Raking Oak Leaves

I’ve raked the leaves falling from our oak tree twice already this year. My typical tools are the rake for the leaves and then a broom for the crushed acorns in the driveway and street gutter.  Today I remembered to take before and after pictures.

I had cleared 4 trash cans full of leaves from the gutter and grass closest to the street just a few days ago and was surprised that were so many leaves to be raked.

5 trash cans full of leaves and a half trash can of acorn debris later – the yard looks better but I realized that the tree still looks like it has a lot of leaves! This is not the last raking of the fall for this tree.

I also noticed that the acorn debris seemed to be more ‘hats’ that the nut itself. Maybe the neighborhood squirrels have been retrieving more of the acorns that fall on the driveway!

Spaghetti Squash

The Gorman Farms CSA shares in recent weeks have included winter squash; the first one was a spaghetti squash and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I cooked it first – whole, skin pricked with a fork, for an hour at 350 degrees. At the end of the hour I took it out cut off the top and then cut it in half to let it cool a bit. I had decided the first meal from it would be ‘spaghetti’ so I started the sauce: spicy tomato sauce from a jar poured over eggplant cubes that needed to simmer a bit. Back to the squash: I used a spoon to life out the mass of seeds and pulp in the center then teased out the ‘spaghetti’ that I wanted into a small non-stick skillet; I added a little oil and stir fried the squash a little to drive off excess water. I cut up some arugula for the topping while the sauce continued to bubble and I added some shelled edamame for protein. When the squash we ready I poured it into a bowl…the added the sauce and the generous handful of arugula. Yummy!

I used about 1/4th the squash for the ‘spaghetti’ dinner. The next fourth was used for a dessert! I soaked raisins in apricot brandy for a few hours. I started the dish by sautéing the squash with a little butter in a non-stick skillet, adding cinnamon + maple syrup + raisins with brandy as it cooked. I let the liquid cook down almost completely. It smelled wonderful and tasted yummy – eaten warm. The squash is naturally sweet so no much syrup was needed. This is something I will make again.

I still have more spaghetti squash in the refrigerator…planning to make a frittata since I will be out and about a lot over the next few days and that is easy to make ahead for a quick meal when I get home.

Next up – acorn squash.

Home Alone

I never lived alone so it is unusual to have some days to just be at home by myself – having no reason to be anywhere else. It happened this past weekend when my husband was away at the Black Forest Star Party at Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania. I would not like it to happen frequently, but what a luxury for a few days! I got caught up on so much and enjoyed the quiet house.

And I still enjoyed some views of the star party my husband sent. They had relatively clear skies for 2 of the nights making it a worthwhile endeavor for the 500 or so people that were there camping on the field with their telescopes.

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Birding through a window – September 2017

The goldfinches are enjoying the sunflowers on the deck…making them easier to photograph. The look about after each acrobatic move to pluck a seed.

A fledgling was making quite a fuss on the deck roof outside my office. I looked around to see what else was going on and discovered the parent in the gutter --- ignoring the noise from the fledgling and enjoying a bath!

A few days later our resident Carolina Wren was out early and singing. There was still water in gutter and it soon took a bath and emerged very wet and bedraggled looking.

Red Soup

I have become a fan of beets. I love the color and flavor they add to soups and salads. Beets were a major ingredient in a soup I made on one of the first cool mornings of our fall.

The ingredients were:

Bullion

Beet

Tomato

Rosemary, thyme, parsley…whatever seasons you like

Mushrooms

Sunflower seeds

I started by letting the fresh beet cook in the bullion while I got all the other ingredients ready. I added the tomato and seasonings after the beet began to soften then used the masher while the soup continued to bubble. I added the mushrooms and continued cooking until the mushrooms reduced in size.

The sunflower seeds were sprinkled on top after it was in the bowl.

Yummy!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 16, 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.

Two places to look at bird images: Stunning Winners of the 2017 Bird Photographer of the Year Contest and Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #104 – I can’t resist. Birds are such interesting subjects for photography….and challenging enough to engage photographers the world over.

This is how Pittsburgh is taking climate action – Now that my son-in-law is in Pittsburgh for his post doc, I am learning more about the city. It’s moving way beyond its heavy industry history. The Phipps Conservatory was one of the places mentioned in the article as a place that generates all its own energy and treats/reuses all water captured on site! We visited the place last March (see blog post here).

‘Rubber material’ discovered that could lead to scratch-proof paint for car – Wonderful if it can be made available at reasonable cost.

Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues – School needs to prepare students with skills they will need as they get older….so it can’t stay be anchored in the past. The challenge is to not set a new high-tech anchor that is expensive and potentially a dead end or not very effective. The pace of change that adults and children have in their lives is ramped up; perhaps a life skill we all need it how to cope with that pace of change without being overwhelmed.

How self-driving cars will change the American road trip – I’ve been thinking about this recently and was disappointed in this article in that it hypothesized the cars stopping every 180-200 miles. If I was on a road trip and only stopped every 3 hours or so….I’d be very stiff by the end of the day. Does the author think that the interior of self-driving cars will be different enough that people can somehow move around a bit more rather than just sitting relatively still? What about children and older people that can’t ‘hold it’ for 3 hours? If the cars or autonomous enough – will we be more likely to be traveling through the night and the car just stopping when it needs to for charging with us sleeping through everything?

Exploring Europeana in Czech, Irish, Slovak and Slovenian – One part of my family is Czech so this post caught my attention. I don’t speak the language but I’m interested in the art my ancestors might have seen before they left in the late 1800s.

West Coast Monarch Butterflies Flutter Toward Extinction – The numbers of west coast monarchs have declined by 97% since 1981. Very sad. Monarchs are declining all over the US not just the east coast ones that migrate to Mexico.

We could lessen the toll of hurricanes – but we don’t – A timely article after Harvey and Irma – so much destruction…of places and people’s lives.

New Guide: Energy Efficiency at Home - ASLA has created a new guide to increasing energy efficiency through sustainable residential landscape architecture, which contains research, projects, and resources.

Back to School

The K-12 schools started again in Maryland this week. The traffic patterns have changed; there are about 8 cars that leave my neighborhood just after the elementary school bus (parents waiting to leave for work until their children are off to school)!

It’s been a long time since I was in K-12 but somehow September still means a ramp up of activity after a somewhat ‘lazy’ summer. There is a psychology from my own school experience…reinforced by my daughter’s experience.

This year September is busier than usual with volunteer shifts at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy through September 17 and the training for volunteers at Howard County Conservancy followed by the start of field trips from many of the county schools. The Watershed Report Card program for high schoolers already has quiet a schedule that begins September 19 and continues through most of October.

I am also signed up for Conservation Easement Training in September.

I supposed if it ever gets slow – I could take a Coursera course….but right now it looks like this ‘fall’s back to school’ is already very full.

Celebrating Labor Day

We’re staying home for Labor Day – celebrating the end of summer with a ‘splurge’ meal of hotdogs and corn-on-the-cob cooked on the grill,

Snacking on cherry tomatoes while we cook…and

Watermelon afterward (maybe as mid-afternoon snack).

The forecast is for sun after a weekend of clouds (and rain) – a warmer day that we’ve had recently as a finale for the summer. The opening of schools in Maryland has changed from late August to the Tuesday after Labor Day this year which emphasizes the feeling that Labor Day marks the end of summer.

This year with the flooding from Hurricane Harvey just beginning to recede – there is a sobering aspect to this holiday. Modern communication brings it to us; the loss of ‘home’ for so many people is painful to us as well.  We should all be thinking about how we can help....and find out more about disaster mitigation strategies where we live.

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2017

August has been a busy month – volunteering (primarily at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy) and the solar eclipse road trip. There has been plenty to celebrate.

Monarch Butterflies. The population of Monarchs in Maryland is so reduced from 15 years ago that I celebrate whenever I see them. Brookside Gardens has a few and they are strong enough flyers that I’ve seen them even on rainy days where most of the other butterflies are hiding under leaves.

Orange dead leaf butterfly resting on my hand. An orange dead leaf butterfly kept me company for the last 20 minutes of one of my Wings of Fancy shifts! It settled onto my hand and used its proboscis to get whatever was on my skin. Periodically it opened its wings – flashed their brilliance for a second or two before looking like a dead leaf again. (picture from back in July...not when it was on my hand)

Emerging Atala butterfly. I was at the discovery station talking with a group of children in front of the discovery station when an Atala butterfly emerged. Its wings were folded so tight that they were almost not visible! The was a great experience for the children…and for me too.

Emerging pipevine swallowtails. One day there were three swallowtails that emerged during the hour I was at the discovery station at Wings of Fancy. There was a different audience of families each time. Someone would comment that one of the chrysalises was moving and then – the butterfly would be pulling itself out. The wings would be very wet but noticeably start expanding almost immediately.

Cantaloupe. We’ve has some great watermelon and cantaloupes from our CSA this year. They are probably all worth a little celebration but there was one cantaloupe that was spectacularly sweet – and that’s the one I’m thinking about as I write this.

August sunrise. Somehow being up and observing the sunrise is my favorite way to start the day. It is something to celebrate even if it potentially happens every day!

Orange striped oakworm caterpillar. Yes – it eats oak leave…but they don’t kill the tree. They are beautiful caterpillars and I celebrated seeing one for the first time!

Spider web on the mailbox. I celebrated a spider web that was naturally misted (with fog) and being in out at the right time to photograph it. As a secondary little celebration – I was relieved that the ants that crawled up my legs, while I was concentrating on photography, did not bite me!

Glow. I celebrated thinking about the glow of light in flowers and glow of interactions with people…sometimes those two things bring out similar emotions.

A day at home. Sometimes with a lot going on, a day at home is just what I need…and worth celebrating.

3 Free eBooks – August 2017

I’ve been enjoying colorful magazines on various topics that are from 2016 and available on Internet Archive. It’s like browsing through a stack of periodicals in the dentist’s office!

House Beautiful (from US and UK) from 2015 and 2016. Available from Internet Archive here. Lots of food for thought if you are redecorating, renovating, or moving to another house and wanting to add something to make it ‘home.’

World of Animals from 2014 and 2017 available from Internet Archive here. Great pictures of animals – many in action – from all over the world.

Canadian Architecture and Design 2009 available from Internet Archive here. Again – great photography…beautiful places. I hope pocket doors become popular again!

Spider Webs

Last week on a foggy morning, my husband commented that there was a large spider web on our mailbox. I went out to investigate. Sure enough – it was easy to spot.

The fog had left water droplets on the strands of silk. Making it more visible.

As I zoomed in – they looked more and more like beads on a string.

I noticed another web over the mailbox. It was not as organized and the camera had a challenge to focus on anything as I zoomed in. I wonder if the organization of the web indicated it was a different kind of spider than the one that built the web below.

There were different webs in the azalea near our porch but they had caught the fog as well. The webs look like gauzy nets. These spiders had evidently had recent success and were working to wrap up their prey. As I was photographing these webs, I felt a tickly on my right leg – and discovered a small ant was crawling around. Then I looked at my left leg…and there were 12 or more ants! I cut the photography session short and brushed the ants off and put baking soda water on my legs even though – amazingly – I don’t think the ants stung me at all.

Hope everyone along the path of the solar eclipse in the US today takes the opportunity to see it! Be safe and enjoy the event.

Birding through a window – August 2017

Last month, I posted about an America goldfinch that perched on the window frame outside my office. And it’s a goldfinch again for August’s ‘through a window’ post. This male is already in the process changing to winter plumage. He has patches of gray on his head and neck and there are tufts of feathers that the bird was moving around on both sides – like they itched. It was not exactly symmetrical but maybe molting never is.

As the leaf cover of the trees gets thinner, there is always less protection from predators so the drabber winter plumage helps the bird survive. No need for him to stand out when it’s not breeding season!

An August Sunrise

With the days getting shorter, I’m downstairs before sunrise on some mornings. I looked out the narrow window beside my front door last weekend about 10 minutes before sunrise and decided to take a minute for some pictures…stepping out to the front porch. I experimented with composition and orientation. My favorite is the last one because it shows the top of our oak tree and there are faint pink streamer clouds up into sky. It was a very worthwhile minute on the front porch! The cat watched me from the narrow window; he might have been enjoying the morning scene as well. Noticing the sunrise is a great way to start the day.

Cat with a Lion Cut – Update

Back in June, our cat got a ‘lion cut’ to rid him of matted hair that was pulling his skin and making him uncomfortable. He was not happy about the process, but he quickly began to enjoy how much easier it was to move about. He started spending a lot of time out on the screened deck and started playing with his toys more…and demanding attention. He started acting like a younger cat!

It’s been about 7 weeks since the cut and the fur is growing back. His head does not look as different from the rest of his body and the color/pattern looks more like it did before. The tail is still a bit of fluff. Overall, he is beginning to look more rounded even though we know it is fur! My husband has started brushing him to prevent the matts from forming again. If they do return, we’ll follow the same process as soon as it gets warm again next spring.

Overwhelmed with Tomatoes

The tomato season is in full swing at our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). There are different kinds and some weeks there are choices. This week we had a choice between yellow and red small tomatoes; I picked the yellow…and then 2 large heirloom tomatoes. I eat all of them in salads.

The two pounds of red tomatoes that were also part of this week’s share are more challenging. I used some of them in a soup yesterday…but may have some left next Wednesday when there will be more tomatoes coming (in the next CSA share).

I’m freezing the red cherry tomatoes I had left from last week. I just rinse them and put them in a Ziploc. It’s easy to take them out a handful at a time after tomato season for soups if it is cool outside or veggie smoothies if it is a hot day.

The important thing – no wonderful tomato is wasted!

Yard Work – August 2017

I am not a gardener. My husband keeps the yard mowed but leaves the trimming of bushes and weeding (and planting) to me…but I am always a little behind. The bushes seem to grow faster every year. There was a time when the invasive vines almost took over!

Recently, I’ve set a goal to work outdoors for an hour every morning I am at home and it’s not raining. It’s surprising how much can get done in an hour. One hour I cut the day lily leaves that has started to look ragged (the deer ate the flowers earlier in the season).

There was a pile of the leaves cut from around the oak to carry back to the brush pile at the edge of the forest.

I found a small plant that looks like a little evergreen at the base of the oak tree. It had been protected by the day lily leaves. Maybe it will survive the browsing deer.

The milkweed in our front flowerbed has new sprouts. The plants come up from roots left behind when we cut or pull the large plants. I will let the young plants stay to accommodate any egg laying Monarch butterflies.

In a second hour this week, I pulled weeds in another bed since it was too wet to use the electric hedge trimmer. I carried two loads to the brush pile. I uncovered some very wet and colorful shelf fungus growing on a weed covered log.

There was a fallen sycamore leaf that had grass poking up through the lacey holes probably made by an insect while the leaf was still on the tree.

I noticed that the spicebush growing at the back of our yard (in the forest) is a different color green than the trees around it.

Sunflower Pictures to Brighten a Rainy Day

As I begin to write this post, it has been raining all day. I need something that brightens up the wet! What could be better than sunflowers! I looked back at pictures I’ve taken since mid August and come up with some cheer. There is the big sunflower that I got as a volunteer at Brookside Gardens.  The goldfinches are already stopping by for snacks.

Then there are sunflowers that came up from seed that shed into the pots from last year’s plants. The flowers aren’t as big but they are still cheerful.

When they are toward the end of their blooming the petals droop like limp hair around the ‘face’ of the flower.

Up close, one observed the texture of the petals causes water droplets to align when there is a heavy dew.

And that brings us back to a very wet day that needed some sunflowers to brighten my mood!

Jelly Fungus

Our deck is over 20 years and has tiny stands of jelly fungus fruiting bodies in the knots of its railing after a heavy rain. I photographed on knot in late July just after they appeared

And then a day later. They expanded very rapidly.

The jelly dried up but after a heavy rain last Thursday they were back and even bigger.  They have a blobby beauty.

This means that the deck railings are rotting...and will have to be replaced at some point. Fortunately, the other parts of the deck have no yellow blobs!

Our Neighborhood Streets

The first indication that something was going to happen to our neighborhood streets, were he signs that appeared in late June…and then the big equipment at the front of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is about 25 years old; the streets did not seem that problematic but I was glad the work was being done proactively….and interested in how it would proceeed.

Markings were made on the street around the utility covers and the connections of cul-de-sacs to the primary street into the neighborhood. They started at the front of the neighborhood and scraped off the top few inches of asphalt from a few cul-de-sacs.

The increased heavy equipment traffic caused some break up of asphalt – a sign that it was old enough to be easily damaged.

The big equipment finally removed the asphalt from in front of our house in mid-July. A dump truck moved slowly in front of the big machine to collect the asphalt that was scrapped up. Smaller equipment (Bobcat size) came along and removed chunks of asphalt that the bigger equipment didn’t. And then there were street sweepers. Every night when the work was done for the day, the neighborhood was left tidy.

Ten days later, the asphalting was done in front of our house. The dump truck carrying the surfacing material links with the equipment and then the two pieces move forward and the layer is put on top of the road bed. Big rollers come along behind and compress the material. By the time all that happens – the new layer is flush with the concrete curb.

Our neighborhood looks spruced up with the new street - and the earlier work to replace buckling segments of sidewalk and clear out the clogged water retention pond. 2017 has been a busy year for infrastructure maintenance in our neighborhood!