Variegated Crotons at Brookside Gardens

The garden or variegated crotons are colorful residents of the conservatory at Brookside Gardens. Sometimes they are simply a backdrop for changing displays. At other times they are some of the main color for their quadrant of the north conservatory. The pictures below were captured on the same day as our tour of the butterfly exhibit.

It’s interesting that the new leaves are most often green and that the different plants vary not only in color but pattern of color. Green, yellow, red, orange….the whole range of colors can be found on a single plant!

Leaf Etchings

Have you ever made leaf etchings? They’re easier to make with crayons than with a pencil. The trick is to hold down firmly and complete each section completely before moving on. No going over the leaf a second time since it generally shows that the leaf has moved slightly.

Can you name the trees from the etchings I show below? They are all very common trees in Maryland.

<< Tulip poplar'

Sycamore (just one edge because the leaf was too big for the paper) >>

<< Maple

Oak >>

….Another way to celebrate the ending of the summer….the beginning of fall.

Begonias

The begonias of summer are about gone. Let’s celebrate how beautiful they were:

Their flowers as thin as tissue paper with the sun shining through

The green of their leaves - sometimes with another color around the edge or underneath

Their crinkly centers - bright yellow

Their delicate look while being surprising resilient to whatever summer brings

Recipe of the Week: Sourdough Adventure - Sweet Potato Bread

This recipe takes time…but the results are luscious. I’ll make a larger batch next time. The combination of the sweet potato, buckwheat, and drizzle of molasses makes it good by itself or as an accompaniment to a special meal. I enjoy toasting slices of it for open faced sandwiches with deli smoked turkey or ham for lunch….or slathering it with butter for mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack.

In a food processor with the dough blade - combine: 

• 1/2 cup whole wheat sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour 

Mix thoroughly. Let sit 2-4 hours (or more) to mature. 

• 1 medium sweet potato, cooked in the microwave until soft, peeled
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour (or half whole wheat/half buckwheat)
• Drizzle of molasses 

Add all ingredients to the sourdough starter already in the food processor. Process until all ingredients are well mixed and the dough is smooth. It should begin to pull away from the sides of the processor (if not add a little more flour). Spray ovenproof pan or baking dish with cooking spray. Spread the dough evenly and let rise for 2-4 hours until double in bulk. I like to use my oven with just the oven light on (otherwise no heat); it’s out of the way and there are no drafts.

Cook at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 40 minutes or until the top begins to brown. Remove from oven. Brush with olive oil (optional).

Feeling Energized at Home

It is easy to feel energized in September. Maybe it’s prompted by the cooling trend in the weather or the year after year jangling of a new school year - even if we are not actually in school this particular year.

New projects started…the garden harvested….the house and car ready for winter…house guests invited and welcomed…all good ways to channel that energy and enjoy September.

I’ve never quite synced with the notion of ‘spring cleaning’ because the burst of energy toward homemaking has always caught me in the early fall instead. In the past week I’ve cleaned out under bathroom sinks and the linen closet. Spending an hour or two a day on cleaning out storage areas of the house and cleaning those areas that only get cleaned about once a year seems very appealing right now.

And then there are the gardening pots on the deck. The sweet potatoes will be the last things I will harvest (picture on right) - just before 1st frost; the plant has at least one very large sweat potato that has pushed its way above the soil twice (I’ve added soil to cover it!). All the other herbs are going to be started along the drying process this week. I also have a bucket of day lily bulbs that were too crowded in their bed; now I need to replant them in new flowerbeds.

And I have 3 sets of house guests scheduled to arrive at various times over the next couple of months!

September is definitely a high energy month for me. Is it for you too?

Evening Fountains at Longwood Gardens

I’m remembering warm summer nights and the fountain display at Longwood Gardens….celebrating the passing of the season for the year. This year we were there on a night in August that it was just the fountains - no music. Years ago we were there when the Stars Wars sound track played for the fountain show. Another year - my 3 year old daughter started singing while we waited for the show; all the adults around her sang along once she started! There was a lightning show on the horizon that accompanied the fountains during another performance.

The slide show below contains my top 10 photo picks from our visit in August. I like the colors, the jets and curtains of water, the close in and the wide angle. Of course you miss the motion - the sound of the water. Hopefully your imagination can fill in the missing parts!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 15, 2012

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

Decoding the Black Death: Anthropologist Finds Clues in Medieval Skeletons - how ‘health at death’ can be determined from skeletons…the impact of disease (like the Black Death) on populations (health of survivors, genetic diversity)

Hadley Crater Provides Deep Insight into Martian Geology - craters within Hadley….there is still a lot to learn about Mars

Fungi Need Some Love, Too - Why? They are nature’s recyclers, food, and source of drugs such as antibiotics. We need them.

CHOCOLATE-PEANUT BUTTER “TRUFFLES” - these sound decadant but 'healthy' too - put on the list for upcoming holidays if you don’t make them this week!

15 Things I Never Knew About Health & Fitness - from Marlo Thomas

7-Point Action Plan for Repowering U.S. - If the US wants to remain a leader rather than become a follower in the world - we are going to have to start down this path to ‘energy independence’ rather than reverting to the strategy of the 20th century (i.e. heavy dependence on oil and coal)

Pumpkin donuts - these are baked….and sound yummy. I’m going to make them in mini-Bundt pans

Good Food on a Tight Budget - The guide includes a food list (by food group), tips, recipes…and more.

British Health Open for Research - Giving researchers access to the health records of 52 million people in England could prove invaluable for studying disease. Finally - some truly large scale analysis will be done. How many drugs and procedures that are widely utilized now will withstand the analysis?

Eyes: a Window to Diagnosis - A possible quick and easy screening for Parkinson’s, ADHD and FASD…maybe other neurological functional differences.

Saturday Mornings at 10 AM

What are you normally doing at 10 AM on Saturday morning?

Are you sleeping in…getting children to a practice/lesson/event…shopping or running errands? Is it different every Saturday or pretty much consistent?

For years - I was putting away groceries. Saturday morning was my time for weekly grocery shopping. I always did it as early as I could along with the other errands of the week. Generally I was done and home right around 10 AM. It was a very regular rhythm.

Now - I do my grocery shopping on a weekday morning and avoid the Saturday shoppers. That leaves my Saturdays in the ‘different every week’ category. Sometimes there is a scheduled community event on Saturday. 10AM is about the earliest they start. There are some Fall Festivals coming up that I’d enjoy; I’ll have to put them on the calendar as I hear about them.

Taking a time check like this highlights how significantly my life has changed over the past months…and it’s all for the good! 

Butterflies at Brookside Gardens

This week is the last hurrah for the annual butterfly exhibit at the Brookside Gardens south conservatory. There were still a lot of butterflies to see. It was the first time I’d gone with a camera - and I found that I enjoyed it more while I was there and now that I am looking at the photos again. My more challenging shot was of the blue morphos (to the left) because they so rarely stay anyplace for long with their wings open. Enjoy the slide show below of my favorites for the photos my husband and I took!

Recipe of the Week: Eggy Salad Dressing

Eggy Salad Dressing is an alternative to chopping up hard boiled eggs for a salad. It appeals to be because it spreads the egg all through the salad. I enjoyed this ‘meal in a bowl.’

Hard boil two eggs. Let them cool. Remove off the shells. Place in a small food processor with a little olive oil, vinegar and seasoning. As you can see from the picture on the left, I used raspberry vinegar and basil/garlic seasoning. Alternatively, any vinegar and oil dressing you have on hand could be used. Process until smooth; it will have a smooth, icing-like consistency. Use as a salad dressing. The salad picture on left has frozen peas and corn (thawed) and celery. I added a little salt.

Eggy salad dressing also makes an excellent dip or spread for cucumber slices. Try a basil leaf on top for a burst of flavor from the garden!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations

Back in mid-August I posted about finding things to celebrate each day. It’s been remarkably easy for me. Here’s what I’ve recorded for 10 days:

Sunlight through the trees. Being out and about on a late summer morning with the sun making an ordinary forest of trees look magical.

A family birthday. Not one where everyone can gather to celebrate. This was a savoring of relationships that last a lifetime.

Butterfly stake and solar powered sunflower for the garden…. and the sunflower lit up the 1st night! We had gone to the nursery to buy azaleas; we’d read they could be planted in the early fall or early spring. We were advised that in our area the fall planting is not advised (winter too harsh). While we were there we looked at the various garden ornaments and bought two of them. They’re both visible from the window over the kitchen sink.

Labor day with hot dogs and corn on the cob and watermelon. Food and celebration go together.

Finding treasure under a bathroom sink - a long lost spritzer of leave-in-conditioner. Isn’t it wonderful to find something you forgot you had….and actually decide it’s something you want!

Black swallowtail caterpillars. They showed up on my parsley plant. Earlier in the season, I might not have celebrated. But I enjoyed photographing them and they’ve already made their cocoons --- and I still have about half my parsley plant left.

Getting rid of stuff via donation. I almost filled the porch on the pick up day. It’s good to clean out at least once a season.

Talking to family on the phone. I started out calling one then another called me almost as soon as I hung up from the first call. For a family scattered all over the country - it’s good to catch up on what’s happening in our lives.

Finding out that a friend who had been very ill is better. It’s scary when a friend is seriously ill…and cause for celebration when they improve.

Doodling oninterfacing-like fabric). I have been doodling on scraps of paper but discovered some scraps of interfacing as I was cleaning out. I celebrated the results of sharpie and interfacing doodling!

Around the House Macro Photos

The series of photos below shows ordinary objects from around the house photographed ‘close up.’ It was a fun project and one I will do again in several months (Christmas time with decorations out would be good). There are some I intentionally did not include - the antique crocheted doily with cat hair and the wooden puppet with grime/dust on its nose - but I did get motivated to a new level of house cleaning!

Enjoy the slide show!

Steps….and More Steps

It takes steps…and more steps to transition from a mainly sedentary to an active life style. Yes - some cardio workout is required too but if you haven’t increased your overall level of activity yet- focusing on ramping up the number of steps is a better place to start along a path toward improved physical fitness and healthier life style. That’s what this post is about. Think about making the transition by integrating more activity into the way you live every day.

Wearing a pedometer is a good first step. It provides a metric that can be used in setting goals; having a measurable goal that aligns with the ultimate objective (of becoming more active) is a motivator for many people. 7,000 steps a day was my initial goal. Now, my goal is 12,000. You’ll figure out pretty quickly that grocery shopping takes more steps than gardening; vacuuming takes more steps that cleaning a bath tub. Gardening or cleaning a bathtub are still good activities in your plan to integrate more physical activity into your daily routine, they just won’t count as very many steps.

Graduating from a simple pedometer to something like a Fitbit  means the level of activity can be tracked throughout the day. I wanted to reduce the length of sedentary blocks of time and the Fitbit has graphs the show the steps all through the day. Airplane or car travels are about the only time when I have prolonged sedentary times any more. Moving - even for just a few minutes - every 30-60 minutes makes a positive improvement in how well I feel at the end of the day.

Making previously sedentary times into active ones is a good strategy. Almost all my reading and talking on the phone is done while pacing, bouncing on my Swopper , walking on a treadmill or bouncing on an exercise ball. I don’t watch much television but the same activities could be used then too.

Taking the stairs rather that the elevator. If there are multiple flights of stairs this could be the bridge to a cardio regime - but here I’m mainly talking about the one floor at a time. The current Fitbit  measures ‘floors climbed’ to provide a metric. If there are stairs in your house - the initial goal of 10 per day may be quite easy.

Becoming more active happens with steps....and then more steps....and never going back to the sedentary ways of yesterday.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 8, 2012

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

Stalking Sharks - researchers monitor movement of sharks off California’s coast

In Bike-Friendly Copenhagen, Highways For Cyclists  - one third of the people of Copenhagen ride their bikes to work or school…and they are extending the existing infrastructure out to the suburbs.

Birds hold 'funerals' for dead - experiments with western scrub jays

Face of America: Spirit of South Florida Montage - high energy montage of clips from Wolf Trap's upcoming Face of America: Spirit of South Florida, set to appear at Wolf Trap National Park (article at National Parks Traveler here)

Raw Veggie ‘noodle’ dishes - a step beyond spaghetti squash. If you don’t want to invest in a spiral slicer, try putting your veggies horizontally in your regular food processor and using the grating blade; the opening in my processor is large enough to make 3-4 inch ‘noodles’ this way (see zucchini and sweet potato noodles at left)

Learn the Top Native Plants for Your Backyard - beautiful and usually require less maintenance!

Grand Canyon National Park - the guide from National Parks Traveler.

Wow! NASA Video Shows 'Mind-Bogglingly Gorgeous' Solar Eruption

Green Money-Saving Tips: Cheap Ways to Be Environmentally Friendly - 10 tips (scroll over the images in the slide show to see the accompanying text). The 8th one (make your own cleaning supplies) includes of link to recipes for cleaners!

Cheers, Voyager: 35 Years of Exploration - the most distant human-made object was launched 35 years ago on Sept. 5th

Snail Mail

There aren’t nearly as many instances these days that I send something through the mail. There is a lot that can be done electronically that we used to do via mail. Even gifts can be ordered online and sent directly. The majority of items I receive in the mail are catalogs or ads that are sorted directly into the paper recycle pile. There are the occasional notifications and coupons for items I actually want to buy; it’s a challenge to find them amongst the things I am not interested in at all.

The only snail mail cards and letters I send these days are to individuals that, for one reason or another, are not online. Reverting to an older style of communicating takes a little extra thought - maybe a little more time - but it has the reward of overcoming a barrier that could end a relationship too soon. It has a dimension that email does not have - the physical paper or cards, envelopes, address labels, and stamps. There is tremendous variety. My favorite elements of variety are the stamps celebrating the 200th anniversary of statehood for Arizona, Louisiana, and New Mexico.   

Longwood Gardens Light Tracks Photos

A few weeks ago at Longwood Gardens I decided to try some photographing the lights by intentionally moving the camera during the longer exposure.

I experimented with making different shapes - can you see the D and S and O? Of course - most of the light tracks are just squiggles. Enjoy!

For more traditional photos of the lights at Longwood see my earlier post.

Recipe of the Week: Sourdough Adventure: Buckwheat Pancakes

My first ‘sourdough adventure’ post was about pancakes. It’s a very dependable recipe. Now I’m modifying it to experiment with other grains. The buckwheat experiment was a wonderful success! The change is to feed the starter with buckwheat flour instead of whole wheat flour starter at least 4 hours before making the pancakes! The organisms seem to like the buckwheat as well as the wheat and the pancakes some out with a wonderful airy texture. They are half wheat/half buckwheat which provides a wider variety of nutrients and reduces the amount of gluten.

Note: We eat pancakes as part of a ‘breakfast at dinner’ because we tend to eat together for dinner more than we do for breakfast. They do require cooking but they are a quick addition to any meal - any time.

My basic recipe is -

1 1/2 cups mature sourdough starter (i.e. feed whole wheat starter with buckwheat flour in the container you will make the batter in, cover, leave at room temperature 4-8 hours)

1 egg

2 tablespoons sweetener (sugar or honey…something sweet)

4 tablespoons olive oil

Dash salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or other seasonigs)

~~~~~

1 teaspoon soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon of warm water 

In a large bowl or measuring cup with a spout (to make it easy to pour out the batter), mix sugar, egg, salt, cinnamon (or other seasonings) and olive oil with the sourdough starter. Add warm water to get the right consistency for pancake batter. Set aside.

In a small bowl, dilute 1 teaspoon baking soda in 1 tablespoon of warm water. 

When ready to cook the sourdough pancakes, fold the baking soda/water mixture gently into the prepared pancake batter (do not beat). This will cause a gentle foaming and rising action in the batter. Let the mixture bubble and foam for a minute or so to give the acid (in the starter) and the base (soda) time to react; this makes the air bubbles that produce pancakes with air bubbles rather than densely packed flour.

Cook on a hot griddle or use an electric skillet as other types of pancakes.

Enjoy with your favorite topping!

Around our (Maryland) Yard in September 2012

September is the winding down of summer. I have onions blooming - a brilliant display over the lemon balm cut back last month. The insects really were enjoying the flowers.

The dahlias are still blooming profusely but sometimes one just dries out to look more like a sculpture than a flower.

The mushrooms are still growing around the old oak stump. The ones on the stump itself just get bigger and bigger. The puff balls a little further way on the mulch grow and then the puff opens to send spores out to grow other puff balls. It seems like we always have new pristine white one somewhere in the mulch around the oak stump while the older ones still disperse more spores when the wind is just right.

And finally - a feather in the grass. It must have come from a good sized bird. Since it was the only one - I’m assuming it was from molting rather than a death.

Previous Months: August 2012, July 2012, June 2012, May 2012, April 2012, March 2012, January 2012 

10 Years Ago – In September 2002

Many years ago I started collecting headlines/news blurbs as a way of honing my reading of news. Over the years, the headline collection has been warped by the sources of news I was reading…increasingly online. Reviewing the September 2002 headline gleanings - I forced myself to pick 10.    

1. Jordan is hoping to save the Dead Sea from dying completely by channeling in water from its large and less-salty southern cousin, the Red Sea
2. Millions of Muscovites have been advised to stay indoors as thick smoke from forest fires shrouded the city.
3. A Pennsylvania judge has imposed an injunction against Hershey Foods from selling itself
4. Military jets have resumed round-the-clock patrols over New York and Washington as the anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches.
5. World Security Tight Ahead of 9/11
6. Milk and other dairy products can be as effective as some conventional fungicides in controlling powdery mildew in vineyards
7. Using DNA extracted from the dung of wild elephants in Africa, biologists have determined that three different types of elephants exist on the African continent
8. The Pyramid Rover -- a robot the size of a toy train -- took two hours to crawl through a narrow shaft in the Great Pyramid outside Cairo, drill through a door at the end and push through a camera to reveal: another door.
9. A top Russian space official has proposed temporarily shutting down the International Space Station (ISS) because the cash-strapped country can no longer pay its bills
10. "Vampire" appliances cost consumers $3 billion a year -- or about $200 per household. 

August 2012 Doodles

I did so many doodles in August. Looking at the Zentangles site, looking at botanical print books from the 1800s and book illustrations from the early1900s (which have been scanned and made available online) gave me so many new starting points. So - I did some culling from the pile and came up with some groups to share. The collage below is the ones that have a botanical theme; they also show a beginning influence of Zentangle type drawings.

My overall favorite of the month is a "sun."

The ones I liked the best from some of the illustrations from the early 1900s were corner or border elements. they have a bit of a botanial look...also lots of spirals.

Doodle posts from previous months are here.