Ready to Volunteer Again

Over the past week or so – I’ve been attending training sessions at the Howard County Conservancy’s  Mt Pleasant in preparation for field trips that might happen this fall. With schools in the county just starting this week, there is a lot that is TBD for the fall field trips. There are more that the usual challenges: potential for COVID-19 outbreaks (vaccination and masking helps but is not 100%), shortage of bus drivers, and a higher percentage of new volunteers than in past years. The usual weather challenge for the outdoor programs seems small in comparison!

I am hopeful that there will be at least some field trips. The scheduling requirements probably mean there will not be a lot of them until October, and there might be some opportunities where the volunteer gig will be in the school yard rather than at Mt. Pleasant. Either way – being outdoors with students is something I look forward to every fall; I missed it in 2020.

The training session this past week was on a sunny, cool day after Hurricane Ida came through our area. I couldn’t resist some photography before/after the session.

Honors Garden

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Sweet Bay seed pods just outside the Honors Garden – smaller than the pods of the Southern Magnolia but still looking like red M&Ms peeking out of the pod.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

A little fall look with sunshine bringing out the changing color of leaves

Looking again at a tree stump cut earlier in the pandemic. I noticed that the rings are somewhat concentric for the early years of the tree’s life. Then they get very closely spaced on the side toward the bottom of these image. The tree seemed to grow skewed to the left!

As I got close to my car, I noticed that the old pear tree in the old orchard is loaded with fruit this year!  .

The place….the people…it feels good to be on the cusp of fall volunteering!

Taking a Day off

What does ‘taking a day off’ mean when one is post-career? Next year it will be a decade since I left my career – my formal ‘work’ - behind. I’ve filled my days with a wide variety of activities that vary from day to day, season to season…evolving over the years. For some reason, I’ve been thinking about what is means now to ‘take a day off’ --- I still do it occasionally. There are some characteristics of those days:

• I clear the day of other commitments. For example – I write my daily blog for the ‘day off’ ahead of time and post it so that it gets released at the appropriate time without anything more from me.

• The day is filled with activities that are different than my normal…maybe it is spent traveling or in a special class or on a field trip…or maybe it is simply a pajama day at home, being lazy.

• The normal daily goals I have for myself (books browsed, steps, Zentangle tiles, calorie limit, yoga time) become optional. I might still achieve some of them….but they are not required.

I don’t take a day off completely very often because I enjoy every day so much. There is no equivalent to the surge of activity that used to happen during my career that would exhaust me emotionally and physically…. necessitating a day off to recover. A partial day off does happen with some regularity because achieving some of the daily metrics takes enough time that I can’t achieve them all with the other unique activities of the day. There is so much to enjoy every day!

Enjoying Home

There is so much to enjoy about just being home. Even yard work is appealing! On the third day back – I was out early with the goal of cleaning out the front flower beds. I didn’t have enough energy to set the goal to completing the job…instead strived for two wheelbarrow loads back to the forest/brush pile. It was not too difficult and my long sleeves/gauntlet gloves protected my hands from poison ivy (there might have been one plant) and blackberry thorns.

View fullsize

View fullsize

I took short breaks to photograph tiny mushrooms, blooming clover (the clover we planted last fall in the problem areas of our yard is growing well), cicadas at every turn, and tiny blooms on our bushes.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

I already have plans for another round in the front yard and then will begin work on the chaos garden (which is completely wild this year).

My husband and I have enjoyed some short ‘field trips’ to Brookside Gardens and to view the recent partial solar eclipse. One field trip per week is probably about right for us – even though we are still spending most of our time at home. We are choosing venues where there are outdoors…usually in the morning (sometimes very early)…where there are unlikely to be crowds. There are a lot of places we’ve enjoyed in the past that we haven’t been to for over a year!

Since I knew I would be going to Texas several times this summer, I opted to not sign up for the CSA this year; I’m going to the Farmers Market instead which happens ever Sunday. It’s worked well so far. I got spinach, broccoli and snap peas the first week…spinach, squash, and artisan bread with pecans and golden raisins the second week (the spinach is for green smoothies). I’m still a little overwhelmed with veggies since my husband doesn’t eat them…but I know how to freeze any that I have left over!

View fullsize

View fullsize

Last Sunday when I was pulling into the driveway after my trek to the Farmers Market, I noticed a lot of cicadas on the day lily leaves growing around our oak tree. Do you see three in the picture below? The temperature might have still been a little cool for them to be flying around. One of the things I like about our yard is how much wildlife we have around!

I picked up some cicada carcasses from the driveway and did a little macro photography after I put away the produce.

I also brought in some stalks of day lily buds; it’s the same every year at this time – cutting the buds as soon as they are big enough to open in water…before the deer eat them!

I enjoy just about everything about being home…rejuvenating myself for my next foray away in mid-July.

8 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 2)

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

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

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

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

Patuxent Research Refuge – Part 2

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

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

View fullsize

View fullsize

But still vibrant in closer looks.

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

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

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

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

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

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

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

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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

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

Patuxent Research Refuge – Part 1

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

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

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

• A meditation group had walked around and was finding a dry place for their mats to begin their session

• A couple with their young daughter stomping around in her boots…accepting a warm cap for her head

• A man doing short drone flights

• A few couples with leashed dogs

• A family with older children crossing the pontoon bridge

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

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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

Conowingo on a Fall Morning – Part 2

Continuing our short field trip/road trip to Conowingo (part 1 post is here)….

Today’s post focuses on the Great Blue Heron that was relatively close to our viewing location (in the lower left of the image below).

It stayed on the same rock for quite some time. I took portrait shots when it moved any part of its body. It is a bird that was born this year…just getting in some adult feathers. I think my favorite of the portraits is the one with beak pointed down…a rather stern-loooking image. Something caught the bird’s attention away from the water at some point and it turned toward the rocky embankment.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

It looked around and it became obvious that the bird was going to move.

It didn’t fly….it started walking. Note the big toes as it takes a step (use the arrows to move back and forth between the 2 images).

And then it was off….making it’s way to a new vantage point – where it stayed until we left. It must have gotten a fish earlier because it seemed to be observing the scene rather than actively fishing.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Hawai’i Island Festival of the Birds. The festival starts on 10/15 and registration is free (site to register is here). I registered weeks ago but checked to make sure I had all the info I needed to find the festival on the 1st day. The videos are pre-recorded and made available on the day they are listed on the calendar of events. I except to see birds that I have never seen before! When I visited Hawai’i in 2015, I was so overwhelmed by everything else that was new to me that I only noticed a few birds. I’d like to go for the festival some year.

Mt Pleasant Field Trips

Schools didn’t end until June 21st in our area so the Howard County Conservancy spring field trips were still happening into mid-June! As usual, I volunteered for field trips at both Mt Pleasant and Belmont. Today I’ll share some pictures I gleaned from before the school buses arrive at Mt. Pleasant….tomorrow I’ll do the same for Belmont.

In late May – I noticed how lush everything was looking: the sweetbay magnolias, the blue flags, peonies, the new plantings around the flower pot people, and the trees along the gravel road toward Montjoy Barn.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

By early June the flowers in the Honors Garden, like the columbines, were blooming.

But the big draw of the Honors Garden – for me and for the children on field trips – were the green frogs in the pool. I would talk to the students before we came near the garden about walking very quietly…not talking…as we approached the pool so that we would see frogs. And I challenged them to find more than 4 frogs (or however many had been seen with my previous group). One group claimed to see 7…but I only saw 6. The pictures in the slide slow below were taken over several mornings before the buses arrived. Green frogs sound a little like a rubber band being strummed. It was fun to share the sights and sounds of the frogs with my hiking groups!

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2019

April has been a busy month – only at home for a week out of the month and not all at the same time. There was plenty to celebrate with spring in full swing and the travel to see it in different places.

Certified Zentangle® Trainer (CZT) class. There were so many perspectives of the CZT class to celebrate: the beauty of the creations everyone was making, the conversations, the food…the challenge of being a student…the Zen.

Train ride home. I don’t go many places where taking the train is feasible…but the CZT class was one of them. I celebrated the low stress hours going home…a fitting finale to the class.

4th and 5th grade field trips. The early April field trips happened with great weather and the students enjoying being outdoors to learn about the Patapsco heritage (land, water, and rocks) and BioBlitz. It’s always inspiring to see their curiosity and enthusiasm --- celebrating a spring field trip.

Getting to Dallas. I had to travel to Dallas quickly and it was easier than a thought it would be. And I celebrated that I was less stressed by the rapid change in plans (maybe the Zentangle class providing an added benefit.

Spring days. Noticing the rapidly developing blossoms of spring is fodder for many celebrations – oxalis is probably one of my favorites right now. It blooms when the sun is shining!

Rainy day (spent indoors). After busy days – having a rainy day spent indoors is something to celebrate…with homemade soup for lunch!

Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie. A little bit of prairie – carefully tended by volunteers – in a Dallas suburb! Right now it is a celebration of spring wildflowers.

Cedar waxwings. Birds are migrating and there are serendipity sightings of birds that don’t stay around the area long. I celebrated seeing a small flock of cedar waxwings last week.

Botanical reminders of my grandmother. Many flowers in my parents’ Carrollton yard were planted by my grandmother…good memories to celebrate.

Home again. Providence, Rhode Island to home to Carrollton, Texas to home to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Smith Island to home. I like to travel…but coming home is celebratory too.

--

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.

Signs of Spring

Last week, a kindergarten class was the first field trip of the ‘spring’ at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. The temperature was in the 30s and there was a little breeze – very wintery feeling. The children and I had our coats zipped, hoods up, and gloves on. We hiked and looked for signs of spring….and remnants of other seasons.

We saw daffodils coming up and snow drops blooming…signs of spring. We looked at holly with its shiny green leaves and red berries which is often symbolic of winter. One holly was leaning over the snow drop bed.

We saw evidence of squirrels around: lots of opened black walnut shells which had been their food all during the winter. We searched the trees for squirrel nests but decided that the strong winds recently must have blown the nests away.

There were some trees that had been cut down recently. We noted that the centers had been rotting which was probably why they had been cut. The largest stump was near the farm house and the children crowded onto it for their teacher to take a field trip picture!

The children were surprised to see the witch hazel in bloom and learning that it normally blooms in late winter. They saw the brown leaves on the ground and still clinging to the branches of the tree – correctly identifying them as the leaves from last summer/fall.

View fullsize

View fullsize

There was a winter jasmine with buds of all sizes – and a single flower. It was another sign of spring on the way. They were surprised at the different sizes of buds and identified the ones that were about ready to open.

In the old orchard, we looked at the buds on the apple trees and the pear tree – deciding that the pear tree would probably bloom first based on way the buds looked.

By the end of the hike – they were ready for a little warm up in the nature center then back outdoors for a focused lesson starting with looking for animal tracks in the muddy areas.

It was a good start to the ramp up of spring field trips!

Belmont BioBlitz Field Trip

I went early to help set up for the first Belmont BioBlitz for 5th graders this fall at Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont location. I arranged the discovery tables with pelts, skulls, insects in jars/acrylic, and leaves/seeds of common trees neatly framed in cases backed with cotton. Another table held reference books. The volunteers arrived and we all went out to wait for the buses. The new item for this year is a rugged tablet! Otherwise we had the usual BioBlitz backpack: ruler, tape measure, magnifiers, clip boards, some id books…things we would need in the field.

It’s good to feel that we are ready – and enjoy the morning calm as we wait for the buses.

And then the buses arrive and it all begins.

With my first group we stayed on pavement since we had one student with a cast and were using a wheel chair for her to help with the distance. We documented some trees along the entrance road and some insects on the trunks. Some geese flew to the pond as we watched, and I used the zoom on my camera to take some pictures to include with their documentation. It was the only time I got my camera out during the field trip. Otherwise the students did all the picture taking and documenting of what they found. The big find for the first group was a wolf spider.

View fullsize

View fullsize

The second group went in a different direction and said – at the beginning – that they wanted to look at plants and fungi. They documented an oak and the ivy growing on it. Then they found several kinds of mushroom type fungi. And there were some insects along the way…they were more interested than they thought they would be in insects. They were looking around for acorns and discovered a different kind of nut….and then the tree. A hickory. They got some good pictures of the nuts and leaves, and the way the leaves are on the branch…so they should be able to determine the type of hickory it is!

It was a good field trip. All the students had already done a BioBlitz on their schoolyard so were well versed with the mechanics of what to do. Belmont is a very different place than a schoolyard!

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2018

The ten little celebrations for June started out like other months:

• Celebrating the last of the spring field trips and the end of schools. I enjoy hiking with school groups….but am always ready to have a summer break!
• The Frederick MD garden day was full of garden treasures. I celebrated formal gardens…a children’s’ garden…and most of all a woodland garden.

View fullsize

View fullsize

• My daughter managed a weekend to drive down for a weekend visit. She is closer now that she lives in Pennsylvania rather than Arizona, but we are all so busy that we don’t see each other any more frequently.

Then something unique happened: my mother fell and broke her femur…and I went off to Texas for almost 3 weeks. The rest of the little celebrations were all stem from that event:

• The surgery to fix the break happened within 24 hours and was success.
• I managed to get to Texas before she left the hospital – barely.
• She walked about 100 feet with a walker before she left the hospital….and only spent 2 days at a rehab place before going home.
• I manage a short walk around Josey Ranch lake while one of my sister was with my parents and saw 4 types of herons in about 30 minutes…two were ‘firsts’ for me: a yellow crowned heron and juvenile green herons. It was my only photography away from my parents’ house and was short…but very satisfying.

View fullsize

View fullsize

• Last but not least – the physical therapy milestones just before my left: my mother walked down a paved alley and across a grassy lawn with her walker….and we’d already gotten a cane to be ready for her next milestone! The she – and the whole family – celebrates every milestone!

First field trip of the season

The spring field trips have begun. I volunteered for the first pre-school field trip last week provided by Howard Country Conservancy at Belmont. It was the day everyone went back to school after our big snow and there still patches of snow on the ground. It was a sunny day but very chilly. The children arrive in cars with a parent (or two) rather than a bus. They were mostly 3 years old…a few had recently had a 4th birthday. They were bundled up enough that we walked around and looked at trees. The maple trees were blooming and had a branch that I could show them the flowers closeup. One little boy noticed that the color was redder in the sunlight but was almost black when the branch was in my shadow.  I learn something every time I do these field trips!

We talked about how seeds are planted – sprout – grow…Then started looked for tree seeds. They were thrilled to find sweet gum balls under one of the trees.

I also showed them a magnolia seed pod…also from under the tree.

We all pretended to be a tree seed growing in a forest – growing tall – and our branches moving in the breeze. Then we went inside and I shared a tiny tulip poplar tree (root and small shoot). The leaves had started unfurling because I’d had it inside for the past three weeks. The children warmed up while they learned about butterflies and the animals in the nature center. We learned a little about birds then trekked back outdoors to see and hear them. Unfortunately, it was a very quiet morning. We did see a hawk and the children remembered that they has seen geese on the pond earlier.

A good time was had by all!