Gleanings of the Week Ending June 14, 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.

10 Top National Wildlife Refuges to Explore - I’ve only been to 2 of the 10 (Chincoteague and Wichita Mountains but I’ll take the opportunity to see more if I am in the area of these. I was surprised that Merritt Island (Florida) did not make the top 10.

The Sleep Schedules of Some of History's Greatest Minds - I was surprised at how many are on a 10PM to 5 or 6 AM schedule (which is similar to what seems to work best for me!)

The 10 Cutest Animal Flash Mobs in the World - The hummingbird video (#6 on the list has music to enjoy while you watch the hummingbirds getting fuel for migration. It’s a strangely relaxing frenzy!

The Finest Examples of Art Nouveau Architecture in Central Europe - I am more interesting in architecture since I took the Roman Architecture course last spring.

Articles that appeared recently about two of my favorite places: Mesa Verde National Park and Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Road Salt Creating Beefier Butterflies - A little extra salt causes developmental changes (and they are different for male and female Monarch butterflies) that could be beneficial….and then at some point the extra salt becomes toxic.

Company man or family man? Fatherhood and identity in the office - Research published just in time for Father’s Day.

Common heart drug's link to diabetes uncovered by researchers - The study found that statins can activate an immune response that stopped insulin from doing its job properly….and that taking Glyburide suppressed the side effect. It is a bad thing to take a drug that then requires us to take another drug. How do we determine when the bad side effects multiply beyond the benefits of the cocktail?

Most comprehensive 'world map of research' yet: Researchers analyze 15 million scientific articles - Articles used from the analysis were published from 1996-2006. There are three clusters of countries: biomedical, basic science and agriculture/fisheries. The US is in the biomedical cluster, Singapore and Japan are in basic science and most of the developing nations are in agriculture/fisheries.

Fruits, Vegetables, and Disease Risk - Which vegetables are the most nutrient rich? This article points to a recently released report that include a list (available here).

Squash Blossoms

Earlier this week I noticed that the zucchini squash plant I have in a large pot on my deck had almost as many buds as it had leaves! The weather has been cool and the many of the leaves still had tears caused by hail a week or so ago.

A little over a day after the first two pictures were taken, most of the buds opened. I glanced out my kitchen window as I fixed my breakfast to see the plant full of blooms.  What a cheerful view to begin the day (and I’ll be even happier to see some squashes).

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This morning the squash has more blooms!  In the morning light, the green veins seen on the outside of the blooms contrasted with the glowing yellow.

In addition, the blossoms from a few days ago have a deeper color in their curls - another stop along the timeline of a zucchini squash.

Bees

There seems to be a bumblebee that enjoys hovering outside the window I prefer to settle into for reading. There are not any flowers more than a story off the ground so the hovering does not last long but I’m surprised at the number of times there is a bee there.

Today I am celebrating bees photographed this spring: on snapdragons at Longwood gardens,

On wisteria at Brookside Gardens, and

On honey suckle at Watkins Glen State Park.

While I was looking for bee pictures in my recent photographs I found a picture of a small wasp on maple flowers from back in April  (this was photographed with the 8x loupe…on a cold day when the wasp was not very active). It doesn’t belong in a ‘bee’ post but I couldn’t resist including it. I enjoy the serendipity of photographing something like this….and the red color of the maple flowers is one of my favorite signs of spring.

Tree Trimming

A recent rain weighed down the plum tree branches enough to convince me it was time to trim the tree. I got out a step stool, the saw, and the long handled pruners. I cut off low branches and ones that were growing more horizontal that vertical. Afterwards I took a closer look at the layers within the branches - the delicate color changes from the bark to the sapwood (cambium, xylem), and then the heartwood.

Next up on my ‘to trim’ list was the oak. Oaks do a lot of self-pruning so the main work I do on the treat the edge of our yard near the street is focused on the lower branches when they grow low enough to brush the tops of vehicles in the street or our car as we pull into the driveway. It was harder work than the plum tree; the branches were larger and a bit higher too. There were many tiny acorns on the branches.

I also found an oak marble - almost a ‘glow in the dark’ green.

I cut open the shell and found the insect larvae suspended inside the sphere.

The branches were quite lot and I wove them into the brush ‘fence’ around my chaos garden….more about that in another post.

Letchworth State Park (New York)

Letchworth State Park is probably a crowded place on weekends in the spring…and all the time during the summer. We were there on a week day that was a bit cool last week - when the people in the park maintenance crew were more numerous that the visitors!  There was plenty of water for the 3 major falls in the park to be spectacular. I’ve included my favorite views of the park below.

We entered at the Mt. Morris (east) end of the park. The drive is along the top of the gorge. There are overlooks of the river.

And then there is a view of the middle and upper falls from one of the overlooks!

We stopped to take the path for a closer look. Part of the path was closed but we got close enough to see a portion of the lower falls.

I took a zoomed view of the rocks of the gorge carved by the water.

The upper falls and middle falls are within easy walking distance of each other. We parked and hiked first to the upper falls. The shape of the falls is a horseshoe.

The sheer volume of water plummeting over the edge throws mist up

And keeps the cliff very damp. The vegetation looks very green but the scars of rock slides on the edges of the gorge near the falls are obvious.

There was a large patch of May apples flowering near the path to the upper falls. I took front and back pictures of them.

And there was a huge dandelion!

We walked back to the middle falls. The path was close enough to the falls that the mist kept it damp (too wet to open up the camera too). It was very much like the mists at Niagara Falls. I waiting to take this picture from further up the gorge.

I also liked the little streams that were trickling over the sides of the gorge to get to the river. The rocks in this one were thick with bright green algae.

The picnic tables built by the CCC of stone (pedestals and tops) were numerous in the park and we rewarded ourselves with a picnic lunch after are hikes to the falls.

Two Falls at Montour Falls NY

We saw the sign for the Village of Montour Falls and followed the arrows to the falls. The Aunt Sarah’s Falls is directly across the street from the sign! There was a small parking lot and we got out to take pictures. There has been rain recently so there was plenty of water rolling down over the rocks. Several years ago we had seen the falls during a drier season and the rocks were barely damp.

We followed the arrow onward - taking an angled turn when another sign directed - to find the She-Qua-Ga Falls which is surrounded by the village.

There is a small park and street parking for this falls. Houses and civic buildings in a wide variety of architectural styles border the park. I liked the house next to the falls with Ionic columns.

Watkins Glen State Park in the Spring

Watkins Glen State Park is a gorge with many waterfalls. The main entrance is at the bottom of the gorge but there is another at the top. Either way the gorge trail has stairs and wet stones/pavement. The last time we were there was in fall 2012 - when there was a lot of color from leaves. In the spring - there is a lot of green to contrast with the stone and quite a bit more water.

The gorge trail is a ledge. In one place it goes behind a waterfall.  There are frequently water droplets from overhanging rock. I was glad I had remembered to wear a hat. Waterproof shoes are good too if the day is cool (and wet feet would be uncomfortable). I made a slide show from my favorite gorge images from last week.

While my husband focused on his own photography projects - I managed to photograph a crow

A busy bumble bee

And a tiny fern unfurling its fiddleheads.

Road Trip - Columbia MD to Corning NY

Earlier this week we started our short vacation to the area around Corning NY. It’s an area we have visited more than a handful of times over the past 25 years. The route takes us around Baltimore and heading to York and then Harrisburg Pennsylvania. The Welcome Center as we passed into Pennsylvania has a wonderful display of irises. I remembered that they looked just a gorgeous as the year we drove up for my daughter’s college graduation - about this same time of year. What was different about the rest stop this year was the milkweed coming up in many of the beds; the shoots were so dense that it has to be planted intentionally. Hurray for the state of helping out the Monarch butterflies!

After Harrisburg the route heads toward Williamsport. It follows a very scenic stretch of the Susquehanna. It is possible to catch glimpses of the river. Many of the islands have been designated Wildlife Management Areas. We noticed this time that US 15 has signs that say ‘Future Corridor of I99.’

The stretch of road through the Allegheny’s - where clouds frequently kiss the rounded mountain tops on either side of the highway - is very scenic but there are no rest stops and very few places to find something to eat!

We made such good time that we rolled into Corning early enough that we forged ahead to take a look at Watkins Glen State Park. More about that in a few days….and Montour Falls….and Letchworth State Park.  It was a waterfall extravaganza!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 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;’ here are my top 10 for May 2014.

Daughter’s visit. What’s not to like about having a daughter around! It was a very short visit - every part was a celebration of family.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This was the first year I found them blooming at the forest’s edge in our yard. These plants always seem special to me because I saw them only in pictures until I moved to the east coast.

Getting seedlings planted. I got all the seedlings planted and celebrated they were all thriving (until the hail battered a couple to oblivion last week. Still - enough are growing rapidly in there pots on the deck that I am pleased with the results of my efforts to get them started early.

Wall of green. Every my I celebrate the return of the wall of green view from my office window. The tulip poplar and maple trees are through the spring greens and looking as lush always get in summer. The sycamore that I see from my kitchen window is a little later unfurling; it’s leaves will continue getting larger and larger all during the summer.

Blueberries and yogurt. It is my favorite mini-meal in May and June….a way to celebration almost every day.

Driving neighbors. I thoroughly enjoy volunteering to drive senior citizens to their appointments in my community. What a joy it is to have them stay in the community where they have lived for years!

Hiking in the forest. Spring is one of my favorite times to hike: wildflowers, not a lot of biting insects, water gurgling. It was wonderful to be outdoors after the cold and wet!

Phone conversations. I find myself celebrating the normal ebb and flow of conversation with people far away. Sometimes it is the ordinary that turns out to be a treasure.

Birdbath and iris. Every time I go by the front door of my house (either outside or inside) I glance and the view and celebrate!

Chives. Here’s to celebrating plants that just come up every year on their own….and taste wonderful in salads!

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? 

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 24, 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.

Ten Fabulous Facts about Butterflies: A Wildlife Garden’s Best Friend - Now that the weather in our area is getting warmer…..we’ll be seeing more butterflies. They’re one of my signposts of summer!

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014 - The list is from the editors of MIT’s Technology Review (and they include a pointer to past lists too).

Diatoms on Display - Fan shaped - they reminded me of stylized papyrus images.

Why Do Americans Hate Lives of Leisure? - The article went a different direction than I anticipated. It really was not about ‘lives of leisure’ but about why we tend to feel we have too little or none at all.

Blocking pain receptors extends lifespan, boosts metabolism in mice - It is appealing to find that something done to improve the quality of life (like blocking pain) might also extend lifespan. Of course - it may not work the same in humans as it does in mice.

Super-power Chia Bread - My routine breakfast is a tablespoon of chia seeds in almond milk - but I have been noticing more recipes that include chia recently and this is one I plan to try. It would be a lot easier to eat ‘on the go.’

London’s Greatest Scientific Experiments - An interactive tour.

On the shoulder of a giant: Precursor volcano to the island of O'ahu discovered - My daughter is in Hawaii on a geology field trip right now so this article captured my attention.

A Map of National Landmarks That Are Most Vulnerable to Climate Change - Time to plan a vacation to see some of these? We were at the NASA Kennedy Space Center and Canaveral National Seashore last fall.

Visualizing the Ocular Microbiome - The surface of our eyes is yet another complex ecosystem and it has some unique properties. Modern molecular diagnostic tools are increasing our understanding of what it takes to sustain ‘health.’

Filigree Floral Sculpture Produced with Innovative 3D Printing - This one is added to my list for the week because of beauty and the use of technology.

The Joy of Irises at the Front Door

The irises that are blooming at our front door were planted originally in a bed where they did not do well. Each year there were fewer that bloomed so last year I dug up the rhizomes and moved them to the space on either side of our front porch so I could see them from windows on either side of the front door. They sent up green leaves last year after they were moved but there were not many blooms. But this spring……most of the clumps of leaves produced stalks with 3 or more buds!

I like the color and height of the flowers around the bird bath. The flowers look frilly and delicate compared to the toughness of the plant’s leaves...and the hardness of the glass bowl. They hold up reasonably well to most rains.

Yesterday was an exception. We had quite a rain storm - with pea sized hail mixed with the raindrops that battered all the tender plants including the iris flowers. I was glad to have captured the images of the irises before it came! Now the flowers look bedraggled; one of the large buds was completely detached from its stalk. Hopefully the buds still on the stalks will open into fresh new blooms in a day or two and prolong the season of irises at our front door.

Gambrill &Cunningham Falls State Park and Catoctin Mountain Park

We made a day trip to two state parks and an area managed by the National Park Service last weekend. They were all located in Maryland not far off I-70 in central Maryland.

The first stop was Gambrill State Park. We had seen mountain laurel in bloom there about this time in May 2012 (blog post here) ….but we were too early this year. The bushes have lots of buds but none of them were open; it will be at least another week and maybe longer before the blossoms appear. The dogwood branches against the blue sky were some consolation.

Our Catoctin Mountain Park visit was a short hike back to an old still near the visitor’s center. Along the way we saw squawroot (which I was able to identify from the park’s photo gallery). It’s a non-photosynthesizing parasitic plant that draws nutrients from the roots of oak and beech trees.

There were Jack-in-the-pulpits too.

But my favorite part of the short hike was the sound of the water. The swirl of the water over the rocks - from shade to sun - was a mirror for the spring day.

I kept looking for mushrooms along the trail because there had been so many the last time I had hiked the trail. When I got back home, I checked…and discovered I posted about that hike in August 2012…so I’ll give the fungus a few months more to develop this year before I plan to hike there again.

Cunningham Falls State Park was a longer hike to a falls overlook. A new platform had been built since we were there last but it was not a perfect vantage point for falls viewing. There was a lot of water since there had been heavy rain in the days prior to our visit.

Loupe Photography at Longwood

The trip to Longwood Gardens earlier this month was the first time I had been there since beginning my experiment with loupe photography. I didn’t use it all that often this time but I did enjoy the result. As usual I was pleasantly surprised at how much the 8x magnification increases the detail of objects - in this case parts of flowers. I picked my favorites to include below.

 

 

Here are the 25 other blog posts I’ve done with photographs from Longwood Gardens over the past few years.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 17, 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.

Two museums doing 3D scanning of artifacts (one of the technologies introduced in the archaeology course I took on Coursera recently:

Paleontologists unveil online showcase of 3-D fossil remains - An introduction to the University of Michigan’s Online Repository of Fossils.

Look at These Ancient Egyptian Artifacts from Every Amazing Angle This article points to a project at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology to make objects available on the web in a format that allows complete rotation of the object. The project’s beta site also allows zooming in to get a closer look at the objects.

Categorizing Invasive Plants - I’ve recently done some volunteering to help control invasive plants in my community. This was a nice summary of approaches used by land managers.

Newsmap - A visual display of news (based on the Google news aggregator). There is color coding for broad categories of news and it is possible to select a ‘country’ from a list at the top of the display; looking at the news perspective for a country different than your own is always a broadening experience. The visualization has been around for a few years; I only found it recently and am trying it for a few weeks to decide if it is better than looking at the same info in a Newsfeed format.

Bee biodiversity boosts crop yields - Good to know. Hopefully we have not already reduced the diversity of bees on the planet.

8 CIO moms share tales and tips from the IT trenches - These tips make sense for more than just CIO/IT moms!

40 maps that explain the Middle East - I just finished a Coursera course about the modern Middle East….so this series of maps was particularly well timed!

The Most Common Language in Each US State—Besides English and Spanish - Language as a window into differences across the US.

Cold War Spy-Satellite Images Unveil Lost Cities - Tripling the number of known archaeology sites via technology…another story that linked well with the archeology course from Coursera. 

Never Say Die - Recent research results re longevity.

Magnificent 19th-Century Library Shelves 350,000 Books - Architecture of the late 1800s and books….in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It looks like a magical place.

Zooming - May 2014

Spring is full of blooms.  The zoomed images from the past month include plum blossoms, dandelion flowers, a very wet tulip, and some hydrangea to add some blue…..

Maple samaras in the grass (detached before their time by browsing deer), cowslips, and jagged edge tulip….

A mushroom, a jack-in-the-pulpit, and a foraging chipmunk….

A foraging bumble bee, spores on the back of a fern frond, and the cone of a cycad….

Fiddleheads and a Venus fly trap….

The center of a dogwood flower, a peppermint color azalea, and new growth of pines.

I find that photographing makes me more observant while I am out and about….and then again when I am looking at the pictures on a larger screen once I get home. I often don’t realize the whole of what I am capturing in the field. Every zooming blog post I compile is a celebration of the technology available in modern cameras!

Curvy Calla Lilies

I made the mistake of not buying a pot of calla lilies before Mother’s Day when I first saw them at the nursery last week. When I went back a few days later they had all be sold! So - I have reverted back to enjoying the next best thing - the images I took at the Longwood Gardens Conservatory at the beginning of the month. I liked the yellow variety the best.

The funnel shapes from the side - often tinged with green at the base and an upward flare at the top - has a backdrop of very different color and shape of hydrangeas.

My favorite angle on the flowers is from the top - the gentle spiral and the uncurling of the edges as the flower opens fully.

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!).

Fiddleheads of Spring

Back in April I posted about fiddleheads seen in the Brookside Gardens Conservatory.  Now the ferns are coming up outdoors in our area. When I was at Longwood Gardens last week there were some nicely labeled fiddleheads and I’ve added more examples of Cinnamon ferns from Brookside Gardens (they were a little further along in Maryland than at Longwood in Pennsylvania). The Cinnamon Ferns have two types of fronds: Sterile and spore-bearing. In the picture to the left the taller green fiddleheads are the sterile fronds; the spore bearing fronds are the light brown, short fiddleheads.

As they unfurl they look even more different

The Christmas Ferns were uncurling too but did not seem as interesting this time.

The Ostrich Ferns do look a lot like feathers as they begin to uncurl. I think they are my favorites of this group.

Goslings at Brookside

We had just parked at Brookside Nature Center when my daughter commented that there were goslings in the woods near the stream. Sure enough, by the time we got to the boardwalk and bridge to walk toward Brookside Gardens, the Canadian goose and the goslings were in the stream!

They went under the bridge and kept going. Well - the mom kept going. The goslings were challenged by a riffle in the stream. In the slide show below you can see the mom coming back to give them some encouragement (image 6). They responded with much flapping of stubby wings and managed to get over the barrier!

They swam up stream for a short distance before the mom led them to a small beach.

The goslings paused in the shallow water - probably a bit tired from their adventure.

And then they followed the goose back into the forest. There is one gosling that appears to be a bit more adventuresome…not exactly following the mom.