May 09, 2020

2020 - Gleanings

May 09, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Coloring a flower picture. I found a wonderful book on Internet Archive – Flower Designs by Marcia Bradford. It is printed one flower per page with light lines. They were originally intended for watercolors. I selected the one that looks like a California Poppy first (saving the morning glory for another day); there are 18 flower pages to pick from!

I saved the page from the book as a jpeg then printed it on manila cardstock. I used a paper cutter to make ‘tiles’ (so that it would be a mosaic rather than one 8.5x11 inch page). I like the colored result. Tomorrow I’ll fill in some of the blank area with ‘tangles’!

Bringing in more iris stems. We had a freeze watch for overnight, so I cut two more iris stems yesterday. The others are not far enough along to bloom, so I left them outside and hoped they would survive the frost. I took the vase outside so that I could put the new stems into water right away with the stem I’d cut previously.

Unfortunately, I bumped the flower on the way back into the house so now the flower is in its own small water glass.

While I was out, I also cut more mint to use in my smoothie with the chocolate protein powder. It tasted so good last time that I’ve added the combination to my smoothie rotation. Hopefully, the temperature will not get down low enough overnight to kill the mint.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now – the Gleanings for this week

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.

One little Chipmunk on a Mission! – Pic for Today – Chipmunks are such fun to watch. We have had then periodically around our house but not all the time. They seem to like our front flower beds and porch when they are around. Squirrels are the constant in our neighborhood.

New PMEL Science at Work Video: How tiny particles affect air quality and climate | NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) – The video as just under 4 minutes…. explaining how we learn about aerosol particles (important because the particles can impact health).

Image of the Day: Ancient Dental Enamel | The Scientist Magazine® - Quite a lot can be derived from protein sequence analysis these days.

Top 25 birds of the week: Endemic Birds - Wild Bird Revolution – Some birds native only to a certain place.

City of Houston Surprises: 100% Renewable Electricity — $65 Million in Savings in 7 Years | CleanTechnica – The city is planning to power all municipal operations with renewable energy! Also included in the program – the provider will help city employees purchase discounted renewable energy.

Organic food growers see surge in demand during pandemic - UPI.com – Glad the organic farmers are thriving. So far- I’ve been able to get organic produce in my grocery deliveries. My local Community Supported Agriculture farm will begin in June.

Understanding deer damage is crucial when planting new forests -- ScienceDaily – UK research on an issue we deal with in the US too.

Frozen, fresh or canned food: What’s more nutritious? - BBC Future – A little update. The article confirmed what I already knew…it’s good to know I don’t need to reset my thinking.

Analysis of Pompeii's Garbage Suggests the Ancient Romans Recycled, too | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Evidently garbage was piled at city walls and sorted for reuse. They lived much closer to their garbage.

Wildflower Watching as a Source of Solace and Diversion – This is the time of year to find wildflowers. I am always surprised at how amazing even the tiny ones look when I can get close enough to photograph them.

May 08, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/7/2020

May 08, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Grocery delivery. We have settled into a weekly rhythm for the grocery delivery but it’s still true that each one is a little different and a learning experience. This week the part of the app that allows approval of substitutions didn’t work so I had to do approvals via texts. The shopper started a little earlier than I expected but I noticed right away. Only one item was out of stock although there were substitutions for some things. I was surprised that all the meat items on the list were available because of the stories about potential meat shortages. The whole process including delivery took about an hour (an indicator that the shopper was experienced).

**Iris in a vase.** I noticed when I was distributing the groceries from the front porch (non-perishables to the trunk of my car for a few days and the refrigerator items into the house) that an iris was blooming. I brought it inside and put it in a vase. It was very wet from the rain during the night, so I left it on the kitchen island for a few hours. Now it is upstairs in my office.

Browsing Life Magazines from 1956 – the year one of my sisters was born. There were picture stories about Grace Kelly, the convention/election for Eisenhower’s second term, Princess Margaret visiting Africa, and the University of Mexico. The ads were interesting too – electric skillets, Carnation evaporated milk and Lady Borden ice cream!

Finishing Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:

2020 05 IMG_9404 (4).jpg — **Appreciating the wall of green.** The trees have filled out in our forest and the view from my office window is achieving the look of summer….filled with the gently moving wall of green leaves. My office is 2 stories from ground level, so see the middle of the trees over the roof of our covered deck. The red maple is in the foreground with very tall tulip poplars behind.

Photographing the nictitating membrane of a male red-bellied woodpecker. The bird was enjoying breakfast at our feeder and one of my pictures happened to catch the blink!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now - a Nuthatch Pause….

Last week a white-breasted nuthatch sat on the railing of our deck…very still. Its eyes were alert and it sometimes moved its head slightly. Usually the nuthatches come to the feeder and quickly get their seed and fly off. They seem hyper. This bird was just opposite. Then it suddenly turned its body by 90 degrees…and went back to normal behavior with quick, purposeful movements…flying off to the woods.

I remembered that I’d seen a downy woodpecker in the almost the same location a few days before and wondered if there is something different about the scene from between those two knots in the wood that causes birds to be wary/stay still.

May 07, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/6/2020 - Routine

May 07, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Photographing an iris bud. I decided to do some macro photography of the iris bud that had dried up before it put it in the compost. The materials for the project: clip-on macro lens, jeweler’s loupe, a sharp knife and cutting board, and then the iPad to use as a light table. The sections were cut as thinly as possible (not microtome thin, unfortunately).

The loupe provides 22x magnification, so I started with that. These are cross sections of the desiccated bud.

The cross section of the stem was not desiccated, but obviously not functioning well enough to get water up to the bud.

The sleeve around the bud was almost completely dry although there was still a little reddish color that I photographed a few days ago.

I took one picture with the clip-on lens to show the whole bud cross section in one frame.

Making biscuits. Sometimes I get hungry for breads…but not enough to buy a loaf. Making biscuits from scratch fills the craving. This batch was made with a little more milk and spread into a shallow pan to bake. The sheet was about 1/2 inch, so it was somewhat like bread. I slathered a rectangle with peanut butter in the first round…then had ginger preserves for the second serving (yesterday). I still have enough for at least one more serving!

Browsing McCall’s Magazines from the 1920s. Internet Archive has several McCall’s Magazines from the 1920s available. I’ve been browsing through them the past few days …. realizing that one of my grandmothers would have been 20 in 1927…wondering if she saw these magazines. All of them have a segment about clothes …. with patterns available. It was a time of drop waists (or no waist) … shorter hemlines … shoes that were color matched to dresses for formal occasions.

Watching the compiled hatching moments from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. A 3 minutes video of birds emerging from their eggs: Barred Owl, Osprey, Red-tailed Hawk.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now about the beauty for routine….

I’ve been emphasizing some of the things that are different about each day…things that keep the days at home from settling into a sameness. But the routine is important too.

I get up about the same time every day…go to sleep about the same time every day too. My internal clock is quite strong. These days the birds are already beginning to make their morning song when I am waking up. I enjoy listening to them for a few minutes before I get up.
Breakfast is almost always a smoothie…enough that I consider it the routine. But the ingredients of the smoothie change from day to day…and some days I decide to something completely different. I had left over biscuits and ginger preserves yesterday because my husband was snoozing when I wanted to have breakfast (and I didn’t want to make noise with the Ninja to make the smoothie).
Creating at least one Zentangle tile is something that I do sometime during the day. Sometimes I do more than one but not in one sitting.
One way or another, I get 12,000 steps (counted by my Fitbit) during the day. I try to spread the activity out during the day and get at least 30 minutes of ‘active minutes’ as calculated by the Fitbit.
I browse (occasionally read) 4 eBooks a day. Sometimes I count magazines as books if they are lengthy…or I group several of them together to count as a book. For example, 4-6 of the Life magazines are counted as a book.
The blog post is also part of my routine…it was before the pandemic and has continued to be part of my daily rhythm.
And then there are the notes I keep for myself on whatever I am doing. I find that a learn better when I take notes while I listen…when I read…even just after I talk to people.
Noting at least 4 specific things I am thankful for and ways that I was kind to others and to myself at the end of the day.
20-30 minutes of yoga and Breathing app round out the daily routine.

Now that I am looking at my list, I am realizing that it hasn’t changed very much from what it was before the pandemic. Maybe I am doing a bit more reading and might not be as rushed to complete the whole routine every day.

May 06, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/5/2020 – Dead Pine

May 06, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Sending off a check to a relative graduating from high school. Some events continue to happen no matter what. The details of how they are celebrated might change. This one was far enough away a card/check was what I would have done even without the pandemic.

23 20 05 (3).jpg — **Seeing an ad for GE’s Wonder Kitchen in** **the June 1955 issue of Life Magazine** – A 9.5 foot combo: washer/dryer, sink, dishwasher, stove with a stainless steel counter. Add a refrigerator and have a complete kitchen! It was a product for the new suburbs. Note that the developer Bill Levitt was reviewing the product…known as the father of modern American suburbia – also for his refusal to allow racial minorities to buy houses in his development (see Wikipedia article here). So – this one page reminds us of the relationship of two big themes of the 1950s.

Watching the Juilliard Students grid music video (Ravel’s Bolero). It’s 9.5 minutes of music and performances…students and faculty and alum…from wherever they are ‘at home.’

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now about the cutting down of a dead pine tree….

One of our neighbors had a pine tree that died over the course of last summer and fall. They got a crew out to cut it down a little over a week ago. I watched the action from my office window…through the branches of the sycamore. It was the big excitement of the day. The process involved cutting off the lower branches as far up as the ladder reached, one of the crew climbing up the trunk using the stubs of branches for footholds and cutting off branches as he worked upward then cutting off the top, taking a break (maybe to get a bigger chain saw), and then cutting the tree close to the ground.

I took pictures of the stump a few days later. It’s always sad when a tree is cut down….even when its already dead. In the forest dead snags are great habitat for woodpeckers! But this tree had high potential of causing damage to a house if it fell on its own. It was a good idea to get it taken down in a controlled way.

May 05, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/4/2020 – Red-Winged Blackbirds

May 05, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

**Walkabout worms.** We had thunderstorms overnight and there must have been enough rain for long enough for the earthworms to move about on the surface in the night. I found two dried out specimens in our foyer. They must have crawled up the step to our porch…across the concrete porch…up another step…maneuvered under the front door (which seems to be well sealed)…and then into the foyer which is not earthworm friendly. It’s happened before when we have rain that continues for hours.

Gathering mint from the front flower beds for my morning smoothie. Along with the mint the smoothie had almond milk, chocolate protein power, kale, and a banana. Yummy!

Follow up on the iris buds on the stalk that broke. I put the broken stalk in water back on April 30th when I discovered it broken in the flower bed. I took pictures of it for 4 mornings after that and finally gave up on it yesterday. There was a beauty about it even as it deteriorated. The irises are purplish when they bloom so I was surprised at the pink tinge on the bud.

Mowing the grass. I did the whole yard except for the low place that was still too wet from the recent rains. I haven’t mastered the art of starting the mower (my husband did that part for me at the beginning). The weather was near perfect for the task: temperature in the 60s, a breeze, and sunny. We are talking about getting an electric mower…no more combustion engine fumes which are not healthy to breathe.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the drama at our neighborhood storm water retention pond….

I heard the red-winged blackbirds before I got to the pond as I walked in our neighborhood last week. A male was announcing his territory on the stubble of cattails from last summer

There was another male nearby – silent – in the grass.

On the other side of the pond there was what I thought was another male flopping around at the muddy edge of the pond. Then I realized that it was two birds!

After a bit more fighting…they separated and moved in opposite directions through the vegetation. They both were bedraggled looking…staggering a bit. I think the one in the pictures below might have been the winner since the red on his wings is still displayed.

The other one looked worse and appear to be covering the red patch on his wing.

A female red-winged blackbird observed the ruckus from a short distance away.

May 04, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/3/2020 - Dogwoods

May 04, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing Life magazine (on Internet Archive) from around the time I was born (mid-1950s). There were articles about Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and exploration of the artic. I was surprised at the number of ads for cigarettes and alcohol. The two images I picked to show as samples were both ads: IBM Electric Typewriters (not yet the Selectric models that had the golf ball-like type element which the company made up until shortly after I joined the company in the 1980s) and a passenger train through the Southwest.

Photographing tiny leaves on our red oak with the digiscope (smartphone attached to spotting scope). The branches of the tree are too high to get close enough to do macro photography (I’m not confident enough to use a ladder that high). We put the spotting scope on the front porch, and it was able to focus on the top branches of the tree. We waited until the sun was in the west to provide good light on the leaves…make it possible to ‘freeze’ the motion caused by the breeze.

**A picture of a cat visitor in Missouri**. There is a cat that comes to visit at my daughter’s house periodically (started about the same time the pandemic did). It meows loudly at the door to be let in, visits, then goes home. I was talking to her when it appeared on Saturday evening about dusk. She sent us a picture of the cat that appears to be very much ‘at home’ in their house. It probably belongs to a neighbor although she isn’t sure which one.

Experimenting with Procreate App features. When I make Zentangle tiles on the iPad with the Apple Pencil, I use the Procreate App in its simplest form…changing colors occasionally or changing the intensity of the lines. I experimented with the ‘liquify’ feature on some old tiles. The original is on the left and the right is the one I augmented with a few swipes.

And then I did another with a partial ‘recolor’…quite a change from the original! It was fun to experiment although I think I enjoy the creation of Zentangle tiles in digital form that relies on my own drawing rather that the razzle-dazzle features.

2020 05 IMG_9435.jpg — **Receiving a new computer for my husband.** Fed Ex delivered it on a Sunday! We were not expecting it until Monday and my husband was still doing backups of his old machine when it arrived.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the neighborhood dogwoods…

I photographed white and pink dogwoods in our neighborhood during last week’s walk. They were all in front yards and I was able to photograph them standing in the street. The white ones seemed to be a little bruised…might have been out longer than the pink ones. But both were still beautiful. I like the dogwood flowers because they are a springtime feature of our area, the way the trees move in the breeze with their delicate leafy branches in the summer and then the red of the leaves/seed clusters in the fall. I probably like the white ones that are native to North America the best.

May 03, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/2/2020 – 60 years ago

May 03, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Catching up on a Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:

Making Zentangle tiles while listening to astrobiology videos. I made tiles that start with curvy strings that create spaces to fill with color…the coloring using the ‘pattern’ of connecting spaces via corners. I made two tiles while I listened to the 6 videos.

**Celebrating a new low weight for the year with dark chocolate.** Being at a new low weight for the year is s great metric to start the day. I enjoyed the dark chocolate right away - for ‘breakfast.’

Beginning of sycamore seed balls. The light was good in the afternoon to observe the newly forming sycamore balls through the skylight in the master bathroom. I turned the screen on my camera so that I could point the camera straight up and brought in a chair to sit on (help me hold the camera steady). I was surprised at how red the tiny balls looked.

A wary downy. I was looking through pictures I had taken recently and found some of a downy woodpecker on our deck railing. It sat there relatively still for longer than I expected. As I reviewed the pictures, I realized that maybe it was being still to escape a predator from above.

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.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

Thinking about 60 years ago this spring…..

I was in kindergarten…walking home with a bean seedling I’d sprouted in a paper cup. It was a warmish spring day in Texas, and I was excited to show the small plant to my mother. She met me when I was about halfway home but didn’t seem interested in my plant which surprised me. She told me that my grandfather had been hurt and was in the hospital.

Those moments became my most vivid memory of my kindergarten year. The details around the moments are missing. Did I usually walk home by myself? Where were my little sisters when my mother came to walk with me? Had the accident just happened, and she was still assimilating the news herself? What happened to the bean plant?

I was at the age where memories start to become more plentiful. By the time my grandfather came home of the hospital – a leg amputated and much thinner - I remember the first time we saw him at his home (my sisters and I were not allowed at the hospital) and thinking how different he looked. He lived another 16 years – helping me and my sisters all along the way…showing us life well lived. Today I am feeling how fortunate we were that he survived 1960.

May 02, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/1/2020 - Gleanings

May 02, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Downloading Woody Plants of the Northern Forest by Jerry Jenkins. The Northern Forest Atlas organization has 3 digital atlas guides: woody plants, mosses and sedges. They are available as free downloads (PDFs). The images are wonderful…the downside is that the guides are HUGE because of the high quality images. The woody plant guide is 630 MB. Put the download in a place you will remember to retain it as a reference (and avoid downloading it again).

Browsing the books illustrated by Frederick Richardson on Internet Archive. He illustrated books in the early 1900s. The samples below are from Edith Ogden Harrison’s The Enchanted House and Other Fairy Stories.

Walking laps. It’s been very wet here, so I’ve been indoors more. I’ve plotted various circuit paths through my house to get some exercise! I do laps for 5 or so minutes every hour…or that is the general goal.

**Receiving a new office chair**. My constant bouncing on the Swopper stool at my computer had recently started to bother my back rather than sustaining my back muscles….so I opted to move to a more traditional office chair. We had one that was over 30 years old that I thought might work but the height adjustment no longer functioned. My husband found a new chair from Staples…ordered it…and it came to our front porch within a day or so. It’s now assembled and will be the chair at my computer. The Swopper will still get used daily….but not as heavily as it has for the past 10 years!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the weekly gleaning list….

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.

Deep Sea Squid Communicate with Glowing Skin: NPR – The video is a little over a minute…deep sea footage of Humboldt Squid taken by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Institute off the California coast.

To Cut Carbon Emissions, a Movement Grows to ‘Electrify Everything’ - Yale E360 – All-electric new construction…preparing the way for dramatic reduction of fossil fuel consumption.

Top 25 birds of the week: April 2020 - Wild Bird Revolution and Top 25 birds of the week: Blue Feathers - Wild Bird Revolution – A double dose of bird photographs this week!

Enjoy the Red-Winged Blackbird Show – I saw red-winging blackbirds on one of my walks in the neighborhood – at the storm water retention pond. There was a bit of drama I’ll share in a post next week.

The Hidden History in My Backyard – A history of a Florida backyard/neighborhood. I am content with the idea that my back yard was a forest….and that there is still a swath of forest down to the river.

Skulls from the Yucatan Peninsula a Clue to Early American Settlers | The Scientist Magazine® - Analysis of Quintana Roo skulls from people that lived 13,000-8,000 years ago…found in underwater caves that were above sea level at that time.

Pictures of Redwood National and State Park – Huge trees – always awesome.

Southwest Drought Rivals Those of Centuries Ago, Thanks to Climate Change - The New York Times – The last sentence is the bottom line: ‘We don’t have the whole story on Southwestern hydroclimate nailed down.’ The article talks about the analysis we have now….it probably means that the population growth in the Southwest happened at a time that was unusually wet, and that it won’t be supportable into the future.

Insect wings hold antimicrobial clues for improved medical implants -- ScienceDaily – Beginning to understand how nanopillar structures in cicada and dragonfly weeks kill bacteria on contact.

What chemical analyzes of human bones tell us about kitchen utensils in the Middle Ages - HeritageDaily - Archaeology News – Copper in bones….shows continuous exposure for cooper from AD 800 to AD 1800…consumed in daily diet prepared in copper cookware!

May 01, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing – 4/30/2020 - Zentangles

May 01, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Drama with irises. Day before yesterday I counted 5 stalks of iris buds in our flower beds…was thrilled with the prospect of having flowers this year.

When I came downstairs yesterday morning, one of them was gone! I wondered what would have eaten the whole upper part of the stalk and went outside for a closer inspection. I discovered that the stem had broken off and the upper part was hanging by a thin fiber down in the mint and daffodil leaves! Now the bud stalk is in a glass of water beside my computer monitor. It probably is not far enough along to continue its development…but I’ll enjoy the gentle curves of the bud for a few days. I checked the other 4 bud stalks and they are still intact.

Getting a grocery delivery on a rainy day. Usually we have the bags placed on our porch but yesterday was a blustery rainy day, so I changed the delivery instructions to have the shopper put then in the garage in the open hatch of my car. After they left, we retrieved the refrigerator items and then closed the hatch on the non-perishables to let them sit for few days to let any virus particles die.

Finding an article about starting an herb garden in the April 7, 1952 Life Magazine. Available from the Internet Archive here. Click on the images below to see them in a larger view. This is still a good list today although I use some more than others: basil, dill, chives, thyme, rosemary, oregano and mint. I have some mint coming up in my flowerbeds that I might start using in my morning smoothies!

Receiving an email from the grocery store about a new way to shop with them – once I start doing my own shopping again. It involves an app on the phone that allows scanning and bagging into your own bags while you shop then checking out at a self-checkout register. It will be another month at least before I start going to the grocery store again – but this app is another element of the strategy when the time comes along with a mask, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer/washing. Basically, this app enables ‘contactless’ shopping!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

Now for the April 2020 collection of Zentangle tiles…

I picked 30 since there are 30 days in the month. Only 4 of them were done on the iPad (the ones with the black background). The other tiles were all from recycled materials – lightweight boxes, pocket folders (the yellow ones) or dividers between small cans of cat food (the rectangles). It was not a huge month for Zentangle tiles – which surprised me a little. I have been at home and thought there might be times I would do a lot of tiles in one day but somehow I’ve developed enough other activities to not lean on tangling to keep myself occupied.

April 30, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/29/2020 - Zooming

April 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Walking the neighborhood. Yesterday was the best weather recently for a walk in our neighborhood. I set out at mid-morning when it was in the low 60s with a little breeze. I took a lot of pictures, but I’ll save most of them for later posts. There is a Virginia Creeper on our oak tree. In recent years there always seems to be one or two. This one has already lost its hold at the upper extremity. All the leaves are still new – shiny and reddish.

At the base of the oak tree was a small yellow flower…like the Virginia creeper, it is not a formal planting.

There was a gorgeous peony (I think) near one of my neighbor’s front porches. It made up (a little) for not going to Brookside Gardens this month.

Adding ground turkey to spaghetti sauce. My husband wanted more protein than the spaghetti sauce from the jar…so I browned some ground turkey with onions and lemon pepper….then poured in the spaghetti sauce and let it simmer for a bit. I had mine over broccoli and cauliflower with fried onions on top; he had his over spaghetti. We’ve only recently started using ground turkey. It cooks a little differently than ground beef…but is a change of pace that we’ve come to enjoy.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the monthly zooming post.

April 2020 is the first month where 100% of the images are from at my house or very nearby. As I am looking at them – they are skewed toward birds…but there are botanicals thrown in too. I am thankful every day for the scenes all around me – springtime in Maryland. My favorite picture is probably the dogwood flower taken in the forest. The original is in the slide show…and then a clipped version is at the bottom of this post. I like the curves and textures and the gentle colors – greens, creams, dusky red backed by gray. The clipped image makes those things easier to see.

April 29, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/28/2020 – Little Celebrations

April 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

**Making echinoderm prompted Zentangle**® tiles. *Jurassic echinoderms France* is full of plates and worth browsing; it’s available on Internet Archive here. Four sample images are below. I’ve only made one Zentangle so far but I’m sure the patterns will pop up in the tiles I make over the next few days.

Starting the What is Contemporary Art? Coursera course. It is my 3rd class from MoMA. For some reason – I am interested in classes that are different from my typical science or history classes I’ve taken in non-pandemic years.

Watching a Glenn Randall Photography webinar on light for landscape photographers. It was something my husband found out about and set up for us. We watched on the television in the den. Now I have some vocabulary for some of the type of light I enjoy early or late in the day! I realized that some of the wonderful light on the sandhill cranes in the early mornings at Bosque del Apache is ‘glow light’ from the sun 20 minutes away from coming up behind us.

Making sweet potato custard. Probably my favorite food creation during our ‘stay at home as much as possible’ time has been sweet potato custard. This is the second time I’ve made it. I cook the sweet potato in the oven when we are baking something else…then peel it and save it in the refrigerator until I’m ready to make the custard. The sweet potato goes into the Ninja food processor with 4 eggs, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cloves and 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (this time I was trying to use up some powdered sugar so I used the higher amount). After processing and scrapping down the sides, I add in enough almond milk to make the consistency about right….processing again to get it thoroughly blended. After pouring it into the backing dish, I cover the top with chopped pecans. It cooks for 15 minutes at 425 degrees and 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

It never lasts long since both my husband and I like it a lot.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the monthly post about 10 little celebrations. Again – the overwhelming celebration (the same as in March) is that in April 2020

Everyone in my family (in Maryland, Missouri, and Texas) is well…and taking all the recommended precautions to stay that way.

Now for 9 other celebrations….all from home (or easy walking distance):

Talking to family far away. It’s such a boost to talk with family – know that they are doing fine – that we all have pleasant homes and a few people with us. It’s good to let whatever anxiety has accumulated to melt away and celebrate family.

Grocery delivery. At first the idea of grocery delivery made me anxious. Now I find that the arrival of another delivery to our front porch is a cause for celebration. We have good food at low health risk.

Fashion as Design Coursera course. The whole course was interesting. I learned a lot more – and maybe differently – that I anticipated. I celebrated the whole course.

My history in wardrobe terms. The Fashion as Design prompted a whole project - thinking about my wardrobe from the 1960s to today. It was a fun project and I celebrated the memory of my favorite clothes.

Life in the Universe Pandemic Series. I’m a fan of Charles Cockell’s mini-lectures on astrobiology and I enjoyed his book (Bruntsfield Brook) as well. I watch/listen to the videos in clumps…glad I became aware of them shortly after he started.

Hiking into the forest. The whole hike was one big celebration. I am already looking at the forecast and planning another hike.

And then there are three birds I am highlighting as April celebrations: rose-breasted grosbeak, piliated woodpecker, and goldfinch. I celebrate the view from my office window each and every day. It is becoming a wall of green now that the trees are leafing out.

April 28, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/27/2020 – Free e-Books

April 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Enjoying the 1st view of the morning. When I first went into my office yesterday, it still seemed almost dark because it was so cloudy; it was about time for sunrise. I could see 3 deer in the backyard headed into the forest (they were moving slowly looking at the stump and piled branches from the tree cut down yesterday) and hear a lot of birds in the trees. By the time I got my camera out, the deer were gone but the path between the trees that they consistently take is visible in the picture. It is too dark to tell – but I know the trees (left to right): pine, black walnut, tulip poplar, red maple.

**Taking plastic bags back to the grocery store.** The last time I was in my car was March 20th! Having everything delivered since then resulted in a lot of plastic bags and I had been putting them in the back seat of my car rather than keeping them in the house after they were empty. Yesterday was the day to return them to the bin in the grocery store parking lot. I went early and was able to park relatively close to the bin. I put on my mask then made three trips between my car and the bin. All the early shoppers going into the store (probably 3-4 people over the time I was there) were wearing masks….a good sign that people are taking precautions when they are shopping. I used my hand sanitizer before I drove home….and washed my hands at the kitchen sink once I arrived. Being in my car…making a short errand…felt quite different than my recent ‘norm.’

Bathing robin. Most birds come to our bird bath for a drink….but one robin took a thorough bath then flew off to the sycamore to preen the feathers dry.

Flying samara from the red maple. After lunch, the wind picked up and the samaras were ready to leave the tree…in little flurries with each gust. They landed on the roof of our covered deck and the gutter….as well as planting themselves in all the yards around the tree.

Catching up on Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

I usually pick 3 eBooks to feature in a monthly blog post…but I had too many good ones this month, so I am including 4 for April 2020.

Olcott, Frances Jenkins (editor); Cramer, Rie; Grimm. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company. 1927. Available on Internet Archive here. I was looking for books illustrated by Rie Cramer….and this was one that I found – enjoyed.

63f 20 04.jpg — Vermont Department of Tourism. ***Vermont Life. Volume 72, Issue 3.*** 2018. Available from Internet Archive here. The next to the last issue….and it includes a picture of a rose-breasted grosbeak (on page 5)! I enjoyed browsing through this magazine which started in 1946 over the past months…sorry it is no longer published.

76z7 20 04.jpg — Chun, Carl. ***The Cephalopoda (Atlas)***. Translated from the German. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House.1975. Available from Internet Archive here. The book was originally published in 1910 after a German deep-sea expedition in 1898/99 to the sub-Antarctic. Chun discovered and named the vampire squid.

88a 20 04.jpg — Ward, Mary. ***Microscope Teaching***. 1866. Available from Internet Archive here. A woman scientist from the mid-1800s. She did her own illustrations for the books that she wrote. I which more of her books were available online.

According to her Wikipedia entry:

Aside from being known for her scientific work (naturalist, astronomy, microscopy…a writer and artist too), she also had 8 children before being the 1st person known to be killed by a motor vehicle.
Her great-granddaughter is the Doctor Who actress Lalla Ward.

April 27, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/26/2020 – Through the Window

April 27, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Registering for virtual events. Just as I was beginning to miss birding festivals and the annual Master Naturalist training day – offerings of virtual alternatives appeared in my inbox! The registration was minimal, and I don’t have to be anxious about what the pandemic situation will be in late May and June. They are both on my calendar!

A birding festival. New Jersey Audubon has re-imaged their Cape May Spring Festival to a virtual event on May 23rd and 24th. My husband and I will enjoy the new (safer this year) form of the festival and hope to go back to Cape May next spring to enjoy the outdoors and birds like we did in 2019.
A climate change education conference. The Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference is also going virtual (June 29-30).

Surveying the yard. (Happened on the 25th…but I didn’t have time to write about it then). The weather was dry and in the 60s – a good day to get out and do some yard work. I used the electric hedge trimmers and worked on the bushes in front of the house for about an hour….and then walked around for some nature photography: there are 2 iris buds! Once they start opening, I plan to cut the stem to enjoy inside…avoid the trauma of having the deer eat them.

There was also a small weed blooming in the flower bed…which I left.

20200425_142530(0).jpg — There are so many tulip poplar seeds flying around – inevitably, some of them produce seedlings. Repeated mowing handles the ones in the yard but the ones in the flowerbeds must be pulled. They make awesome specimens for the tree module of pre-school field trips…which are not happening this year; they make the point very well about how much of the tree is underground! These ‘baby trees’ went back to the brush pile after I photographed them.

20200425_144040(0).jpg — Some reddish clover like plants are growing in the grass and moss on the shady hillside to the north of our house.

Near the steps down from our deck – some evidence of a bird’s demise. I hope it wasn’t the phoebe that was a frequent morning visitor to our sycamore.

Under the deck, the Christmas fern is full of fiddleheads – new spring growth.

I did an ‘intimate landscape’ picture of moss (dead and alive) and violet leaves.

The photography was a great finale for my yard work.

Watching a crew take down a dead pine tree in our neighbor’s yard. The tree was obviously ailing last summer and the few needles still on its branches were dry and brown. It’s good to have is down before it fell during wet and windy weather…maybe smashing into a house or fence or storage shed.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the monthly ‘through the office window’ post…I was at home for the whole month so there were a lot of photographs taken through my office window to choose from. Birds were the primary subjects: Carolina chickadee, brown-headed cowbird, dark-eyed junco, Carolina wren, common grackle, cardinal, American goldfinch, house sparrow, red-belled woodpecker, eastern phoebe, mourning dove, house finch, rose-breasted grosbeak, downy woodpecker, and chipping sparrow.

The red maple’s samaras ripened over the course of the month. Click on the middle picture below to ID the bird munching on the seeds.

And there was one sunset picture in the mix. Overall - it was a good month for photographs through the window!

April 26, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/25/2020

April 26, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Spotting a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The bird was a on the gutter of our covered deck initially – then on the feeder. This is a first sighting for this species at our feeder. I managed to tell my husband in time for him to see it too. It was the most exciting event of the morning! The bird flew off to the maple tree then returned several more times during the morning. It was assertive enough to drive away the cowbirds!

Catching up on Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:

Reflecting on my own wardrobe over the decades. After finishing the Fashion as Design Coursera course, I am doing some thinking about my wardrobe history. What was memorable about each decade (after I was old enough for clear memories).

1960s

I started school in 1960 so a lot of my growing up was done during the decade. I can remember learning to iron my clothes early on but being thrilled later with synthetics that did not need to be ironed. Underwear and socks were ordered from Sears as needed, but we shopped in local stores for clothes and shoes. I rarely had more clothes that I needed to last between the weekly laundry days although we did have seasonal clothes that we kept in heavy cardboard barrels during the off season. As I got older, my mother involved us in deciding the clothes we wanted with the budget she allocated for each of us. I learned to sew to stretch the dollars as I got older.

The schools I went to were not air conditioned until I was in high school so the beginning and ending of the school year (in Texas) was extremely hot. Maybe it was a positive thing that girls were expected to wear dresses to school!

I remember dresses getting shorter and shorter as the decade progressed. In 6th grade I had a drop waist dress that I liked a lot. High school colors were important.

The worst fashion of the decade from my perspective was corrective oxfords. I had flat feet. The oxfords were white leather with metal arch supports to hold the foot as it grew. They didn’t help at all since my foot already was the size it is now by the time I started wearing them. They were heavy and awkward; I seemed to always be catching the low, clunky heal on my ankle (frequently enough that scars formed).

1970s

My dresses and skirts reached their maximum shortness in the early 1970s. It seems that I transitioned to wearing slacks and jeans more during the decade.

I was making all my clothes except underwear and jeans…even making some dress and flannel shirts for my husband. I made my own wedding dress out of white brocade upholstery fabric (for a January wedding).

My clothes had to go from office to school because after I graduated from high school, I was working full then going to college classes in the evenings. I still didn’t have many clothes; they were all general purpose. There is a picture of me in a vest, puffed sleeve blouse, pants rolled up over my socks – carrying a camera bag on a geology field trip – not the most practical outfit (or shoes) for hiking!

Later in the decade I started dressing up a little more for work because I was moving up in the organization. I remember liking dirndl skirts and squarish jackets – scarves/jewel necklines or blouses with wide ties at the neck. I’d learned to tie square knots and good bows in the early years of the decade.

I did buy my first pair of hiking boot – heavy, leather that was so stiff that the tops made blisters on my ankles when I wore them to hike down to the plateau level of the Grand Canyon.

1980s

I started out the decade sewing everything then sewing blouses (I even made one with a several with crocheted sections around the neck). I took some classes to refine my tailoring skills. But by mid-decade, I was ordering by suits from Spiegel. By the end of the decade I stopped sewing completely; it wasn’t as economical as it had been previously and – with motherhood and working full time – there was no time.

I wore 2- or 3-piece suits to work from about 1984 to the later part of the 1990s. I was moving up in my career and the suits were part of the corporate culture for men and women. I liked skirts that had an actual pleat in the back rather than a slit and a small inner pocket in the jacket (I never used any external pockets). I wore blouses with lace or crochet or a bow at the neck….or a scarf. The suits were all solid colors – black, navy, gray, red jacket/dark skirt. One of my favorites was tan silk; I always got compliments on it. I wore it with a black blouse or with a scarf that was maroon and the exact tan of the suit.

My work shoes were generally black or navy pumps (often a sling strap because my heel was so narrow that the others didn’t fit well) with a 2-inch heel.

1990s

My husband, daughter and I wore look alike t-shirts/sweatshirts from places we visited on vacations for casual wear with jeans, shorts, or sweatpants.

2000s

Several tapestry jackets were also added to my wardrobe. I remembered having some bell bottom tapestry pants in the 1970s that I enjoyed until they wore out. I donated a couple of the jackets when I retired from my career but have kept one that I wear occasionally.

Some of my clothes came from thrift stores – particularly some of the black slacks and colorful blouses to pair with otherwise dark jackets. It was thrilling to find things appropriate for ‘business casual’ for so little.

One of my favorite jackets was a gift from my Mother….I usually wear it buttoned….over one of my many pairs of black slacks

2010s

By the 2010s, almost all my work shoes were clog type heels. The only pair I have left had soft leather uppers and are slightly lower heels that the ones from early in the decade. I liked square toes. Eventually my knees started hurting if I walked a lot in the shoes and I was glad to go to much flatter shoes by the time I retired.

For the last years of my career I wore a wig to work; it was my way to have ‘great hair’ every day that earlier generations of professional women – like my mother – got by having a weekly appointment with a hairdresser. The wig was less time consuming.

I also built up more casual clothes for outdoors. My daughter enjoyed being outdoors and most of the family vacation were to National Parks (or similar places). And then my volunteer gigs needed those same type of clothes.

Longer skirts are my favorite warm weather clothes. Most of them I find at thrift store and some of them are probably decades old!

Now

These days I like leggings (jean or cotton knit) with tunics. The tunics need to have something unique: asymmetric hem, embroidery, or color.

Overall - there are a lot of synthetic fabrics in my closet that will last a long time. I’ve gotten rid of the things I don’t wear via donation…and plan to keep what I have for the foreseeable future!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

April 25, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/24/2020 - Gleanings

April 25, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Finishing Fashion as Design Coursera course. The theme for the last module was Expression. It was a good way to end the course. I have enjoyed both courses I’ve done from MoMA and will probably start a third one – What is Contemporary Art – early next week.

Hearing a piano practice. My husband opted to start up piano practice…not sure why he hadn’t thought to play it weeks ago. What’s not to like about a grand piano? It was tuned last winter just before the coronavirus pandemic, so it is in excellent condition. His playing didn’t last for long, because the cat demanded attention…and has decided that the best place to sleep is under the piano.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And then there are the gleanings for the past week:

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.

How Rain Evolved Its Distinct Scent—and Why Animals and Humans Love It | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The chemical that is the scent of newly moistened soil, geosmin, has been known to scientists since the 1960s….but now we are figuring out its purpose. It is made by 120 of 122 species of bacteria in the genus Streptomyces that have been studied. The scent attracts springtails (tiny arthropods) that eat the bacteria and spread the bacteria’s spores via their excrement or the spores that attach to their body and then fall off. Many other insects, fungi and nematodes are killed by chemicals produced by the bacteria. So – the scent after rain is connected to the lifecycle of bacteria that are one of the most important sources of antibiotics known to science!

Top 25 birds of the week: Terrestrial Birds - Wild Bird Revolution – Enjoying images of birds from around the world.

Long-living tropical trees play outsized role in carbon storage -- ScienceDaily – They used ‘hindcasting’ to validate their model: seeded the model with forest composition data collected at their site in Panama during the 1980s and then ran the model forward to see that it adequately represents the changes that occurred from then until now. Once that was done…they can use the model to predict what will happen to the forest with climate change. Will the forest continue absorbing some of the excess carbon – or not?

Flamingos in Captivity Pick Favorite Friends Among the Flock | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – 2-4 birds…not limited to mated pairs. Some were together for the whole 5 years of the study! The study found no loners but some bounded between groups.

What do soap bubbles and butterflies have in common? Butterfly breeding gives insight into evolution of iridescence -- ScienceDaily – A 75% increase thickness in the chitin lamina of wing scales turned iridescent gold to shiny blue….the same way a soap bubble iridescence works! And now there is a whole new genetic approach to investigate structural color in butterflies – and may lead to new ways to produce photonic nanostructures for solar panels, paints, clothing, and cosmetics.

How to mine precious metals in your home - BBC Future – Theoretically - the “urban mine” is far richer in high value materials per ton than traditional metal ore mines….but we don’t quite have the way to collect the ‘ore’ or effectively extract the metals.

Springfield Plateau: Cowbird Eggs – Cowbirds….I’m trying not to be too judgmental. (I’ve included a picture of cowbirds at our bird feeder below. The female is a more frequent visitor than the male.)

Colorful Image Lights Up Microscopic Guts of 'Water Bear' | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Enhancing our view of a tardigrade with fluorescent stain….and done close to where I live at University of Maryland Baltimore County!

Take a Free Virtual Tour of Five Egyptian Heritage Sites | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – These are best viewed on your largest monitor!

Common protein in skin can 'turn on' allergic itch -- ScienceDaily – Turning off the production of the protein periostin in the skin can reduce the itch from atopic dermatitis (in mice). More research needed to see if it works for humans too.

April 23, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/22/2020 – First Birds

April 23, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Looking at our birdfeeder camera videos and clipping a picture of the first bird recorded at the birdfeeder for each day of the month (so far). Can you identify each one? The clips from the video are not always clear. It’s easier to make IDs from watching the video – seeing how the bird moves. I put the list underneath the gallery.

Carolina Wren
Chipping sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Tufted Titmouse (with a chipping sparrow flying in)
Red-bellied woodpecker (male)
Chipping sparrow with mourning doves below
House finch (male and female)
Northern Cardinal (female) and house finch (male)
Carolina wren
Northern Cardinal (female)
Carolina Wren
Brown-headed Cowbird (female)
In the rain – Brown headed Cowbird (female) with Northern Cardinal pair below
Red-bellied Woodpecker (male)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (male) and Brown-headed Cowbird (female) with Northern Cardinal (male) below. The cowbird left first leaving the woodpecker to enjoy breakfast.
Brown-headed Cowbirds (male and female)
Brown-headed Cowbird (female)
House finch (male) and Brown-headed Cowbird (female)
Carolina Wren
Carolina Wren
House Finch (male)
Carolina Wren with peanut

I noticed when I was listening to the first videos for each morning that there is often a phoebe in our yard greeting the day (they are insect eaters so don’t come to our deck).

The cowbirds are around a lot more this year, but they don’t seem to be deterring the other birds at the feeder. The woodpeckers and finches are aggressive enough to drive them away and the cardinals wait until they leave.

Refilling the birdfeeder and bath. I let the feeder be emptied by the birds. The little ones like the chickadees do a thorough job. The bigger birds like the woodpeckers are more interested in peanuts and sunflower seeds…very frustrated when the supply is low. The morning was so cold (in the low 40s) that I put my coat on for the chore.

Perfecting the grocery list. I have settled into a grocery delivery pattern: selecting a morning delivery time slot 3-4 days in advance then building up the list in the interim, marking my calendar for the 2-hour interaction with the shopper/delivery person. Thursday is the big day this week – and I got a morning time slot! There are 36 items on the list.

106z1 20 04.jpg — **Browsing Life Magazine from 1946.** The March 25th edition included an article about Bikini Atoll… a topical paradise before the atomic bomb testing started just a short time after the pictures for the article were taken.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

April 22, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/21/2020 - Macro Fabrics

April 22, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Looking at Life Magazine for May 1944 – I found some early work of Chesley Bonestell that launched his space art career…mixed in with the coverage of World War II.

Finished reading Bruntsfield Brook by Charles Cockell. I bought the Kindle version after hearing about it in one of the Life in the Universe Pandemic Series videos. It was a fun way to learn about microbial mats…wound into a story with lots of drama impacting the different kinds of microbes: phages, ice, pollution, and drought.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for a little project prompted by learning (from Charles Cockell in his Life in the Universe Pandemic Series) that Antonie van Leeuvenhoek first used macro lenses to assess the quality of fabric…then turned the lenses onto other things and became known as ‘the father of microbiology.’ For some reason I had never thought about what prompted him to be using glass lenses originally. So – I did a little project to look at different fabrics with the jeweler’s loupe…taking pictures with my phone through the loupe.

I started with the upholstery fabric on a couch. The colors are more vivid when they are magnified! I don’t know what the fiber content is…but it’s shiny…. that probably means it’s synthetic.

Clothes that I had that were labelled 100% cotton were all tops. 2 t-shirts (normal weight and thin) and a waffle shirt

I also had an older 100% cotton denim shirt. It is old enough to have some worn areas.

Then there were the cotton and polyester blends. The bandana didn’t have a label, but I lumped it with the blends because it was shiny. A pair of jeans and a t-shirt looked like cotton so I assume that the polyester part might be wrapped in cotton.

A quilted jacked had a looser weave and was shiny. A man’s shirt and my photovest were both a tight weave cotton/polyester.

I have a linen-look button front tunic that I have enjoyed wearing for years. I didn’t realize it was 100% polyester until I looked at the label. And it looks very much like plastic when magnified! I’d never thought of it as ‘shiny’ before.

I had two silk scarves which I included in my pile to photograph.

And then there was acrylic blended with polyester (for a cardigan), with cotton (for a ribbed turtleneck) and nylon for a lightweight unlined sweater jacket. The last one looks like the 100% polyester tunic – although the fiber in the tunic is woven and the sweater jacket is a knit.

Overall – it was an interesting project. I am always keen to apply what I am learning, and this project blended the astrobiology lectures and the Fashion as Design class!

April 21, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/20/2020 – Walk in the Forest

April 21, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

The unique activity for yesterday was a very pleasant walk in the forest behind our house all the way down to the river (a winding path of at least 1/3 mile down…and then back up the same way.

We entered the forest at the back of our yard on a path made by deer between a black walnut – just beginning to leaf out - and a large tuple poplar. There were many violets on both sides of the narrow path. I had tucked my pants into my socks to make a barrier to ticks.

The forest floor seemed to be covered with garlic mustard (invasive) with a few spring beauties where it wasn’t so dense. A large tree had fallen recently with dirt still clinging to the roots. The red maple in our yard keeps me from seeing the area from my office window.

There were several dogwoods just beginning to bloom.

2020 04 IMG_9067 (7).jpg — We joined a trail used by horses from a nearby stable…wider than the deer trail. Spice bush is the most prevalent understory tree.

Flowers were blooming, there were sounds of moving water, and a few bugs were around too. We heard two different woodpecker sounds.

There were several different kinds of ferns. I always like to photograph fiddleheads!

And then the small stream we had been following joined the river. It was quite different from the last time we had been there more than a decade ago. Two trees had fallen recently (one still had green leaves on it). The trunks spanned the river. The trees had made what had been a riverside path into a cliff. There were some alternative places down to the water level but not in the immediate vicinity. We took a few pictures of flowers and headed back up the hill.

Along the way, I noticed that there was a stand of hemlock that appeared to be healthy – no wooly adelgid. The hemlocks that we had been able to see from our house when we first moved to the area 25 years ago died years ago.

I also stopped for every jack-in-the-pulpit I noticed on the hike uphill. There didn’t seem to be as many of them as there should be. Probably the overgrowth of invasives like garlic mustard makes it harder for them to propagate.

We got back to our yard and I took a picture of the samaras on our red maple…closer to being ripe.

I saw what I thought was a spider web in the grass but when I took a closer look, I realized it was dandelion seeds! My husband probably mowed it yesterday….dispersing the seeds.

I’m glad we took advantage of the great weather since rainy days are forecast….but we’ll take more hikes into the forest as the weather warms. I’ll use insect repellent next time since there were a few flying/biting insects even at the relatively pleasant 60 degrees. It’s great to have a forest to hike into from our own back yard!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

April 20, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/19/2020

April 20, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Frost warning. We had a frost warning until 9 AM yesterday. Even with the heat keeping us warm enough, both my husband and I opted for a hot breakfast. I had oatmeal cooked with cinnamon and pecans…and then a bit of honey added for flavor and sweetness.

Being fast enough to photograph a pileated woodpecker and a phoebe. Birds are often very active in the morning. Yesterday I was fast enough to photograph 2 birds that are often elusive.

The pileated woodpecker flew in silently to the trunk of the black walnut – I just happened to see the bird as it flew in. By the time I got the camera turned on, it was searching the forest floor…almost out of the range of my camera.

I heard the eastern phoebe and went to the window to see if I could see it. Yes! It was in the sycamore – saying its name over and over.

Catching up on Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series:

Sycamore buds bursting (outside). The buds are beginning to open on the sycamore outside (following the pattern observed more than a week ago on the branch I brought inside to observe more closely). The buds on the tree are at varying stages right now…and there are some that look very round. Maybe those are going to be flowers rather than leaves?

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

April 17, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/17/2020 - Gleanings

April 17, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing through some issues of Vogue. The Internet Archive has some issues of Vogue online. I particularly enjoyed the one labeled Vol 138: Vogue which includes issues from October - December 1961 (a bound reference volume); you’ll have to create a free-sign on to check it out – browse through. I was in 2nd grade when these issues were originally published and the designs appealing; maybe we all have a subconscious affinity for clothes that were worn as we were growing up. It was a time when natural fiber fabrics were being replaced with synthetic fibers. I can remember learning to iron my cotton shorts and tops during the summertime when I was in the later grades of elementary school!

Noticing filaments algae in the sycamore branch vase. How did it get here? Were there spores on the branch when I brought it in? The picture on the left below is looking down into the vase, the branch being the diagonal shape in the lower left corner. I pulled some algae out and put it on the top of my iPad (using the iPad as a light table) and took a picture through the jeweler’s loupe (picture on the right)…not enough magnification to see any internal detail, unfortunately.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

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.

These Colored Micrographs Show the Incredible Intricacies of Plants – A different botanical perspective.

Can fashion ever be sustainable? - BBC Future – This article fit right in with the Fashion as Design Coursera course I am working my way through right now. I already buy more than half my wardrobe from thrift stores and don’t buy very often. My closet is still too full; one indication is recently finding a pair of jeans I had forgotten about! This article has prompted me to think about how often I wash my clothes. Maybe I don’t need to launder some of them as frequently.

Why This Rare, Huge Ozone Hole Over the Arctic Is Troubling Scientists | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – It probably will close soon – but it’s an interesting phenomenon that probably would have gotten more press if coronavirus wasn’t overwhelming all other news.

Blood test detects over 50 types of cancer, some before symptoms appear -- ScienceDaily – This type of test has been a goal for years. Are we getting closer to reality?

Covid-19: The history of pandemics - BBC Future – The impact of coronavirus on our day to day lives is a unique experience for most of the world’s population. This article is a short history of other pandemics: Justinian plague (6th century…killed as many as 50 million which was half the global population), the Black Death (14th century…killed up to 200 million), smallpox killed as many as 300 million people in the 20th century alone even though there was an effective vaccine available since 1796, 1918 influenza (50-100 million died), and HIV (killed 32 million and infected 75 million with more added every day). Since 1980, the number of outbreaks of new infectious diseases per year has tripled.

19 Incredible Winning Photos from Nature Photography Contest – Lots of interesting nature photos.

Wearable device lets patients with type 2 diabetes safely use affordable insulin option -- ScienceDaily – Maybe technology can deliver less expensive drugs in news ways….making the drugs more effective.

Bioprospecting for Industrial Enzymes and Drug Compounds in an Ancient Submarine Forest: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research - An unusually large, biodiverse, and temporally stable wood-associated marine habitat off the coast of Alabama. Within 100-200 prepared culture plates, the team identified approximately 100 strains of bacteria, many of which are novel and 12 of which are already undergoing DNA sequencing for further study of their identity and their biosynthetic potential to make new drugs.

Photographer Immortalizes the Ice Waves of Picturesque Lake in Colorado – It must have been cold work capturing these images!

6 Creative Ways Wildlife Find Shelter • The National Wildlife Federation - A fun article…with some great photographs too.