New Mexico Tech Morning

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Our second morning in New Mexico started at the New Mexico Tech campus for an early morning look for birds. Before it was light enough for photography we heard, then saw, a great horned owl perched on a roof of a building. There were robins in the exotic pines.

As it got a little brighter, we headed to a pond and immediately saw western bluebirds!

There were ring neck ducks there as well…and American wigeons.

I took a couple of non-bird images – art and a pinecone among leaves. The campus has more trees that the general area around Socorro (they must water more).

There was a lone pied grebe.

A juvenile green heron was a surprise since it was in the 20s; most of the species has migrated further south already.

The most numerous birds were the interbreed mallards/domestic ducks. One had a tuft of feathers on its head that looked like a toupee!

Garvan Woodland Gardens (2)

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Our second afternoon at Garvan Woodland Gardens was after we hiked to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. Our lunch had helped us recover somewhat, but I still took more bench breaks in the gardens! The model trains were running; the tracks were wet and the trains stored during our previous visit.

I took a few more pictures along the way to the Treehouse…we had only seen the outside on our Golf Cart Tour and seeing the inside and the area around the structure was our priority for our ‘on foot’ experience of the garden.

The view from inside the treehouse is full of vegetation and structures – I loved the tree patio and the high bridge. Both my daughter and I tried the pinecone seat; it was reasonably comfortable. It could move from side to side and I wondered if there could be a home version if it that could be used like I use my Swopper chair at my computer table.

There are nooks and crannies in the rocks and vegetation around the treehouse. There was a path lined with young trees and boulders, an Ebony Jewelwing on a fern, quartz veins in rocks, and sculpture…a cave…so many things to hold the interest of children (and adults).

I took a few more pictures of fairy houses as we walked past.

It was the perfect time of year to see mayapples forming under their leaf umbrella.

At one of the paved path intersections there was a cluster of flowers in the pavement.

The Japanese Garden on foot is quite different than staying on the paved areas as the Golf Cart does. We went down stone steps and meandered over stones to cross some water features – saw a Ouachita Map Turtle, a bamboo fence (we learned the previous days that the fences are made from bamboo from the gardens!), and another perspective of the Full Moon bridge.

The oak leave hydrangea and Asian hydrangeas were blooming profusely.

I used my phone for some macro views of the Asian hydrangea flowers.

As we headed back to our car we stopped at the Anthony Chapel….another of the wonderful architectural features of the garden.

I am already thinking about going again to Garvan - earlier in the spring when they have a lot of tulips or in the fall when the leaves will be flying….or maybe in late November or December to see their holiday lights.

Our Missouri Neighborhood – November 2023

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I am planning to do a lot more walks around my neighborhood – get some quality outdoor time/exercise…maybe even what the Garmin calls ‘intensity minutes’. I’ll take a small camera with me…just in case I spot anything interesting. My daughter called me just as I was heading out so I didn’t photograph the great blue heron that was in a sunny spot at the edge of the pond; I just watched until it flew away while I talked to her.

I did some power walking almost to the furthest bridge before I stopped to photograph some oak leaves that had caught in the grass at the edge of the pond. The tree still had quite a few leaves to drop!

The willow seems to still have mostly green leaves!

A little further along there was debris on the walk; looking closer I realized it was seeds rather than leaves!

Even though the temperature was only about 40 degrees. The sunshine must have made the bank warm enough for a turtle to leave the water.

After I got to the other end of the ponds, I noticed a lot of maple leaves had fallen in the drainage channel and the grass along the path.

A short length of sidewalk on my route was almost covered with pine needles. I enjoyed photographing some cones that had fallen as well.

There was a stump at one end of the row of pines that must have been cut several years ago – maybe before we moved to the neighborhood. The color of the pine needles stands out against the gray of the wood and the powdery green of lichen/moss.  

A big plus – I accumulated 29 intensity minutes!

Pinecone Nurseries

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I have three pines in my back yard. My favorite is the largest; it has thick growth all the way to the ground. It is easy to look at the tips of the branches to see the various stages of cone formation… the pine nurseries. Further back on the branch are cones in various stages of maturity. And there are cones in the pine needles under the tree too.

This is the first time I’ve had a pine tree in my yard! My next interaction with the tree will be collecting dead pine needles that have caught in the lower branches rather than reaching the ground and spreading them as mulch under the forsythia bush where there is some bare dirt (i.e. making a pine needle mulch for the bush).

Colorful Outdoors Plants in December

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After the leaves have all fallen off the deciduous trees, plants that retain their color in the cold of December stand out against the background of browns and grays. Here are three of my favorites:

Kale lasts into the winter – particularly in protected area around houses.  The plants I photographed were in a location where frost covered the grass nearby…and the water droplets from an overnight rain were probably icy. I like the color transitions on the leaves…from the new leaves that are all purple/pink…the older ones with the purple/pink near the stem then the gray/green around the edges. The oldest leaves are all gray/green..

Conifers are the dominant greens of winter…and the cones that remain on the tree are interesting too. Is this a pattern from nature that we follow when we decorate our Christmas trees?

We have some hollies in our yard, but they are young enough that they don’t have a lot of berries. The hollies at my daughter’s house are large trees and are full of red berries. While the berries last, the tree displays Christmas colors! At some point there will be enough freeze/thaw cycles for the birds to decide they are edible – sometimes the berries disappear very quickly. Note that these hollies are varieties that don’t have the prickly leaves of the wild American Holly.

The joys of early winter….

Decorating for the Holidays – Part 1

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Decorating the house for December has been different this year. It’s our first season in our Missouri house (old decorations in a new situation) and keeping the kittens safe is causing us to reconsider some of our decorating.

I decided that the pinecone wreath one of my sisters made for me more than 20 years ago needed to be refurbished; it was beyond my skills, so I took it to Carrollton and my sister stabilized the cones with wire and hot glue. We opted for simplified additions beyond the pinecones; I bought a new bow, and she attached it. When I got it back home, I realized I didn’t have any place to hang it that would be safe from our 3 kittens (the glittery bow would be too tempting them to chew).

It’s now hanging in my office in the basement…a kitten-fee zone.

My daughter and son-in-law helped us set up the tree on Thanksgiving. We didn’t decorate it right away…waiting for the cats to get bored with it. The kittens never got bored with it…climbed up through the center of the tree dislodging some of the branches. We took the tree down after 6 days when it appeared that the kittens were nibbling on the white plastic.

On the plus side, the old Christmas cards are not drawing the kittens’ attention. I have giant scrunchies with cards on the pantry door, the door to the basement, my office door, and one of the upstairs bedrooms.

There are also cards (with magnets taped to their back) on the two metal doors in the house (the doors to the garage and front).

Since we’ve turned off the gas fireplace completely, I put cards around the metal frame of the upstairs fireplace as well.

There are still a few other places to put old Christmas cards. I am glad I collected cards over the past 30 years…realizing that there won’t be many new ones; few people send cards any more…including me.

We have a wreath that we’ll put on the front door. My husband bought a magnetic hook as soon as we realized the door was metal! More on our decorations in a week or so…..when we decide to declare them ‘done.’

Brookside Gardens Macro – March 2022 (2)

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Continuing the Brookside Gardens macro images…..

The dried flower clusters of the wood hydrangea from last season look fragile but they have endured all winter and many are still on the stalks. A few leaves have survided as well. The leaf I photographed with the macro lens still had some green…was probably still producing food for the plant! Most of the leaves from last season are long gone though.

The witch hazels are one of my favorite winter and spring trees. They bloom very early….and have unusual flowers – streamer petals.

The suction cups of a vine growing on the wall of the visitor center have held it firm all winter! They look so fragile…but are evidently quite durable.

I hadn’t noticed the Deodar cedar in the Brookside 1969-2009 Commemorative Garden before – I only know its name from the sign at its base. The needles and cones were a bit different than the evergreens I see more frequently. Taking a walk with my camera frequently causes me to notice something a little different!

As I walked back to my car – I saw some more familiar pines…took some macro images of the pinecones and a small branch with needles on the ground. I’m always seeking new insight into common items through the macro lens! The fibers in the breaks of the pinecones surprised me.

The pines have a lot of lichen on their trunks and branches…and some of it sluffs off. I thought the pieces in the grass with the dried pine needles made good color and texture compositions.