Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon - George Washington’s home on the Potomac in Northern Virginia - is one of my favorite places to take visitors. There were a lot of visits when we first moved to the area 30 years ago but they have not been as frequent recently. When I visited a few weeks ago - all the construction that was underway a few years ago had been completed. The new visitor center and museum areas are built to accommodate large crowds; Mount Vernon is a popular place.

On the day we visited, it rained off and on. We carried umbrellas and appreciated that the air was warm enough that being damp was not a problem. The rain was to our advantage: it was probably one of the few times there was not a line to see the house. The rest of the tour is less crowded and includes:

The view of the Potomac from the house

The necessaries (one we saw was a three holer!)

The flowers

The vegetables - including cabbages and artichokes

The old boxwood that overwhelmed the garden in years past are mostly gone, replaced with smaller boxwood that border the beds in the flower garden. The magnolias were in full bloom and I can’t resist a slide show for them.

And finally - the view of Mount Vernon from its carriage gate. What an appealing house it still is.

Brookside Spider Web

As I was walking around the Brookside Gardens conservatory (the one that is not in use for the butterfly house this time of year), I glimpsed a spider web over the narrow rock lined stream that winds through the tropical foliage. I decided to see how well my new camera (Canon PowerShot SX280 HS) would capture it. The lighting was not optimal. I could only see the web from a particular vantage point and I could not see the spider itself very clearly at all because it was so small.

As you can see from the pictures I’ve included, the camera did an admirable job. Even the fuzziness of the spider’s legs is visible!

Dallas’ Love Field

Renovations to Dallas’ Love Field are still a work-in-progress but the traffic flow getting in and out of the airport is already improved from last December. When I arrived (and departed a week later) in June - I also noticed the artwork.

There is a large mural decorating the area near the security checkpoint.

And there is a “cloud” in the high ceiling of the central portion of the terminal - with birds and airplanes and balloons and butterflies…all kinds of things that fly - within its swirl.

There is a small gallery that displays copies of the airport art. When I went in to take a look, I found out most of it was installed in April.

All this celebration of the ‘new’ was before I headed down to the gate for my flight - in an area of the terminal that had not been renovated yet. I look forward to seeing the progress next time I travel to Dallas.

Tucson Sunsets and Bats

The sunsets from our rental house in Tucson were pretty spectacular in June because the monsoon season was close enough for interesting cloud formation (but not rain). It was comfortable to sit outdoors watching the colors crescendo and then fade. It was not as hot as it is now in Tucson and there had not been rain yet so there were no mosquitos.

The other phenomenon at that time of day in Tucson in June is the emergence of bats from the overpasses at dusk. On one of the last days we were in Tucson we decided see them emerge at a place where there is a walkway under the overpass. We heard sounds as we walked underneath. Was that the bats moving? It turns out that it was but we didn’t see them. They were far up in the nooks and crannies of the overpass. We watched for a few minutes - waiting. And then the first bats took to the air. More and more emerged and flew off in both directions in clusters. They were off to enjoy ripe Saguaro fruits. It was all over in about 5 minutes. Walking back to the car, the pile of monsoon clouds was reflecting the last of the daylight.

Reading the Landscape: Summer

Every landscape picture can turn into a ‘reading the landscape’ puzzle. What can you tell about the place from the picture above?

The lawn is green and recently mowed. The tracks of lawnmower are still visible.

The trees are darker green than they would be in spring…and quite lush. It is summer.

Looking at the leaves - The closer tree appears to be a maple and the one behind the maple is a tulip poplar. Both trees are quite common in the mid-Atlantic area of the eastern US. The picture does not show the size of the trunks or the height of the trees. The tulip poplars are generally the tallest trees of the forests where they grow.

Past the mowed part of the yard, there appears to be small opportunistic plants and beyond that it appears quite dark. Perhaps it is the edge of a forest. 

White Sands National Monument

White Sands National Monument in New Mexico is about an hour off Interstate 10. We made a stop there in the morning on road trip from El Paso to Tucson. It was a typically sunny June day.

Everyone with children was renting saucers to slide down the dunes. I overheard the instructions: find a steep dune, lean back and keep your feet up. Even the adults that were coordinated enough to follow the instructions did not build up much speed; the sand was too soft and fine. The children, on the other hand, slide rapidly…laughing at their parents all the way. It was thirsty work. The gallon jugs of water that families lugged from the concession were needed.

The sand itself is so reflective that it does not get hot like the tan colored sand. We all pulled off our shoes and walked up a sloping dune face after our picnic lunch. It was noticeably cooler in the shade of the pavilion - comfortable with the little breeze. The reflectivity made the air above the sand feel very hot indeed and we all were prompted to lather up with sunscreen.

The air was dry and even the green plants seemed brittle from desiccation. The main evidence we saw of animals were their tracks in the sand.

The highpoint of the trip for me were the nests of barn swallows in the eaves of the visitor center. The little birds senses when their parents were coming and open up wide in anticipating. Enjoy the slide show tour of White Sands National Monument below!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 29, 2013

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

This is what your grocery store looks like without bees - Lots of empty bins in the produce section

Famous Scifi And Fantasy Authors In Their Workspaces - Keep the dates in mind. How many of these authors do you recognize?

Extremely Detailed Large Scale Paintings of Bugs - Wonderful detail is shown in these images.

Raw Strawberry Tart - I want to try the crust even if I don’t make the strawberry filling! It’s made with nuts, oats, raisins, flax seed, and vanilla held together with date paste.

Chemical in Antibacterial Soap Fed to Nursing Rats Harms Offspring, Study Finds - I am throwing away everything in my house that contains triclocarban. This study was just the latest in a steady stream of studies that showed negative effects.

12 New Volcanoes Discovered in Alaska - And still a lot more to learn about them.

Constantly Changing Majestic Beauty of Mount Fuji - Is this the most photographed and painted mountain in the world? It has all the qualities to make it so.

RCP Database 2.0 - The ‘Compare’ tab of this site allows users to select from several variables that impact climate and then view what happens to the ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ with that variable change. This was one of the references in the Climate Literacy course I am taking on Coursera.

Man's Parkinson's disease symptoms vanish with the push of a button - Truly amazing results of deep brain stimulation for the person.

How technology is destroying jobs - From Technology Review. Lots of comments too.

 Genetically Modified Fashion - Fluorescent silk from genetically engineered silkworms. Is this something we need?

Arizona State Museum

The Arizona State Museum is located on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. I had quickly walked around the museum on a previous visit to Tucson but enjoyed the museum at a leisurely pace this time - particularly the exhibit about the various tribes of Arizona from before the Europeans came to today….listening to the languages, enjoying the art (old and new) on display, and hearing about what happened to each of the cultures. There were some positive events but the overwhelming theme was the struggle of the tribes to survive the barrage of horrible things that happened as the Europeans came west. Sitting in the pottery room was a way to recover from the tour of that part of the museum. I find the designs and curves of the pots to be relaxing; pots also appeal because they are functional art. It is easy to imagine the potters all through history while looking at the collection the museum has displayed. The collection of sandals was the last of my photographs at the museum. The sandals on display are all old - found by archeologists. I noted that a lot of people in Tucson wear modern flip flops that look very similar.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - June 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. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations’ so I have one for each day up to today rather than the usual 10 for the month! 

1. Enjoying a book by a new author. I read a lot of books; the thrilled of finding an author that is new - or new to me - never seems to wane. It’s a lot like finding an unexpected treasure…and gets even better if the author has written other similar books.
2. Reading in a comfy chair by a window as it rains. The combination of natural light, the sound of rain, a good book, and a comfortable chair - it’s the convergence of things that make the moment special.
3. A calm day before the flurry of travel. Before the packing day…celebrating the calm before the bustle begins. It’s a little too soon to be worried about anything. The day can be savored as the contrast of what is to come.
4. Brookside Gardens. It is a place to celebrate at least monthly. Like all gardens, it changes with every visit. My post from that visit is here.
5. Ready to travel. Through all the trepidation of packing - wondering if everything would fit in the allotted luggage, making sure each back would meet the needs of the travel stages - and then it is done. It all fits. The boarding pass is printed. There is a small list to remember to pack right before heading to the airport. Everything is organized.
6. Arrival - forgetting only one (non-critical) item. Everything went exactly according to plan and the only item I forgot was a snack for the plane. It was left carefully packaged in the refrigerator. I noticed it almost immediately when I got to the gate and was able to purchase some almonds before boarding the plane so was not starving when I got off….and everything else was perfect. Arriving at a destination is always worth a celebration!
7. Sisters dinner. There are four of us - together for over 50 years and still enjoying each other. Our perspectives of growing up in the same household and divergences as adults are sources for almost endless conversation - and it is almost always over food. We ignored calorie counting for the evening.
8. Frontier Texas! in Abilene TX. This museum was a pleasant surprise. I’ll be posting about it eventually. It is new enough to present different perspectives of time period rather than just the traditional ‘Cowboy and Indian’ (masculine) stories.
9. White Sands National Monument. I have a post about this in the next few days. We didn’t rent saucers to slide down the dunes (I’ll wait for a time when I travel with a child for that) but did walk out on the sand barefoot. The whiteness of the sand reflects the heat enough that it is not hot like the tan colored sands.
10. Tucson Sunset. Experiencing the sunset on the first day in a new location is a celebration of a beginning - at the end of the first day with the brilliant colors of day fading to the blues and purples of evening. I’ll do a post about the Tucson sunset next week.
11. Madera Canyon. I posted about Madera Canyon already (here). The trek set the tone for the rest of time in Tucson: do as much as possible in the morning when it is coolest, enjoy the birds, take the easier hikes so everyone in the group can easily keep up, take plenty of pictures.
12. Sunrise and the Saguaro National Park (east). I’ve already posted about the sunrise here - and since we were already up - we took in the National Park as well. I’ll be posted about it in the next few weeks. It is going to take quite a while to work through the blog worthy items from June 2013.
13. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. There is a post coming up for the June visit. I’ve posted about the March 2013 visit (Plants and Birds and Seahorses) previously.
14. Tucson Botanical Garden. A garden in the city that includes large seedless grapefruit trees! There were also artichokes in bloom when we were there. There  is a blog post in development about it.
15. A daughter. What a joy it is to have a daughter than has grown into herself so gracefully! I always think that the current year is the very best of our shared lives….it’s been that way for more than 20 years!
16. Storm in the Davis Mountains. I was not celebrating while we were driving through it - curvy road, towering black thunderheads, pounding rain of very large drops or slushy hail. But we drove on - unscathed - and, in retrospect, the interplay of weather and terrain was quite awesome. Some of the clouds are shown in the Road Trip post from yesterday.
17. Clark Gardens Botanical Park. After a convoluted drive on country roads to find it - we quickly decided it was a place to enjoy and plan a return visit in another season. There will be an upcoming post on our June visit.
18. Back to the Dallas area. It was good to get off the road. We all celebrated not having to go anywhere at all for a day.
19. Home Again. The plane flight was as expected and I savored the quiet of home…for an evening.
20. Day at home. All through the day I celebrated that I had at least 24 hours before guests would arrive. It didn’t matter that I needed to do cleaning or make sure the sheets in the guess bedroom were fresh. It was very good to be home again.
21. Catching up. All the email and news feeds and laundry and mail….the little things that stack up when one is away from home and/or too busy. I celebrated that I got everything caught up except the news feeds before guests arrived.
22. Butterflies. The butterfly display is in full swing at Brookside Gardens conservatory. Even single butterflies are often worth celebrating; this display is almost overwhelming in that regard! I experimented with some video. One turned out particularly well and I may include it in my upcoming post.
23. Mount Vernon. In recent years, I’ve only gone when guests have requested…and enjoy it every time. There have been a lot of changes. The most recent is the addition of a theater with special effects (vibrating seats and snow falling) to dramatize events of the Revolutionary War. The place is definitely worth celebrating. I’ll eventually take a look at the pictures from the day a post about the visit.
24. Time to take naps. I don’t normally nap but June finally wore me out. Fortunately - it happened on a day I could take a nap in the morning….and another in the afternoon!
25. Anticipating getting back to normal. I am finally looking at some weeks without travel or external plans. The mundane activities of grocery shopping and mopping the kitchen floor are quite appealing.
26. Catching up - again. I am working off the items in inboxes and news feeds…even finishing up some Coursera work. It is thrilling to mark off items and realize that I can probably stay caught up….until the next time I have a series of days like ‘June 2013.’

June 2013 Road Trip

My road trip a few weeks ago took me from Dallas TX to Tucson AZ. The route went through Dallas - Fort Worth - Weatherford - Abilene - Midland - Pecos - El Paso - Las Cruces - Tucson…and back. On the way out we made a side trips into Abilene for the Frontier Texas exhibit and from Las Cruces to White Sands National Monument. On the way back we stopped at Clark Gardens near Weatherford. I have some future posts about those places. This post is about the scenes from the road.

It turns out that the pictures from Tucson back were the better ones - so the slide show below starts in Tucson and includes the scenes from the road in the three states. All three states have increased decoration of bridge abutments and overpasses along their interstates in recent years. They emphasize architecture, natural features and colors of the area. I captured some of the more unusual ones. El Paso seemed to have the most extensive and the most elaborate - in muted colors that seemed to fit the environment of El Paso.

The clouds were also noticeable. Their thickness built up in the afternoon of our first day of driving from Tucson. We had quite a rainstorm about an hour past El Paso. At first we thought we might be able to drive from underneath the big cloud…but it was as speedy as we were. The speed limit in that stretch is 80 mph but we slowed down in the deluge.

All three states have rest stops…many of them quite scenic. And they had picnic tables with shade - and situated to catch the breeze; we enjoyed picnic lunches even in the June heat. The welcome centers are even more elaborate. I took a picture of the sign and the doors of the one in New Mexico. The Texas rest stops included mosaics on the walls….and photogenic insects because they are so ‘open.’ As we got closer to Dallas we managed to take the route through Weatherford rather than return to the highway after our stop at Clark Gardens - so I got a picture of the center of town while we were stopped at a light. From there it was Fort Worth and Dallas traffic…not photogenic. We were all glad to get out of the car and stretch!

3 Free eBooks - June 2013

It’s time again for the monthly post of eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for June 2013.

Chadwick, Luie. Fashion drawing and design: a practical manual for art students and others. London: Batsford. 1926. Available from the Internet Archive here. Scan through the illustrations for historical perspective of fashion illustration or fashion itself. I particularly liked the silhouettes below.

Gordon, Elizabeth. Flower Children. Chicago: P.F. Volland and Company. 1910. Available from the Internet Archive here. The drawings capture both children and flowers. The tiger lily and trillium are shown at the right. What fun it would be to have customs along these lines for ‘dress up’ play!

Quennell, Marjorie Courtney andQuennell, Charles Henry Bourne. A History of Everyday Things in England. London: Batsford. 1918-1934. Three volumes available on the Internet Archive: volume 2, volume 3, and volume 4. This is quite a series - covering from the 16th Century to the early 1930s. The illustrations depict changes in that time period for simple things like staircases to work such as farming and the advent of the industrial age. The high chair from about 1860 (left) looks like a low table with a chair attached to the top! 

Madera Canyon

Madera Canyon is about 30 miles south of Tucson and 30 miles north of Nogales in the Santa Rita Mountains. It is in the Coronado National Forest - a pleasant addition of trees to the cactus and scrub of the Sonoran Desert. We took an easy hike and ate a picnic - with almost no one else around - when we visited Tucson a few weeks ago. There was no water in Madera Creek; nonetheless, the birds were plentiful as we had anticipated. They were so quick that we didn’t get many pictures until we stopped at a gift shop and found benches overlooking bird feeders. It was a great finale to the outing. 

Doves of Tucson

This time of year the doves (clade Columbidae) are enjoying the ripening fruit of the Saguaro cactus. Their muted colors contrast with the cactus - providing a desert color scheme with the white of the blooms, the red of the fruits and the dull green of the accordion folds of the trunk. When they are not perched on a Saguaro, they are on a roof ridgeline or getting a drink at some water source (the rocks at the edge of the swimming pool that the quail enjoyed were also favorites with the doves). The birds are so numerous that they are probably the most easily photographed of all the birds in the area.

Enjoy the slide show featuring the doves of Tucson below.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 22, 2013

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

If bees go extinct, this is what your supermarket will look like - Lots of fruits and veggies would go away too.

Take a Virtual Tour Of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - Time lapse sunrise…lava flows…ocean...steam.

Photos Of NYC's Subway Project - Lots of tunneling through rock.

Most Solar-Friendly States — 2013 State Solar Policy Rankings - Maryland is near the top! Arkansas and Oklahoma are at the bottom.

Breastfeeding Boosts Babies’ Brain Growth - Yet another reason babies should be breastfed.

Life in the Potholes of Canyonlands National Park - A short video about the small creatures that live their lives after rain fills the rock basins.

As Data Floods In, Massive Open Online Courses Evolve - I have enjoyed the Coursera offerings. My use of online classes is evolving too! I no longer feel compelled to do every aspect of the course; I am free to do just do the parts that meet the objectives I have for myself.

Beautifully Exotic Looking Species of Moths from Ottawa - There are some surprises in this photographic series. Which one do you like best? The white one (5th one from the top) is my favorite.

Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions - Making cement with less lime and requiring much less heat

Don’t Take Your Vitamins - An thought provoking opinion piece - particularly if you are assuming that more is better when it comes to vitamin supplements. 

Gambel’s Quail

We saw Gambel’s Quail pairs with chicks almost immediately when we arrived in Tucson last week. Getting pictures was harder than we anticipated. They move very rapidly through the prickly landscape of the Sonoran Desert. The adults are very good at keeping their chicks moving particularly when they sense danger.

The rocks around the swimming pool permitted easy access to the water for the birds - even the chicks. I got my best photo ops because of the pool. Now that I know where the gila monster den was located, I wonder how many chicks it has managed to snag as they moved toward or away from the pool. I try not to think about it.

Gila Monster

The big excitement on our last afternoon in Tucson, Arizona was the first monsoon rain of the season and the large gila monster that emerged from the rocks beside the pool of our rental house. It was relatively still at first, looking like a strangely patterned stuffed toy. Then it moved. It leaned over to get a drink from the pool while the camera was retrieved. It posed for a picture and then sauntered off to its den.

We had been in the house for a week and enjoying the area around the pool without noticing the hole just under one of the poolside rocks. I’m glad we finally saw the gila monster and relieved that it did not come out unexpectedly while someone was standing right beside its burrow! I supposed it was good that the pool was nearby since the Wikipedia entry says that sometimes the only way to get them to release was they bite it to submerge them in water. 

Arizona Sunrise - June 2013

Getting up for an Arizona sunrise in June is for early risers. We did it twice the week we were in Tucson. The first morning was the best because there were a few clouds to provide the canvas for the colors of the sunrise. The saguaro cactus that looks that a Gumby with a wild headdress and round nose provides a sync point for the sequence of photographs below. There is a cactus wren - in silhouette - on top of the tallest branch in the last picture.

I’ll post some morning light photos in a few days. The first hour after sunrise is the best for outdoor photography. 

Minutiae of Diet

My dietary goals are pretty simple: get as much nutrition from food as possible (i.e. don’t rely on supplements to make up for a very poor diet) and lose weight. I’ve had some success over the years but had stalled about a year ago.

About a month ago, I decided that, for me, sound bites don’t help enough when it comes to diet. I needed data other than weight and activity measurements (I already had from a scale and a Fitbit) that would directly guide my food choices.

The cronometer tool was the one I chose. I set up my profile to lose a pound per week and then started logging in my food each day.

I did not choose a special diet. My day to day goal is to stay below the Calorie maximum for the day and meet more than 93% of the nutritional targets….and to do it as much as possible without heavily fortified or processed foods. I found foods that I normally eat had already been defined in the tool (or something that was close enough to what I was eating to use as a substitute in the log). The result has been quite a learning experience….on a very detailed level. Here are some of the minutiae I’ve learned about my diet: 

• Starting the day with chia seeds in almond milk as I have been for quite some time is a reasonably good way to start the day….and the 20 grams of dark chocolate with it is an acceptable treat….but going to 40 grams of dark chocolate is not a good idea.
• Portion size is hugely important! I’ve started looking at labels and measuring. I focus on those things that are high calorie and low nutrient…those are the ones I watch the most carefully for portion size and sometimes question whether I want to eat them at all. Often the nutrient rich foods are not that high in calories so the serving size is relatively large.
• A non-fat plain yogurt smoothie with fruit (blueberries or banana or orange) is tasty, very filling, high in nutrition in relation to calories and, along with the things I normally eat, gets me to the calcium requirement every day. It doesn’t take a huge change to make a big nutritional difference.
• I easily meet the protein requirements with only one meat serving per day and it does not have to be a large one (since I get protein from other sources than meat too).
• Black tea made with tap water has nutrients!
• I like the orange veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes but I need to eat them consistently to get enough vitamin A
• I will probably always need to take Vitamin D. I am not in the sun enough and the fortification in the foods I eat is not enough to consistently get the minimum dose. No wonder my doctor has found my Vitamin D level a little low!
• I almost never get 100% of the potassium target. That is something to work on. Eating one banana or orange is not nearly enough.
• I always exceed the B12 requirement because the almond milk is fortified but I don’t quite get all of them to 100% every day.
• I am general below 0.5 gram of trans-fat - which is pretty good. The tool has helped me be more conscious of foods I eat occasionally that contain trans-fat.
• I am thinking about how long I will need to log my food at the detail I am not. At 4 weeks, I am still in the process of establishing the habit of healthy food choices. Staying below the 1280 Calories per day (totaled up in cronometer) and burning over 2000 calories (estimated by the Fitbit) has indeed resulted in weight loss of a little over a pound a week and I am feeling good - lots of energy. It does seem to be true for me that nutrients from food, rather than supplements, are used more effectively by the body. 

I recommend checking into doing at least a few days logging food into a tool like chronometer for anyone wanting to make tweaks to their diet!

Houses of the Future - A Wish List - Part III

The population of the world is growing. In the future, more of us will live in cities than in rural or suburban settings. This post focuses on what happens to the types of houses I would prefer for my home in that scenario.

Perhaps one way that ‘single family’ houses survive is to become embedded in food growing enterprises. Small parcels of land around a house, or groups of houses, could be tended by robots to become very productive either as general gardens or focused on specialized crops. Would this be the way the wealthiest live in the future? Or maybe this is what happens to old houses that are not engulfed by a city and have been retrofitted with new technology.

Even if we end up living in cities in high density buildings - not ‘single family’ houses - there are things that we can change about that environment to improve the approximation to the place I would want to live. My wish list for this future is: 

• Soundproofing between housing units is effective and universal.
• The advent of self-driving vehicles means that emergency vehicles no longer use sirens or horns (since they can cause the vehicles in their path to move out of the way via silent connectivity).
• Buildings are covered with plants tended by small robots. Green is the dominant color seen in views from windows.
• Elevated walkways separate foot traffic from vehicular traffic. Both sides of the walkway include plantings. The walkway itself is power generating.
• Outside lighting is directed downward and dim (or turns off completely) when the light is not needed by people in the area. The stars are visible in the sky overhead most of the time - or from upper floors of buildings.
• Sensors detect malfunctions or hazardous situations in the building (fire/smoke, plumbing, heating/cooling, ventilation, etc.) immediately and react appropriately….much faster than happens is buildings today. 

Previous posts in this series are here - Part I and Part II.

Brookside Gardens - June 2013

Brookside Gardens in June: lush greenery of ferns, azaleas and rhododendron mostly over as are the peonies, the lotus are still just leaves, the southern magnolias have buds, the foxglove grow up a hillside, the hibiscus and angel trumpet have been moved outside, the papyrus fills a high corner of the conservatory.

My favorite find of the day was some hollyhocks. I remember them blooming near the side porch of a great aunt - so I thought of her today.

Enjoy the Brookside slideshow for June 2013!