Grackles and Mockingbirds – Grapevine, TX

Earlier this week I posted some sunrise pictures taken through the hotel window in Grapevine, Texas. I was at the hotel later one day during our stay and enjoyed photographing grackles and mockingbirds through the second-floor window of our room. It was a very cold and breezy day. All the mockingbird pictures show them looking fat with fluffed feathers. It’s always surprising how much bigger and rounder a bird can look when it’s cold.

The grackles (probably Great-tailed Grackles based on their size, tail, and location in north central Texas) didn’t seem bothered by the cold. They are all sleek and full of assertiveness. They seemed to be aware that they were being watched…and they glared back at the camera! Notice how robust the toes/talons are; they make the mockingbird look delicate.

Birding through a window…the way to go on bitterly cold days!

Josey Ranch Lake – January 2017

I saw some of the same kinds of birds I saw back in February 2015 when I walked around the lake last week. It was cold --- and the wind made it feel colder. We did not dawdle but I did manage to take a few pictures. As if 2015: There were lots of Lesser Scaup (the first picture is of 3 males and 1 female) but they were all over the lake with their oddly shaped heads. These birds are only in Texas for the winter.

The Northern Shoveler is also a winter bird.

The swans were still around too. They stay on the lake all through the years.

This time I also noticed American Coots. All About Birds says they are in the area throughout the year but I don’t remember seeing as many of them as I did this year.

There were the Mallards too – another year round resident.

I spotted a Cormorant too.

Finally – the tail and back feathers on this duck seem to glow. It was such a gray day that the feathers stood out. There are also water droplets on the head and breast. I don’t know what kind of duck it is.

Grapevine, TX Sunrise

I traveled with my daughter to the AAS Conference in Grapevine, TX last week. We didn’t stay in the conference hotel (the Gaylord Texan) – opting for a less expensive hotel near the Grapevine Mall. The plan was that I would drop her off at the conference, visit with family in the area during the day, and pick her up when her sessions/dinner were done for the day. We planned to go down to hotel’s breakfast as soon as it opened each morning. The very first morning we came back to the room after breakfast to a spectacular sunrise as soon as we opened the drapes! These were taken from our hotel window.

The next day – we were a little later getting back to the room…and the sun was already up – muted by clouds. It was a lot more orange...still a nice sunrise.

A good breakfast and a beautiful sunrise. I like to start my day that way.

McKinney, Texas

My sisters and daughter took a walk around the old down town of McKinney, Texas – a place none of us had ever been. It’s a small town that has been around for a long time but is not feeling the encroachment of Dallas. The down town has become a place of repurposed buildings. It has a lot of boutique type shops and eateries. We did our walking around before lunch.

There is a courthouse at the center of it all that has been repurposed to be a performing arts center. Most of it was not open on January 2^nd but we appreciated the outside part of the building. Most of the visible façade was built in the 1920s.

There are also two ‘bank’ facades. When they were built, the thought must have been that they would always be banks!

There are bits of whimsy along the sidewalks too. I’m not sure how many painted frogs there were. I managed to photography two of them.

One store had a metal giraffe with a scarf outside the doorway.

There was a cotton boll wreath in one of the store windows. At one time, the town economy was based on cotton and it was prosperous enough to enable to remodeling of the courthouse to its present form.

The store fronts themselves are interesting and the businesses appear to being doing well enough to maintain them. Unlike a lot of small towns that are overcome by a nearby big city, McKinney seems to be thriving as itself. There were people enjoying a sunny (and warm) winter day all around the square while we were there and the Irish Pub where we had lunch filled up while we were eating our lunch.

If you are in the area – it’s worth spending a few hours browsing the shops and having a meal.

Road Trip to Texas

I started 2017 on a road trip to Texas. We (my daughter and I) left while it was still dark the morning of the 31^st from Maryland and arrived at our destination near Dallas on the 1^st. It was cloudy – misty – rainy both days. Fortunately, the temperature stayed well above freezing. We did see a dusting of snow on the hills as we drove the ups, downs, and curves of the Interstate in southwestern Virginia…the Appalachians.

The route was through the backbone of Tennessee on the Blue Star Highway: Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis. The rest stops in Tennessee are probably the best along the route.

My daughter drove as we crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis into Arkansas. It’s difficult to get a good view of the river with the high railings of the bridge….safety first rather than view.

We made good time both days. Most of the route was good highway and the construction areas were not active on the holiday weekend. Traffic was light to medium. We encountered one accident along the way that was on the other side of the highway. The flyovers on some the newer interstate connections approaching Dallas were almost too high for comfort; I focused on the road rather than the scenery!

And we arrived about when the nav system predicted.

Rhythm of my Seasons

The Rhythm of my Days and Weeks were posted a few days ago. This post is about seasonal rhythms.

Clothes. I still move things from closet to storage and back twice a year (usually spring and fall…whenever the temperature changes enough). I don’t wear corduroy pants and sweaters when the weather is warm just as I don’t wear shorts, skirts and capri pants when it is very cold. Some things stay in my closet all the time – and they wear out the fastest.

Volunteering. Spring and Fall are when I spend the most time volunteering. Those are the seasons that the schools have most of their field trips and stream assessments.

Travel. My husband likes to do traveling in the spring and fall – and that is probably the time for most our travel…but it happens in the other fall and summer too so there might not be a season for travel.

Classes. There is more time for classes in the winter and summer. I’m always a little surprised that I enjoy them more in winter although I am not sure why.

Outdoor work around the house. There are chores that dominate in every season. Cleaning out and planting in spring. Watering and mowing in summer. Raking leaves in the fall. Shoveling snow in the winter.

Food. Pomegranates in December. Orange squashes and apples and pears and cranberries in the fall. Tomatoes and melons at the height of summer. Garlic scapes and strawberries in late spring/early summer. Yum (even though sometimes I buy them out of season because, these days, many are in season someplace in the world).

I still have not come up with any of my rhythmic habits that I want to change in 2017….but writing these posts has heightened my awareness of the rhythms…and confirming to myself that they are what I want them to be.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 7, 2017

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.

Shortest-possible tour of 49,603 sites from the National Register of Historic Places – Who knew there were that many? There is a 38 second movie to show the route for the whole US and then individual state maps. Take a look at your state!

The Scientist’s Year in Review – Links to the cover story and one news highlight for each of the 12 issues.

The Robotic Grocery Store of the Future is Here – Oh no! I enjoy grocery shopping….not sure I want this future. I particularly like picking my own fresh fruit and veggies from the bin.

2016 Year in Science – From Visionlearning. There could be others added…but here are 6 with a succinct description of each.

Vibrant Paintings of Colorful Fish Merged with Their Coral Environments – Eye candy!

Mining 24 hours a Day with Robots – Another example of automation that reduces the need for manpower. The mine where these huge self-driving trucks are used is in Australia….but it could soon be anywhere in the world.

The Best of Cool Green Science 2016: Birds and Birding Edition  and The Best of Cool Green Science 2016: From the Field Edition and The Best of Cool Green Science 2016: Celebrating Nature Near You – Three year end posts from The Nature Conservancy….with great pictures!

3-D Models Capture Endangered Species Before They Go Extinct – A few years ago I too an archaeology course (via Coursera) and they talked about capturing objects with 3-D techniques (notably merging multiple pictures of an object into a rotatable image). This project is doing it with living animals….with a “Beastcam.” There is a link to the slide show about 1/3 of the way through the article.

My First (and still primary) Cookbook

I still have my first cookbook. My grandmother bought it for me when I was in later elementary school. It has a copyright of 1963

And was ‘The New’ at the time.

It’s never been something I referenced daily but the cumulative use over 50 years has made a mark. The corn breads page is particularly crumpled from splashes over the years.

Some of the recipes are annotated. Sometime along the line I marked off nutmeg and lemon rind from the Apple Brown Betty!

Other pages that are marked with paperclips and spills are popovers and gingerbread. One of the first times I made the gingerbread was the day I had my wisdom teeth extracted; that was in 1973! This cookbook is a part of my life history because I carried it along everywhere I moved from the time I got it until now; it isn’t ‘stuff’ to go into a giveaway pile.

Rhythm of my Weeks

The Rhythm of my Days was posted earlier this week. This post is the rhythm of my weeks.

The first activities I thought about that take place weekly are ones that keep ‘home’ functioning and they’ve been part of my weekly rhythm for my entire adult life:

Groceries. Buying food is something I do once a week. During my career years, I was busy Monday-Friday so I almost always went grocery shopping on Saturday morning. Now I go Thursday morning and savor the uncrowded store! I also have started getting produce from a Community Supported Agriculture which happens on a weekly rhythm too.

Laundry. Both my husband and I prefer to do laundry once a week and Saturday has been our preferred day for the last 40 years! I asked him if he wanted to change days now that we could do it any day of the week – but he wants to stick with Saturday.

It took me a little longer to think of other weekly rhythms. I had to look back at notes and my calendar. It became obvious that I communicate via phone or email or in person with certain family members virtually every week! That is something that has happened in the past 5 years: a post-career addition.

Looking at the daily and weekly rhythms – I realize how much of my time is ad hoc – and I love that about the way my post-career life! Variety is the spice of life!

Zentangle® – December 2016 – part 2

I continued making owls out of toilet paper rolls in December. I lined them up on the window ledge of my office. I always start out with the eyes and try to make them different than the day before. I like the Sharpie Ultra Fine Point marker because it overcomes the brown of the cardboard.

I try to vary the patterns as well although minor changes in a pattern make it look different enough. When I am creating them – I don’t think about gender…but afterwards I sometimes get an impression. The one in the middle below looks feminine to me!

The spiral highlight in the eyes was an idea I got from an owl on a ceiling fan pull chain that my sister bought for me as a gift.

I was looking at a book about algae, diatoms, and water plants and used one (upside down) as the starting point for the body of the middle owl.

The owls are in the order that I created them….it was well into the month before I used a color other than black!

 Once I started using colors – I continued…. although the purple looks very close to black.

The last one was ‘Christmas’ inks (on Christmas) but the red looks too orangey to me. That’s the last owl for December! I like them on the window sill!

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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.

Rhythm of my Days

Here we are at the beginning of another year. It’s a good time to try to be objective about how my life is going and decide of I want to make any changes. This year – I couldn’t come up with anything substantial that I wanted to change so I decided to look more methodically – what are the rhythms of my days, my weeks, and my seasons within the year. This is the first post of the series.

The rhythm of my days are mostly habits. Some are longstanding:

• Getting up before 6 AM and being in bed by about 10. I feel better and enjoy my days more when the sleep/wake cycle is almost the same every day.
• I eat my meals at about the same time every morning…trying to have the largest meal as midday although that is not always possible. It is easier now that when I was away from home most days during my career.
• Reading ‘books’. I always have a book I am reading and that has been a long standing daily activity. IT was physical books…but somewhere along the line became more and more digital.

Some are additions since I’ve retired:

• A daily blog post. I write it and schedule it to come out the night before. When I travel, I double up before I go and the posts still come out once a day.
• Zentangle and meditation. They are two separate things. They both provide an interlude of centering…of drawing myself completely into the present. The creation of Zentangle tiles is a pleasant byproduct.
• 12,000 steps is my goal for each day (measured via a Fitbit). The way I get them can vary. Many times, it includes ‘bounces’ on my Swopper chair in front of the computer. I ramped up before I retired but the activity level became a lot more consistent once I was not in the thick of career related activities.
• Writing 3,000 words a day just became a goal in 2016. It got easier as the year progressed. The goal includes words written for the blog post, writing about the events of the day, and notes from classes ----really anything I want to write about.

What is not part of my daily rhythm that once was?

• Reading a newspaper. These days I use news feeds from multiple sources and it’s a more technical skew that newspapers had.
• The evening news. I watch some stories while I fix or eat dinner – but very rarely watch a full program. Looking back, there were many periods that I did not watch news…because I was too busy. I remember listening to The News Hour when my daughter was young (20 years ago) because at that time it was not graphic – it was interviews without pictures to back them up – so was something we could watch while she was with us.

The rest of the day is full of other activities that differ from day to day, week to week, etc. As I wrote this post, I surprised myself with how many items are ‘daily’ for me. I still haven’t discovered anything I want to change in 2017!

Zentangle® – December 2016 – part 1

I did so many Zentangle® sessions in December that I’ve divided then into 2 posts; this first one is the ‘tiles’ only.

The first group is normal square tiles. The ones that look light brown are cut from boxes of canned drinks. Sometimes the indentions from the cans make circular shapes that I use as strings. I like the light weight cardboard; it absorbed ink well and is easy to handle. It’s a little harder on the paper cutter than card stock. As usual – some of the designs are patterns from Zentangle sites…others are derived from botanical structures, portions of modern art paintings, or stylizing a landscape. Sometimes everything I look at seems to have potential for a Zentangle tile.

The next group is not square…and not all the same size. I found a package of 4 x 6 inches note cards that I cut into 4x3 tiles but there are some that are other sizes too – not sure how I created them.

I’ll post the rest of the December Zentangle projects in a few day.

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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.

2017 Begins

I always like to get up early to see the sunrise on the first day of the year. This year will be no exception but I will see it somewhere along the road between Dickson, Tennessee and Dallas, Texas. I’m writing this post a few days ahead of time and scheduling it to come out on the 1^st - including a sunrise from a few days ago. Being on the road at the first of the year is as different as our trip to Conowingo was on Christmas morning.

When my daughter was young, we had a tradition of going down to the Smithsonian on the 1^st of the year. All the museums along the Mall in Washington DC were open. It wasn’t very crowded. I remember when my daughter was only 4 months old and I tried to get her to notice the elephant in the rotunda of the Natural History Museum! She doesn’t have a conscious memory of the experience, of course…but I’ve always wondered if she has a subconscious impression. When she was in elementary school, she spent a long time in the section of the Natural History Museum that displayed skeletons. She liked the Air and Space Museum but spent more time in the Natural History Museum.

So – something beautiful to start this New Year.