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!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – October 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. Here are my top 10 for October 2015.

Several celebrations involved the volunteering I do with the Howard County Conservancy:

A rainy day hike with 1st graders – It could have been a disaster…unhappy wet children…but instead we moved quickly from covered are and to covered area when it was only sprinkling and the children were very happy all during their field trip. I celebrated their resilience (and my own)!

The snake and second graders – The response of children to snakes is hard to predict. I had a group of eight second graders and three chaperones that simply enjoyed watching the small snake move through the grass and then moved away from the direction the snake wanted to go, allowing it to escape. Fascination rather than hysteria…something to celebrate.

The 25th birthday of the Howard Country Conservancy – I am celebrating that the non-profit I enjoy volunteering with has been around for 25 years!

There were a lot of things at home to celebrate in October too:

Bringing the glass bird bath indoors – We had a first frost and that triggered the retrieval of the glass bird bath. I cleaned it thoroughly and it now is in its winter role: holding potatoes and onions on the dining room table. Making this change is always a celebration of seasonal change.

Bountiful CSA shares – Wow – we are getting full bags each week at the CSA season comes to an end....celebrating a riot of fall veggies!

80 daffodil bulbs planted – I actually celebrated when the job was done. The bags did not seem that daunting when I purchased them but 80 bulbs requires some effort to get in the ground! I am already anticipating how pretty they will be at the edge of the forest next spring.

Zentangle® on a soft drink bottle – I saw an article about making the patterns on Christmas balls and decided to try it on soft drink bottles as a practice. The first one did not turn out so well; the curved surface is very different than a paper tile. With practice – I now have some that I like…and I still have a few more weeks before I’ll switch to ornaments. I’m celebrating my developing skill.

Blue jays in the maple – The small flock of blue jays that I’ve noticed the past few fall seasons is back and visiting the maple I see from my office window. I am celebrating their return.

Our October road trip had at least one celebration each day…but I chose 2 to not overwhelm the list for the month:

Staunton River Star Party – I did not know what to expect…but it was fun and comfortable. I am celebrating the beginning of a new tradition since I am sure we’ll go again next fall.

Fall foliage – I suppose I could have listed this in the ‘home’ category too. October is the month to celebrate the beauty of deciduous trees preparing for winter.

Staunton River Star Party

My husband and I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Staunton River Star Party (held at Staunton River State Park). The park is an International Dark Sky Park….lots more stars visible than in the area where we live. The park prepared well for the event – with star party themed jack-o-lanterns, red cellophane on all windows were white light my leak, and paths marked with red snake lights or small red LEDs on stakes.

The observing field already had a lot of people setting up by the time we got there but we managed to get a spot that was close to one of the electrical hubs – good to be able to run equipment directly and/or easily recharge batteries during the day. We started to unpack and quickly discovered that we had forgotten our tent! Fortunately we did have the tent-like cover for the back of our SUV and some extra tarps. My husband and I managed to sleep inside the car on an air mattress (it helped that he was observing until the wee hours of the morning since the space was a narrow enough that we could only roll over in unison)!

We tied one side of a tarp to the roof rack and used tripods we had brought for our cameras to hold the corners away from the car. The wind came close to knocking the tripods over before we hung heavy equipment bags as weights. Having the tarp helped during the day when it got a bit warm in the bright sunshine.

I took sunrise and sunset pictures too: Sunrise on Tuesday morning. Note the various tents, trailers, awnings and cars…the whole field looked like this with a lattice of drive lanes to provide just enough organization so vehicles could get in and out.

Sunset on Tuesday evening. There were enough clouds at sunset that everyone was looking around for signs of clearing…and it did by the time it was fully dark.

Sunrise Wednesday morning – a few hours before we left. There were quite a few crows greeting the sun and they seemed to like the bare tree – stopping there before moving about and sometimes coming back to perch again for a little while.

The clouds on that last morning looked like they were losing part of themselves as they floated into morning.

The dew was heavy both nights we were at the star party and people generally called it a night before 3 AM. Those that did not have heaters to keep condensation off their mirrors had to stop earlier. I took pictures walking around during the mornings when the telescopes were generally neatly covered.

 

I took one short hike and found more fungi than I expected. There were a few colorful trees as well. Otherwise – I was feeling relaxed and lazy with the flurry of star party activity going on all around me.

Fall Road Trip

Last week we made our annual fall road trip. Last year we went to Chincoteague and Blackwater National Wildlife Refuges (blog post here) which is southeast of where we live. This year we went south into Virginia and southwest into West Virginia.

Our trip started with 2 days at the Staunton River State Park for a star party. The park is in south central Virginia…and has very dark skies. Our car was completely full with telescopes and camping gear!

Then we drove into West Virginia along very curvy roads. It was a step back in time with little cell service and gas stations with only one grade of regular gas….but the drive was scenic – up, down, around, all the colors of fall.  There are rhododendron and pines to provide a dark green backdrop to the yellows and reds along the way.

We noticed that some of the mountains had trees already bare for the winter…some with brightly colored trees…and some that still looked like summertime. Altitude and the direction of the slope make quite a difference.

We enjoyed Beartown State Park, Cranberry Glades Botanical Area, Cass Scenic Railroad State Park and the Snowshoe Ski Resort. I’ll be posting more details over the next couple of weeks.

Sunflowers at Monticello

The sunflowers had a large bed to themselves in the vegetable garden at Monticello when I was there in June. I took a huge number of pictures and am just now getting around to looking at them again. I’ve picked a series that show various stages of flower development.

The flower stalks were much taller than a person and the flowers larger than a dinner a plate. As the seeds begin to develop the petals fade and the tops of the plants must get heavier because they bend over rather than continuing to turn toward the sun.

Sunflowers are always bright spots of the day!

Monticello - June 2015

I’ve made periodic trips to Monticello since 1983 when I moved to the east coast from Texas. There always seems to be something new to learn at Thomas Jefferson’s home. We arrived early for the first Behind the Scenes House Tour and Day Pass - with reservations made ahead of time. There was a lotus blooming in the courtyard of the visitor center; I had not even remembered a pool there from my previous visit so it was a pleasant surprise.

Later in the day it would have been impossible to get pictures of the house without people milling around. Did you know that Monticello has three floors above the basement? Jefferson intended for it to look like a single story. Here’s how he got light to the 3 floors. Look at the stacked windows on the front of the house. The windows with the shutters are the first floor. The windows with a white frame and no shutters are the second floor. They fill the lower half of the second floor walls. The third floor has sloped ceilings and skylights!

The viewshed for Monticello is somewhat changed from Jefferson’s day. There were farms where the trees had been cleared within the viewshed during his time but probably not as many clusters of other buildings. From the house it is easy to position yourself where trees block the view.

No pictures are allowed inside the house so I don’t have a picture of the staples that were used to support the alcove beds. I’d not noticed how the beds were supported on previous visits. Jefferson’s bed was open on both sides (and he had a clock positioned on the wall at his feet…he got up when it was light enough for him to see the clock). The other alcove beds had walls on three sides; Dolly Madison visited with her husband frequently and did not like them (probably because she was on the side to the wall!).

The kitchen has separate ‘burners’ for cooking at different temperatures. But they are not vented. The kitchen would have been hot, sooty, and smoky.

The back of Monticello includes the dome. More of the house is visible these days because a giant tulip poplar planted by Jefferson had to be cut down in the 1990s. The inside of the dome room is being monitored closely these days because there are cracks that appeared in the plaster after an earthquake…and they are getting larger.

After Jefferson’s presidency there were quite a few people living at Monticello: his daughter and her many children and his sister….as well as other relatives and friends. They had to have quite a garden to feed everyone.

The view from Mulberry Row - the series of cabins for the slaves that worked in or near the house - may have included more trees that it does now. The kitchen is to the right of this view…the south pavilion above on the far left.

My favorite photograph of the house during this visit was through the flowers.

I was surprised at the number of butterflies we saw in the short walk around the grounds.

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Instead of riding the bus down the hill to the visitor center we walked past the cemetary and through the forest.

And then it was time to splurge for lunch at Michie Tavern. The food is good….but I’m not as fond of ‘all you can eat’ places as I once was. In this case - it is tradition. I think we have gone to Michie Tavern for lunch every time I’ve visited Monticello!

Maymont - June 2015

The golden age Maymont mansion in Richmond is well worth touring. I knew I wanted to see it when we walked the grounds and gardens back in April - on a Monday when the house is not open for tours (see my post here). I was very pleased to be back in Richmond in June and on a Saturday.

The basement area is set up as the waiting area for the tour and has displays of how the ‘upstairs’ of the mansion was supported. The maids’ room (used for sleeping and sewing/mending) had more outside light than I expected. The walls of the room are well back from the edge of the foundation for the upper floors; the windows are normal sized and the window wells in the external wall are large enough to lessen the ‘below ground’ feeling a basement usually has.

The tour allows pictures inside the house. The furnishings were left to the city of Richmond along with the house so the furniture that was in the house when Mrs. Dooley died in 1925 is still there. Mr. Dooley’s library/office has dark woods and large windows….and a winged lion chair.

Across the entry hall - Mrs. Dooley’s front parlor also has lots of large windows and a very fancy ceiling: pink and blue - roses and clouds. There is a lot of gold leaf too.

In the entry hall there is a fireplace with a comfortable chair….a dog sculpture…and a teapot on a hook.

The staircase to the upper floor has a large Tiffany window and a stuffed peacock.

All the windows have stained glass transoms at the top. They are different for each room.

One of my favorite rooms was a small parlor upstairs used as a breakfast room. The China on the table was perfect for a summer morning. One of the chairs had a water lily inlay - that included a dragonfly. The poppy pattern of China in the cabinet along one of the walls….and the cabinet itself...added to the ambience of the room.

In the niece's bedroom a tea set was displayed on a small table. There was a lot of trade with Asia during the late 1800s when the house was built.

Probably the most famous room of the house is Mrs. Dooley’s bedroom. The swan theme is everywhere: the bed, a rocking chair, the painting over the fireplace. Another unusual item in the room: the dressing table and chair are supported by narwhal tusks.

Out on the front porch after the tour I noticed the mosaic on the floor.

There is a small garden with sculpture and columns with a very large magnolia in the background.

As we walked back toward our car we walked through the herb garden. The bees were enjoying the beebalm and cone flowers.

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.

Maymont (in Richmond VA)

Our road trip back from North Carolina in April took us through Richmond, Virginia and a stop a Maymont. It was a Monday so the mansion and indoor exhibits were not open…but the gardens were worth the stop by themselves.

Some of the grounds are very open  - with rolling hills

And interesting bridges over low places.

The mansion is on a ridge overlooking the James River. It is the same vintage as the Newport Mansions and looks similar from the outside to some of them….but it was a place that was lived in for more than a few months of the year and gardens were always part of the place. The Dooleys left the house and surrounding park to the city of Richmond; the furnishings were never dispersed. All very different from Newport.

The porch looks very inviting.

There were gazebos in many places as well.

There are gardens on terraces down to the river level: pools of water with koi,

Water falling over the edge of a terrace and bridges to stand on for a closer view,

Japanese lanterns and colorful foliage.

By the time I climbed the stairs back to the level of the mansion, it was obvious that the day was warming fast and I decided to stick to shade as much as possible for the rest of the afternoon; the back of my neck was unprotected by my hat or sunscreen (and indeed - I did get a little sunburn).

Maymont is a place I want to see again - and next time I will make sure it is a day the indoor exhibits and mansion are open. It would be a good day trip for us next fall!

Road Trip to North Carolina

We are back from a road trip to North Carolina - focused on the coastal National Wildlife Refuges. I have a series of posts planned for the next few weeks. Today my focus is the getting away.

We had decided to leave a little later to avoid the weekday commuter traffic around the Washington DC beltway so we took our time packing the car. It had been very wet the previous day and there were earthworms that had taken shelter under the garage door - to keep from drowning. Some of them had stayed to long but others were already making their way back over the asphalt to the lawn. There was also a tiny frog on the driveway that was evidently too cold to move.

My husband decided the traffic was light enough for us to leave earlier than he’d planned…and we were ready. We were on the road by 8:30. It was such a gray day that it was not a scenic drive. The non-native pears trees (escaped Bradford pear trees) were in bloom in the brushy areas along the highway. The new leaves of the season provided a hint of green.

We stopped to stretch our legs at the rest stops almost every hour….made very good time. It was still gray and cold as we drove over the bridge near Norfolk and saw larger ships.

And then we arrived in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina and discovered that our room had a view of the Wright Brothers National Memorial (on the side of the barrier island facing the mainland) and about a block from the beach in the opposite direction (on the side of the barrier island facing the Atlantic). We hoped for a warmer and sunnier tomorrow!