Cherry Blossoms 2013

The weather caused the cherry blossoms to open late - and explode into bloom when some warm days finally came in April. The buds were already in evidence in early March; the picture on the left from our yard near Columbia, MD was taken on March 3. Then we had some very cold weather and the buds were only beginning to open on April 9th (picture on right).

By the 10th it was obvious that the blooms were imminent.

And then the 11th was the very best day for our cherry tree in 2013! The slide show below are my picks of the many pictures I took.

I was thrilled to have observed our tree during these days because I did not manage to get down to the see the trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC before the rains and wind took the blossoms to the ground.

Dandelions

The dandelions beat the application of pre-emergent on our lawn this year. We have quite a crop. The flowers are low to the ground so that the mower would completely miss them. One year I had my (young) daughter take a little basket and fill it with the flowers. She enjoyed plucking them as they nestled in the grass almost like an Easter egg hunt; but there were so many buds waiting to open and produce seeds that the exercise did not diminish the dandelion population in our yard.

I’ve read that the colonists actually brought dandelions as a garden plant - used for salads. The greens taste bitter to me although supposedly if they are harvested early enough they are less so. The flower petals add an interesting color to salad; they don’t have much flavor (which may be a good thing).

This year my husband has already started his battle with the dandelions by spraying them. We both know that it is likely a losing battle.

Watching the Heron Webcams

Last spring, I enjoyed watching the heron nest at Sapsucker Woods (the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) more than television! A pair of herons is settling in to lay their eggs at the same location now - and the two webcams focused on the nest provide excellent views. Here are the links:

The main webcam (from the side of the nest, there is a chat stream to the right of the image)

The second webcam (maneuverable, above the nest)

A picture from 4/8 of the male and female with breeding plumage (and others in a flickr set to browse through)

A video of mating on 4/9

(My pictures of herons in this post are from Centennial Lake in Maryland and taken last October).

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 13, 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.

Be Out There - The Forecast Calls for Play - A guide from the National Wildlife Federation about being outdoors on the not-sunny days. The guide was produced in response to the statistic that 61% of parents said the weather was the biggest barrier to playing outdoors.

Sundew - external digestions - Image of a sundew plant curled around an insect

Take a Virtual Hike Along String Lake In Grand Teton National Park - An eHike…17 pictures

Best science and technology pictures of the week - From BBC Future dated 3/29

Versailles Gets Spiffed-Up On Its Day Off - What happens on Monday when Versailles is closed? It is a lot of work.

Psychedelic Bacteria - Sometimes photomicrography looks like art

New Mathematical Model Shows How Society Becomes Polarized - Applying ‘biased assimilation’ model

Spectacular Aerial Shots of International Airports - Newark Liberty and JFK Airports from above

Women computer science grads: The bump before the decline - Observations but not explanations

Utah’s Breathtaking Blue Hills and Painterly Desert - Hmmm --- this could be a great ‘next vacation’

Plum Blossoms and a Butterfly

Our plum tree is in bloom this week, ahead of the cherry tree. Its frothy pink is the early tree color every spring. 

It is one of the best features of our yard in spring. It is a little late this year because of some recent cold days.   

The insects find it as attractive as we do. There were several kinds of bees and a single butterfly - one of the first this season - enjoying the blossoms. The butterfly’s wings were ragged….he had survived long enough to enjoy the nectar of the plum blossoms.

US Botanic Garden - March 2013

The US Botanic Garden is one of my favorite places in Washington DC. I make it part of just about every visit. It is located on the Smithsonian Mall side of the US Capitol building. There were a lot of people around for the Kite Festival the day I was there in March; it was beginning to feel crowded by the time we finished our walk around the conservatory an hour after it opened. The warmth and lush vegetation of the conservatory were a welcome contrast to a blustery spring day!

Outdoors the birds were fluffy in the cold.

The pitcher plants still had some color but were showing the ravages of winter as were some of the other plants in the garden.

The tables and chairs were out in the gardens but it was too cold to be comfortable sitting in them. The sounds of the water in the First Ladies Water Garden were soothing --- no warmth though! At least the miniature iris and daffodils were blooming.

The Azalea Project

Every spring there are some major projects for the yard around our house that are unique to the year. This year one of those projects was planting azaleas to replace to bushes that broke under the strain of ice and snow a few years ago. We finally gave up on their recovery and dug them out last summer. When we went to the nursery to buy bushes last fall, we decided to wait until spring and plant azaleas. I had put it on the calendar as a March task but the spring weather has been so cold this year that we waited until last weekend.

Waiting the extra weeks meant that some weeds had started to come up where the bushes had been extracted. After getting the weeds pulled, loosening the soil and digging the holes was easy. The bushes we bought are projected to grow to be 4 feet high and 4 feet wide so we planted the two bushes 4 feet apart. The foliage on the azaleas is still somewhat bronze from winter. Will they bloom this year? Maybe not since I don’t see buds on them right now. I’m taking a strategic view; let them establish themselves this year and then bloom in the spring for many years to come.

There are irises planted to the front and sides of them now. That will give some color during late spring and early summer. Eventually some of the bulbs may have to be moved if they are too close or overshadowed by the bushes.

The day was so nice that I also positioned the stand for a new birdbath - pushing it down into loosened soil to make sure it was steady enough to hold the glass bowl.

What a satisfying way to spend a few hours!

Purple Botanicals

This is another in the series of posts using color as a theme. The purple flowers include cascades of orchids, crocus, pansies, iris, violets and wisteria. Enjoy the slide show of purple!

Washington DC Smithsonian Mall

A few days ago I posted some photographs from the kite festival held on March 30th. Some of the other sights that day are in this post.

The buffalo dancer sculpture in one of the gardens beside the National Museum of the American Indian was new to me. The stance of the figure was exotic but the face looked familiar.

Washington DC is full of classical columns. The photo of Ionic columns is from the National Gallery of Art. Another feature of the city are the fountians. They are often tucked away in small parks or courtyards between the buildings; for example, there are fountains on either side of the main entrance to the National Gallery.

The curves of the National Museum of the American Indian - both the façade and embedded in the glass of the doors at the entrance - are soothing and welcoming at the same time. They evoke the natural world in the middle of a city. 

We walked the length of the Smithsonian Mall - the Capitol at one end and the White House to the side. The Washington Monument was surrounded by scaffolding - still under repair for earthquake damage.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in April 2013

We’ve had a cold spring in Maryland. The plum and cherry trees are not yet in full bloom so I’ll wait to post photographs of them later. The hyacinths and daffodils have been blooming for over a month. Perhaps the cold has kept them vibrant for longer than usual.

The iris, tulips and lilies are up. The deer have eaten the tulips to the ground and the lilies are only looking a little better because their foliage grows rapidly after the deer have eaten the above ground parts. The iris either have not been found by the deer or are not tasty enough for them. 

The chives and lemon balm are up in the garden. It’s been too cold to do the usual garden clean out so I tell myself that the old leaves make good mulch for the tender plants.

The edge of the woods has waning daffodils and spindly forsythia.

 

The maple branches have been trimmed so high that the only up close view of the blooms is finding a recently downed twig in the grass. The tree itself seems to be blooming unevenly this year. There are lots of red tuffs at the crown of the tree and only sparse ones in the middle and lower part of the tree.

Spring is here…getting more established every day. A few warm days will get us all out working on cleaning out our garden beds!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 6, 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.

The “50+ Market”: A Few Fab Facts

Are they (cicadas) coming to town? - There’s a brood of the 17 year cicadas coming to my area of Maryland this year!

Trends in Iceland - recession = good?

20+ Dramatic Shots of Lenticular Clouds - unusual clouds

Photos of Famous Authors as Teenagers - How many books of these authors have you read…and how many of these people aged well?

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #40 - My favorite of this batch are the flamingos in flight

Hollow chocolate Easter eggs - It’s too late for Easter this year but this is such a great idea, I’m including in my gleanings list….and looking around for another occasion to try it.

New Gullies Found in a Young(ish) Crater on Mars - Somehow knowing that Mars is not as static as we once thought makes it seem more like Earth too

Glowing Millipedes Accidentally Found on Alcatraz - The place….the organism….found when they were really looking for rats!

Teasing Out New Teeth - And how long will the research and refinement take before it begins to transform dentistry. No more implants or false teeth.

Seahorses

There is a small aquarium room as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. It was not open when we first entered the museum; it was on out ‘must see’ list since it had been added to the museum since out last visit. The seahorse tank drew my attention. There were two different kinds and they clung to the water grasses with their tail or gracefully drifted to a neighboring plant. They seemed alert but never hurried or nervous.

When I got home, there was a picture on The Scientist website showing how the seahorse’s bony plates are configured to make it hard yet flexible. That serendipity prolonged my ‘Zen of the seahorse’ thoughts!

Pink Botanticals

This is the first in a series of posts using color as a theme. The pink flowers include deciduous magnolia, alstroemeria, begonias, poinsettias, azaleas, hyacinths, snapdragons, hydrangeas, freesias, orchids, camellias and dogwoods….so many beautiful blooms. Enjoy the pink show! 

Too Early for Cherry Blossoms

When I made the reservations for a cruise on the Potomac to see the cherry blossoms on 3/24, the projection was for them to be near peak on that day. Then the area has some cold days that turned into a couple of weeks of colder than usual weather and the cherry blossoms were delayed. We opted to go on the tour anyway.

The day was cold and damp. Everyone stayed in the enclosed part of the boat. There was a birthday party next to us. They gave us desert parfaits to make up for the noise the little children were making; it was a nice little treat and the children actually were making happy noises making the day brighter even without the sun.

Being on the river provides a different perspective than fighting the traffic on the roads around Washington DC. The scenery slides by: Haines Point, the National War College, the capitol, the Washington Monument, the 14th Street Bridge, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, National Airport, and a flock of seagulls as we get close to our pier.

We’ll have to try it another year when the cherry blossoms are blooming.

Fiddleheads

The fronds of ferns emerge rolled up - in a tight spiral that unfurls to turn into the greenry that always seems so luxuriant on the forest floor. I saw fiddleheads in biology textbook pictures long before I saw them growing. They were on the list of plant forms to look for along with horsetails and Indian pipes; none of them were easy-to-find in the part of Texas where I grew up because of the dryness and the city landscape. I found horsetails in Oklahoma and the other two in close succession when we moved to Virginia in the early 80s. The fiddleheads have become a continuing favorite for me over the years.

The shape is appealing. Spirals are like infinity into the past or into the future. The translation of that shape into violins and other stringed instruments is a reminder of the continuing importance of plant designs into our own creations; the pleasure in that shape must be deeply etched into the human psyche.

The tight components of the frond as they unwind have a gracefulness about them too. The compactness of the fiddlehead next to the mature frond is extreme. Mother nature is full of design tutorials that are effective and beautiful. Let’s hope that human engineers can approach their challenges with the same finesse.

The slide show below is a collection of fiddleheads from conservatories (Brookside Gardens most frequently) and our local woods. 

Kite Festival in Washington DC

The kite festival at the Smithsonian Mall in Washington DC is held the last Saturday of March and usually coincides with cherry trees in full bloom. It was last Saturday (3/30). This year the cherry tree buds were yet to open - and the breeze was so light that the majority of kites did not make it up very high or stay aloft. The image in the center of the collage below is the myriad of kites looking down the Smithsonian Mall toward the Washington Monument (still undergoing repair from the earthquake damage). The kites were brightly colored. The butterfly and parrot kites were my favorites although the sky shark was fun too.

On the plus side - the day was the warmest of the week and that was enough for the crowds of people to enjoy the day. Joggers dodged in and out of walkers, parents or grandparents pushed strollers with babies and young children, toddlers were enjoying the different textures of turf or pebbles or concrete, elementary aged children were trying to fly their kites….everyone seemed to find something to enjoy.

March 2013 Doodles

Themes for March turned out to be circles and deset….in red and black mostly. I was surprised at how much doodling I had done during the month when I picked up the two piles (one upstairs and one downstairs) to photography. I picked the best 7 out of 36! Enjoy the slide show.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 30, 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.

Ten Trends to Watch - A list from Richard Watson

Pittsburgh's Leaky Faucet: How Aging Sewers Are Impacting Urban Watersheds - Sewers are aging....and a study in Pittsburgh showed that up to 12% of all sewage produced by residence living in the Nine Mile Run watershed area leaks from the sewers and is transferred to the stream

Biodegradable Diapers from Recycled Cardboard - Research from Finland. Hope it works as well as the research suggests….and that we use the technology effectively if it does.

U.S. Lifespans Lags Other High-Income Countries, Tied to Mortality Rates Under Age 50 - Evidently drug overdose deaths are one of the big contributors to mortality under 50…and the majority are from prescription drugs.

Heart-Healthy Lifestyle Also Reduces Cancer Risk - Life’s simple 7: not smoking, regulating blood sugar levels, keeping blood pressure down, maintaining healthy cholesterol levels, eating a healthy diet, keeping a healthy weight, and being physically active.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #39 - I can’t resist the bird photographs. My favorite in this set is the greater double-collared sunbird.

Integrating Aboriginal Teaching Values into the Classroom - Material from Canada but broadly applicable to diverse, inclusive classrooms. Published in March 2008. Other education/teaching ‘research into practice’ monographs available on the same site (follow the link at the bottom of this PDF).

Bedeviled by Dengue - The tropic diseases spread by mosquitos are on the rise with the tropical belt spreading into new areas. There have been cases of dengue fever in Texas and Florida already. The article reviews the current research.

On holey jeans, holey socks, and dyeing clothes - What to do with those old clothes.

DC Government’s Agencies Switching to 100% Wind Energy - Wow! 

Plants at the Desert Museum

There were only a few things blooming at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum when we went a few weeks ago. The dried out blossoms of century plants and dormant ocotillos were everywhere.

The bright yellow of the Arizona poppies stood out among the more subtle colors of cactus spines and edges of agave leaves. Soon there will be many flowers in the desert but for now enjoy the slide show of the situation in March!

Tohono Chul Gardens

The gardens at Tohono Chul in Tucson are one of my favorite places. I notice something different every time I go. This time was in the early spring. The desert poppies that I posted about a few days ago were one of the few flowers already blooming. The cactus spines added some color.

But the odd saguaros were what caught my attention. My mind jumps to name them: the one on the left is ‘crying Pinocchio’ and the one on the right is ‘Gumby (with lots of extra arms).’ What do they look like to you?

Last but not least - the sculpture of the horned toad caught my attention. It is many times larger than the actual animal but quite realistic looking. I remember seeing them frequently when I was a child in Texas.