Book Quote of the Month (about trees) - February 2014

Like the Chinese, who divide the solar calendar into twenty-four rather than 4 seasons (among them, fortnights called “excited insects,” “grains fill,” “cold dew,” and “frost descends”), a practiced tree watcher knows there are dozens of seasons and that one of them could be called “acorns pumping out.” - Nancy Hugo Ross inSeeing Trees

It isn’t often that a coffee table book (large format with beautiful pictures) prompts action or behavior change. This one is the exception for me and I suspect it is for others as well. I attended a lecture by the author at the Howard Country Conservancy on February 8th and promptly started planning my forays around the yard and nearby gardens for this spring…and naming the ‘seasons’ that I am seeing. The first blog post prompted by the lecture was on February 13th (I’ll call that season ‘fuzzy buds’. The book arrived in the mail that afternoon and I am savoring reading it and the pictures now….adding more details to the plans.

I’ve always enjoyed botanical photography but have tended toward flowers rather than trees. And I haven’t done the magnified looking at trees all that often. My husband had an old loupe he used during the days his photography was slide based that has now been repurposed and he ordered a new one that has higher magnification for be to experiment with as well.

To celebrate the prospect of learning a lot more about trees over the next year or so - I’ve created the slide show below of the best tree pictures I’ve taken over the past 12 months. Enjoy!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 16, 2014

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.

Green Schoolyard Movement: Gaining Momentum around the World - Hooray for outdoor spaces that are complex systems….good for the children and the environment!

Aerial 3D Panoramas from around the World - Wow! There is a lot of interesting places to explore on this site. I started with Petra, Jordan.

Fracking in Water-Stressed Zones Increases Risks to Communities – and Energy Producers - Nearly half of the wells hydraulically fractured (indicated by black dots) in the United States are located in areas of high or extremely high water stress…not a good thing. The potential for supply shortfalls poses operational risks to the energy producers as well as risks of rationing and other emergency measures to the wider community.

Special Albinos and Unusually White Animals - Their lack of coloring caused them to stand out.

A Crash Course in Psychology - On YouTube. It will continue on in 10 minutes segments over the next few months. The second installment is here.

Global Health Observatory Map Gallery - There is a pull down list for geographic coverage and topics….and then an area for keywords.   There are lots of maps to explore with this tool. Here is one example: I selected ‘world’ then ‘maternal and reproductive health’ - and there was a list of 3 maps to look at.  One of them was “Maternal mortality ration (per 100,000 live births), 2010.” The US is now as good as most of the developed world in this metric.

The Nine Planets Imagined as One - I like this both as art and science (even if it does include Pluto which is no longer considered a planet)!

The Future of Agriculture (part 1 and part 2) - Fred Kirshenmann talking about going beyond ‘green’ to resilient agriculture. The videos are few years old but I just discovered them (they were suggested as references in the Coursera course I am taking on the US Food System).

Jumping Liquids Mimic Japanese Flower Arrangements - Whether or not they look like Japanese Flower Arrangements….they are worth a look. My favorite is the red, white and purple one need the middle of the series.

The end of the GMO era? -  Some recent stories about GMOs.

Snow Day - February 2014

I am delaying the weekly gleanings post until tomorrow so I can post some pictures of our snowy Thursday and Friday of this week.

It snowed all day on Thursday. I tried to capture some snowflake pictures first thing Thursday morning but it was already a mix of snow and rain - too warm for snowflake pictures. It did mean that the snow was very sticky. I piled up quickly on just about any non-vertical surface and made graceful curves over the pots on the deck.

By 10 AM we had at least a foot of snow and we bundled up for the first clearing of the driveway. I wore an old gardening hat on top of my fleece because there was rain mixed with the snow that was falling. My husband and I managed to get half the driveway done before taking a break for lunch. Later in the afternoon we got one side completed and he backed out over the remnants of the pile left by the plow when it made a pass through the neighborhood.

In the evening we noticed the snow was coming down again and we measured another 6 inches before we went to bed on Thursday night. I got up early on Friday morning and took some pictures of the sunrise.

The streetlight gilded its nearest tree before it went out for the day.

We got out to do the weekly grocery shopping and I managed a picture from the car window of snow caught in last summer’s crepe myrtle berries while my husband broke up the new pile the plow had made at the base of our driveway.

The sun was out all day Friday and the temperature got up to 40…..but there is still a lot of snow on the ground this Saturday morning. It is bumpy from the melting that must be going on underneath. The big piles on either side of the driveway are going to take many days to melt away!

Magnifying February Trees

The trees of February still look starkly bare. I decided to take a closer look at some of the trees around our yard. I labelled cups and cut twigs to take inside to photograph in comfort rather than braving the cold and overcoming the clumsiness of gloves.

The pods on the tulip poplar were dramatic at close range. Many of them have already disintegrated - the seeds flying away with the wind - but these still had enough to look like ‘flowers.’

The cherry tree buds are already enlarging. I took the pictures through an 8x and 22x loupe to get the magnification I wanted.

I did the same for the oak buds….and then couldn’t resist a closer look at a wound on the twig with the 8x loupe.

The maple tree is beginning to turn reddish at the tips of the branches. And the magnified images show the buds are colorful. They’ll become more so over the next few weeks.

Microscope Project: Onion Skin Abstracts

I was preparing lunch yesterday - cutting up a red onion - when I realized that thin pieces of onion would be good subjects for the microscope. My goal was to do something artsy rather than scientific. See the results in the slide show below.

The outmost layer was very dry and stiff but I put a small piece on a slide. It looked like a brilliant pink stone wall under the microscope.

The next layer of the onion was more flexible but still not quite soft enough to be edible. I cut some small pieces. They looked various shades of deep purple, reddish and then clear. They dried out a bit before I got them under the microscope and I discovered that the bubbles made them just as interesting as the cell structures.

When I was dicing the onion - one of the major layers fell away and a think membrane - without color - was visible. I put several pieces of it on slides and tried some dyes/food coloring to get the green, yellow, orange, and purple images.

Russet Potato House Plant - February 2014

At the end of January I posted about the russet potato that has sprouted…and been planted in a pot to grow as houseplant. The sprouts have grown very rapidly in the past 10 days. One of the sprouts has averaged in inch of growth per day and both are thriving better than the sweet potato that is growing in the same pot (the yellow leaves in the picture are the sweet potato; perhaps the temperature even in the house is too chilly for the sweet potato to thrive).

I have added another grow light and hope that both plants will manage to get through the winter so I can put them into the garden after the last danger of frost this spring.

I like watching the early rapid growth of plants. The russet potato leaves unfurl from a stalk that has bumpy ridges. And on the stems there are fine hairs. Every day there seems to be something new to notice about its growth.

Outdoors in Maryland - February 2014

February is a stark month in Maryland. On a sunny day, I bundled up to take pictures - noticing that there is a lot of drab brown - texture becomes important in the scenes: the forest,

Hydrangea flowers from last summer,

And wood grain on the deck in the afternoon sun.

I’ve bought a bird feeder - advertised as ‘squirrel proof’ - and hung it so that we can see it through several windows.

A few days ago there was ice and that added a glistening coat to everything. I took pictures standing in doorways rather than venturing out on the icy surface: the frozen drips on the sycamore,

The tangled branches of the cherry with a pine providing background,

And a pine weighed down with a burden of ice.

That’s the outdoors scene from our area of Maryland for this month!

Russet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I started a sweet potato vine back in October when I found a sweet potato had sprouted before I could eat it; I posted about the lush houseplant it has become earlier this month. Just after that post I discovered a russet potato that had sprouted. I cut of the end that had sprouted and put it in the same large pot as the sweet potato and it is growing very rapidly. The two short stalks to the left in the picture above are the russet potato. The sweet potato vine winds around the pot and some of its leaves are visible to right.

Tomorrow I’m going to rig a grow light so that both plants with thrive until I can put them outdoors for the summer. The pot is large but maybe not large enough for both of them!

Botanical Print Clothes

Looking around my closet - I find quite a few fabrics with botanical images.

Some images are made with embroidery - done with a machine like on the neckline of a dressy T-shirt and big shirt….or hand done on the artisan shirt.

There is a saguaro cactus made with points of metal on a black T-shirt.

There is a poinsettia made with folds of a one-size-fits-all top. The picture in the slide show below is the top when it was on the hanger. There is additional white that shows when it is on a person.

I bought a skirt with a red and black border at the thrift store. The flowers are glittery while the background leaves are black - very dramatic.

I like the rose of the tapestry jacket…..and based on the comments I get when I wear it, others do too.

All in all - I like the plant images on clothes. How many botanical fabrics do you find in your closet?

Previous post on Botanical Print Fabrics: June 2012

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 25, 2014

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.

All of these outbreaks could have been prevented with vaccines - The US has taken a backward step when it comes to outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough. It’s very sad that the downturn has been so abrupt in the past 4-5 years….and that we know why; when will the toll of these diseases reach a tipping point toward increasing mandates for vaccination. All my vaccinations are up to date (and I may ask for a whooping cough booster at my next annual physical since some if my volunteer work is with children).

Wellcome Images - Digital images from the many historical sources made available under Creative Commons licensing by the Wellcome Library, London. All low resolution images are freely available for download for personal, academic teaching or study use. The image at the right is a Mark Catesby illustration of a magnolia blossom and pod.

Top 20 Metropolitan Areas in the U.S.A., 1790-2010 - A very busy chart…but worth look at for a bit. Expand it and take a look. Some cities peaked early (like Baltimore); some didn’t get started until much later (like Dallas and Houston). New York has stayed at the top since it surpassed Philadelphia in the early 1800s.

An earthquake threat is building up in the central U.S. - Lots more people living in the area than there were in the early 1800s (when the last big earthquake occurred there.

Designing Your School of Choice: mySchool - An essay by Adam Renfro about his vision for ‘school.’ There are so many options for future schools….the big challenge will be to choose those options wisely. The balance between needs of the student and society will become more nuanced. It is interesting to observe the uniformity implied by core curriculum, testing, and building structures with the explosion of easily available learning environments that are anything but uniform.

How a Versatile Gut Bacterium Helps Us Get Our Daily Dietary Fiber - Another bit of evidence that our bodies are complex ecosystems with many organisms interacting…..organisms that we need to be healthy!

What's the best place to see or visit in your area? - This is a post where the comments are the main content.  I know in my area I have favorites - and the ones I recommend depend on the interests of the person asking!

To MOOC or Not To MOOC - Infographic. I learned a new acronym: SPOCs is (Small Private Online Courses)

NASA Finds 2013 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend - The Earth’s temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F since 1880. The average temperature in 2013 was 1.1 degrees F since the mid-20th century. There is a video showing the temperature changes over the past 6 decades.

Roasted Chickpeas - A recipe I’m going to try this week.

Robins in Maryland

A flock of robins came to our neighborhood with the sun after the big snow storm earlier this week. It was bitterly cold (in the low teens and breezy) so they fluffed their feathers for warmth and looked very round. They seemed to like the maple tree that is visible from my office. I took the pictures for this post through the window!

There were other birds around that morning too. A blue jay sat in the top of the maple - very alone compared to the robins. There was a small flock of blue jays in the neighborhood last summer and I hope to see them frequently again. There was a woodpecker that was examining our tulip poplar but must not have found anything interesting since it did not stay long. On the other side of the house, the juncos are eating the seeds left on the stalks of the blazing stars from last fall; the cats watch them through the window.

3 Free eBooks - January 2014

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for January 2014.

Reed, Chester Albert. Wild Flowers East of the Rockies. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.1910. Available from the Internet Archive here. This book had great illustrations. I found myself looking forward to spring when I can out to find skunk cabbage and trillium.

Bailey, John; Schneider, Carri; Vander Ark, Tom. Navigating the Digital Shift: Implementation Strategies for Blended and Online Learning. Digital Learning Now. 2013. Available in several formats here. This book is a series of papers about the adoption of Common Core State Standards and the shift to personal digital learning.

Moncrieff, Ascott Robert Hope; Palmer, Sutton. The Heart of Scotland. London: A & C Black. 1909. Available from the Internet Archive here. I like the golden colors of the paintings by Sutton Palmer. They are full of details too - enough to make the 1000 words that picture are touted to be worth.

Between the Gaylord and the Potomac

This is my third post about my walk around the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center week before last (the previous posts were about atrium plants and ice crystals). It was a cold but sunny day when I was there. Aside from the ice crystals - there were some other sights between the glass wall of the atrium and the Potomac River. The white and purple kale had grown lacy like the plants often do mid-way through the winter.

The topiary twists and globes appeared to be weathering the cold as did the neatly trimmed Gaylord logo.

The peeling bark of the birch, the oval shapes of magnolia leaves and the needles of pines added other textures.

Looking out to the river, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge with its drawbridge was in the distance. Ice extended out from the shore.

But the startling event was a gull swopping over the pier to drop a shell (which cracked open)…and then he gull alighting to enjoy breakfast!

Atrium Plants

This is my second post about my walk around the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center last week (the previous post is here). The resort has a large atrium area that has pleasant tables and benches amongst lush plantings. Balconies of rooms on the upper floors make up three sides of the atrium with the roof and the Potomac side letting in lots of light. The building was mostly neutral colors and the outdoors was frozen in winter so the deep green foliage and occasional colors were very welcome. There were Bromeliads,

Hydrangea,

Cyclamen,

And zantedeschia.

Zooming - January 2014

The ‘zooming’ post for January includes botanicals from outside (curly bark, magnolia leaves, leaves and twigs of a bush under ice and snow, a deteriorating shelf fungus) and inside (hydrangea, Christmas cactus, Norfolk pine, lilies, amaryllis) plus a pitted shell in the rock garden and the fringe of a holiday tunic.

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I am enjoying a sweet potato vine as a houseplant this winter. It all started back in mid-October when I discovered a sweet potato had sprouted.  I cut off the sprouted end before I cooked the rest of the potato.

The sprout grew so rapidly in the saucer of water that within a week, I bought a planter box and soil. I included some shells still in the bag brought back from some beach vacation years ago on the top of the soil; pouring water onto shells works well to avoid holes dug by water.

At first the pot looked huge compared to the tiny plant but it continued to grow rapidly. It got pretty tall by early November before falling over and beginning to act like a vine about a month from the time it was planted.

The vine twined around a stick in early December.

In late December, I threaded the end of the vine through a metal sculpture.

In just 3 months indoors the vine had grown around the planter box and leaves spill out over the side. The bright green foliage is welcome in the deep of winter. It sits on the window end of the kitchen table where it gets sun on sunny days and supplemental artificial light for cloudy days and extra hours. It’s the best houseplant I’ve ever had!

I’m going to put the box outdoors after the last possibility of frost and anticipate that the planter box will be full of sweet potatoes by next fall!

US Botanic Garden - December 2013 - Part III

This is the last of the posts with images from our visit to the US Botanic Garden back in December. I could not forego posting about the poinsettias. The conservatory is full of them during the holiday display every year - in baskets, surrounding models of Washington DC landmarks and

Snuggled around miniature towns.

But my favorite part of poinsettias is the center of flowers….and that part is the focus of the slide show below.

Outdoors in Maryland - January 2014

Outdoors in January is cold and the eye searches for colors other than brown or white. The green of the pines under snow is a relief the eye. Our mind conjures comparisons for the snow: whipped cream, flocking, blankets. It was very cold after our first snow of the year and the yard stayed pristine and windswept for more than a day; we didn’t venture out and neither did the deer.

When the sun came out, the melt began even though the air was still well below freezing. I ventured out to take pictures of seed heads from last summer’s blazing stars looking very much like a bottle brush,

A twig blown from the oak tree standing upright in the snow,

A woodpile topped with snow in a yard trampled by deer and children,

Icicles that formed on a bush from the drips off the gutter above, and

The frozen gush from one of the downspouts.

Most of the snow was gone within 24 hours. The gutter was clear and the only snow remaining was from piles created by snow plows.

I prefer the trees with green leaves…but being able to see the large wasp nest built last summer in a nearby maple is some consolation.

And the sycamores always seem even more beautiful in the winter with their white bark. These lean over the street as if it were a river.

US Botanic Garden - December 2013 - Part II

The orchid room at the US Botanic Garden Conservatory is one of my favorite places - not matter when we choose to visit. It is always lush with vegetation and a variety of orchids.

My favorites are always the slipper orchids - with a backdrop of green, dripping with moisture.

It is easy to imagine this form translated to a slipper for a human foot with a rounded toe and ribbons to tie around the ankle. It is not quite clear what would happen to the hood.

Or what about imagining the slipper orchid as a design for a backpack to carry a baby - the ribbons would be used to attach it to the mother’s back and the hood would be a sunshade! Some of the slipper orchids even seem to contain padding that would fit well into encouraging this imaginary translation.

The smells of the orchids all blend together in the orchid room to make a rich perfume - noticeable and pleasantly rich without becoming overpowering. I can’t share that with you but the slide show below gives you more visuals of the orchids found there last month.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 4, 2014

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.

Quinoa, Apricot, and Oat Muffin Clusters - Yum! I made these yesterday. There were some substitutions since I ‘made do’ with ingredients I had around the house: spiced fruit preserve instead of apricot paste, sesame seeds for the nuts/seeds, tahini instead of almond butter. I also used muffin cups that I had had for years (found recently when I was re-arranging the cabinets!).

Heat maps reveal where you feel emotions in your body - Hmmm….so people that are happy are physically warmer!

Beyond the Core: What about Other Important Outcomes? - What topics do you think are missing from the common core for K-12 education? Use this article to jumpstart your thinking.

Stranger than Fiction (Plant Biology) - An intro to the January issue of The Scientist online magazine. Read the full articles too: Plant communication, plant DNA challenging preconceptions about the evolution of life, and gold in plants.

Attacking Fungal Infection, One of World's Major Killers - When we think of microbes that kill we generally think of bacteria or viruses, but fungal infections kill 1.3 million people per year. I remember the mycology class I took (a long time ago) in college because of the beauty visible through the microscope: it was a blue world (dye) with complex structures. Reading this story makes me wonder if there were too few people from my generation that chose to pursue medical mycology and if our medical system has tended to focus only on the non-fungal microbes. Here’s another fungi story published this past week about How Mushrooms are Changing the World’s Winds.

Meditative Moments Found Within Dramatic Landscapes - If I went for a walk, there would be some places close to my house that look like these images! I took a few pictures from my door and decided that the wind and temperature in the teens made it too cold to venture further.

Marvelous Snowflakes - A video about how they form…in keeping with the view from my window in Maryland today!

The Best Wildlife and Nature Photos from NWF Staff in 2013 - My favorite is the pitcher plants (toward the end) but the sandhill crane (the picture after the pitcher plants) just visible in tall grass is a close second. And here is a group of nature photos from National Geographic: Rainforest Bugs and Best Wishes for 2014!

Elder Pharmacology - Many clinical trials exclude patients over the age of 65 as well as patients taking multiple drugs. And one of the key findings by gerontologists is that the biology of a young body is quite different from that of a young body. Put these together…and doctors medicating patients over 65 are virtually ‘flying blind.’ The status quo is not acceptable.

The book we all wish we could have read as children - I’ve added Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison to my wish list (The NPR article that is referenced is here.)