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.

Ice Crystals

Late last week I accompanied by daughter to the last day of the American Astronomical Society conference held at the Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center just outside of Washington DC on the shore of the Potomac River. She had a couple of hours of sessions to attend and I enjoyed the sights of the resort. There will be several posts over the next week or so from that experience.

It was a very cold day so we were bundled up when we arrived and I headed back outdoors as soon as we agreed on the place we would meet each other when her sessions concluded. I walked out to the pier jutting out into the Potomac from the resort property. In warmer weather, there is a boat that carries tourists across the river to Mount Vernon and Alexandria. It would be a great excursion with a family in warmer weather. But on this day in January, there were plates of ice in the water where the boat would have docked. I didn’t see any boats out on the river.

But the pier was still quite scenic for its vantage point for ice crystals at the edges of the ice plates and also to hear the ice moaning as the bright sunlight started the slow process of thawing the accumulation of ice of the past week when the temperature was well below freezing.

 

 

Osprey (Florida - November 2013)

I’m still savoring the trip to Florida last November. Ospreys are the thread I’m pulling today. There were a lot of them at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.  Ospreys were easy to spot on the electric lines because they looked different than the other two birds that also enjoyed the high vantage point:

The ospreys were larger than the kestrels;

The white on their head and breast contrasted with the dark forms of the vultures.

The talons on these birds are large, like all raptors; they suit the life of the fish hawk - swooping down to grab fish from the surface of the water.

I had never seen ospreys before I moved to Virginia and Maryland. Thirty years ago they were not as numerous as they are now. The parks that were near marshy areas provide nesting platforms for them…and occasionally there is one with a nest. When we went to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge last May there was one with a nest (with eggs or chicks because the bird stayed at the nest and a mate came to help with other birds were approaching too close.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 11, 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.

Iodine - A new site that formats drug information to be more easily understood by consumers. There is information about how it all got started on the TED site here.

An Animated Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States - Maps are a visual pathway to history. Thanks to the University of Richman for making these available online with a good interface.

CES 2014: Audi Shows Off a Compact Brain for Self-Driving Cars - Good to have a car manufacturer getting serious about self-driving cars.

Remarkable coastal change from the recent UK storms - Sometime erosion is so slow it is almost unnoticeable. These ‘before and after’ pictures show the potential of storms to cause changes very quickly.

The Bright Side of Prions - When prions are in the news, they are often associated with terrible diseases like Mad Cow Disease. This article is about recent discoveries where prions perform positive functions in cells.

10 Easy New Year’s Resolutions to Transform Your Health and Well Being - Some of these are so easy….they are good prompts to do something ‘outside the box’ to improve your 2014!

Timeline of the far future - An infographic from BBC Future. This timeline is for one hundred quintillion years!

The Future: What 32 Ed Leaders Are Excited About - And more about the near term future of education and the potential of technology to improve outcomes.

Gulf Coast Wetlands Rapidly Declining - It includes a map of the gulf coast that shows the huge wetland loss in Louisiana between 2004 and 2009. They are subsiding underwater.

Why we need to sleep in total darkness - I need to get an alarm clock with red rather than blue numbers…or do without a clock in the bedroom at all! And I have installed f.lux on my computer to change the color the screen emits at night (software available free from here).

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.