onto the ground as happened when we were in Loup City, Nebraska for the August 2017 solar eclipse.
On the ground – I noted roots of a sycamore, seed pods of sweet gums (from last year and green ones from this year) and a clump of green (probably a weed) surrounded by brown thatch.
There were birds about:
Two purple martin houses that were beginning to be populated. One had a pair of house sparrows too; I wondered how long it would take for the purple martins to evict them.
A starling in the grass – keeping an eye on the sky.
And a group of robins in a tree without leaves but lots of twigs that made it hard to get a good image.
I took most of my eclipse pictures with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HX) on a tripod with a solar filter taped to the camera body to cover the lens until totality). I had eclipse glasses that I wore to look at the sun with my eyes and put over the camera on my iPhone to take one picture. I’ll post my eclipse pictures on Sunday along with some my husband took…stay tuned for that.
My Favorite Photographs from 2023
/Photography is something I enjoy frequently (one of those hobbies that pop up almost daily!). I’ve picked 2 photos from each month of 2023 for this post. Picking favorites is always a bit of a challenge; looking at the collection as I write this post I realize some were chosen for the light
A heron in morning light
A backlit dandelion
High key image of iris…and then a turkey using the same technique
…some for the subject
The busy fox squirrel
Two insects in one flower
The egret struggling to control a fish
The feet of the American Coot
…some because they prompted a strong memory of the place.
Driftwood at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge
Sculpture in the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House Garden in St. Louis
Metal iris and sunrise at my parents’ house
Geese on the snow and ice in my neighborhood in Missouri
Cairn as the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield, MO
A flower blooming in December at Josey Ranch Park in Carrollton, TX
Enjoy the mosaic of images (click to see a larger version).
Carrollton Yard – April 2023
/I took pictures between rain showers…tended to do zoomed images because it was too breezy for macro photography. The irises were past their peak…but there were still plenty to photograph.
What a difference light makes! The two images below were taken less than a minute apart with clouds moving rapidly through the sky.
The glass orb among the oxalis and Queen Anne’s Lace just missed being spotlighted in the same situation!
Other flowers were blooming as well. The white daisies were photographed with different lighting…but enough to freeze their movement caused by the breeze.
It was still cool enough for roses to be blooming too.
Of course – there were the ‘always there’ subjects…dandelions and red yucca pods.
Overall – lots of beauty in the yard to photograph…cool temps and rain made it a little harder to be out and about.
Zooming – April 2023
/The zoom capability of my bridge camera (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS) is used in almost every picture I take! I rarely carry binoculars anymore since I’d rather have the option of taking a picture once I find the subject…and I am keen to minimize the weight of gear I carry around.
The locations for the zoomed images selected for this month are Nixa MO, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman TX), Carrollton TX, Coppell TX, and Springfield TX.
My favorite subject this month was ducklings! I was thrilled to find them in my neighborhood pond when they were only a few days old.
Enjoy my views of April 2023!
Our Missouri Neighborhood – April 2023
/Springtime view of our neighborhood from our backyard just after sunrise. The trees are leafing out…filling in more of the eastern horizon. The red bud is a break in the spring greens looking past the tennis courts.
Later in the morning I took some macro shots of fading daffodil blooms
And redbud flowers/leaves.
After spending time photographing the ducklings (see yesterday’s post), I made a project to photograph some of the trees in the morning like against the very clear sky. There was a little breeze but the light was bright enough to freeze the image!
The lawn around the pool was dotted with dandelions. I know that many hate the plants – wage war on them in their lawns – but I have come to appreciate them. I like their cheerful yellow flowers (and so do insects) and the puffs of seeds are always photogenic. I mow them but don’t do anything else to discourage them in my yard.
Bluebonnets and Dandelions
/I looked for bluebonnets on my March road trip to Texas, but only saw them in two ‘cultivated’ places: at the Texas Welcome Center on US 7 (just after the bridge over the Red River from Oklahoma) and at the Coppell Nature Park. Maybe it was a little early to see them along the roadsides (or maybe there are not as many growing ‘wild’ anymore). Even the places I did find them were not dense stands that I remember. I’ll be looking for them again during my April road trip. They are the state flower of Texas!
Dandelions were everywhere during my road trip (and also at home). They are deep rooted plants growing in a variety of places that have photogenic flowers and seed puffs….and are an example of a garden plant cultivated by early European settlers that escaped into the wilds of North America. I enjoyed dandelion greens from my CSA in Maryland, but it’s too challenging to get the soil grit cleared from the shorter ‘wild’ leaves (I.e. so I haven’t eaten any recently). Most people attempt to keep their yards free of dandelions; I did that for years and have now decided it is futile. I’ll mow them…but that’s it. I tell myself that their deeper roots reduce soil erosion. And they support pollinators!
Zooming – March 2023
/The optical (and then digital) zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) is used on almost every picture:
To do composition in the field rather than cropping later
To get close without physically being close
To see better than I can with my eyes (using the camera like binoculars)
My favorite image this month is the backlit dandelion puff. Enjoy the March zoomed images!
Carrollton Yard – February 2023
/The temperatures were getting warm enough in Carrollton TX for some of the hardy spring flowers to make an appearance.
The naked lady lilies are just leaves now…building up for their bloom during the summer. The daffodils and hyacinths are blooming.
I noticed the fallen rooster and rusting toy surrounded by brown debris from last season and the greening new growth of spring. The rooster’s fall, twisted feather and the rust on the base/foot is new this season. I didn’t attempt to right it.
The small landscapes appealed to me as well – the small rock that looks like a big cliff next to the green vegetation, the single pink flower at the base of a big mulberry tree, a red leaf surrounded by crinkled brown leaves and delicate new green growth, and a dandelion already in bloom (also at the base of a mulberry tree).
My favorite image from the February walk around the yard was a backlit dandelion seed puff. Yes – the background is messy…but I always attempt to capture the situation as it was in nature, not something contrived.
Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie – December 2022
/The landscape views of the pocket prairie looked very wintry during the cold snap at Christmas this year. The Pocket Prairie is sleeping.
I switched into macro photography mode (with my Samsung Galaxy S10e)…and found a few blooms, wilted greens, and lots of dried textures. Can you spot the dandelion flower in the slideshow below? There was more than one even though the nighttime temperatures were in the 20s and the sunny day temperature when I was walking around the area was barely into the 40s. I noticed that the flowers were very close to the ground and wondered if there was a microclimate that was sustaining the dandelion growth.
I noticed that the gardeners of the Pocket Prairie had put cardboard under mulch; it’s a good way to reduce weed growth and improve the soil at the same time. Some of the mulch had blown or washed away making the cardboard visible in some places; if the cardboard is too dry, the microbes and bugs won’t find it very palatable. I’ll have to remember that issue since I am going to use cardboard as part of the prep for the area I’ll plant with native shrubs in my back yard!
(Side note – January 3 was my grandfather’s birthday…122 years ago. He died in the 1970s but I have lots of memories of him that always flare into my thinking in the days around January 3rd.)
Gleanings of the Week Ending June 11, 2022
/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.
Dramatic Short Film Explores the Secret World of Microscopic Plankton – Video and photographs…the beauty of the very small.
“Legacy Pollution” to be cleaned up in seven national parks – I am pleased that it is being cleaned up…chagrined that taxpayers are paying for it rather than the oil companies.
Dandelion chemistry: diuretics and the tires of the future – Redeeming qualities of what we normally consider weeds that are menace! I’ve come to appreciate them more over the years because they are edible (my grocery story has the leaves in their organic section occasionally) and their roots are deep enough to hold soil better than turf on a slope.
Infant formula: the superfood you never think about – One of my grandmothers discovered she was unable to breastfeed her babies….and that was well before commercial formula was available. Whatever recipe she used to create ‘formula’ worked. I suspect that one of the ingredients was evaporated milk. Her 9 children thrived…some into their 90s. What happened in the US recently with infant formula reminds us how dependent we are on modern technology that has become increasingly complex…and sometimes without enough redundancy/alternatives when failures occur.
Ancient tree in Chile could be the world’s oldest – A cypress that could be more than 5,000 years old.
Hot-blooded T. rex and cold-blooded Stegosaurus: Chemical clues reveal dinosaur metabolisms – Honing the analysis of how quickly they could turn oxygen to energy.
Ancient ochre mine uncovered in Wyoming – Around 13,000 years ago, Paleoindians mined hematite at the site…and used it to produce red ochre.
Photos of the week – May 27, 2002 – Spring prairie flowers/seeds from the Prairie Ecologist.
What can and can’t be recycled – Thinking about recycling….now that I am moving to Missouri, I need to figure out the rules for curbside recycling. I already know there are some differences from Maryland.
Type 2 diabetes accelerates brain aging and cognitive decline – A scary result since there are so many people with type 2 diabetes….and currently doctors don’t have brain based biomarkers for type 2 diabetes or treatment strategies that target neurocognitive declines.
Missouri to Maryland
/We made the road trip back from Missouri – having walked through the house we are buying and brief by the house inspector (the final results were still pending, but we did get to talk with the inspector about the house while he was in the house). The route was a reverse of the one we had taken from Maryland (see my post here). The weather was dry both days….much appreciated. The temperatures stayed cool even though the sun was shining most of the time. On the first day, our route started in Springfield, Missouri, crossed southern Illinois and Indiana, and ended in Lexington, Kentucky.
The part in Missouri parallels old Route 66…one of the rest stops highlights that history. Evidence of spring is easy to find at every stop.
I wondered how long the leaning tree near one of the picnic areas - caught by neighboring trees before it could reach the ground - would stay in that precarious position.
I zoomed in on the back of one of the horse sculptures at the Kentucky welcome center: Peacock feathers!
The next morning we left before sunrise and I took a picture the sunrise blush silhouetting trees on a ridge. The route the second day was from Lexington, Kentucky, through West Virginia, and ended at home in central Maryland.
More spring: dandelions already going to seed before the other plants in the bed even have buds, red buds planted along the roadway and rest stop parking lots, azaleas just beginning their bloom, daffodils still blooming in the mountains (done for the season at lower elevations). There was enough breeze to extend the flags in West Virginia…but not at the same time!
And then we reached Maryland. The scenic overlook/welcome center had good views of the lake and daffodils were still blooming there. The Sidling Hill stop had yellow tulips. And then we didn’t need to the stop at South Mountain. We were keen to be home!
Even though the weather was good for driving, my husband and I realized during our first day driving that our two days in Springfield had not been long enough to recover from the trek to Missouri. He was having lots of neck and shoulder aches and I was feeling exhausted. We agreed that short turn around trips with that much driving should be avoided from now on!
Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden
/I’d been to the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Garden before…but not the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden part of it. It was a treat to see it during a free afternoon on our quick trip to Springfield to see our new house.
It was a cool, sunny spring day…not as Zen as the garden probably is on most days because the mowers were at work. The noise does not ‘show’ in the images, so I find myself enjoying the gardens even more via the photos! I was on a mission to photograph the lanterns/sculptures of the garden.
Next time I go – I will stroll. I’m planning to become a member of the place after we move and visit frequently.
Shades of Spring Green
/The dominate color of spring is green….in a lot of different shades. There are the greens that have suffered through the winter – usually darker like the holly and other evergreen bushes below. And then there is the new growth:
Pale greens like the new leaves of day lilies (nibbled by deer), tree leaves just unfurling (cherry and tulip poplar)
Blue tinged greens of the spring bulbs (daffodils and iris)
Yellowish greens of new nine bark leaves, and
Bright green of new moss growth and grass and violets and weeds.
I couldn’t resist the including the bright yellow of the dandelion blooms with all the green!
Carrollton Yard in Early Spring – Macro
/I posted about the larger view of the Carrollton yard last week; today the post is from the macro perspective. I started indoors where my mother had some vases of spring blooms (daffodils and hyacinths) that looked cheery.
A few days later, I walked around the yard…the hyacinths and daffodils were mostly spent so I photographed other flowers: oxalis, Japanese quince, dandelion. The dandelion is my favorite.
The new rose leaves were not wet…but the new leaves must have some waxy material that protects them from cold temperatures this time of year.
A larger rock under one of the old mulberries had several kinds of lichen growing on it. The encrustations overlap and I found myself wondering if, in the overlap, are they melding or overlapping. Lichen are an organism that operate on an entirely different timescale than me do; some might continue to slowly grow and dissolve their rock for thousands of years.
Going to Seed
/This time of year, the plants are going to seed. I walked around our yard finding a few:
A dandelion puff in the grass – not a many as in the warm days of late spring and early summer…once the dandelion crescendo they continue flowering and making seed puffs through the warm months until frost.
Many of the ferns have spores on the back of their leaves.
Coneflowers look almost threatening with the spikes of seeds….a drape of drying petals below.
We had a pyracantha at one corner of our house when we move here over 25 years ago – it died back but has now come up from the roots and has orange berries again this year – a pop of color beneath the huge bush growing above the re-emerging pyracantha.
The allium in the chaos garden has green seedpods. They’ll take a little longer to dry and pop open to let the black seeds escape.
Mini Road Trip: Mt Pleasant – April 2021 (2)
/Hiking back from the skunk cabbage patch at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant, I noticed the tree canopy over the trail. It was a great spring day….cool, sunny with occasional puffy clouds.
I looked at the shelf fungus again – from the top and bottom.
The larger woodpecker holes on a high branch seemed larger than last hike but I still didn’t see or hear the bird.
I was surprised to see a patch of daffodils in the woods. They probably started out as a few bulbs….but had proliferated over the years.
Ranger the Barred Owl was very relaxed. He opened his eyes when I first walked up to his area but then dozed – deciding I was not a threat.
There were bees active at one of the hives.
The redbuds are blooming. I like that they bloom all over - even on the larger branches.
As I was eating a protein bar for my lunch, I noticed a black feather….maybe crow-sized…
And some dandelions.
The pear tree in the orchard is blooming. I hope it makes pears this year; the past few years the flowers or small fruit have been ruined by late frosts.
Overall – an enjoyable April hike on a familiar trail.
Neighborhood Pond in the Early Morning – Part 2
/
Aside for seeing the green heron with a fish…there were other things to see around the pond as I made the circuit. The frogs I was hearing when I first approached were Green Frogs based on their calls (like a strummed rubber band) and then I started seeing them – jumping from the bank – plopping into the water. There were some already in the water…with just their head above water. One was on some debris under the cattails. Those three were still enough for me to photograph.
The pond has a street on one side, the back fences of yards on two sides, and then a milkweed meadow on the 4th. It was recycle day for the neighborhood and the truck rumbled around the neighborhood while I was at the pond.
There are lots of plants to see around the pond: peaches hanging over the fence from someone’s back yard, mushrooms in the grass, horse nettle, vetch, clovers, and dandelions.
There were all stages of cattail around the pond. They are usually where I see the male red-winged blackbirds perched; I did manage to photograph one but most of the birds were in the trees or on fences.
The milkweed meadow was in bloom. The bees and milkweed beetle were enjoying the bounty. A few plants were coming up in the mowed area (growing faster than the grass).
There were some silent animals around too: a rabbit
And a painted turtle that I almost stepped on. I was just looking more closely at the pond since I usually see one in the water or up on some debris. And then I looked down…and saw it about a foot away from me. This one was well up the slope from the pond. The temperature was in the lower 70s…..and the turtle was probably just thinking about moving. It didn’t budge while I took my photographs.
For all the animals – I used the zoom rather than trying to get close. The morning pond was their home and I left them to enjoy the morning.
Unique Activities for Yesterday:
Finches at the feeder. We have House Finches at our feeder frequently…and occasionally get Goldfinches. There was a little drama yesterday that involved both. A female Goldfinch arrived first. Then a male House Finch followed by a male Goldfinch. The males appeared to have a territorial interaction and the male House Finch departed.
Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/20/2020 – Walk in the Forest
/Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….
The unique activity for yesterday was a very pleasant walk in the forest behind our house all the way down to the river (a winding path of at least 1/3 mile down…and then back up the same way.
We entered the forest at the back of our yard on a path made by deer between a black walnut – just beginning to leaf out - and a large tuple poplar. There were many violets on both sides of the narrow path. I had tucked my pants into my socks to make a barrier to ticks.
The forest floor seemed to be covered with garlic mustard (invasive) with a few spring beauties where it wasn’t so dense. A large tree had fallen recently with dirt still clinging to the roots. The red maple in our yard keeps me from seeing the area from my office window.
There were several dogwoods just beginning to bloom.
We joined a trail used by horses from a nearby stable…wider than the deer trail. Spice bush is the most prevalent understory tree.
Flowers were blooming, there were sounds of moving water, and a few bugs were around too. We heard two different woodpecker sounds.
There were several different kinds of ferns. I always like to photograph fiddleheads!
And then the small stream we had been following joined the river. It was quite different from the last time we had been there more than a decade ago. Two trees had fallen recently (one still had green leaves on it). The trunks spanned the river. The trees had made what had been a riverside path into a cliff. There were some alternative places down to the water level but not in the immediate vicinity. We took a few pictures of flowers and headed back up the hill.
Along the way, I noticed that there was a stand of hemlock that appeared to be healthy – no wooly adelgid. The hemlocks that we had been able to see from our house when we first moved to the area 25 years ago died years ago.
I also stopped for every jack-in-the-pulpit I noticed on the hike uphill. There didn’t seem to be as many of them as there should be. Probably the overgrowth of invasives like garlic mustard makes it harder for them to propagate.
We got back to our yard and I took a picture of the samaras on our red maple…closer to being ripe.
I saw what I thought was a spider web in the grass but when I took a closer look, I realized it was dandelion seeds! My husband probably mowed it yesterday….dispersing the seeds.
I’m glad we took advantage of the great weather since rainy days are forecast….but we’ll take more hikes into the forest as the weather warms. I’ll use insect repellent next time since there were a few flying/biting insects even at the relatively pleasant 60 degrees. It’s great to have a forest to hike into from our own back yard!
Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.
