Earth Day in Howard County, Maryland

We had a very cloudy and wet Earth Day yesterday. It was a little cool too. But the azaleas are beginning to bloom and

The day lily foliage is very green around the birdbath beside by front porch. We’re behind on rain this year so getting some is a good thing.

I headed out to the local GreenFest after lunch – noticing a dogwood in bloom on my walk to the building.

The part of the event to be held outside was impacted by the rain (for example, no solar telescopes) but there were plenty of vendors inside the Galleria building of the local community college and an orderly crown moving around the exhibits. I volunteered at the Howard Country Conservancy’s table for a couple of hours. I sauntered around the other exhibits before my ‘shift.’ One group was giving away burr oak saplings….but my yard is not big enough for that tree (with a red oak already holding a big part of the front yard and the back a forest with tulip poplars, red maple, and black walnut! I refrained from picking up any more reusable bags too since I already have more than I can use. I did pick up a sunflower seed in a tiny watering can. I’ll plant it in my front flower bed!

There were competing events for the day – tree planting and March for Science. 2017 was a crowded Earth Day (for a crowded planet).

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 22, 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.

Beautiful Easter Eggs Hand-painted with Colorful Folk Art Illustrations – Yes – it’s past Easter…but I was a little late seeing this post. Art on an egg shape!

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #83 and Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #84 – So many gorgeous bird pictures! My favorite in the first section is the male Ruddy Duck; the blue bill is always a surprise! My favorite in the second set is the female Great Horned Owl…sun through the wing and tail feathers.

Maps Show a Dramatic Rise in Health Insurance Coverage Under ACA – I was interested in seeing the trend…and wondered if the decline in uninsured people will correlate to better health outcomes.

Many US Freshwater Lakes could surpass ‘safe’ chloride levels within 50 years – Not good. Road salt is evidently a significant contributor.

Is the world running out of fresh water? – The world’s major aquifers are being drained. Mexico City – built on ancient lake beds, is now sinking in some areas at a rate of 9 inches per year! Global water demand is projected to increase by 55% between 2000 and 2050. So the answer to the question is ‘yes’ --- unless we change the way we currently use water.

Vitamin B diminishes effects of air pollution induced cardio-vascular disease – Interesting study…not actionable yet…but I hope they continue the research.

A Vegan Protein Sources Chart – A good comparison of different kinds of vegetable proteins.

Maryland Food System Map: Version 2.0 has arrived – Read about how the map has been improved…then take a look at the interactive map here. I wondered if other states were doing similar type maps.

Tunable electric eyeglasses bend to the will of the wearer – I hope this technology matures into something looks better. I would much prefer these to the types of static glasses available today.

7 cool facts about Water Striders – I frequently see water striders when I’m hiking with elementary students on field trips. This article has some great pictures…and more that I had known about them previously.

Gone to Seed

The first dandelion flowers have already gone to seed. I notice many along the sides of the narrow county roads…and in the plants I photographed earlier on my deck. The plants move from flower to seeds in about a week.

And then the seeds are ready to float away and sprout in any bit of soil that is deep enough for their roots.

These plants that we fight as weeds in our lawns were brought to North America as a desirable garden plant by early colonialists! The leaves and flowers are edible…there is dandelion wine. I try to remember that as I photograph them.

Preserving Spring

When I used twigs to show pre-schoolers about how the tree buds and seeds looked during the spring…it occurred to me that it would be good to have those items to show for more than just the early spring. I decided to enclose some of them in clear contact paper. Maybe the plastic would seal off enough air to keep the plant material from deteriorating…and it would not require the heat of a laminator. The red maple samaras were my first experiment. The seed part of the wings bulge a bit, causing a little bubble. As I looked more closely after I’d finished encasing them front and back with the contact paper, I realize there are still remnants of the flower (red) where the seed is connected to the small stem.

My next attempt was with sycamore leaves that had unfurled from the branch I put in water after I cut it when it has enlarged buds.  I got several sizes of leaves from the buds that split open and have leaves unfurling now (see my previous post about from a few days ago).  The smallest ones are the size of a finger nail. The clear contact paper on both sides makes it possible to view both sides of the little leaves and to notice that one is still curled – not quite unfurled from how it was packaged in the bud.

I had some sycamore leaves from last summer that I had pressed in a book. I used the contact paper with them too. They are very dry and fragile at this point but the contact paper may stabilize them. The leaves are the size of my hand or larger. One of the them had lots of holes in it….so would be good to reinforce that trees are food and home for other creatures.

Next time I am a volunteer naturalist talking about trees….I’ll see if they survive!

Prius Prime – Month 3

I am still on the first tank of gas in my Prius Prime – over 700 miles and it is finally not quite ‘full’ (although it is not even to the first mark away from it yet)! The around-town trips are almost all within the EV range of the car. I’ve discovered that using the adaptive cruise control as much as possible when I am on any street with a speed limit over 40 mph is the way to maximize the range of the battery power. I will have to take a more substantial road trip to use up the tank of gas.

I have started my volunteer naturalist work with the Howard County Conservancy so the passenger seat of the car is the repository for things I might need – a hat for if its sunny, various jackets in case it is cool, and boots for if it is raining hard.

I’ve put sunscreen and insect repellent in the door pocket.

The next 6 weeks are going to be busy ones…the only requirement to keep the gas tank at about the same level is to remember to plug in the car when I get home!

Previous Posts about the Prius Prime: My New Car – a Prius Prime, Prius Prime – Week 1, Prius Prime – Month 1, Prius Prime and Samsung Galaxy S7.

Invasives on the Deck

I left some pots on the uncovered part of our deck from last summer…intending to plant flowers for pollinators in them for the upcoming season…but I have invasives pull the first! One pot has a very health garlic mustard plant (there is more of it at the edge of our forest. I’m pulling all of it that is on our property. I supposed some people might like it in salads….but it is too aggressive in places I want jack-in-the-pulpits and woodland wildflowers for me to like it at all.

The other invasive is dandelions. They don’t seem as bad to me but maybe that is just because they’ve been around my whole life. They too can be eaten and I have gotten leaves from my CSA and grocery store on occasion. There flowers and seed pods are interesting topics for photography. I’ve heard one soil conservation person comment that dandelions might be a good thing for slopes since they have longer tap roots and can hold soil more effectively that shallow rooted plants. So – they do have some redeeming qualities….but they are still weeds and I’ll pull them from my deck pots before I plant the flower seeds in the next week or so.

The Juncos are Gone

Our juncos left for the Canada (or the Appalachians) last week. They are frequent visitors to our bird feeder here in central Maryland during the winter. It seemed that they did not all leave at the same time…but within just a few days. There were the usual number one day…the only one or two the next…then none at all.

They are only here in the winter and then go to their breeding grounds for the late spring and summer. They overlap with the chipping sparrows for a few weeks in the spring in Maryland – the sparrows coming north to Maryland for their breeding season. The birds are about the same size and do not share the bird feeder gracefully.

Sycamore Buds

I cut some small sycamore branches from tree at home to show the pre-K field trip groups. When it cut the branches, they only had buds – no leaves - and that’s what the children saw. I decided to put them in water when I got home to see what would happen. The buds split and tiny leaves began to emerge about a week after the field trips!

Once they started, progress was rapid. The pictures below were taken 2 days after the earlier ones. The leaves are curled at first but quickly flatten out and begin to look like sycamore leaves.

The branches have been indoors and are not ahead of the rest of the tree. We’ve some cool nights here in Maryland and the buds on the tree are just now popping open --- at least 5 days behind my branches inside.

I also put the maple branches that I cut in water and the samaras have continued to develop but the leaf buds are still very tight.

My next project is going to be encasing some of these small leaves and seeds in clear contact paper. Hopefully it will preserve them enough that we can use them with field trips later this month and into May.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 15, 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.

Strong early education equals better long-term relationships with parents, research shows –  Also more likely to be employed full-time. The study has been going on since 1971.

How vertical farming reinvents agriculture – Will there be a market for vertical growing systems and vertical farms that will grow our veggies year-round close or in our grocery store?

NASA’s Cassini Begins its Final Mission before Self-Destruction – An interview with Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist.

Japan can teach US how to overcome national rot – A little history about what was happening to Japan 1990s….and how they are recovering. Good leadership of the government and companies have made it happen.

Cars and second order consequences – The big technology changes when it comes to cars (electric and autonomy) have a cascade of consequences.

New technologies shrink wastewater’s carbon footprint – Approaches to reducing fossil fuel demand of water treatment plants…the article details the Metropolitan Water Reclamation of Greater Chicago strategy for be energy neutral by 2023. The East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland CA is already beyond net-zero energy and selling energy back to the grid!

Nanogrids, microgrids, and big data: the future of the power grid – For many applications, distributed generation is becoming the least costly way to provide electricity. More changes are coming too.

Pining for cleaner air in the Norwegian fjords – Norway’s ferries are converting from diesel to electric or hybrid. No more diesel fumes!

7 Surprising Ways Your Body Changes with Age – I was surprised they didn’t include teeth moving toward the front.

Digital Augustan Rome – Explore what Rome was like in the time of Augustus via an interactive map. This was a site referenced in the Coursera course I am enjoying: Roman Art and Archaeology from the University of Arizona.

Pre-K Field Trips at Belmont

Last week I volunteered (with the Howard County Conservancy) for two field trips for pre-kindergarten groups that came to Belmont Manor and Historic Park.  I realized that I’ve learned a lot from these programs that I didn’t learn from my daughter when she was 4! I’ve learned to alternate sitting and moving, talking and quiet, asking questions (that they can answer with a little thinking) and explaining.

I had groups of 10-15 children with their chaperones – in the forest – to learn about the life cycle of a tree.  Since they had a little hike to the activity from the previous one, I had them sit down at the beginning and we talked about trees. They had planned lima beans at their school…so I used that to talk about seeds and roots and sprouting and saplings. Their lima beans had roots and some had sprouted…so they had already been thinking about it. So I moved rapidly to passing around different kinds of tree seeds (with the help of the chaperones. I had a branch from a maple tree with small samaras, some acorns, some sweetgum balls, and some tulip poplar seeds that we picked up from the leaf piles beside the blanket.

Then we all stood up and pretended we were trees sprouting from seeds (crouching down to begin with then reaching up one branch (arm) and then both arms.  I encourage them to look up. I asked them what happened to the little branches when there was a breeze (fortunately there was a breeze and they could see some of the little branches moving….it was clear that many of them had never noticed tree branches moving like that). In the end, I asked if they wanted to pretend like a hurricane wind came – a very strong wind – and that some of the might fall over. Most of the groups had a few children that did want to fall over!

We sat back down and walked about leaves and how the trees were just beginning to get new leaves. Some of them remembered playing in leaves last fall. We picked up some of the brown leaves on the forest floor and looked closely at them.

We took a short hike to look at a little more of the forest and notice there were wild flowers…violets and spring beauties. There was a big tree that had fallen and was rotting. It had a wild flower growing on it…and lots of moss.

And then it was time for them to go to their next activity! It was an intense couple of hours repeating the tree life cycle with each group….and enjoying the children’s reaction to the forest.

Best of Rest at Brookside

I’ve already done 3 blog posts this week about my walk around Brookside Gardens (ginkgo buds, tulips, and landscapes). This time of year the gardens are very different every time I go. This post is the last one for the April walk around the gardens – and the best of the rest of my pictures: unfurling leaves,

A globe of small flowers catching the sun,

The last wave of narcissus blooms,

A mourning dove giving me a wary look from high above my head (the zoom works well for pictures like this),

Deciduous magnolia blossoms – damaged by the frost but not enough to be destroyed completely,

And fiddleheads. I didn’t see these at first because they still looked mostly brown and the old fronds from last fall were all around them. Soon they uncurl and make the space under the trees lush with greenery.

Brookside Gardens Landscapes

Bursting buds on the ginkgo and bright colors of tulip bed are not the only things to notice at Brookside Gardens this time of year. There are many different areas…and landscapes to enjoy in the large. I like the view of the Japanese Tea House from across the lawn. The varied foliage of evergreens, new spring leaves, and Japanese maples are always beautiful. The plantings have gotten big enough to almost hide the Tea House from this vantage point.

The area a little further along – back toward the conservatories – was renovated in the past few years so some of the plantings are smaller --- but there is always the back drop of the large trees of the Brookside Nature Center (on the other side of the fence) as a backdrop. Do you see the two Canandian Geese in the water?

There are little landscapes too. I liked the different sized and kinds of rocks with the yellow green coming up to fill in the spaces between. This is an area that is constantly changed for displays so the small pants and rocks may be the only constants!

Tulips at Brookside Gardens

The tulip beds at Brookside Gardens are full of flowers. When I walked around last weekend, many of them seemed to be in full bloom but then I notices some beds that were still mostly buds. The signs in some beds still indicated ‘tulips sleeping’ were clearly old – and not accurate.  The mesh that covered the beds all winter must have worked since the beds seemed almost overflowing with flowers.

I like to take pictures with the sunlight coming through the petals – make the flowers glow. Often the flowers that seem red at first glance have more orange and even yellow with looked at in brighter sun.

My favorite color combination might be red – orange – yellow…reminiscent of sunrise (or sunset) colors.

There are so many varieties of tulips – some with just a simple cup and others will significantly more petals. Most of the time I like the ones with fewer petals because they curve outward as they flower ages…I like the wayward curls!

My ‘art picture’ for the day was a peach colored tulip with a yellow center…a glowing world, half hidden.

Ginkgo Buds at Brookside Gardens

The Ginkgo Tree near the Brookside Gardens conservatories is full of opening buds. I always try to photograph them because there is a stone bench just below the tree and give me enough height to do some close-up photography of the buds. The tree itself is very tall and slender, fitting into the space beside the intersection of multiple paths.

It is a male tree (no stinky fruit in the fall); the buds include the male flowers and tiny furled leaves. The male flowers always look like small bunches grapes…the leaves like miniature fans. Both look very bright green next to the knobby bark of the tree.

Last year about this time, I photographed the male ginkgo at Belmont…and posted about it here.

Centennial Park on a Cold March Day

The day looked warm enough to take a walk at Centennial Park but the sunshine was not very warming. I opted to cut the walk short after I got a few pictures. I always like the rock jetty near the boat ramp

And the red bridge at the other end of the lake. Those landmark pictures were the beginning and end of my short walk.

I noticed a glove that someone had lost on the path

And the geese feeding on the shore (there were none on the lake itself).

I attempted to get pictures of the Buffleheads feeding on the lake – but they must have been finding a lot to eat…so my first attempts resulted in ripples after they dove under water. Once I managed to anticipate where they would surface, I got some pictures…but they are almost at the limit of my zoom.

My favorite pictures of the short walk were of a wasp nest high in a maple tree that has been battered all winter so that the interior structure was exposed.

With the wasp nest images captured - I decided to make a hasty retreat to the warmth of my car...and then home.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 8, 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.

The Skeleton Revealed – Vertebrates! Did you know that the hood of the cobra is created by ribs?

How to Photograph an Orchid – Good ideas for photographing other flowers as well as orchids.

What happens when diagnosis is automated? – As there is more data to consider…as time is of the essence for treatment…automation becomes more important in medicine. An article about the state of the art and the technology.

Deer Culled from Civil War Battlefield Parks Provide 8 Tons of Venison for Food Banks – The parks are in western Maryland (Antietam, Monocacy and Catoctin). Like the area where I life in Central Maryland there is an overabundance of deer. Catoctin has conducted deer management efforts since 2010 and has seen a return of native tree and shrub seedlings.

Our aging scientific workforce raises concern – The aging of the science and engineering workforce is aging more rapidly than the general workforce as a whole --- what impact will that have?

Pinkies up! A local tea movement is brewing – Tea grown in the US!

Hair testing shows high prevalence of new psychoactive substance use -Testing hair samples to detect usage of psychoactive substances by nightclub/festival attendees…and finding a about 25% are using…many unknowingly. Scary finding.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #81 – Two favorites in this set: the American Kestrel and Sandhill Cranes (with babies)

Brave New World of Nanotechnology – It is surprising how little is understood (yet) about the impact of nanoparticles in our environment – at a time when they are becoming more and more prevalent.

Teacher resignation letters paint bleak picture of US education – Teachers writing about what they see as a broken education system. I hope this analysis from Michigan State University will be factored into actions that can make a difference for children in the US.

Around my Yard – April 2017

April has been a rainy month for us – so far. I managed to walk around the yard on one sunny afternoon. There is a lot of trimming and cleanout work to be done as soon as we have a few dry days in a row. I am not a gardener so it is a chore that requires some will power to accomplish. I cheered myself up by taking some pictures of little things I noticed as I was assessing the yard: a wasp exploring a past-prime daffodil,

A dandelion – one of the first to bloom this season (pre-emergent is never totally effective),

A self-fungus on one of the larger pieces in our brush pile,

Violets beginning to bloom,

And a scruffy looking robin!

National Arboretum – Deciduous Magnolias

The deciduous magnolias at the National Arboretum suffered the same fate as many of the early blooming trees in the area: many of the flowers and buds were caught by the frosts of March and just turned brown. There are a few on every tree that survived. I tried to photograph some of those isolated flowers. I liked the pink tinge underneath the outer petals of this flower and

The center of this one framed by uncurling petals.

Looking up into one tree – to get some sky along with some flowers – shows the extent of the damage. Most of the flowers did not survive the frost.

National Arboretum – Wild Flowers

In the early spring, the Fern Valley section of the National Arboretum features many wild flowers. The forest floors in our area bloom before the leaves leaf out and the shade becomes almost total. The entrance of the garden is in full bloom.

A little further on the dried fronds of last summer’s ferns  look like feathers (similar to ones I’ve photographed at Brookside Gardens).

The wildflowers are small so it is worthwhile to walk slowly and look for color amongst the dried leaves. There is signage that helps with identification. These are Prairie Trillium.

And then there were several Bloodroot in bloom.

These didn’t have a sign but they look like a type of Phlox.

There were lots of Virginia Bluebells.

Violets were starting to bloom. Based on the foliage…there will be a lot more blooming in a few weeks.

The Sweet Betsy Trillium was a largest of the flowers.

Wild flowers bloom early and last a short time…I’m glad we had a sunny day to visit the Arboretum…to photograph the ones in bloom last weekend.

National Arboretum – Dogwood Blossom Sequence

When we visited the National Arboretum last weekend, it was a little too early for the dogwoods to be in full bloom – but I did find a tree that had buds in various stages of opening. After seeing the bud popping at Mt. Pleasant last week (thumbnail at the left), I was looking for tree to capture a sequence of the flowers developing.

I found it near the parking lot for the Dogwood Collections at the Arboretum. The first think I noticed about the buds just a little further along than the Mt. Pleasant tree, were the pink tinge at the tips. The flower will retain that different coloration as it develops.

Some of the flowers are in groupings of two or three…and all the buds in the group are not at the same stage of development. The center of the flower seems huge compared to the petal-like bracts just after the bracts have opened enough.

The petals expand. They will eventually turn white…but evidently stay green during the early part of the growth. Noted that the pinkish area on the middle edge of each bract is still pink!

More about what I saw (and photographed) at the National Arboretum in tomorrow’s blog post…