Belmont Elm

Just before I got home from Texas - a friend sent me the news (Baltimore Sun from June 10 story here) that the large tree in front of Belmont Manor has Dutch Elm Disease and will be cut down soon. I took some pictures of the tree when I was volunteering at the park last week. It is a 250 year old tree and will leave a hole in the landscape that will take some time to fill. Hopefully the other large elms nearby (three between the Manor House and Carriage House) will be not succumb to the same disease.

The tree in front of the manor house looks partially dead even to the untrained eye but one side is still full of leaves that frame the pond looking away from the house….

And the Manor House looking up the hill.

There are many exposed roots on the hill where the deep shade has thinned the grass. The damage from mowers over the years is evident.

I’m always sad when an old tree has to be cut down. This particular one is a piece of tangible history….planted before the United States was a country!

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 4, 2015

Hope you are enjoying the 4th of July! We’re going to see the local fireworks display tonight. 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.

Weight loss, combined with vitamin D, reduces inflammation linked to cancer, chronic disease - And the study was done with postmenopausal women! Quite a welcome change from the days where most medical studies were done with middle aged men.

The Mythology and Art of the American Road Trip - 100 billboards along I-10 from California to Florida.

The Colonial Revival Furniture Made at Eleanor Roosevelt's Val-Kill Industries - I like the old fashioned writing chair. If I had one - would I use it for my laptop? I also liked this article because it reminded me of a road trip to New York (state) a few years ago that included a tour of Val-Kill.

Antarctic life: Highly diverse, unusually structured - Will the high diversity help the Antarctic ecosystem adapt as climate changes?  

Photo Gallery: Scenes from the Golden Age of Animal Tracking -  (click on the ‘View the gallery’ link under the three-toed sloth picture) Animals as subjects and samplers of the environment where they live.

Joe Mangrum's Temporary Sand Paintings Are Pure, Beautiful Magic - Videos of how the intricate paintings are made

This One-Ton Fish Is One of Nature's Most Improbable Creations - I’ve seen ocean sunfish in aquariums…and noted how odd they seemed. They can grow to be quite large (heaviest boney fish in the world!

Frame for displaying tiles - After I fill up all the space under the plastic sheet of my breakfast table with Zentangle tiles® - this is my next display strategy form my ‘tile a day,’

How to Make Vegan Parmesan-Style Cheez - Another recipe to try. I’ve noticed large packages of raw cashews in my grocery store; maybe there are more people trying recipes that call for them - like this recipe.

Presentation: Mobile is eating the world - Trends…..but there is a lot of room for disruption of the ‘mobile’ vision that we have right now.

Wheatland Gallery

There is an exhibit gallery next door to Wheatland - in the same building as LancasterHistory.org . The furniture displayed was similar to some seen at Winterthur - and in Wheatland itself - but it was easier to photograph because of the lighting in the gallery.

The entry contains a very large white a blue basin with herons (1). There were displays of sturdy pottery (2), desks with small draws and slots(3), a collection of chairs (lots of sizes) with designs painted on their backs (4 and 5), and small carved decorations on cabinets(6).  I like the little chairs the best. There was a loveseat for small children…or maybe dolls as well.

I like the painted decorations - particularly on objects that were used all the time - not just for special occasions. Or course - the ones in this gallery must have been valued enough by someone to keep them for many years.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - June 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 the earlier days of June 2015 (actually there are a few more than 10 listed below…it has been a month full of celebrations!).

I’ve been doing some traveling the past few weeks: two one-night-away trips and half-day jaunts.

Winterthur (Delaware) was overwhelming in many ways. I did the Introductory tour and Antiques and Architecture tour --- which is almost too much for one day! But the walk back to the visitor’s center through the woodland garden is soothing. It is a place to celebrate. I am prompted to read the biography Henry Francis DuPont that I’ve had in my ‘to read’ pile for the past few months - and celebrate Winterthur again as I savor the book.

Wheatland (Lancaster PA) was a place I had touring more than 20 years ago but I enjoyed much more than I expected to this time - both the house and grounds. By the time we headed home I was celebrating the place. Maybe it was because I was early enough to get a private tour. The guide was excellent. The highpoint may have been seeing how hooped skirts compressed to go upstairs!

Centennial Park was one of the ways I celebrated being home again. The walk around the lake on a summer morning is good exercise and another opportunity to photograph milkweed.

Maymont (Richmond VA) my favorite ‘golden age mansion’ …. better than anything in Newport RI because the house and furnishings were left intact when donated to the city of Richmond. The tour guide was knowledgeable and photography was allowed. It appealed to me that the house was lived in except for the hottest months of the year rather than being used for 6-8 weeks only like many of the mansions in Newport. I’ll do a complete post about Maymont in a week or so. Maymont is a celebration of tangible history!

Monticello (Charlottesville VA) is a place I’ve been every few years since we moved to the east coast in 1983. There are always a lot of people and the foundation has evolved to handle the crowds. We made reservations for the ‘Behind the Scenes’ and it was well worth it; the renovation and furnishing of the upstairs rooms were just finished in May! During the tour, I celebrated that some of the spaces had been furnished to allow for sitting (after more than an hour of walking around the house!) but now I celebrate that every time I got to Monticello I notice something I did not  before - sometimes on my own and sometimes prompted by a tour guide. I plan to post about the Monticello experience in a week or so.

Brookside is always worth a walk around. It is a good celebration close to home. Pictures are coming soon in another post.

Thrift stores celebrations are always about the serendipity of finding something great at a low price. In June I went twice. The first time I only found blouses….the second time skirts. And several ‘match’!

Gorman Farms CSA started their season this month. It is a weekly celebration of fresh produce….as long as I don’t feel overwhelmed by the bounty. So far - I am just barely keeping up (although there is some fruit beety in the freezer).

A mouth guard may not be something to celebrate but my new one is more flexible than my old one…it’s sparklingly free of deposits. Overall - I celebrate that a mouth guard enables me to sleep better!

A new hot water heater was installed in our house this month. The old one had started to leak after 24 years. I celebrated that we discovered it almost immediately, that it didn’t leak fast enough to get anything in the basement wet, and that we were never without hot water!

Master Naturalist activity was very high at the beginning of the month: the annual conference and the last few elementary school field trips. Both were celebratory crescendos to the spring season activities. I am taking a ‘vacation’ until mid-July when I’m signed up to help with summer camps.

3 Free eBooks - June 2015

I’ve latched onto several series within the Internet Archive this past month - one from museums.

Atil, Esin. Art of the Arab World. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. 1975. Available from the Internet Archive here. This book was one of the 1970s and 1980s exhibition books from the Freer Gallery of Art. A number of museums are scanning their archives and making them available this way. I liked the sketched bird and the colors of the bowl in the clipped image to the left. After such success with the Freer Gallery of Art books…I am not working through the back issues of the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) Bulletins from the later 20th century.

Valentine & Sons United Publishing. Canadian Rockies. Montreal: Valentine & Sons United Publishing Co. 1910. Available from the Internet Archive here. I found quite a few tourist booklets for the Rockies on the Internet Archive. The trek between Banff and Vancouver must have been a very popular in the early 1900s. After the Rockies, I searched for books on the Pyrenees and am still working my way through the results of that search.

Cassin, John. Illustrations of the birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott & Co. 1862. Available on the Internet Archive here. I found this book by accident and was surprised that the author (I looked up his bio on Wikipedia) had died relatively young  - from arsenic poisoning because he handled so many pelts and skins that were treated with arsenic to preserve them; that use of arsenic had been mentioned as a historical note in my Master Naturalist class - a piece of trivia that somehow stuck. After enjoying this book - I looked to see what the Internet Archive had of Audubon’s work; they have The Birds of America in 7 volumes! Those books were published more than 20 years before Cassin’s work and the positioning of the birds seems much more contrived. Both probably did their work with dead birds rather than living specimans.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 20, 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.

Soft Tissue Detected in Millennia-Old Dino Bones - New ways of looking at very old bones reveals unanticipated results (but not DNA).

Far From Sterile, Some Hybrids May Start New Species - Coyotes in the eastern US are quite different than their western counterparts and they are beginning to fill the niche left by wolves. Maybe they will help control the too large deer population!

Renewables Reach Highest Share of U.S. Energy Consumption since 1930s - Historical stats about renewable energy...with emphasis on the 1990-2014 time period.

Two similar articles: Why doctors should treat the healthy too and Interventions among healthy people save the most lives - The challenge is that most doctors are trained to treat illness and disability…not help people retain their health.

Data scientists find connections between birth month and health - The data for the study was from 1985-2013…1.7 million patients treated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/CUMC. It interesting result but the researchers point out that the risk related to birth month is relatively minor compared to the more influential variables like diet and exercise.

The Weirdest (And Most Violent) Ways That Plants Release Their Seeds - Short videos. As with so many things botanical…I could not resist including it in the gleaning list. It includes how violets disperse their seeds and I’ve just started noticing the seed pods this year (I have several locations where I am watching the plants to see the seeds disperse).

Global freshwater consumption crossing its planetary boundary - Scary result.

Biodiversity reduces human, wildlife diseases and crop pests - Another reason to worry about the extinctions happening in the world right now.

Sunrise and Sunset Photos Capture Stunning Wildlife Silhouettes - Ending with some great images…and a reminder of the special light at the beginning and ending of the day.

Wheatland

Wheatland (the home of President Buchanan in Lancaster, Pennsylvania) was on our itinerary the day after Winterthur (in Delaware) and it did not disappoint. I was there for the first tour of the day; since no one else was as early, I go a private tour with the very knowledgeable docent. The tour starts on the back porch - where a workman was replacing part of the porch. The house was already its present size when Buchanan purchased it as he became the guardian for a niece and nephew.

There are many decorative features in the house that appeal even today. The windows have sturdy Venetian blinds with wood cut valences. The cords of the blinds are wound around glass knobs (a very practical idea!).

The robust cricket doorstop kept a door open.

The carpets are reproductions and produced in strips that are laid together to form the pattern and ‘fit’ the room.

There is a doll that ‘looks like’ the niece

And some pink ceramic pieces from her dressing table. She inherited the house at Buchanan’s death. Her name was Harriet Lane - known in relation to pediatrics at Johns Hopkins and the St. Albans school in Washington DC.

I liked the egret pitchers

And thought about the practicality of the ‘bath’ before plumbing (or when water is scarce).

I also found some items that are Zentangle prompts (just as I did at Winterthur).

One of the Buchanan items recently returned to the house from a Buchanan descendent was this artful mulit-bell. I wonder what the two bells meant in the household.

The house seen from the front shows a bit more about its division into three parts. Buchanan had his law office on one side. Note where the windows are…the ceilings are higher in the center than in the two wings. The external shutters appear to have been removed from the windows of the wings although some of the hardware is still in place.

As I walked back around to the visitor center, I photographed the privy. The trellis forms a rose bush arbor that hides the entrance to the 5 hole privy (with different seat heights and hole sizes!).

Winterthur Museum

Last weekend toured the Winterthur Museum and Gardens; I’ll post about the gardens later…today the post focuses on my impressions of the museum of American Decorative Arts. The museum holds the collection of Henry Francis Du Pont and is housed in the mansion - extended by du Pont to hold hisgrowing collection before it became a museum in the 1950s - when even the rooms where the family had lived were converted to museum spaces.

The initial impression of the museum is that the light is dim. One of the reasons for that is the large number of old fabrics displayed. Here are some examples taken in the part where photography is allowed: a child’s dress,

Bedding (showing the straw stuffed mattress at the bottom and featherbed on top)

Carpets,

And in an upright grand piano.

Some pictures I took to prompt Zentangle designs in the upcoming weeks: a gate

A comb (It took long teeth to hold very long hair!),

Patterns of wood inlay on chests

And chairbacks,

The transom over the front door.

The biggest surprise of the day for me was noticing that the silverware patterns are mixed for place settings (i.e. all the knives on the table were the same pattern…but the forks were a different pattern). Now I find myself looking at every museum dining room display (there will be another in tomorrow’s post).

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 13, 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.

18 beautiful houses for tiny people - Photographs of doll’s houses …inhabitants and furnishings too.

How past Native-American settlement modified Western New York forests - Larger nut-bearing trees were more abundant near settlements!

Rebuilding Sandbars in the Grand Canyon - I had learned about the attempts to rebuild sandbars in the recent Coursera offer on Water in the Western US…so this acted to remind me of the class, probably locking in what I learned through a surprise repetition.

Ultrasound is making new waves throughout medicine - Ultrasound is being used for more and more imaging these days….and is more portable than a lot of the other imagining technologies.

10 Ways to Save Pollinators - This is not just about honey bees….it’s about all pollinators.

Multi-tasking: Benefits on exercise - So doing something else while you exercise may not be such a bad thing!

Beyond Automation - Five paths toward employability is an automated…augmented world of the future.

Sewage Pollution: The Next Great Threat for Coral Reefs - 96% of places that have both people and coral reefs have a sewage pollution problem (85% of the waterwater entering the sea in the Caribbean is untreated). Sewage that reaches corals includes: fresh water, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, pathogens, toxins. Ewww! Not good for human health either.

The Shifting Sands of the Sahara Are a Lesson in Dune Dynamics - Illustrations of dune patterns (seen from above)

5 Ways to Make Environmentally Conscious Food Choices - I had thought of all 5…but this is post is a good summary to: support good companies, buy local, storing your food, growing your own, and choose less packaging.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 06, 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.

Everything We've Learned about Mummies Using 21st Century Technology - Mummies fascinate just because we know they are often from the distant past…new technology adds elements to that fascination.

It’s Time to End the Gar Wars - Learn something new about native fish….and the history of conservation.

Why Kids Need to Dig in the Dirt Again - Play in the outdoors….not such a common thing for children as it used to be. Sad.

What Dose of Nature Do We Need to Feel Better? - Evidently there is a lot of research right now about the health benefits of spending time in nature….not just for children either.

New U.S. Water Rule is Crucial for Clean Drinking Water and Resilience to Droughts and Floods - As water supplies shift (too much and too little), the clarification will become more important. I was surprised that prior to the clarification, drinking water for 1 in 3 Americans came from streams without clear protection from pollution and degradation. Sustaining or improving the quality of water supplies is a key component to a sustainable planet.

Monarch Butterfly Conservation Series - I’m putting these videos on my ‘to do’ list.

Watching the Simultaneous Release of 11,000 Marbles - Mesmerizing.

Why you want Google Photos - Something new I am looking into.

16 Photographs of Animals Caught in the Rain - My favorites are the tricolor heron and monarch butterfly chrysalis photos.

These Maps Show Just How Screwed China Will Be After Sea Levels Rise - This is if all the ice melts….which may be a possibility if the world continues on current trends….and even if the ice does not melt completely, there are a lot of people living in coastal areas that are very close to sea level.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 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 the earlier days of May 2015.

Brighton Dam Azalea Garden. For a few weeks every year - the gates open to a wonderland of flowering azalea bushes and dogwoods. The tall trees make it a shady cool area even as the temperatures get warmer. It is usually at its best for Mother’s Day.

Red Tailed Hawk at Belmont. The first day of BioBlitz there was a red-tailed hawk that watched from a perch tall in a sycamore for the arrival of the first student. What a beginning to the event!

Bald Eagles at Conowingo Dam. I’ll do a post later with more about our day trip to Conowingo. There were at least 10 eagles feeding on fish come from the flow from the hydroelectric generation dam….and there were great blue herons, cormorants, tree swallows, and black vultures too….and that was just what I immediately noticed.

Whooping Crane lecture at Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge. Do you see a theme? I hadn’t noticed how many of my ‘celebrations’ this month included large birds until I put this list together. The birds are hatched and prepared for release at Patuxent.  It was interesting to understand how the researchers and volunteers disguise themselves so that the young birds don’t imprint on the human form as ‘parent.’ I’m glad they’ve had enough success to celebrate.

National Arboretum. Every time we go there is something new to see….and old favorites. I celebrated that I recognized an Eastern Towhee in the leaves there during the visit this month.

Strawberries. A quart of strawberries was the first offering of my Gorman Farms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) membership. They were eaten before I thought to take a picture! The berries freshly picked from local fields always taste better than the ones from the grocery store. They evoke memories of previous springs and other strawberry fields….finding the berries among the green leaves…taste treasures.

No cavities. I had a dental appointment and was pretty sure a filling was going to need to be replaced because a small piece had chipped off leaving a small divot in the front surface of the tooth (no sensitivity or discoloration). But the dentist decided to just watch it! Hurray!

Volunteering for nature fieldtrips and BioBlitz. Seeing the wonder of discovery in the outdoors from a child’s perspective is awe inspiring. It happens almost every hike I lead…every time I assist I give to identify a ‘find’ ---- celebrating the wonder of children in the natural world.

Rain---finally. We are at close to average for precipitation in our area right now but I noticed a dry spell when I had to fill the bird baths and water my deck garden….but then we started having some afternoon showers. One of them caused a rainbow too.

A last cool day before summer. The forecast is for 90 degree days this coming week but the Memorial Day weekend had cool mornings….and we savored the perfect weather for being outdoors.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 23, 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.

New Battery Technology Will Fundamentally Change the Way the Grid Operates - Cost effective storage of energy seems to be on the near horizon. It could overcome the complaint about the intermittent nature of solar and wind power generation.

The Chemistry of Permanent Hair Dyes - There are probably still a lot of people covering grey hair with permanent hair dyes…not me. I’d rather enjoy my natural salt and pepper!

A Gorgeously Detailed View of Antarctica's Churning Ocean Currents  and Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Will Likely Disintegrate by Decade's End - Two recent articles about Antarctica. The first one is a visualization of simulations done at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  The second article is bad news since it means global sea level rise will be increasing as glacial ice enters the ocean faster.

From Snapshot to Science: Photos of Biodiversity as Useful Records - Learn about National Geographic’s Great Nature Project. The Belmont BioBlitz observations have become part of the project!

The Birth of a Bee - A short video…well worth watching.

Recommended levels of activity rarely achieved in busy workplace environment - Many workplaces are quite sedentary. This study looked at 83 employees in a hospital. Only 6% of the participants reached the 10,000 steps per day goal even though the jobs of 53% of the participants were assumed to require ‘high’ levels of activity! I know when I started wearing a Fitbit I had to focus on getting steps in after my workday. Now that I am retired, it is easier to get the steps in throughout the day rather than focused at the end of the day.

China Coal Use Continues To Fall “Precipitously” - Now if this trend will continue….

First fully warm-blooded fish: The opah or moonfish - And now we discover that there is an exception to something we all learned in school….fishes are not all cold-blooded.

A Map Showing the "Most Distinctive" Causes of Death by State - It is a very colorful map…but does it mean very much. The most distinctive form of death in Maryland seemed strange to me…and ‘tuberculosis’ was listed for Texas.

How Machines Destroy (And Create!) Jobs, In 4 Graphs - I was somewhat surprised that the ‘services’ sector is not even larger. Looking at the graph historically - white collar jobs became the highest percentage and number of jobs in the 1950s and the trend continues.

3 Free eBooks - May 2015

So many beautifully illustrated books came to my attention in May.

Walton, Elijah; Bonney, Thomas George; Lowes, J. H. The Peaks and Valleys of the Alps. London: Sampson Low, Son and Marston. 1868.  Available from Internet Archive here. The creator of the water color drawings (Elijah Walton) got top billing on the title page of this book. The compositions always include details that make it easier to comprehend the enormity of the mountains. In this clip - it is soaring birds and some pine trees.

Poepping, Eduard Friedrich (editor); Endlicher, Istvan Laszlo (illustrator). Nova genera ac species plantarum, quas in regno Chilensi Peruviano et in terra Amazonica. Leipzig: Sumptibus F. Hofmeister. 1835. Multiple volumes available from Internet Archive: Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3. I always find it difficult to resist botanical prints!

Stories from the Arabian Nights retold by Laurence Housman with drawings by Edmond Dulac. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1911. Available from Internet Archive here along with many other books illustrated by Edmond Dulac.

Belmont Manor Cemetery

The cemetery at Belmont Manor and Historic Park was featured in two activities last week: a field trip for 6th graders and a lecture about the results of a recent ground penetrating radar survey done there. So - I’ve been thinking more about it.

It is a walk from the manor house - past the formal gardens to the edge of the forest. There is a fence around it although the survey found some graves outside the fence. Were they graves of slaves or was the fence built long after the grave markers deteriorated and the fence was built around the area of existing headstones? Was the very large tulip poplar just outside the fence growing before the fence was built? The fence is not a prefect rectangle; there is a jog to accommodate the tree!

There were graves found in an area within the enclosure that had not markers. Are they graves from the 1700s? The manor was finished in 1738 and the builder died in 1772. They survey detected pieces of metal probably nails, hinges and fasteners produced by the iron forges and blacksmiths at Belmont. All the markers still visible are from the 1800s or 1900s.

There is one grave that I find particularly sad  - for a 2 year old child. It is a reminder that many children did not live to adulthood in the time before vaccines and antibiotics. Prior to the survey - the headstone seemed to be all by itself in the back of the cemetery. But now the survey has revealed the other graves that were probably still marked when the little girl was buried in 1834.

Belmont Manor and Historic Park - May 2015

I’ve been at Belmont several times since the Master Naturalist class - volunteering as a naturalist for school field trips. There are several trees with very showy blooms right now: a horse chestnut

I’ve been at Belmont several times since the Master Naturalist class - volunteering as a naturalist for school field trips. There are several trees with very showy blooms right now: a horse chestnut

And the tulip poplars. I was very pleased to find one with branches with blooms low enough to photograph easily.

Belmont is known for its viewshed.  From the front door of the manor house…there are no other signs of encroaching structures. It is like taking a step back in time.

Before the Europeans came - the area would have been forested. The biggest trees in that forest would have been American Chestnuts (destroyed in by Chestnut Blight in the 1900s) and the mulch on the forest floor would have been quite deep since the native biota were not as effective as earthworms at decomposing leaves.

The manor house was built in 1738. Much of the forest was cut to make fields for farming (for food and tobacco as a cash crop) and to make charcoal for iron forges (iron ore being readily available in the area. There probably were fewer trees than seen today from the front of the manor house. Over time the soil became less fertile and wheat became an important crop as well. For forests trees were represented in fence rows, along the entrance road, and on slopes as agricultural practices incorporated soil conservation practices. In the early 1900s, Belmont pastures hosted thoroughbred horses.

The pond that is seen just before the distant trees in the image above was added in the 1980s to retain water from a natural seep. It is a late addition to the view….but seems to fit.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 9, 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.

How to Make Fresh Ginger-Lemon Tea - I modified the recipe a bit - made a slurry of the ingredients (with less water) in a smoothie maker then boiled it. After cooling - I strained the liquid into ice trays and am savoring a few cubes at a time for ginger-lemon flavored water.

No-Bake Breakfast Cookies - An option to try instead of purchasing breakfast bars? This way - I would know exactly what is in them.

Baroque organ performance of works by Johann Sebastian Bach - Listen to the music….and watch how a German baroque organ looks and is played!

This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind - Some historical perspective…but there are always portions of the population that do not change their mind for many years afterward.

As the river rises: Cahokia's emergence and decline linked to Mississippi River flooding - I have visited Cahokia…and realized there is still a lot to learn about the site.

The Lake Mead Water Crisis Explained - The drought is causing the late to drop lower than it has ever been. At some point the lake will not be able to provide the water allocation to Nevada and California and Arizona…and it won’t generate as much electricity either.

Can Elon Musk's battery really cut your power lines? - The technology may or may not be ready for prime time and cost effective…..but I cheer that the discussion is happening and hope that we are reaching a tipping point where the majority of people in the US realize that we need to move off fossil fuels as fast or faster than the rest of the world or we will lose whatever competitive edge our society has at present. And another story about solar power policy: MIT says solar power fields with trillions of watts of capacity are on the way.

The first self-driving 18-wheeler hits the highways - The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles granted it a license to operate on public roads in the state! It is self-driving but not driverless. Drivers are still required for exiting the highway, on local roads and in docking for making deliveries.

A Brief Guide to Atmospheric Pollutants - A nice summary (click on the graphic to enlarge) from Andy Brunning at Compound Interest.

Record global carbon dioxide concentrations surpass 400 parts per million in March 2015 - Not good. This article provides a history of how and where the 400 ppm gets measured.

Coursera - May 2015

Both of the courses from April are finishing up and I’m determined to not load myself up with new courses in May because I have so many outdoor activities planned for the month.

I did enjoy both of the April courses. Maps and the Geospatial Revolution course is immediately applicable to a Tree Tour I am doing as a project for my Master Naturalist certification. It will include a map, of course.

The Water in the Western US course was good on a number of levels. There was a segment on how they are adding sediment back to the water flowing into the Grand Canyon to rebuild the sandbars there (and it seems to be working)….brining back memories of the place from earlier this year. One memorable and scary factoid from the course: The Central Valley of California has subsided significantly since the 50s and 60s and is now below sea level; levees are all that separate it from San Francisco Bay….all the fresh water in that area (water supply for San Francisco) could become saline within days if an earthquake caused those levees to fail!

3 Free eBooks - April 2015

It seemed harder than usual to pick my favorite 3 eBooks to highlight this month. The visuals in all of these are spectacular.

Tuck, Steven L. A History of Roman Art. Wiley Blackwell. 2015. Available on the Internet Archive here. I enjoyed this book - many of the pictures taken by the author - as a follow on to the Coursera course on Roman Architecture last year.

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York. 1987. I remembered a type to the Catskills several years ago….and several of the places depicted by these artists. I realize now that I learned a lot about composition of landscape photographs from the Hudson River School artists.

Godman, Frederick Ducane; Salvin, Osbert. Insecta. 1901. I enjoyed the electronic version of the Biologia Centrali-Americana made available in the Smithsonian. The digitization project it not complete but I looked particularly at the Lepidoptera (butterflies) volumes (Rhopalocera and Heterocera) and enjoyed the color and variety of butterflies as of 1901. How many of them still exist. There has been a lot of habitat change in the past 114 years.