Savoring 2015

Another year has passed…and I am using today to savor it month my month. As I wrote this post, a bluebird settled outside the window of my office - long enough to photograph through the window; so I'm sending off 2015 with a 'bluebird of happiness' in view. I find myself focusing on what was new (to me) in 2015 as I write this. I’ve indicated the ‘new’ in italics.

January

In January we visited Tucson and made an overnight trip up to Montezuma’s Castle, Wapataki, Sunset Crater, Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater and then drove back through the White Mountains. There was a beautiful sunset on that drive back. We also enjoyed the butterflies and poison dart frogs in the conservatory at the Tucson Botanical Garden.

February

I spent over a week in Texas – and enjoyed the birds at Josey Ranch as usual.

March

During February, March and April I spent one day a week in Maryland Master Naturalist training. It served to update many things I learned in my college classes in biology in the early 70s! Jelly fungus was one bit of trivia I learned…and now I see them frequently.

April

In April we spent days exploring wildlife refuges along the North Carolina coast and a little inland. It was the first time I’d seen river otters in the wild and a carcass being shared by a turkey and black vulture.

May

May a big month for hikes with elementary school field trips…and retracing steps to places discovered during the Master Naturalist class (like the grove of Bigleaf Magnolias near the boundary between Belmont and Patuxent Valley State Park).

June

Somehow there were a lot of short trips in June…and associated discoveries: bird’s nest fungus at Centennial Park, the comfort of James Buchanan’s house in Lancaster (and the legacy his niece left to Johns Hopkins), the attention to detail of the DuPont that created Winterthur, and the Monticello structure upstairs that camouflaged the multiple floors and filled them with light too.

July

I was back in Texas again in July and the desert willows were blooming – otherwise it was too hot to do much outside.

August

August was a busy month. I was thrilled that the elementary school aged campers enjoyed nature photography so much.

We also made a tour of New York State Parks with waterfalls. Some we had been to before: Letchworth, Montour Falls, Taughannock, and Harry H. Treman. Stony Brook was the new one.

September

The highlight at Longwood Gardens in September was the water lilies.

October

In October – we went to our first Dark Sky Star Party at Staunton River State Park in Virginia. It was the first time we had camped in over 20 years too!

The star party was followed by a tour through West Virginia to enjoy the fall foliage – partly via the Cass Scenic Railroad.

November

October and November were filled with hikes with elementary school field trips….and swirling fall leaves.

December

The end of year crescendo was our vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii. There were firsts at every turn on this trip.

I also discovered a new source of free courses: edemy…and completed two of them!

Josey Ranch Lake - July 2015

Every time I visit in Carrollton TX, I walk around Josey Ranch Lake and post some photos (February 2015, and August 2014). There is quite a seasonal variation.

The swans are a year round residents. There were adult swans this July - no juveniles (there was a juvenile in August 2014).

They were preening quite a lot - with down feathers stuck on their bills afterward.

I picked up a large white feather; it graces the pencil pot on my mother's desk now.

There are birds to hear and search for in the trees

and the cattails.

The nutrias that were evident back in February and last year were not around at all. Did the city manage to get rid of them somehow? They are invasive and probably made the maintenance of the wetland end of the lake more challenging.

The birds that come when someone throws bread/food to them are not as varied as in February. I only saw ducks, pigeons and the swans (the ducks always beat the swans to the food on land!).  In February there were acrobatic seagulls and coots too!

The ducklings from this year were getting their adult plumage. They tend to look a little scruffy and are doing a lot of preening.

The desert willows were blooming. The color of the flower highlights the light green of the foliage and the blue of the clear Texas sky on a very hot day.

There was a low growing plant with similar colors in the xeriscape garden beside the library and senior center on one side of lake.I was disappointed that I only saw one egret and no herons. In August 2014 there were several different species of herons at the lake. What a difference a month of so makes!

Red Yucca

Red yucca is a popular landscaping plant in the area around Dallas where I’ve been the last few weeks. This time of year they are blooming and seed pods are beginning to form.

The long stalks with blooms lean over and move with each list breeze. They add color and motion in gardens that require relatively little water.

I managed to get a picture of the same branch on July 1 and July 6. Notice how fast the purplish seed pods developed. Soon they will be green….and along their growth to split open in the fall and spill their seeds.

Celebrating Southern Magnolias

I am contemplating my history with southern magnolias this morning. My grandparents had one in their front yard in Wichita Falls, Texas that struggled with the high heat and low humidity of the area. The same was true with the tree in the front yard of my first house in Plano, Texas. I noticed them more when we moved to the mid-Atlantic piedmont area in the 1980s.

In Maryland, there are some large specimens but the weather sometimes is too cold for them. They survive well with care. Belmont has a large one in front of the manor house. I photographed a seed pod from the previous year back in March. The red seeds that remind me of M&Ms were already gone. The buds for 2015 were already showing on the branches.

Richmond is where I first noticed very large magnolias. The short trip to the area in June was well timed to see them in bloom. Maymont has a number of large specimens with ropey trunks. They were trimmed high enough to walk under and it was a popular place to position a bench!

The classical picture with the white flower and glossy green leaves is very appealing but in this series - my favorite has rust petals and developing seed pods!

Road Trip: Maryland to Texas

A week ago I was driving from Maryland to north Texas (over 2 days).

Road Trips - even one that are mostly just driving - allow a close view of the land. We had good weather; it got progressively hotter as we drove south and west through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and into Texas. We stopped for a night just west of Nashville.

Since I was doing most of the driving - I only took a few pictures as we crossed the Mississippi at Memphis…..the Memphis Pyramid and the bridge into Arkansas over the river.

The closer we got to Texas the wetter it got. The center of the US has gotten a lot of rain and some areas are flat enough that it does not run off like it does in the piedmont area of Maryland where I live.

One place I noticed along the road that I had somehow missed in previous treks through the Virginia part of the route was the mansion at Fort Chiswell. It is visible from the highway. I’m going to want to stop to look at it more next time I am in that area.

CSA Week 5

The remnants of the week 4 Gorman Farms CSA share traveled from Maryland to Texas in an ice chest (a two day road trip). The only portions left are a few carrots and a cucumber!

It has been hot and wet in Maryland recently so the veggies are abundant…and the CSA share is full of variety:

• Leafy greens like lettuce, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi greens, carrots tops, cabbage
• Roots like carrots, kohlrabi, onions and garlic
• Cool cucumbers.

The only downside is that I am in Texas and my husband picked up our share this week. How much will still be good by the time I get home.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 27, 2015

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.

No Bake, No Stovetop Cookie Bites - I’ve always been intrigued about ‘no bake’ cookies. I like all the ingredients in these so maybe it’s a recipe to try.

Electric Motorcycles Used By Over 50 Police Departments - I like technology that is good for the environment and also is has a positive impact on the mission (they are quiet!).

Smart insulin patch could replace painful injections for diabetes - New technology hones delivery of insulin based on when the body needs it….much more like a correctly functioning pancreas.

Once and Future Nut: How Genetic Engineering May Bring Back Chestnuts - These trees once grew in Maryland. It would be great to have them part of scene again after 100 years.

Climate change threatens to undermine the last half century of health gains - Increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (heat waves, floods, droughts and storms) as well as indirect impacts from changes in infectious disease patterns, air pollution, food insecurity and malnutrition, involuntary migration, displacement and conflict….it adds up.

The rise of Africa’s super vegetables - Indigenous foods…rather than imported…to feed the continent. And trying the preserved the variety available while studying only a few of the species.

Doctors often misdiagnose zinc deficiency, unaware of impact of excess zinc - Wow! I remember a few years ago when it was widely suggested that zinc helped recovery from colds….I wonder how many people developed zinc induced copper deficiency (anemia, low white cell count and/or neurological problems?

The Prairie Ecologist Goes to the Beach - Photos of the gulf coast beaches in Texas.

How the US, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, & Italy Can Each Go 100% Renewable - The article and the comments - lots of potential ways to get it done.

The Best Weather Photos of the Year Will Blow You Away - I couldn’t resist. Good photographs. I was a little surprised that a rainbow picture was not in the group.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - February 2015

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 February 2015.

Zentangle® Class - There were 4 classes in the course and I got to three of them; there were 2 snow days so the class extended across 6 weeks rather than the 4 planned. And now I am hooked on Zentangles and do at least one each day because they make the day better.

A day in the 70s - I celebrated the warm days in Texas - knowing there would be none that warm in Maryland in February.

Snow - I do enjoy snow scenes (in Maryland) as long as I don’t have to drive until the roads are treated and plowed. It has been so cold that the snow has lingered for most of the month and I’ve enjoyed feeding the birds and watching it slowly melt in the sunshine.

Snowed in at home - There have been a few days when it was snowing hard enough that we didn’t get out at all --- and I celebrated the days warm at home. We had plenty of good food, a fire in the fireplace, and a movie to watch.

Piles of books - I ordered over 100 books via paperbackswap to use up most of my credits before mid-February and now I am savoring the piles. It is a lot like Christmas when they arrive in the mail and then I have lots to choose from for winter reading. Every time I see the stack - I celebrate all over again. I’ve read 6 so far so the pile will be around for a while.

Carrot cake - I couldn’t resist buying two slices in my Mother’s grocery store….and celebrated that they didn’t skimp on the spices. It was good carrot cake.

Sizzling apple pie - One of the Mexican food places I went to in Dallas served apple pie on a hot skillet with sizzling syrup and topped with cinnamon ice cream. Yum! It becomes my favorite place for dessert in Dallas.

Birds at Josey Ranch Lake - It is hard not to be joyous at the sight of birds and people in the park.

Beginning of Master Naturalist training - I celebrate the content - the intensity - the instructors - the students. Everything was even better than I anticipated….and I did more follow up studying than I thought I would do too.

Josey Ranch Lake - February 2015

In my last family visit to Carrollton TX, I discovered that the round trip walk to Josey Ranch Lake was less than 2 miles so I did the walk several times and photographed birds each time. It turns out that during the winter quite a few people feed the birds so there are gatherings of birds near the boardwalk area and at the reed end of the lake where someone always seems to be offering food to the birds (sometimes the nutria too - although I am sure it is not a good idea to encourage an invasive species).

The well-mannered ducks and swans seem to feed with a fair amount of graceful sharing of the bounty. The coots (small black birds on the water with pointed beaks) can get contentious with each other.

If the ring billed gulls show up there are all kinds of acrobatics. They tend catch the food mid-air or just as it hits the water. The coots are the only ones that seem to challenge them! In the incident I saw - the gull always won.

I noted two ducks that I had not seen in the summer and, when I looked them up on allaboutbirds.org they are ducks that winter in Texas…traveling north when it gets warmer in the summer: the lesser scaup

And northern shoveler.

It is a lot easier to identify birds if I manage to take a good picture! My favorite picture from all three times is this last one - the swan with its wings frothed.

Butterfly House at the Texas Discovery Gardens

The Butterfly House at the Texas Discovery Gardens is a colorful place to visit in the winter. I was there earlier this month when I travelled to Dallas. There are lush tropical plants and butterflies! It was not crowded even though it was a weekend.

The Butterfly House is a multistory conservatory with a ramp that wonders through the tops of taller foliage down to a courtyard with water features. The butterflies were on all levels but densest near the water.

The enclosed space was bigger than the Tucson Botanical Garden butterfly exhibit but there were not as many butterflies when we were there and not as many people either.

The standout memory of the day was color - since so much of Texas (and Maryland) is mostly drab in winter. The flowers and fronds were a welcome change from winter overall.

We stayed for the daily release of newly hatched butterflies at noon. They were brought out in a net barrel. The tiger swallowtail did not want to leave the safety of the container. Maybe its wings were not entirely dry.

Some of the new arrivals left the container quickly but chose to walk rather than fly!

Children gathered around to see the release and noticed a more battered butterfly nearby on the ground. They tried to entice it to safety (out of the walkway).

Butterflies and conservatories….always a pleasant interlude.