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.

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.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens - June 2015

Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens are full of lotuses in bloom this time of year….and dragonflies and waterlilies. We made our first day trip to the place last week on the first sunny day after a huge rain storm. Some of the grassy paths between the ponds were flooded but the circuit wide path was passable. We’ll go again before the end of season.

Eventually I’ll get better at recognizing the different dragonflies. The Blue Dashers are the only ones I recognize easily (the ones that look like they’ve been dusted with light blue powder).

The surprise this year was pots of red hibiscus near the visitor center. I wonder if I somehow missed them last year.

Enjoy the Kenilworth Gardens via the slideshow below!

Zentangle® - June 2015

June is my fifth month of ‘a Zentangle a day! Early in month I decided to put the tiles from previous months under the plastic on breakfast table (like I do with Christmas cards every year in December). The arrangement will have to become more ordered when I put the June tiles in the same location. I am already thinking of other locations I could display them this same way.

I started using markers and pencils to add color to some of my tiles. Most of the time the old style - black in on neutral card stock - appeals to me the most.

I do still have some teal card stock left and I may buy some more of it…or maybe an assortment of bright colored card stock. I realized that I should put the boxes of old business cards that I accumulated over the years to Zentangle use too; they will always be the smallest tiles.

I made two in a row that I really like - the one on the upper left and then the next one to the right. I was thinking ‘beads’ when I made the first one and decided the second one was ‘medusa’ as I added the tentacles near the end.

My favorite from the collection below is the on the lower left. I used markers that had miraculously not dried out that my daughter left behind (they are probably over 10 years old!).

I get ideas for patterns in all sorts of places. They pop up everywhere: hotel bedspreads and carpets, antique furniture, and pottery! Sometimes I start with a pattern from TanglePatterns but most of the time I do deviate in some way….or surround it with something completely different.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Brookside Gardens in June 2015 - Part 2

The small animals on or near plants are sometimes the challenge I choose for photography. The walk around Brookside Gardens resulted in a few worth sharing:

The spider on the yucca flower

A damselfly that must have been tired since it stayed put for such a long time. It is an ebony jewelwing!

A mourning dove enjoying the summer sunshine in the garden

Bees at the hollyhocks. I always associate hollyhocks with a great aunt’s house. She always had them planted around the side steps to her house.

A bee on a hydrangea. Brookside has quite a variety of hydrangeas these days and this type seemed the most popular with the bees the day I was there.

Brookside Gardens in June 2015 - Part 1

Brookside Gardens is blooming all over! The renovation to the ponds that had so much of the garden fenced off is open and green. The drainage areas are much improved and many of the bridges were replaced too.

I found myself doing some photographic experiments as I wondered through the garden - a red fire hydrant with white hydrangeas (1) and one yellow leave among so many green ones (13). There were lots of opportunities for looking closely at flowers (2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 14), capturing the range of colors for cone flowers (3,6, 9), and remembering caster beans in gardens during my childhood prompted by seeing the plants at Brookside this year ( 8). I couldn’t resist a photograph of the cycad (12) in the conservatory either; I notice the plant every time I walk into the conservatory!

Wheatland Arboretum

The grounds around Wheatland and the LancasterHistory.org building have been transformed into an arboretum with careful plantings and signage for the trees. There was a map provided but I decided to walk around and photograph rather than reference it frequently. It was a very warm day and I found myself staying to the shady path whenever possible. The bright sunlight made the pine needles glow!

There was a large camellia in a shady area and I did some close…and closer shots of the flowers.

The dogwoods (non-native ones) were still blooming. I’d seen this same kind at the National Arboretum a few weeks ago.

The tree that caught my attention the most was the ‘tri-color beech’ which is an import from Europe. It was a striking tree in an otherwise green landscape.

And after my walk - I was ready to be in an air conditioned environment for a bit before heading out for lunch and then driving toward 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.

CSA Week 4

I still had some of the week 3 share from the Gorman Farm CSA on Wednesday when I went to pick up the week 4 share. I managed finish everything except some frozen fruit beety by noon Thursday. Week 4 included beets, kohlrabi, Napa cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, radicchio and carrots. I decided that when there is a choice of veggies - I’ll always choose the ones I haven’t had yet this season. This week the choices was to pick two from four: chard, kale, Napa cabbage and radicchio…and I made the new rule on the spot to pick the cabbage and radicchio.

I am going to make zucchini hummus with the first of this squash of the season. The beets (without their leaves), kohlrabi and carrots will keep longer so I’ll eat the other veggies first. The two crispers in my refrigerator were very full on Wednesday afternoon but they are already less cramped with two days of meals heavy on veggies.

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.

Winterthur Garden

Most of the gardens at Winterthur are woodland gardens (my earlier post about the museum is here). Henry Francis Du Pont was a naturalist gardener. He did include some exotic plants…but otherwise his garden exemplifies all the principles of woodland gardening.

The plants are arranged in natural settings.

There are plants in every nook and cranny.

Patches of light spotlight different plants during the day. There are lots of different textures and types of plants.

There are pergolas as destinations within the garden…and paths that go from meadow to forest to wetland.

Most of the garden is green and brown but the eye catches on white

And red

And orange.

I was not looking for animals but two appeared very obviously - a chipmunk

And a spider.

I noticed a violet with a double seed pod.

Closer to the museum/mansion - there was a lotus in the koi pond that used to be the swimming pool!

There is more lawn as understory closer to the mansion…still a lot of big trees.

Mt. Pleasant Farm - June 2015

I am missing treks to Mt. Pleasant Farm for elementary school field trips. Since they have ended I’ve been doing other things/other places but I did take one short hike around one of the loops last week - just because I was missing the place.

The water lilies in the water feature of the Honors Garden have buds.

The summer flowers are beginning to unfurl.

The early ones - like butterfly weed - are already attracting butterflies.

I was thrilled that a bluebird stayed on a branch long enough to be photographed.

This is my favorite to bring groups to look up the stream and ask ‘which tree trunk has been has been across the stream the longest.’

One sharp eyed second grade student looked through the foliage and pointed out the shelf-fungus on the stump beside the stream nearby.

Last but not least - the milkweed is just about to burst into bloom. Hopefully the Monarch Butterflies will find the plants and plenty of eggs….and set the stage for a larger than usual cohort of Monarch Butterflies in summer 2015.

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.

CSA Week 3

I had no trouble using up everything from the week 2 share from the CSA with a house guest here for most of the week. The last to be eaten was the lettuce - we ate big salads with it just before we went to pick up the week 3 share from the Gorman Farm CSA.

It was another good one: (starting at the left in the picture) beets, broccoli, scallions, dandelion greens, garlic scapes, and arugula.  

When I got the produce home - I cooked the beets (setting the leaves and stems aside) immediately in water laced with raspberry vinegar. While they were cooking I rinsed everything (including the beet greens) and stored everything in 2 plastic bins that fit neatly into the crispers; that will shorten the prep for meals. I started the prep for making fruit beety (getting out the food processor, cutting up oranges). By that time the beets were done and I quickly peeled them and cut them into chunks before processing them with all the other ingredients to make fruit beety. After packing individual servings of the confection - I rewarded myself with fruit beety with coconut on top.

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).

Deck Garden - June 2015

Mid - June - and the garden is mostly green. The only plant that is blooming so far is one of the purple pea vines. It is climbing on the peacock pot sticker that the gold finches like to perch on.

There are buds on some of the other plants. By July there should be more color.

I am enjoying the greens at the moment.

Some purple basil came up in the pot that I planted some seeds from a packet that was over 5 years old. More of the seeds were viable than I anticipated! I’ve been pulling seedlings to use in salads so that there will be a mix of green and purple basil leaves in plants that have enough room to grow.

The mint in the turtle sandbox is root bound and can’t seem to grow any more around the edge. I’ll give it a through trim at some point then churn up the sandy soil and start over. There is a very thick mat of stems entwined over the surface so I’ll start the churn with long handled pruners!

I’ve already harvested some of the red potatoes (posted about it here) but there are several more plants from those same sprouted potatoes. My plan is to harvest when any of the potatoes peek above the soil. The pots are probably not large enough to get an outstanding crop….but maybe over the course of the summer they will all yield a serving!  The lighter green leaves of the celery that sprouted in the kitchen window sill is a nice contrast to the the darker greens of other plants.

I was trying to use old seed so I probably have cucumbers in some of the pots too. There were a few seeds left from last year and the cucumbers did well as ‘spillers’ in many of the pots. Thrillers will be whatever is not green. I am anticipating zinnias and sunflowers but there could be some other flowers too from seeds in the soil from last year. July will tell! RIght now i am enjoying the delicate red in the stems of last December's poinsetta!

Zooming - June 2015

The ‘zooming’ post is a little earlier than usual this month…but it was such a good month for outdoor subjects that I didn’t want to wait. Can you find:

• A wild flower?
• A garden flower?
• Dogwood?
• A wood frog?
• Rattlesnake fern?
• Garlic scapes?
• Milkweed?
• A feather?
• A goldfinch?
• Birds nest fungus?