Winter Solstice Hike

One of the new traditions I am starting this year is taking a Solstice Hike. I got the idea from a guided hike conducted by the Howard County Conservancy yesterday (yes - a day early…but Saturday was a better day for the event than Sunday). The hike started at Belmont Manor and Historic Park and hiked down to the Patapsco River through the Patapsco Valley State Park that almost surrounds Belmont. The keyword about the trail is down; it was that getting to the river and then uphill for the way back!  My Fitbit counted about 9,000 steps and the equivalent of 40 flights of stairs. The pace was comfortable and there were no difficult parts of the trail.

It was about right for a winter hike. I bundled up and stopped periodically to take pictures. The first stop was the pond and the cypress tree. We had noticed on a hike before last fall’s BioBlitz at Belmont that there were knees by the pond and then noticed the large trees at the water’s edge. Some of the knees are in the water but most of them are in the grass around the pond and are scared from mowers.

As we started into the forest we noticed a tree with distinctive bark. I took a picture of the trunk and up into the tree to help with identification. I think I is a black tupelo/black gum since the bark does look like ‘alligator’ hide and the branches make a pinwheel pattern coming out from the trunk.

With the vegetation of summer gone, I started looking more closely at the base of trees. They usually provide a firm hold to the earth for the tree. There was one tree with a splintered trunk that still had a stump firmly in the ground.

I like the winter scenes that still have a bit of green from moss

Or ferns.

I photograph just about every shelf fungus I see as well!

Finally we see the Patapsco River.

At the water’s edge there are sycamores with their roots being undermined by the river.

As we begin the hike back we see the distinctive trunk of a Honey Locust.

Next year I might do another guided Solstice Hike…or I may just hike with friends. The point is some outdoor time on the shortest day of the year!

Another new tradition I want to try this year is a First Day Hike in a State Park. There are parks all over the US participating. To find one near you - check the http://naspd.org/  site (the logo at the bottom of the page goes to a form to select your state)! I hope the weather on January 1 is as good for hiking as the weather was for the Solstice Hike.

Holiday Events

Part of the joy of December - the brightness in the season of short days - is holiday events. This year I volunteered at two events that ended up being in the same weekend. They were both so much fun I’ll do the same sort of thing next year! Somehow being part of the set up and behind-the-scenes logistics for an event makes it even more of a celebration.

I enjoy the decorations like the ones I posted about yesterday and the ‘pot people’ at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant farm decked out for the season.

Baking is an integral part of holidays for me…and it is so much better to share the products rather than overindulge. My favorite homemade goodies to donate for events are the always popular oatmeal raisin cookies and coconut macaroons. I was glad there were none leftover this year!

One of my volunteer jobs was to help bundle up donated boxwood and holly - to be sold at one of the events. I bought some and then took some of the remains at the end of the day for a vases and pitchers in my kitchen. It was the final bit of decorating around my house. What a reminder of the ‘good beginning’ of December!

Holiday Decorations at Belmont

The Howard County Conservancy hosted a Colonial Holiday Celebration at Belmont yesterday. I volunteered to help with set up and registration so had enough time before the event started to photograph some of the decorations that partner organizations had created in the first floor room. They had done a fabulous job. There were lots of good ideas to consider for some future Christmas decorating: cranberries at the end of narrow ribbons hanging from the chandelier, a bowl of cranberries; garlands of pine boughs, cones, and boxwood; magnolia leaves and dried hydrangea flowers in an unused fireplace; arrangements of oranges studded with cloves, apples and pineapples; homemade ornaments of dried apple slices, whole pomegranates drying, dough handprints; greenery tied to everything with narrow red ribbon; popcorn and cranberry garland.

It was close to sunset by the time I left. The windows of the house glowed in the soft evening light.

Looking in the other direction the horizon glowed with color, the pond reflects the trees, and the magnolia in from of the house stands sentinel.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - November 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. 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’ - as had been the usual for the past few months. Here are my top 10 for November 2014.

Noticing the seasonal change

A warm day. November had some perfect outdoor days this year. I celebrated by spending most of one of those days outdoors and, realizing that the warmth would be over soon,  celebrated the warm sun and blue sky.

Leaves flying. The breezes took the leaves from the trees and swirled them up and across and over the roadways. The view was a serendipity celebration on the way to someplace else. Did the idea of confetti for celebratory parades come from the natural process of leaves swirling away from the trees in the fall?

First snow of the season. We got our first snow the day before Thanksgiving! It was the perfect low impact snow: melted almost immediately on sidewalks and streets, stuck to grass and roofs enough to make everything pretty. I celebrated the beauty…and that I didn’t have to get out of the house at all.

Food

Thai food in a quiet restaurant. I was a little too far from home to get there for a lunch and I celebrated finding a quiet Thai food restaurant where the ambience was pleasant and the food was tasty. I read my Kindle book and savored the place…celebrated a lunch out.

Cranberry orange relish. It tasted so good. I like it so much that I eat it more as a dessert than a relish! I’ll eat up the batch I made for Thanksgiving over the next week or so….and then make another! This is one of my favorite foods between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is part of the celebration of the season for me.

Hot ginger root and lemon ‘tea.’ I enjoy the subtle flavor of fresh ginger in hot water. Sometimes I don’t even need the lemon…or the tea. The ginger root tea is the new additional to the celebration of the season this year.

Activities

Chincoteague - bald eagle soaring over the highway. It was hard to pick what I celebrated the most about our weekend in Chincoteague but I finally settled on the bald eagle soaring over the highway as we headed home. There is something about the bird that makes me celebrate every time I see one in the wild. They’ve made quite a comeback since the dark days of DDT.

Nature hikes (field trips). The fall season elementary school field trip nature hikes for the Howard Country Conservancy ended this month. I celebrate the enthusiasm and curiosity of the children - their joy at being outdoors.

Poetry experiments. I am never going to be a poet but the Coursera poetry course did give me ideas for word experiments…and I celebrate that spark that prompted it all.

The prospect of staying at home for several days. For some reason - it seemed like I was out and about more this month than in the past year and I realized as I headed into the Thanksgiving weekend that the prospect of staying at home for a few days was something I wanted to celebrate.  I can remember years ago when my husband and I were working full time, my middle school aged daughter told us that instead of going away for a 3 day week that she wanted us all to just stay home! And we all celebrated the ‘at home’ vacation. I am feeling like that again right now.

Fall Field Trips

It’s been a busy season for Howard County Conservancy Field Trips for K-4.  This is my second fall as a volunteer naturalist. There was an uptick in the number of field trips and there were definitely times that it would have been easier with more volunteers….but I enjoyed every one of my hiking groups. The buses generally arrive about 10 AM and the children are divided into hiking or lesson groups. The volunteer naturalists take 5-10 students with their chaperones on about an hour long hike then there is a big swap and the lesson group gets divided into hiking groups….and the volunteer naturalist guides a second hike. At the end there is hand washing and a picnic lunch (or return to school for lunch).

Everything is outdoors so the weather is sometimes a concern. The last field trip was last Friday and it was, by far the coldest of them all. But everyone dressed for the weather. Some of the children even decided it was worth taking a glove off temporarily to feel milkweed down!

You might be wondering what the pogo stick looking object in the picture is. It is a soil auger that is the favorite of all second graders on the soil hike. Everyone gets to use it and all the students are hands on with the samples collected. It’s my favorite from volunteer naturalists perspective too: it is indestructible, gets participation from everyone (sometimes even the chaperones), and the students are thrilled with transitioning what they’ve learned in class to ‘field work.’

Mt. Pleasant Farm

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant has been the site for many field trips for county elementary schools this fall. With only a few more to go - I took the short walk along the kindergarten hike route before the buses arrived; it was another celebration of fall in Maryland. 

The flower pot people are always on display on a shady bench….suitably styled for the season.

Many of the trees are labeled - including this Witch Hazel

And the Saucer Magnolia.

I liked both of them for their color and the way the light was striking the leaves. Somehow the children always enjoy the discovery of the rabbit sculpture under a bush.

Many of the pines seem to have more cones near the top. Pretty soon we’ll be emulating the way the cones hang from the branches on our Christmas tree!

The buses arrived shortly after my walk and my focus shifted to hiking with children and their chaperones….and that too is a celebration of the season.

HC Conservancy - September 2014

I took a walk around the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant farm before a volunteer naturalist training session last week. The walk around the meadow started out cloudy and the temperature was near perfect. I took a picture of the dogwood just beginning to turn to fall colors along the drive to the farm house as I walked from the parking lot.

The sculpture of the owl in the natural play area for children is taking on a darker patina as is weathers.

I took lots of milkweed pictures; the pods are maturing and beginning to split…and lots of milkweed bugs.

The meadow has some fall blooms. Purple is a popular color (thistles and ironweeds and poke weed)

But yellow of goldenrods are overwhelming.

There was a cut up tree trunk along the stone fence that had quite an assortment of shelf fungus.

Along that same stone fence were two snake skins - one hanging from a tree that seemed to be growing roots into its own trunk and another along a tree branch.

A tidy nest was visible in the very young tree - probably fresh from this summer but now abandoned.

And last but not least - a huge caterpillar of a cecropia moth! I’m glad one of my fellow hikers spotted it!

Favorite Memories of Summer 2014

Today - the traditional ‘last day of summer’ - I am savoring the memories of the past 3 months. It has been cooler than usual in my area (Maryland, near Baltimore) so the outdoor activities have been especially pleasant. Here are my top 5 memories from this summer:

The Deck Garden. The plants on the deck are a daily draw to go outdoors. There is always something changing - new flowers blooming, a tiny tomato forming, sweet potato vines spilling over the edge of the pot then the deck…and blooming, and all the associated insects and birds enjoying the plants (sometimes causing some damage) and the water in the birdbath and the pot saucers. I may change some of the plants next year - but using every available pot for something is definitely something to continue from now on.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. The place made my list because it was a new experience. I still enjoyed places I have been many times this summer (Brookside Gardens and the National Arboretum and the Howard County Conservancy Mt. Pleasant Farm) but the lotuses at the aquatic garden with the dragonflies that abounded were a high point of the garden visits this season.

Josey Ranch Lake. What a pleasant surprise it was to walk around the small lake near the library in Carrollton TX! It hosts such a variety of resident birds (although I did wish the nutria were not there).  It became the high point of ‘sights’ for the two weeks I spent in Texas this summer.

CSA Veggies. This was my first participation in a Community Supported Agriculture farm and I’ve enjoyed the enhanced flavor of fresh-from-the-field vegetables. I will do it again next summer!

Classes. I become more aware all the time of just how much I enjoy being a student. Whether the classes are online (Coursera and Creative Live) or ‘live’ at the Howard County Conservancy…classes have the effect of broadening my horizons and tweaking what I do. It may not be healthy to grow larger physically but growing mentally is always a good thing.

Happy end-of-summer 2014!

Zooming - July 2014

We are in the full swing of summer - lotus and water lilies - summer wild flowers and fireworks. Those are major themes for the zoom collages this month. 

The first collage is of lotus at the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens.

The water lilies are also from Kenilworth.

The squiggles from botched firework pictures actually turned out to be worth a collage too.

Last, but not least, a zooming collage from my walk around the Howard County Conservancy Honor Garden.

In the Forest Shade

I stayed in the shade as much as I could for my morning at Howard Country Conservancy yesterday. The plants that are under larger trees are lush with their summer growth. The redbud pods are thick on the trees; their edges are a darker green than the paper sides where the seeds show through as small bumps. The heart shaped leaves are darker green.

The insects were active - but none of the seemed to be the biting kind.  This one seemed to be posing for me. He seems to be looking right at the camera!

The wild blackberries are still mostly red. Do you see the one ripe one in this picture?

I looked in the place I had seen jack-in-the-pulpit in the spring and was rewarded with the still green seedpod on its stalk almost hidden by the other plants that have grown up beside the path.

There's a lot of green out there!

A Picnic at Howard County Conservancy

The weather was perfect for the Fiddlers and Fireflies event at the Howard County Conservancy this past week.  I took an eclectic picnic: frozen blueberries, spinach salad with bacon bits, Fruit Beety under a layer of plain yogurt (a mini-parfait), and collard green chips.

I enjoyed walking around the picnic area and Honors Garden taking pictures. The bees were very active and - grateful that cameras are digital these days - I took a lot of images and picked 3 for this post.

And now enjoy the rest of the best from my after picnic walk in the slide show below!

Tree Swallows

The tree swallows have been active at the Howard County Conservancy this past month. I haven’t succeeded in photographing them on the wing over the grassy areas but they like to perch on the fence around the community garden and they are nesting in several boxes.

One particular box was along the loop hike for the third grade hikes I was leading; it seemed like there was a bird in the box or on top of the box almost every time I walked by! The bird would fly away if there was too much noise but it would not take long for it to return.

Swallows are fun birds to watch because they are so acrobatic and they seem to make patterns of loops in the air. They evoke the joy of flying with their motions. Do they feel it too --- or are we just translating their movement into our own emotions? 

Jack-in-the-Pulpits

The Jack-in-the-Pulpits seem to be everywhere during the first weeks of May in our area of Maryland this year. They’ve been every place where there is thick leaf litter and not too much other forest undergrowth. I seem to notice more of the plants in recent years….either I am happening on where they grow more frequently, I am more observant, or (maybe) they are more numerous in recent years in this area.

I saw them at Brookside Gardens on 5/3 (the gardeners seem to plant them in clumps),

The Brighton Dam Azalea Garden on 5/4,

The forest behind my house on 5/6 (where I also noticed some garlic mustard plants which I immediately pulled since often those invasive plants make it impossible for the native forest undergrowth to flourish), and

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant on 5/9 (unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me on that hike!).