Mt. Pleasant in July 2017 – Part I

I took several walks around parts of Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm last week while I was preparing for photography sessions with summer campers. There was a lot to see and I’m doing two blog posts about the enjoyable walks taken over 3 days. One morning I walked down through the meadow where I saw lots of butterflies but the ones that thrilled me the most were the monarchs. There haven’t been any in my neighborhood this year so it was something to see that there were still a few in our part of Maryland.

There were wild flowers too – which I couldn’t resist photographing.

When I got down to the Davis Branch, I watched a mud dauber wasp making a small ball of sediment to add to his nest

And I noticed that there were more larger cobbles on the ‘beach’ that before the heavy rains of last summer.

I walked over to the area where some stream restoration work was done last spring and found more dragonflies that I’d ever seen in the area. They all seemed to be the same kind but they seemed to be everywhere I turned.

There was a flock of goldfinches using the riffles constructed during the stream restored as a bird bath! Hopefully there will be some new paths that provide some better views of this part of the stream after the stream restoration is stabilized; I didn’t want to wade through the tall grass and risk ticks (Lyme disease).

On the way back up the hill, I paused to photograph the maple tree within a tree. It’s a favorite spot to share with elementary school hiking groups.

Just as I got to the top of the hill, there was a horse nettle flower that had managed to not get mowed by growing very low…and after I got home I noticed a bug was in the picture too.

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2017

A lot has happened this July…and it was easy to pick 10 little celebrations to highlight:

A successful first road trip. I finally got a road trip in my Prius Prime. I didn’t celebrate the blow out that happened on the original start to the trip (I did celebrate that the blow out did not cause an accident) but the trip that re-started the day after was so enjoyable that thoughts about by car turned positive again.

A morning walk at Mt. Pleasant Farm. I’ll get around to posting about this walk because it was so enjoyable: temperature perfect for hiking, a flock of gold finches bathing in a riffle of the Davis Branch, dragonflies everywhere, Monarch butterflies in the meadow, a ground hog ambling out of the path ahead of me, a riot of vegetation – including ripening blackberries. It was very much a celebration of summer.

Great Blue Heron interaction with a dragonfly. Sometimes being in the right place to witness the interaction of two very different organisms is a celebration. I could photograph this one. It was a juvenile Great Blue Heron it is seemed perplexed about what to do when the dragonfly perched while the heron was looking for lunch. Eventually the heron moved…the dragonfly moved. This went on for a few minutes before the dragonfly got the idea to find another place to land.

Summer camp photographers at Mt. Pleasant. I celebrated another group of 5-12 year old photographers that took excellent pictures. I have a post planned for early next week about the adventure from my perspective. One of the counselors commented that the campers seemed so engaged with the activity. There is something about having a camera in hand that is almost magic.

Milkweed bug instars. This time of year, I am always thrilled to find a plant with a lot of instars of milkweed bugs. It almost always happens in July. They start out very tiny and almost all red and go through several stages getting larger and larger and ending up as adults that are orange and black…and with wings!

Our street. I am celebrating that the street repaving in front of our house is complete…and it wasn’t too traumatic while the work was going on.

Melons. We are getting melons from our CSA – always worth celebrating so rare we have gotten sun jewel melons, cantaloupe and yellow watermelon. Hopefully we’ll get some red watermelons in August.

Then there were celebrations associated with volunteering a Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit:

Butterfly laying an egg on my ring. OK – I’ll admit it was a very confused butterfly. But it was magical to have a butterfly become a part of my ring temporarily! I transferred the egg to the host plant afterward.

A 90-year-old birthday girl in Wings of Fancy. The lady was in a wheel chair but thoroughly enjoyed her family’s outing to the exhibit. Everyone that was in the conservatory celebrated with her!

Hummingbird moth at Brookside. I had been seeing the hummingbird moth on the walkway up to the ticket taker for the exhibit…and finally managed to get a picture. Celebration!

Hiking from Mt. Pleasant to the Patapsco River – Part 1

Last weekend – before the higher temperatures came to our area – I joined a hike from Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm to the Patapsco River. I arrived early enough to take some pictures with my new camera…make sure the connection between the camera and phone was adding geotags. It worked! After the hike, I used Photoshop Elements to display my pictures on a map and thus the path of our hike (click on picture for larger image).

I took pictures of two places at Mt Pleasant prior to beginning the hike: the plants blooming in the garden near the blacksmith’s shop

And some bluet damselflies at the pool in the Honors Garden…and bright flowers nearby.

The first part of the hike was along a mowed path that eventually went through hay fields with high grasses on both sizes. I’d worn long pants tucked into my socks to avoid ticks but being on mowed paths is still a good idea.

There were signs of civilization in the distance – but it was surprising how quickly signs of civilization are blocked by other vegetation.

My favorite picture for the first half of the hike was this wild chive among the grasses.

There was a butterfly holding onto a swaying stalk – I only got the one angle so am not sure whether it is a spicebush butterfly or a black swallowtail. I like the way the light comes through the wing.

Just before we entered the forest – I turned back for a picture of the mowed grass trail we had just come down. The second half of the hike to the river would be through the forest…and shady. That will be the topic of tomorrow’s post.

Mt. Pleasant Nature Center Expansion

The construction is complete on the expansion of the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Gudelsky Environmental Education Center. I was there last weekend for an event held on terrace (upper level in this picture). The Nature Center and offices is below.

The Nature Center can be partitioned or left as one larger area. The flow of the area will make handling school and summer camp groups so much easier.

There are several topic areas: honey bees,

Watersheds display and map with high schools and a few highways overlaid on the rivers of Howard County,

A forests corner,

And a display wall for critter tanks (and a column made from a tree trunk!).

The event on the terrace overlooked the Honors Garden – very green from the recent rain. I liked that the railings were made to contain even small children!

The areas around the building are recovering from the construction. The flower pot people are dressed for summer

And the plantings along the walks are blooming.

Ginkgo Grace

I like ginkgo trees  – the way the trees grow…the shape of the leaves and the way they move in the breeze (I’ve heard that their fruit is stinky but have never been around a tree that had fruit). There is a tree in the picnic area of Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm that I’ve photographed several times over the past few weeks; I’m sharing my two favorite images – perhaps of the same branch.

The first day was very cloudy. The leaves are in silhouette against  gray sky…but there are water droplets which make it not quite a simply silhouette.

The second one was on a brighter day. I like the color of the sky behind the silhouetted leaves. The leaves had another week or so to mature making the characteristic ginkgo shape more obvious.

I think I like the one with water droplets best.

Mayapples

The mayapples were blooming at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm last week. The stand I photographed is down near the beach area of the Davis Branch. It was one of those instances where it was good to have my cell phone along so that I could take pictures while I waited for the middle schoolers to show up for their stream assessment work. From above – the flowers are not visible at all. Walking down the slope and then looking back help make the flowers more visible. The leaves are an umbrella over the flowers!

I took some closeups of the flowers by walking back up the hill and bending over to get the camera under the leaves and close to the flowers.

They are one of the larger wildflowers but one must know to look under the leaves! They bloom in May and the ‘apple’ forms during the summer. They are not edible.

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2017

It’s spring…and there is a lot to celebrate.

Second graders coming to Mt. Pleasant for the Science of Soil field trip. I’ve done two file trips for them so far and both have been a lot of fun – using the soil auger in several places while we hike, talking about rocks looking at the old rock wall dividing the fields, seeing how the stream restoration work done during the winter is greening up and full of puddles after a rain.

Azaleas. There are some in our neighborhood but making the trek to the Brighton Dam Azalea Garden is the day we celebrate the profusion of blooms and colors.

Pre-schoolers on a Nature Tales field trip. I’ve done three of the pre-school field trips at Belmont in April: two that were rainy days and one that we made it to the forest. I’m learning how to keep the younger children listening and participating for the whole 20-30 minutes I have them. There are so many little celebrations in every session because the children are so enthralled with the new things they are seeing and doing….I can’t help be celebrate with them.

Delmarva birding. My husband and I spend a day at the Delmarva Birding Weekend late last week. It was our first time to attend and we enjoyed it. I celebrated that there were so many birds to see (and photograph) not that far from where we live. I’ll be posting more about our experience in the coming days.

Faromir. One of our cats died in April. We celebrated his life…and that he was will us for 13.5 years. He was my husband’s little buddy.

Favorite lipstick available again. I’ve always liked Cover Girl Bronze Glow lipstick and was very disappointed when I couldn’t find it anywhere…but now it is back. I celebrated that Cover Girl has started making it again.

Fitting into smaller jeans. I discovered that I can fit into some jeans that I thought were too small. That’s always something I’ll celebrate. I also celebrated that I hadn’t put them in the giveaway pile last fall.

New blade for old paper cutter. I was thrilled to find a new blade for my 20-year-old rotary paper cutter. When I couldn’t find the replacements in a local store and the new cutters did not look at all like mine, I thought I was going to have to buy a new one….but Amazon had the size I needed.

Roman Art and Archaeology course from University of Arizona. I’m not taking as many course from Coursera as I’ve gotten busy with other things…the few I’ve taken recently have been fabulous. I celebrate the availability of the course as the perfect time (the lull before the ramp up of spring field trips) and the well done videos and other references.

Boxes of old documents shredded. We’ve cleaned out some old boxes full of paper (spring cleaning!) and took 2 to be shredded at a local shredding event. I celebrated getting all that old paper with account numbers and social security numbers securely recycled.

Mt. Pleasant Farm – March 2017

Last week, the group of volunteer naturalists for the elementary school field trips met at Mt. Pleasant Farm for a walk around the hiking routes for all the programs. I have been doing the hikes for several years so was paying attention for changes but that left time for some photography. There were scilla bulbs blooming on the lawn in front of the farmhouse (non-native and maybe invasive too); they are small but the touch of blue draws the eye.

I was more pleased with catching a dogwood bud just opening. I sought out a dogwood tree when I walked around the National Arboretum this weekend…more about that in tomorrow’s blog post.

The expansion of the Gudelsky Center is on schedule although it won’t be available for the spring field trips.

Further long the hike, we were along the stone wall and I was looking at the rocks – typical of this part of Maryland – and the lichen. Sometimes the patches of symbiotic algae and fungus (maybe with some yeast too) look like squashed flowers to me.

The stream restoration is nearing completion. There are small plants coming up through the mesh along the banks. The upside down trees (roots up!) will be habitat for little creatures. The riffles had water trickling through them. The rain from the previous day had left puddles along the banks…just like it is supposed to (will they last long enough to produce tadpoles?).

Further along the lightning scared standing tree has obvious wood boring insect and woodpecker holes in the scar.

After walking the route for the hikes, I went off in the other direction to check a place where I’d seen skunk cabbage precious years…but not when we did the hike back in February. It’s up now although the hoods over the flowers are past prime…and the leaves are unfurling.

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2017

Usually February has been a low-key month with weather dampening activity. This year – the weather has been mild – and my celebrations have been more active than usual for February.

I celebrated outings to 1) Conowingo (for Bald Eagles), 2) Brookside (for witch hazel and snow drops), 3) Mt. Pleasant (skunk cabbage), and

4) State College (to see my daughter and son-in-law.

There were also learning experiences to celebrate: 5) the TED dialog with Yuval Harari (I enjoyed his “A Brief History of Humankind” via Coursera back August 2013) and 6) The Changing Global Order course on Coursera (from Universiteit Leiden).

There were new (big) purchases to celebrate: 7) a Samsung Galaxy S7 and

8) a new Honda CR-V for my husband (I am celebrated more room for me in the front passenger seat than in his previous car…and I am still celebrating my Prius Prime every time I drive it).

Two things for myself that I celebrated this month: 9) a short haircut that maximizes the little bit of natural curl my hair has and 10) lots of lots of Zentangle tiles (new pens and more time than usual to create tiles).

I had a lot of celebrate in February 2017!

Skunk Cabbage in February

I lead a hike yesterday at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm – a skunk cabbage swamp stomp. I finally managed to photograph the spadix (round, ovoid, bearing true flowers) inside the spathe (flesh hood, wine or brown with vertical speckled brown or green).

After the first two pictures, one of the younger hikers held a small flashlight for me….it’s much easier to see the flowers on the spadix with the extra light.

I’ve created a slide show with the rest of the photos. There were a lot of skunk cabbage to see – multiple spadix in clumps, tightly coiled leaves with split purple or brown coverings, a few plants so close to the stream that the water carried the soil away from their roots, some sprouting withing the stream, others camouflaged in the grassy remains of last summer’s vegetation, and mud everywhere! Skunk cabbage like it wet.

When I was putting together slides to introduce the plant to hikers, I realized that I had pictures of blooming skunk cabbage from January,

March,

And April.

Now I can add February to my collection!

Gray Day at Mt. Pleasant

I responded to a request for volunteers so was at Mt. Pleasant last Friday. It was a cold gray day – not raining but looking like it could start at any time. The construction on the Gudelsky Environmental Education Center is proceeding. I’m going to try taking pictures from this angle every time I go to Mt. Pleasant. Hopefully it will be completed by late spring.

The witch hazel along the driveway to the farmhouse added a bit of color. The flowers are not as big as the witch hazels I photographed at Brookside recently – probably not a recent hybrid.

Near the picnic area, a forsythia was beginning to bloom. The bush is protected by its position under an evergreen.

Montjoy Barn is the same as usual. The red on the barn door is more appreciated in the winter – when any color other than brown stand out!

Skunk Cabbage in January!

I walked down to the swampy areas on the other side of Mt Pleasant Farm when I was there earlier this week (away from either Construction Zone) and looked at a couple of places I knew Skunk Cabbage grows. The first – closer – place was still like winter – no sunk cabbage coming up in the muck. But the second place had lots of new shoots of the plant coming up!

Once I saw the a few plants – I started seeing even more of them. We’ve been having a warmer than usual January so the plants may be coming up a bit earlier than usual. They are some of the earliest flowers of spring. The early insects (including bees) are attracted to their not-pleasant-to-us smell. They often show up when snow is still on the ground but this year it hasn’t been necessary so far.

One of the shoots has been cut (by a mower?) so the structure of the coiled up leave is obvious.  The structure coming up next to it might be a flower.

As I walked back along the small stream (East Branch), I spotted two green shoots in a relatively narrow and rocky part of the stream bed…probably a new stand of skunk cabbage from seeds produced in the large stand a little upstream.

It will be interesting to observe what happens to these plants if we do have some very cold weather. After all – it’s only January…still some winter left to go.