Clearing ‘Stuff’ - March

One of my goals in 2013 is to develop more discipline when it comes to ‘stuff’. I am posting monthly document my progress on this year long project. It is not quite the forcing function that moving would provide but (hopefully) will be enough of a reminder to keep focused.

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I’ve added a few books to the pile in March…but the most obvious additions are blue bean bag chairs. We’ve had them for a long time and they never used that much. Recently we haven’t used them at all. So they’ve been added to the top of the heap

Another addition is some long handled rollers we used for painting years and years ago. I’m beginning to realize that some of the pile is in the freecycle category and may become trash if there are no takers. The stuff certainly does not need to be kept around the house.

March 2013 Snow

We got the best snow of the season yesterday in our area of Maryland. It clung to the trees until the little breezes and temperature caused it to plop to the ground or trickle away. One of the early pictures of the day was of the dense oak twigs piled high with snow (to the left). It looks like a black and white abstract drawing to me.

We went out for a drive to enjoy the beauty of the snow. I liked the way the snow clung to the dry grasses from last summer with the flocked spruce in the background. It was a shot from an open window - the car simply stopped in the middle of a country road.

When we got back from the outing, we made snow ice cream: fill a large bowl with snow, add milk (I used half-and-half that I had frozen from an early time when snow was forecast but didn’t materialize), 1 cup of sugar, and flavoring (I used 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon coconut). I add red food coloring so that I can tell when everything is thoroughly mixed. With an electric mixer it only takes a few minutes to create the treat.

By the afternoon the wind and melting had revealed red maple blooms and the hyacinth bed.

This was a year that the groundhog got it wrong….we are not having an early spring. With the snow scenes so beautiful and the streets cleared easily, I could simply celebrate the beauty of the day, take photos and remember that spring will be here soon.  

Desert Poppies

The desert poppies were blooming in Tucson when we were there. They are quick to respond to the early warm days of spring. The bright color of the flowers marks the springtime against the dull greens of other desert vegetation or the browns of the sand and pebbles on the ground.

There was a class of art students sketching them. It was breezy so keeping papers and materials in place was a little challenging…but all seemed to be enjoying their attempt to capture the essence of poppies in bloom. I snapped a few photographs of the poppies to commemorate the day.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - March 2013

Back in August 2012, I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

A day at home. Even though I am not away from home as much as I was at the height of my career, there are still times that I welcome just being at home for a whole day. It is probably my favorite place to be.

A winter’s day at Brookside Gardens. The conservatories were pleasantly warm. And the brisk walk to look for signs of spring afterward was rewarded with sights of daffodils and witch hazel.

Up-to-date on course work. I got overwhelmed for a few days with the Aboriginal Worldviews and Education course (Coursera) and celebrated when I was finally able to catch up.

Snow day. We got enough snow to make snow ice cream! It ended up being more like a smoothie because the snow was so heavy (i.e. not the light fluffy stuff).

Great Horned Owl. I’d seen pictures and read about them but had never seen one in action until seeing the raptor presentation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The owl was well trained to swoop down for bits of food within easy viewing range of the crowd….until it spotted a bunny nearby and disappeared into the cactus and brush to enjoy its lunch.

Kratchner Caverns State Park. Kudos to the people who found it and owned the property for protecting it until the state and researchers could sustain it. This is the place to celebrate the beauty of caverns.

Airport art. Airports are often stressful places - lots of security and lines and hurry/wait flurry. Noticing the artwork helps. Mosaics…painting on glass….tiles…etchings…lights. They bring back the notion that airplane travel can be enjoyable.

Home again. After being away for a week, coming home is always a little celebration.

A clean house. My house is always reasonably clean but gets even more so when I am expecting guests. It’s worth a celebration after the work!

A warm day. Typical of spring, there was one warm day sandwiched with cold ones. It was nice to feel the warmth.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 23, 2013

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.

First Nations Holistic Lifelong Learning Model - Graphic used in Aboriginal Worldviews and Education course on Coursera

Redtail hawk and heron bird cams - First redtail egg laid on 3/14, herons expected soon….at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site

Photos of Glasswinged Butterfly - butterfly without pigment in their wings found in Central America

Sakurajima Volcano Eruptions - photos and video from February

Some Great Ideas For Spending Spring In The National Park System - I am going to enjoy the National Cherry Blossom Festival this year…but the other ideas on this list sound good as well.

Pantanal: Liquid heart of South America - Video about the giant South American wetlands

What Coke Contains - It is pretty complex

Which Google Reader Replacement Will You Use? - Aargh! I hate when things like this happen...Google Reader was my favorite way to keep up with my RSS feeds.

Where Siri Has Trouble Hearing, a Crowd of Humans Could Help  - Combining the best talents of machines and people for speech-recognition. What other problems might use this same approach? And use very inexpensive labor. Is this a new kind of sweatshop?

Monarch Migration Plunges to Lowest Level in Decades - Sad. Years ago we raised monarch caterpillars to butterflies that we released. Now we rarely see monarchs in our part of Maryland.

US Home Energy Use Shift (Charts) - Changes between 1993 and 2009 (space heating down….appliances, electronics, and lighting up).

AmpleHarvest.org - A site to help coordinate gardeners that may have seasonal surplus with food pantries near them. 

Early Spring in Maryland

Our spring weather has been a bit colder than usual; some plants are holding off their rush to spring blossoms and foliage. Others, like the hyacinth and daffodils, are blooming but a little worn looking from the cold. Usually they are more numerous and robust looking than they are this year.

The maple has appeared to be going red at the end of its branches several times….then seems to retreat back into a drab color of winter.

Surprisingly, the moss between the rain gutter and driveway seems to be fruiting more than usual.

And the cherry and plum trees are not bursting into bloom as they were this time last year. I hope the buds protect the flowers enough so that we will eventually have the blossoms that make spring extra special in this area.

Some Birds at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The raptor presentation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was something I had missed in an earlier visit. I was reminded of it by a volunteer holding an American kestrel near the entrance of the museum.

I snapped a few pictures of other birds on the saguaro and mesquite as we wondered around the displays waiting for the time for the presentation.

I didn’t get a picture of the raven or the red tailed hawk. The great horned owl was very photogenic before it spotted a bunny and went off in pursuit. And the prairie falcon was protogenic as well. I noticed the gear on the back in the bird when I looked at my images on a larger screen.

3 Free eBooks - March 2013

The Internet has a growing number of online books…and many of them are free. This is my monthly post highlighting 3 that I have enjoyed most this past month.

Featon, Edward and Sarah. Art Album of New Zealand Flora. Wellington, New Zealand. Bock & Cousins. 1889. Available in two volumes: one and two. These volumes were the first full-color art book published in New Zealand. Now the botanical art (and the text) are digitized and available on the Internet Archive. A sample clip from one of the pages is to the left.

The second item on my list this month is a magazine archive rather than a book. I found it when I was looking for resources on the web about May Theilgaard Watts (and about ‘reading the landscape’). Chicago Wilderness Magazine was published from 1997-2009 by Chicago Wilderness (a regional alliance dedicated to protecting nature and enriching life). The archive can be found here. The articles and photographs are focused on the outdoors around Chicago in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

Toulouse, Pamela Rose. Integrating Aboriginal Teaching and Values into the Classroom. Canada. The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat and the Ontario Association of Deans of Education. 2008. Available here. This is a research monograph from Canada but broadly applicable to diverse, inclusive classrooms. Who does not want children to learn respect, love, bravery, wisdom, humility, honesty, and truth? The site includes other education/teaching ‘research into practice’ monographs as well (follow the link at the bottom of the PDF). 

Arizona Sunset

We noted a turn out partway up Mount Lemon with a view to the west across Tucson below on a drive up the mountain earlier in the day then returned just before sunset. We were not the only ones with the idea. There were only a few parking places left after we parked.

The clear sky sunset was made better by the mountains on the other side of Tucson. Afterward a thin sliver of moon rose and the smudge of a comet could be seen as the darkness settled.

Noticing Matriarchs

I am noticing matriarchs more these days…now that I am setting a pace that is my own rather than meeting the demands of a challenging career overlaid on family life. When I travel I see them on everywhere - sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner or sibling, sometimes with a grandchild. Most of them seem as comfortable as I am to reach this part of their life. Here are some that I noticed on my recent travel between Baltimore and Tucson: 

• She was sitting in the row in front of me on the flight from Denver to Baltimore - holding a grandchild that was probably between 1 and 2 years old. The child must have slept most of the flight because I didn’t notice her until we were getting off the plane when the matriarch handed the child to the man next to her (I assume the grandfather of the child) with a smile and he chuckled that the child tasted like cheesy crackers when he kissed the little girl before standing up to get off the plane.
• The two women were standing in front of the booth with materials for Arizona State Parks when I went to pick up a brochure for a park we would tour later in the week. I asked about what might be blooming at the park and they both were full of information on what to look for when we got to the park.
• The helper for our tour of a cavern - bringing up the end of the group - was a matriarch. She must have led the tours on occasion because she knew about as much as the guide, helping people understand what the guide had explained and even adding information for those around her. 

The baby boomer women are already - or will be soon - joining the matriarch ranks….and bringing their zest for life and huge talents into this stage of life. Some of us may continue in careers; others may try something completely different from their primary career either to earn money or keep from being bored; still others may become full-time grandmothers, savoring the time with young children; or some will simply do all those things they didn’t have time to do while in their primary career. Maybe we still can have it all (or at the part that we really want)!

Arizona Living

Living in Tucson is somewhat different than living in Maryland. As a visitor - these are the ones I noticed. 

• The houses and apartments tend to be stucco with flat or tile roofs. Many houses have courtyards or walled gardens. There are small, carefully tended areas of greenery clustered close to housing: oleanders, palms, eucalyptus, cactus, and orange trees. A fountain with round river stones in its base graces an apartment complex courtyard. In a dry place, water noise is the sound of luxury…maybe decadence as well. The most practical yards are sand and pebbles. The surface is sometimes raked to arrange the pebbles uniformly - or create a pattern; there is nothing to mow. The temperature changes between day and night mean that windows are opened or closed at various times almost every day; opened in the early morning to let the cool are into the house before the day warms or in the warm afternoon to let warm air in if the nights have been cold. There is not as much temperature variation during a single day in Maryland.

• The Tucson water has a lot more minerals than the water in Maryland. Most people filter their drinking water in some way and take steps to keep their kitchenware (and anything exposed to water) from developing deposits. The water pipes must be encrusted on the inside too.
• Tucson is a city but the traffic is very light compared to the Washington DC and Baltimore traffic. What a luxury!
• In Tucson, the lighting around houses and along residential streets seems more localized. The sky is darker at night. Even in the city, stars can be seen. Being able to see the stars on clear nights should be a long term goal even for major metropolitan areas.
• Last but not least - the traffic lights have different timing for left turns. In Tucson it is after the straight ahead traffic and in Maryland it is before. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 16, 2013

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.

Are Surgical Robots Worth It? - Evaluating technology is difficult. We want to believe that medical devices are better than what they replace...but they may not always be.

50 Disruptive Companies 2013 - The list from MIT Technology Review

Shell’s New Lens Scenarios - projections for 50 years from now…or even in 2100

30 Literary Cakes

Rebuilding after Sandy: How Assateague Island National Seashore Officials Are Dealing With Climate Change - barrier islands….and infrastructure on them...the islands will change and so will what man puts there

Frank Jay Haynes, A Photography Pioneer in Yellowstone National Park - also take a look at a book published by Haynes available on the Internet Archive

Science of Sinkholes: 20 Percent of U.S. Lies in Susceptible Areas - includes pointers to USGS resources about sinkholes toward the bottom.

Mothers of Invention -- Women who made it happen - I’d known about most of them…but there were a few that were new to me. It’s always interesting to get a quick slice of historical perspective this way.

Uplifting Posters Show One Positive Thing We Can Do Every Day - art of the positive

Get your Shit Together - life and death planning: low effort, high reward

Daylight Saving Time is Rife with Human Suffering - why do we put ourselves through the twice yearly time change?

Baltimore and Tucson Airport Art

On a recent trip between Baltimore and Tucson I captured some airport art.

In the Southwest Airlines terminal at Baltimore - there are dabs of paint on the windows. They add color on gray days and filter the sunlight on days when the sun is shining - very much like stained glass.

The baggage carousel in Tucson had an image of a pot etched into metal with an arc of color to one side. It was a good welcome to the city.

And then there were the Arizona scenes made with ceramics at the entrances to the restrooms - cholla and barrel cactus...with birds.

Previous posts about airport art: Dallas, other Tucson art.

Brookside Gardens Outdoors - March 2013

My walk around Brookside Gardens this month was brisk; it was quite cold. There was some progress toward spring since last month’s walk. More twigs have brightened in color. Sometimes - it is the growth from last year that is the most brilliantly colored.

And there are more bulbs up. The snow drops are beginning to fade.

The shelf fungus on an old stump that I check from time to time had been damaged. Pieces had been torn off. I left the pieces where they were and noticed the gill structure that is so hard to see when they are still attached to the stump.

The witch hazel that was blooming last month is still blooming - a welcome bit of color among other trees that are still winter bare.

The buds on the rhododendron are swelling. They are primed for spring.

In general the scene near the front of the conservatories was a good summary of the outdoor state of Brookside in early March: cold wilted ivy, a sprinkling of daffodils, and witch hazel.

Brookside Gardens Conservatory - March 2013

It was a gray and cold morning when I went to the Brookside Gardens conservatory this month. The warmth and gurgling water through the lush tropical plantings was a respite from all winter thoughts. Doesn’t the little water fall and river rocks framed by green look welcoming?

The tropical food plants continue to be displayed. I noticed a very small pineapple. Notice how the skin looks very prickly at this stage; the segments flatten as the fruit expands. The star fruit, chocolate and bananas seen on previous visits were still around. A new addition that I had not noticed before was cardamom in bloom.

Many orchids were in full bloom. The orange ones at the left were growing from a hanging pot. 

There were pink poinsettias tucked underneath some other plants. Were they left over from Christmas and just too pretty to jettison?

I always enjoy a walk around the conservatory - checking on plants from the last time I was there and discovering new ones.

Fear of Hunger

Is the fear of hunger a basic as instinct? Many people are never deprived of food for long but somehow always have an undercurrent of worry about what or when their next opportunity to eat will come. There are food related cultural ideals such as: 

• Eating everything on a plate
• Drinking something other than water
• Having a meat and several vegetables
• Expecting dessert after a meal, sometimes fruit but more likely something heavily laden with sugar 

And so we tend to eat when food is available even if we are not particularly hungry. If we are traveling or busy with work, we may eat while we work - munching on things available from a vending machine. By the day we are not particularly satisfied but we are not hungry either.

Recognizing that the fear of hunger comes to us down through the generations - it is part of the heredity of us all - may help. But it takes conscious effort to overcome the fear. Give yourself the gift of eating only foods of the amount and type your body truly needs.

Amaryllis

Brookside Gardens has several amaryllis in all stages of blooming in their conservatory when I visited in early March. The large flowers are the culmination of the unfurling of tightly compacted buds. Enjoy the slide show of the various stages of that process below!

Sandwiched Matriarch

Are you a sandwiched matriarch - one with an elderly mother and a daughter in the stress of early or mid-career? I am. And I am celebrating that I can play the role of the luscious center to the sandwich. It’s exhilarating to realize that I can be the glue that mends whatever needs develop in the generation before and after my own.

Many women live into their 80s or 90s…and that means that their daughters are often in their 50s and 60s. Even a healthy elder requires more support from their children than they did when they were in their 60s and 70s. For example, my mother opted not to drive after her 80th birthday; it was a proactive decision on her part. My sisters and I supported the idea and its ramifications. We have also become much more knowledgeable about maneuvering through the health care system and support mechanisms for older people. The goal is to keep our mothers active and engage in our lives for as long as possible. I particularly enjoy the challenge to make the most of my mother’s current interest and physical ability to see things like the annual cherry blossoms around the Washington Monument and large museums. We need to learn to accept the sometimes rapid changes in older people as easily as we accept the growth of young children; we cannot let the relative stability of mid-life set the standard expectation as a person passes into their 80s and 90s. There has already been one instance when I was away from home for more than a month to help my mother through a difficult health issue.

I also have a career oriented daughter. She lives far away; phone calls and emails are not the same as seeing her in person. At least one vacation a year is planned around a time that I can spend some time with her. And the interaction will come much greater if she and her husband decide to have children. I’ve already committed to being close enough to be the child care provider so that my daughter can continue in her career. It’s an advantage I can give that benefits her and the next generation. I had my own career as she was growing up; the child care we employed for her was excellent - but I can do even better for her children and it is something I want to do.

The sandwiched matriarch gets pulled or squashed (a stressful time either way) if both mother and daughter have concurrent needs. That has not happened so far in my life….and I’ll just deal with it if and when it does.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 09, 2013

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.

What’s Happening to Great Lakes Ice - Compare 2010 and 2013 then watch the video of ice forming this winter

Vibrant Paint Patterns Brighten Up Urban Landscapes - Color in Beirut

The Science of Smart - Infographic.

Visual Storytelling through Intricate Paper Designs - Design in cut in paper always seem appealing to me. I probably include collections of them in my gleanings every time I find them. these are by Australian artist Emma Van Leest.

'Behind The Brands' Oxfam Report Evaluates Social, Environmental Impacts Of World's Largest Food Companies - None of them are doing very well when it comes to women, small scale farmers, farm workers, water, land, climate change, or transparency.

Education Indigenous to Place: Western Science Meets Native Reality - Article from the Alaska native Knowledge Network from 1999. The argument for integrative thinking relative to place rather than deep specialization (which has been the trend for some time in the sciences and medicine) is beautifully made in this article.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #38 - My favorite is oriental dwarf kingfisher. The size and shape of the head/beak make it clear that it is a kingfisher but the colors are extraordinary. I am in awe of photograhers that capture birdlife so vividly. My most recent (and poor) attempt is at the right; at least you can tell that it is a redwing blackbird.

Namibia: The Big Empty, part 1 - A short video from National Geographic

First Confirmed Sighting Of Rare Whooping Cranes At Natchez Trace Parkway - Hurray! Maybe an effort to establish an Eastern Migratory Population of these cranes is succeeding.

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud - TED talk

The Room that is my Own

One of the assignments for the Aboriginal World Views and Education course I am taking on Coursera was to write about a meaningful place. I am posting what I wrote for the class below (after subitting it to the course's forum).

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The room that is my own is my most meaningful place. It is a place where favorite things collected over many years are enjoyed: Georgia O’Keeffe posters on the walls, a vase of 30 year old peacock feathers from my grandmother, some macramé wall hangings from my sister, windchimes from my mother-in-law, a dream catcher from my daughter, small keepsakes in the pockets of the window sheers (mismatched earrings, a cloisonné belt buckle, a tarnished metal rose from my mother, dried maple leaves, bookmarks). The large window reveals an edge of rooftop with a gutter where birds like doves and house finches come to get water and nesting material. Further way, there are maple and tulip poplars that are the edge of the forest. In the summer it is a wall of fluttering green. The winter a flock of blue jays visits almost every day. Sometimes I see deer. Last summer there was a doe with two fawns that visited regularly.

My computer is in this room - the window to the broader world. One of the two screens is usually running a slide show of collected images that I particularly like. I have a Swopper chair in front of the computer and bounce while I am thinking or reading. On a table to one side I have materials for doodling.

The meaning comes from the richness of perspective the room provides….my history through the items collected there…the outdoors through the window…the access to information out in the world via the internet…the creation of new things first through thought and then writing (journaling or this blog) or doodling. The integration of sedentary pursuits with some level of activity (the Swopper chair) over the past few years has been a positive experience from both a mental and physical perspective. It has been evolving for the past 20 years….fitting to what is happening in my life at the time. This place is one where I am alone but not too alone since it is ‘the room that is my own’ in my family home.