1981 Road Trip to New Mexico

My Monday posts are trips back in my own history…. brought into the present via pictures that I have been scanning. This week I’m remembering a road trip to New Mexico in September of 1989. We spent considerable time at Bandelier National Monument. We walked around the main ruin area,

Did some hiking,

Climbed into some reconstructed ruins,

Saw the carvings of mountain lions, and

Tried to image how it must have been when the canyon was populated in ancient times.

My husband was taking flower pictures then too…and managed some stunning ones at Bandelier.

I remember the hike down to the Rio Grande vividly. There is an elevation change between the visitor center and the river.

We followed the water for part of the hike and my husband too pictures of a waterfall from many angles.

And finally made it to the river….very muddy and much reduced by up river irrigation.

We drove over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and my husband took a dizzying picture from when we walked out onto the bridge. I remember feeling the bridge vibrate when cars or trucks went by…and not wanting to stay out on the walkway for very long.

We also went to Pecos National Historical Park on that road trip…but it was overshadowed by Bandelier.

Thinking back on this and other times I’ve vacationed in New Mexico – I have enjoyed them all…and am ready to go again.

Minutes in the Meadow

It’s the time of year that schools start again – and I’m more of that with the classes for Howard County Conservancy volunteers. I got to Mt Pleasant a little early for one of them to give myself time to spend a few minutes in the meadow. I didn’t have time to go very far but there were plenty of subjects for photography. The dew was still evident on the flowers. Chicory flowers always seem a darker blue before they completely open. I had not notices the little fibers on the calyx before; they catch dew.

Sometimes the chaos of an unfurling flower is what catches my eye. This one was so low to the grown that I almost missed it.

And then I saw some movement in the mass of meadow plants and, with some difficulty, managed to find it and zoomed in enough to figure out what it was. A grasshopper or a Queen Anne’s Lace fruit cluster!

I glanced down near the edge of the path and saw what looked like thorn on a blade of grass. I backed up enough for the zoom on the camera to focus on it. Another grasshopper! I ended up zooming out to get the antennae in the picture. They were very long!

I was pleased to see so much in such a short period of time and in a relatively small area of the meadow.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 10, 2016

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.

Sunflowers Track the Sun, Like Solar Panels – The behavior was reported in scientific literature in 1898. Now there are studies to understand how the plants do it biochemically and physically. I also liked the picture at the beginning of the article.

Ancient air pockets changing the history of Earth’s oxygen – Ancient air trapped in rock salt shows that earth’s atmosphere contained 10.9% oxygen 813 million years ago….about 300 million years earlier than previously thought. It’s not as much oxygen as in our current atmosphere but a lot of organisms did develop during this time period when there was less oxygen.

Healthy Eating, A to Z – How many of these 26 do you already know?

30 Reason Your Next Car Should Be Electric – I’ve been thinking recently that my next car will probably be electric. It’s good to see that there are a lot of reasons this it is a good idea! Item 29 on this list (kids and grandkids and great-grandkids) is high in my rationale.

How comedy makes us better people – Analyzing humor’s role in our culture – in much the same way as we analyze intelligence.

Exploring How and Why Trees ‘Talk’ to Each Other – An interview with Suzanne Simard.

Closest Living Relative to the Dodo Dazzles with Vibrant Iridescent Plumage – A little eye candy and interesting biology in one article.

As lab-grown meat and milk inch closer to U.S. market, industry wonders who will regulate? – A complex issue and it’s not clear if the USDA or FDA will be responsible. The technology is moving forward quickly in the agricultural biotechnology arena. It is challenging to understand it well enough to propose appropriate regulations for public health and safety.

Newly discovered fossils break record, dating back 3.7 billion years ago – Evidence of microbial life found in Greenland (where there are some of the world’s oldest sedimentary rocks). Another article on the same topic from Science Daily can be found here.

Study assesses climate change vulnerability in urban America – Our area got a wakeup call in this arena with the damage to Ellicott City from recent flooding. It happened very quickly, with very little warning. The planning for infrastructure, human populations and local concerns when it comes to climate vulnerability is in its infancy in many parts of the country.

Queen Anne’s Lace in the Fall

Many of the Queen Anne’s Lace plants at Centennial Park are finished flowering and in the fruit cluster stage. I find the clusters as attractive as the flowers. There is still a lot of visual complexity. Some of the clusters are green.

Looking closer you can see the oval fruits beginning to form.

Later they will turn brown….and early harbinger of fall color.

This one has some fruits that are still green…others that are reddish brown.

Some Birds at Centennial

My short walk at  Centennial Park last week included several bird sightings. I was most excited about a green heron that flew into a tree not far from where I was walking. I didn’t know what it was until I managed to zoom in enough with my camera. It is surprising how well camouflaged the birds are in the foliage. It flew down to the water’s edge from the tree and I didn’t see it again until it flew away across the water.

There was a mourning dove enjoying the morning sun on a park bench. When I walked closer it flew down to the shore…then squeakily away to the island in the lake.

There were birds in some foliage near the shore with berries. One flew out and perched on the top of a sign. I think it was a mockingbird. It proceeded to fluff its feathers – looking rather comical as it preened.

Way across the lake – a great white egret was fishing in the shallows. This picture is about at the limit for the zoom on my camera but I like to take pictures of these graceful birds. There were two great blue herons that flew low over the lake while I was there…but I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture of either one.

1979 – Southeast Oklahoma in the Fall

Back in the last 70s and early 80s, we enjoyed a fall foliage camping trip almost every year. I favorite destination was southeastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas….where there were more trees than the area around Dallas. In 1979, we made two trips during the fall. The first one was in September when most of the trees were still green and it was to visit relatives further north than our usual fall stops. But we made a stop at a place just off the highway called Limestone Gap. There was a railway bridge over a stream – that was crumbling even then. Based on the weeds growing on top – maybe the train already was running over a new bridge.

The highway at that time did not have rest stops…so this stream and crumbling bridge made a pleasant stop for a picnic south of McAlester OK. My family had stopped there for years when we were on that stretch of highway. This picture was taken at one of the last times we stopped before the highway was upgraded – there was no longer a ‘Limestone Gap’ sign for the turn off – and we stopped at a fast food restaurant or truck stop further along the highway rather than a ‘scenic’ stop.

Later in the season, we made our annual camping trip. Many of the leaves had already fallen from the trees.

But there was still a golden quality to the forest with a few leaves hanging on and many on the ground – but not enough to cover the rocky floor of the forest.

The golden them was carried with mushrooms

And shelf fungus.

My husband picked the picture below as his favorite and printed it as an 11x14 not long after the trip.

Photography Gear

I am particularly pleased with the results my current nature photography gear. Whether I’m taking pictures through the window of my office or out hiking – my Canon Powershot SX710 HS on the Oben Monopod with Tilt Head gives me the best overall performance although sometimes I manage with just the camera. I carry an extra charged battery but rarely need it if I start the day with a fully charged battery in the camera.

When I am away from home for more than a day, I take the battery charger and almost always copy my pictures from the SD card to my laptop at the end of each day. That gives me two copies of the pictures while I am traveling. I clean off the SD card when I return home and have at least two copies on other media (i.e. external drives not all in the same location).

I’m very pleased with the images this compact gear allows me to capture – although I’ll probably upgrade to the Canon Powershot SX720 SX (going from 30x to 40x optical zoom). What can I say – I’m drawn to new technology!

Feathers in the Park

Earlier this week, I accompanied my husband to Centennial Park. We got one of the last parking spaces in the lot closest to the concession area (south area of the park). He did his normal walk around the lake and I enjoyed some photography along the path primarily from the boat ramp toward the dam. The morning was very humid and I was thrilled to find three very different feathers in the wet grass --- good targets for some photography. The first one was black and white. The water droplets on its surface appealed to me…as did the curves of the lower part of the feather than are obviously no longer repelling water.

The second feather was in better shape – and probably not from the same bird even though it was not very far away from the first feather.

I zoomed in for a closer look. The water droplets are very tiny on the part of the feather closest to the rib.

The third feather looked quite different that then other two. It was a feather that looked like it would blow away at the slightest breeze. The white part would have been closest to the body and looked like down.

I zoomed in to get better view of the structure.

Then I looked at the feather from a different angle and saw that it too has many water droplets.

The dew droplets almost looked like an encrustation of tiny globules of glass…on both the white and brownish part of the feather.

I’ll have some other posts from this visit to Centennial Park over the next week or so; it was a photogenic morning.

Geology Field Trips in 1973

Geology field trips were a special kind of ‘road trip’ in the first year of my marriage. I remember 3 in particular. They were sponsored by the community college (El Centro in Dallas TX); the school chartered a bus for a day, charged a relatively low fee, and students brought their own lunches and snacks. The field trips were popular for more than geology students based on the fullness of the buses!

The first one was to Enchanted Rock – a pink granite pluton batholith in Central Texas. It was not a great day for pictures. Some of the depressions in the granite still held water from recent rains.

That’s me in this picture for scale!

The second one was to see rose rocks near Norman, Oklahoma. The geology of the field trip was overwhelmed by bus getting stuck on the dirt road getting to the location. It had to be pulled out by two tractors!

The third field trip was to Inner Space Cavern north of Austin. It was an easy trip – just off the interstate highway. My husband did some experimentation taking pictures is the low light conditions – all hand held.

Geology field trips have evolved since the 1970s if my daughter’s experiences over the past 7 years are indicative. Now the geology field trips are more likely to require camping, be part of a class and for-credit, and use off-road vehicles rather than buses! Some of them require long distance travel; she had geology field trips to Germany and Hawaii!

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 27, 2016

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.

Dome of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Not As Gleaming As It Once Was – Biofilm is making the dome darken…and it is hard to treat without damaging the marble of the monument.

The Giant Pyramid Hidden Inside a Mountain – It’s in Cholula (Mexico) and the largest pyramid on the planet (base is 4x larger that the Great Pyramid at Giza and nearly twice the volume).

Longest-lived vertebrate is Greenland Shark: Lifespan at least 400 years – The specimens studied were caught as by-catch. I wondered how big the population is and if the by-catch is actually having an impact on the species; no info on that from the article.

365 pounds of Anacostia Park Goose Breast Going to Afterschool Lunch Program – I wonder if geese from nearby areas has filled in the void at Anacostia Park. Our area has a lot of resident Canadian Geese.

SpaceDrafts Vids! – My daughter is part of the group that finds speakers for the Space Drafts monthly events in Tucson…and they’ve made videos of the latest talks available. Most of the speakers are from University of Arizona, Lunar and Planetary Lab.

Invasive Species Spotlight: Devil’s Tail – Another name for mile-a-minute…a very common invasive plant in Maryland. This blog post gives some history of the plant.

How it feels to live in darkness – Dialog in the Dark exhibit in the Children’s Museum in Holon, Israel gives sighted people a 90-minute tour of what it is like to be a blind person.

Let there be LED: The future of light-based technologies for interiors – Anything that gets closer to natural light (for during the day) and can be tuned to not inhibit melatonin production at night would be what the kind of lighting I would want in my house.

Transparent wood windows are cooler than glass: Study –  I would like to have skylights made of this kind of material.

The Killer Flood Made of Molasses – In 1919, a tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed created a 20-feet-high wave of molasses. It flattened buildings and picked up people. 21 people died, 150 were injured.

Tree Hike at Belmont – August 2016

I volunteered to lead a tree hike at Belmont Manor and Historic Park last weekend. I went out the Friday before to walk the route I’d planned. Even though the hike was in the morning – it was going to be a hot day so I wanted every part of the hike to be worth the effort. The river birch would definitely be the first stop – with it distinctive curly bark.

Some Norway Maples had been planted near the cottage – and I decided that I’d point them out to encourage people to plant native maples instead if they wanted a maple tree in their yard.

I decided to not make the down and back (with no shade) hike down to the pond to see the bald cypress that is the tree with the rounded top to the left of the pond. I pointed it out to the hiking group from about where I stood to take this picture.

We didn’t walk over to the magnolia either. It was enough to view it from further away and talk about the history of large magnolias planted in front of the manor house and the possibility that the large specimen there now is missing the large English Elm that grew uphill until about a year ago when it was cut down before it succumbed completely to Dutch Elm Disease.

On my pre-walk, I walked all the way over to the horse chestnut. The tree is not in good shape. The top was rotten and it broke last spring. The leaves are distinctive but looked pretty battered already.

I opted to go in the direction of the dawn redwood and talk about it being the second example of a conifer that loses its needles at Belmont (the first was the bald cypress mentioned earlier).

We saw two kinds of nut producing trees: a black walnut

And a pecan.

The row of white pines has a few pine cones but the ground crews have thoroughly cleaned up any that fall to the ground.

On the way back I noticed a mushroom under a sweet gum – with bits of dirt clinging to its cap.

There were other trees along the route. The hike on Saturday was almost two hours and we saw something I had missed on my pre-hike: A large English Elm that was being treated for Dutch Elm Disease. The injection ports for chemicals were all around the base of the tree. I hope the tree survives!

1973 Day Trip to Platt National Park

Ever heard of Platt National Park? It was around from 1906-1976 and is now part of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. My husband and I took a day trip to the place in November of 1973 not realizing that the area was destined to lose it designation in just a few years. It was only a little over 2 hours each way from Dallas following I35 into Oklahoma and a popular park at the time we went. The closer we got, the more interesting the road cuts along the highway became.

In the park itself, the road dipped down into streams – that overflowed the road when it rained,

Water flowed over ledges,

Rocky hillsides had trees growing in every crevice,

Water thick with filamentous algae fed into the larger waterways,

Rocky cliffs supported trees at the top,

And most of the trees had already lost their leaves by November.

We hiked, had a picnic lunch and hiked some more. My husband experimented trying to capture water ripples and sprays in photographs. It was learning in slow motion compared to photography today since the film had to be developed before the results were known. Now we just play back the images on the camera….and learn immediately.

Colorado Vacations in the Early 1980s

Before we moved away from Texas in 1983, we made two summer road trips to Colorado. We loaded up the car and headed to the mountains where it was bound to be cooler that Texas! We were always thrilled to get into Colorado and away from the very flat – often boring – land between Dallas and Colorado.

The first trip was in August of 1980 and everything in Colorado was new to both of us.

We spent some time enjoying the sand dunes (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve) that collect at the edge of the Rockies before we headed along the southern part of the state camping at National Forest campsites along the way. There was a beaver lodge on a pond near one of the campsites and we saw beavers actively working on it and slapping their tails on the water’s surface.

In July 1982, we made a second road trip to Colorado and focused on Rocky Mountain National Park – further to the north than we had been before. We camped again but in the National Park at a more developed campground than the campgrounds we had stayed in before.

It was thrilling to see the snow on the peaks and the lush growth in the valleys.

Above the tree line – the tundra was a new experience for us and so was the occasional wildlife sightings.

After the national park, we camped again in the National Forest and roaming backroads. Just as we do now – wildflowers,

Interesting clouds,

And birds were topics we chose for photography.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 13, 2016

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.

Desalination could harm Texas bays – It is important to get intake and discharge points for desalination right to avoid adverse environmental impacts.

What’s changed in genetic since your high school biology – My high school biology was at the very end of the 1960s….a lot has happened since. I’ve taken some classes to update myself but it is always interesting to see a summary of the high points in articles like this.

Maintaining healthy forests takes more than planting trees – What about massive wildfires and invasive forest pests. A healthy forest is a diverse mix of young and old trees, dead trees, and openings. Forest scientists are realizing that homogenous and overgrown forests need to change. A follow-on post talked about technology for foresters in the field.

Humans Never Stopped Evolving – A discussion of more recent human traits.

Strange Minerals from Siberian Mine Are Unlike Anything Found in Nature – Naturally occurring metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)?

Toxic blue-green algae adapt to rising CO2 – This does not bode well for fresh water supplies as the CO2 levels rise.

Protein Packed Produce for Meatless Monday – Meat is not the only food with protein…think veggies too: peas, broccoli, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, kale and cauliflower!

The Best Schools in the World Do This. Why don’t we? – An peek into a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Neanderthal in the Mirror – A short history of our understanding Neanderthal skeletons....seeing them as more and more ‘human’ over the past century.

PDF Quads (from National Geographic) – National Geographic as a web interface that allows anyone to find any USGS quad for downloading and printing!

More than an Oak

I noticed a strange looking structure on the trunk of an oak at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. It is easy to imagine that it is the head of monster coming out of the tree with orange eyes!

It is probably a crown gall caused by a bacterium (Agrobacterium tumefaciens) which enters the tree through a wound; in this case it could have been a branch that broke. The bacterium transfers a portion of its genetic material into the oak tree cells causing the unusual growth and some substances that the tree does not normally produce – but that the bacterium utilizes! The gall can impede nutrient flow in the tree -particularly if it girds the tree.

In this case, the gall itself appears to be hosting some shelf fungus – the bright orange structures. The tree looked robust overall and the only place where shelf fungi were growing was on the gall. So maybe the shelf-fungi are doing their normal decomposer role on the gall only! I’ll look for the tree again summer when we go to see the lotuses at Kenilworth.

Nature Photography with Mt. Pleasant Summer Camp

The day after I volunteered at Belmont – I was at the other Howard County Conservancy location - Mt. Pleasant – for the same activity. The situation was easier because I had more assistants and the day was not quite as hot. It was harder because there were 15+ more campers (3 groups instead of 2). I started out with a short loop hike before the first group – just to check out what might be interesting topics. I focused on a stand of milkweed after I noticed a smallish Monarch caterpillar. It was the only one I saw on any of the plants but one is better than none!

There were very active red milkweed beetles – mating and foraging.

There were aphids too.

I took fewer pictures with the campers since the groups all had 15 children. The two youngest groups needed a lot of attention. With the oldest group – ages 9-12 – more of the campers had some experience with cameras and were more independent taking pictures so I took some pictures of my own. My favorites were of ripening blackberries,

Horse nettle (with thorns visible…and obviously a plant that is buzz pollinated),

Milkweed bugs on butterfly week (the orange of the bugs matches the flowers quite well!),

Spice bush swallowtails on cone flowers,

Tiger swallowtails on cone flowers (the ones with blue are females, without blue are males),

And my favorite image – a black eyed susan flower just opening amid a lot of greenery.

Lotus Seed Pods

By mid-July many of the lotuses had dropped their petals and the seed pods were green with mounds where the seeds were developing underneath.

There were some that already had a single seed that was mature. This one also had one co-joined mound; I wonder if the seed was a double seed that was joined underneath.

Gradually more seeds mature and mounds become holes.

And then even more of the seeds are open to the air.

Many of the pods still seem to follow the sun just like the flowers do. Some are relatively smooth from the back

While others are convoluted.

Eventually the pod will be emptied of seeds and dry. The pods are often used in dry flower arrangements in the fall.

More Dragonflies (at Kenilworth Gardens)

I posted some dragonfly pictures from Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens earlier in the month but then we made more visits to the place and I got some even better pictures by zooming in even more (and using a monopod to stabilize the camera). It is easier to see wing damage (lower left wing) and how the wings attach to the insect.

Their heads and legs have more bristles than I expected…and there is a ‘face.’

The eyes bulge out – dominating the head. The wings have an intricate pattern of supports for the wing membrane and the wings are not exactly flat.

The different kinds of dragonflies have a different pattern of wing structures.

The opening in the mid-back where the wings are attached looks so alien - or not the smoothed structure of other things like fly (butterflies, birds, or airplanes).

Enjoy the slide show below of more dragonflies!

3 Free eBooks – July 2016

So many good things available for ‘free’ in online libraries. Here are my favorites for June.

Mann, Kathleen. Design from Peasant Art. New York: Macmillan. 1939. Available from Hathi Trust here. I get lots of ideas that turn into Zentangle patterns from books like this. I’ve clipped one page that had depictions of pinks (the flower) in different folk art. This is not the only folk art books I’ve enjoyed in July. It seems that there were quite a few book published on the topic in the early half of the 1900s and many of them are beings scanned and made available when their copyright expires.

Pole-Evans, I.B. The Flowering Plants of South Africa.  Twenty plus volumes available from the Internet Archive here. This is a magazine that has been published since 1921; at first it was published annually and it is now published every other year. The older volumes were made available on the Internet Archive in late June. I’ve enjoyed the first 10 so far. The depictions of flowering plants are outstanding.

Murphy, Thomas D. On sunset highways; a book of motor rambles in California. Boston: The Page Company. 1915. Available from Hathi Trust here. I enjoyed the pictures of what California was like in the early 1900s. Unfortunately, many of the color pictures have moiré patterns which I wish the institution scanning would have noticed and re-scanned. The original must be a beautiful book.

Green Heron at Kenilworth Gardens

Last weekend when we went to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, I decided to walk out to the boardwalk rather than stay in the area around the lotus and water lily ponds --- and I found the high point of the visit in the wetlands beside the boardwalk. Not far from the boardwalk, on a partially submerged fallen tree, was a green heron fishing for breakfast.

When I first saw the bird there was another nearby that flew away…but this one stayed long enough for me to move around to get some of the twigs out of my line of sight to the bird.

I zoomed out to get more of the scene. The bird was catching tiny fish – moving so quickly that I didn’t quite capture an image of the fish before it was swallowed.

The bird moved and my line of sight was even better.

The bird is only about as big as a large robin but has much heavier legs and feet...and a longer beak.

And it even posed for a maximum zoomed portrait!