Philadelphia Flower Show 2014 - Part 1

We went to the Philadelphia Flower Show last Friday. It was my first time for the event; Philadelphia is about 2 hours up I-95 from where we live so we made it a day trip. My husband bought the tickets and printed a parking coupon via the show’s web site. It opened at 10 and we arrived before 10:30. There were already quite a few people and it got more crowded. Next time I will do the exhibits first and shopping second (just opposite of what I did this first year) although I did enjoy the variety of vendors. I found some great gardening gloves to replace the ones that I threw away at the end of last season.

The flower show was in the Philadelphia Convention Center so it did not matter that it was cold outside. The indoors was full of color that won’t appear outdoors for months! It was a good break from the dull colors of winter.

I’m going to do several posts with photographs from the day trip. This first one is dedicated to flowers. I always like the ikebana arrangements. And the clever use of plants to create insect forms among daffodils was a lot of fun. There were big white paper flowers (with intricate folds and cuts) in one of the Convention Center hallways. Spring bulbs were blooming everywhere! Enjoy the slide show below of flowers from the Philadelphia Flower Show.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 8, 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.

Over 80s often over-treated for stroke prevention - Sometimes the risks of medications overcome their value as people get older. Are we savvy enough to comprehend the complexity and then make the best decision?

Beautiful Bird Drawings by Brazilian Street Artist L7m - My favorite is the heron (5th one from the top).

Five Native Plants to Add to Your Garden - Spring is close enough to be thinking about gardening so the timing of this article is good if you are still contemplating new plants for this year. I had cardinal flowers last year that bloomed profusely and attracted hummingbirds/butterflies. Hope they come up again this year.

Why dark chocolate is good for your heart - Hurray! I celebrate that the research on dark chocolate is confirming its benefits. It’s one of my favorite little splurges.

Which National Park Drives Are On Your 2014 Calendar? - So many great choices…..

This is what the Internet actually looks like: The undersea cables wiring the Earth - An aspect of infrastructure that we often take for granted because they are so reliable. The vast majority of international traffic is carried by the undersea cables (only a few percent go via satellite).

Incredible Up-Close Textured Details of Frozen Flowers - What a beautiful idea of a macro photography project….but I’m going to wait until summer when I have some flowers from my garden as subjects!

Canary in the Cornfield: Why the Fuss about Monarchs? - I know there are a lot fewer monarch butterflies in my community in recent summers….and less milkweed too. This article explains some background on why that happened.

Sea-level rise threatens UNESCO World Heritage sites - The Statue of Liberty is one. The detailed paper is available here.

Eat Plants and Prosper: For Longevity, Go Easy On the Meat, Study Says - I skewed toward more fruits and veggies - ate less processed grains and meat….and got down to a healthy weight!  

Snowflakes - March 2014

The conditions for taking snowflake pictures were relatively good earlier this week: it was well below freezing, most of the time it was calm, and there were bands of snow that resulted in a variety of snowflake types. I was better prepared than previous snows as well. I had left the loupes and plates to catch the snowflakes under a towel on our covered deck. So the equipment was already cold and I had a towel to brush off the plates so that I could catch flakes for multiple sessions. I had decided to use a green glass plate steady of the red one I’d used in February…..anticipating St. Patrick’s Day!

The first time I went out, the flakes were very small and included a lot of dual flakes - connected by a prism axel (as in the images below). I particularly like the one that the reflection from the center makes it glow from within.

The second and third time I ventured out, the flakes were bigger and more complex. I had plenty of time to look around the flakes on the plate because the temperature was in the low twenties….nothing was melting! Although my technique has improved over this winter, the weather was a positive factor in capturing the March snowflake images.

Previous snowflake posts: 

• January 2014
• February 2014

Brookside Conservatory - February 2014

It is so cold outdoors today….I decided to ‘think warm’ by picking my favorite images captured at the Brookside Gardens conservatories a few weeks ago. Conservatories are deliciously warm places to visit in the winter!

On this visit - I did some experimentation with by 8x magnification loupe. All the images in the post include a photo taken with the camera and then one or two images captured with the loupe to add to the magnification.

The fuzz on the petals and imperfections become more obvious.

I’d never seen the variegated croton fruit before. They are almost as colorful as the foliage!

The veins of the hibiscus bud stand out in both magnifications.

Next time, I will make an effort to get magnified views of flower parts!

Just looking at the vibrant colors of these flowers makes me feel warmer!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 1, 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.

Abdominal fat accumulation prevented by unsaturated fat - Just another indicator that thinking about all kinds of fats as ‘all the same’ is probably not a good idea. The unsaturated fats generally come from plant based foods and fatty fish.

Are bookshelves becoming obsolete? - What do you think? I have started reading a lot more books in electronic form than I do in physically printed form….and I’ve given away all the books I don’t need for reference; the old video tapes are gone too. So I have some empty book cases at this point but I find myself using some of the shelves for other things: the bag of shopping bags and a support for a large garden flag hung from an upper shelf by weighting the flag’s upper edge with unused candle holders. I’m not getting rid of them any time soon because I anticipate moving at some point and needing the storage options they would offer. They are not obsolete….they are just shelves that no longer hold books!

How wolves can alter the course of rivers - TED video about the wolves in Yellowstone National Park. It is an ecosystem story.

The symmetry of citrus is a beautiful thing - I like the colors of the fruit….and then the later collections of eggs, beans, and leaves too.

Where Do People Spend the Most of Their Paycheck on Housing? - (for the US) Find out how your state compares.

Americans Want Antibiotic-Free Chicken, and the Industry Is Listening - Good! But in the meantime - I have switched to organic chicken products because that is the closest to sustainable farming practices (i.e. I want them to go beyond anti-biotic free….I want chicken raised in a way that is not damaging the environment.

Daily Overview - A new picture from above every day! 

Infographic about Personalized Learning - I still not sure I understand how Personalized Learning will work for all students because it seems to depend on all students having the desire for self-directed learning….and I’m not sure that is something that can be assumed. Still - I’m going to follow this series of infographics to learn more about the approach. It is appealing to move away from the factory as the model for schools…but is this best alternative model?

New Water Heater Flies Past Crowdfunding Goal - Something to look into when my old hot water heater needs to be replaced.

'Microbial Pompeii:' 1,000-year-old plaque preserves bacteria, microscopic particles of food on skeleton teeth - I am taking a class on Roman Architecture so this blurb caught my attention - but it wasn’t about Pompeii….it was about a study that looked at dental calculus (plaque) that was dated from about the same time as Pompeii was destroyed by Vesuvius. The plaque provided a window into the diet and microbes of the people living at that time.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - February 2014

Over a year ago 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;’ here are my top 10 for February 2014. I’ve grouped my little celebration into 4 groups this month: weather, food, family, and loupe photography.

Weather

A warm day - In February - the occasional warm day is indeed something to celebrate!

Snow and more snow - I like snow days too, particularly when I don’t have to leave the house. I enjoyed hot tea with milk….and worked out a plan to photograph snowflakes. I didn’t even mind a certain amount of shoveling of snow!

Birds - The changes in weather result in more birds be out and about when the weather is a little improved. We’ve seen juncos, cardinals, robins, chickadees and heard the crows!

Food

Graham Cracker Crumb Cake - Someone made a graham cracker crumb cake as part of the refreshments for a lecture I attended….and I liked it so well I looked for a recipe via the Internet…and made one myself. Yummy! I have always liked graham crackers and this is just one other form to enjoy.

Edamame - What a great way to increase the protein in salads! My grocery store had them already shelled!

Family

Phone calls - I celebrate the ease we can keep in touch with family that lives far away. It is not as good as living in close proximity…..but it enables us to sustain relationships until we can be together again.

Anticipating visits - There are two opportunities to see far flung family members - in March and May - that I am already anticipating…and celebrating.

Loupe photography

Snowflakes - I was surprised at how effective the loupe magnification is for snowflake photography. It is quite an adventure to discover for myself how unique and beautiful they are.

Buds - Buds are going to be a longer term fascination as they unfurl into leaves and flowers. I celebrated that I thought of the project early enough to get the bud before the unfurling!

Broccoli - I knew it was good to eat but the loupe gave me more reason to celebrate broccoli’s form and color.

Winter Ending?

We’ve had considerable cold and snowy weather this February. There is not a lot of color outdoors:

The gray of rock surrounded by snow. The indention will have water when the snow melts - giving the birds a little pool.

The brown pod of a crepe myrtle that was blown from a high branch.

The golden browns- and a little green - of the thorns on the rose bushes.

And then one finds a little more color that signals the stirrings toward spring!

The snowdrops

And witch hazel.

Hurray!

Snowflakes - February 2014

It snowed a bit longer than forecast yesterday morning. The snow did not stick to the streets or sidewalks; the heat from the previous days was held in the concrete and asphalt. But on the grass and roofs and wooden decks, the big flakes accumulated quickly. The temperature was just below freezing. It did not seem like the best day to try photographing snowflakes but I put the red glass plate, a towel and loupes outside to cool down. I’d learned previously that the camera battery was sensitive to cold so I put it in my coat pocket instead.

After waiting for 15 minutes in the warmth of the house and watching the snow, I made a first attempt. It was not successful sing the red glass plate. The snowflakes melted as soon as they landed on the plate. It needed more time to cool down. I tried using the underside of an old aluminum pan that had been left on the deck. Success! The ‘flakes’ turned out to be conglomerations of snowflakes so they had much more of a three dimensional quality. I took the series of pictures below before retreating inside to give the red plate more time to cool down.

The wait was worth it! Yes - the flakes were clumped. Yes - it was warm enough that there could be no dawdling to get the image before they melted. But - I enjoyed capturing the flakes. Some of them reminded me of jacks. I find myself hoping that we have a few more snows this season so that I can try again! This particular snow had mostly melted away before the end of the day.

Buds at Brookside Gardens

I took another series of bud pictures when I was at Brookside Gardens last weekend. The photographs were all hand held - no cutting of twigs to make the photography easier! I intentionally looked for trees that I don’t have in the area around my house. I used the 8x loupe; the 22x loupe is too much magnification for ‘hand held’ work.

There was the flower bud of on a red twigged dogwood. They always look like very small Hershey’s Kisses to me.

The gingko bud has a buildup of scales where it is attached to the tree. It will be interesting to watch how the leaf emerges from the bud.

The magnolia leaves were battered by winter but still green. And the leaf bud looked more ready to begin growing rapidly.

The pine is another bud I want to watch expand as spring begins.

Brookside - Gingko Leaves on Ice

The day was warm enough for a pleasant walk around Brookside Gardens yesterday. That didn’t mean that all the snow had melted yet though; there were icy piles still to the sides of the walkways. There were gingko leaves from last snow that has been blown onto one of the piles. There were battered from months on the ground. There is still a grace about the shape and vein pattern than is appealing. Enjoy the Gingko Leaves on Ice slide show below!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 22, 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.

Aging men: More uplifts, fewer hassles until the age of 65-70 - Interesting that the research is being done but disappointing that it is not terribly insightful yet. It caused me to think about the demographics….men that are in their 80s now don’t have very many 75-years-and-beyond role models in their growing up  because not very men lived that long in prior generations.

10 Things We Learned From Dr. Temple Grandin - Temple Grandin is one of the best sources for insight into autism. I haven’t listened to the webinar recording pointed to in the post yet….it’s on my ‘to do’ list.

Forced Molt: Starving Hens for Profit - Controlling egg production….so that there will be plenty of eggs for consumers all year round. Is starving the hens for 2 weeks the only way?

Colorful Watercolor Paintings of Radiant Trees in Nature - In keeping with Trees being a theme for upcoming photographic projects…..they’re showing up more in my reading and in images I enjoy from others!

6 Offbeat Veggies worth a Try - Maybe some new foods to try….with recipes to get you started.

Sound-sensing cells regenerated in ears of mice with hearing damage - Maybe there is hope to repair time damaged hearing! Since there are a growing number of older people, there are potentially a lot of people that would benefit if this can work in people. Loss of hearing and/or sight are significant hits to quality of life for otherwise healthy seniors.

Time to Sign Up For Summer Field Courses in the National Parks - National Parks are among my favorite vacation destinations. It’s an appealing idea to sign up for a field course!

Involved parents raise slimmer adults - I like the infographic. Glad that the study showed what seems intuitively obvious to me!

Navigate the Global Meat System with New Meat Atlas - The link is to a summary but the 68 page report itself is available by following the link at the beginning of the summary. The report has a lot of graphical representation of data which makes it worth the look.

A lost city reveals the grandeur of medieval African civilization - Still so much history of the world to discover…..

Broccoli - Through a Magnifying Glass

The structure of broccoli is just a little too small to be discernable without magnification. With so much of the outdoors being brown and white these days, the idea of looking at something green with my magnifying glasses was very appealing. I liked what I found! Even with the 8x loupe some of the detail emerged.

And then the 22x loupe showed even more.

Zooming - February 2014

I’ve been doing quite a bit of magnification recently with the microscope and loupe. The monthly ‘zooming’ post is done with cropped images from the camera - simply using the camera’s own built in zoom. Can you find: 

• The muffin liner
• The surprised squirrel
• The snow on crepe myrtle berries
• The icy pine
• The glowing knot in stained wood
• A sunrise through the oak branches
• An ice fall from a gutter
• Tulip poplar seed pod spires
• The moon through tree branches 

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 8, 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.

Syphilis: Then and Now - The recent research on the origin and manifestation of treponemal diseases (syphilis, yaws and bejel) is reported along with the history of research about them.

Splendid Botanical Gardens Full of Stained Glass Murals - Cosmovitral in Toluca, Mexico. A botanical garden in the old city market.

A map showing gender inequality around the world - Using the Gender Inequality Index (GII) from the UN Human Development Programme. There are many parameters for the index and the US does not The full 2013 Human Development report is available here (The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World).

Printed Eye Cells Could Help Treat Blindness - The ability to print retinal cells could lead to new therapies for retinal disorders such as macular degeneration....just one of the technologies with potential to improve the quality of life for older people. Not being able to see well produces a cascading effect on mobility and self-confidence that often leads to rapid physical decline.

40 more maps that explain the world - From Max Fisher at the Washington Post. Take your time, enlarge the maps that interest you the most…there is a lot to learn from these 40 maps!

Why 259,969 people taking the same class at the same time might just be the future of education - Co-founder of Coursera, Daphne Koller reminiscing. “We need a way to integrate education much more deeply into the fabric of our lives in a lifelong way,” she says. “And that’s what we’re doing.” And several other recent articles about MOOCs and online education: MOOCs by the numbers: Where are we now? (with infographic); Two giants of online learning discuss the future of education (Salman Khan and Sebastian Thrun); and Next Gen School Board: Governance Challenges & Opportunities in the Digital Age

Fiery-red coral species discovered in the Peruvian Pacific - Coral reefs and communities in Peru are just beginning to be studied….more discoveries likely.

C40 Cities Releases Landmark Research Revealing Expansion & Acceleration of Climate Actions in Megacities - 98% say climate change presents significant risks to their populations and infrastructure; more than 8,000 climate actions are underway and 41% of those actions are at a transformative, citywide scale. C40 cities in the US are: Austin, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC (details of all cities in the C40 is here) Infographic with a link to the full report included in the article.

A Beautiful Map of Global Ocean Currents - Wow! It’s worth going to the site to look at the visualization in more detail too (click on the globe to enlarge, drag to rotate OR click on the word ‘earth’ in the lower left corner of the image and then experiment with the different projections of the ocean currents at the surface).

Organic Shmorganic - An attempt to sort out the value of organic fruits and veggies for children.

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!