Windowsill Photography

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I enjoy flowers in tall narrow vases on the windowsill in my office. Recently – the contents have been alliums and iris from my garden. I decided to try some creative photography with them on a couple of mornings when the sun shines through the window for a short time. The alliums made some interesting high key images even if the screen showed in some of them.

I opted to take advantage of a ‘sparkle’ effect that the screen caused for two images. Sometimes it’s fun to just use the artifacts created by the camera’s response to the environment as a creative prompt!

I took a picture of an iris bud that was outside with water droplets – on the other side of the screen….more sparkles!

Now for the iris…lovely colors and curves. I like to zoom enough to fill the frame with the flowers. This is the my first time for pink irises; the previous owner planted them on the west side of the house….not visible from any window but lovely to cut and bring indoors.

The two photography sessions satisfied an urge to do something a little different than my normal flower pictures….and reminded me how much I like my office in this house!

Rhododendron

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We’ve never had a rhododendron before….so I watched the buds carefully this spring at our new home in Nixa MO…wondering when they would open. I already knew from seeing rhododendron in public gardens and in other yards that it would be the “plant of the month” whenever it bloomed. May is its month!

The buds opened very quickly once they got started! I went out after a light rain one warm afternoon about a week ago…and found that many had opened…and flowers were unfurling.

The plant is between two windows – with the wall that is the gas fireplace on the inside making a bland background. Now the remaining question is - how long the blooms will last? There still seem to be a lot of buds that haven’t opened.

Springfield’s Artsfest

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Last weekend we enjoyed the Springfield, Missouri Artsfest. My daughter has enjoyed it in years past and I’ve been on the receiving end of some of her purchases; we missed it by about a month last year when we moved to the area in June. So – we anticipated a great spring outing this year.

The day we went was forecasted to get to the high 80s, so we chose to go in the morning before it got too warm. There were enough people around to make it a festival but not too many to impede browsing the arts. Artsfest is held on a street with older houses that are now businesses and (Missouri State University) student housing. Food trucks and canopies for artists lined the street (that had obviously been closed to traffic). It was a great opportunity to buy local!

We wandered all the way down the row enjoying the artists on the right side then worked our way back as we looked at items on the other side. I bought some earrings for myself right away…before my daughter reminded me that she intended to buy my Mother’s Day present at the fest!

She bought the next pair from an artist that upcycles glass; the glass I the ones I bought is from a jam jar!

My husband bought a turned wood plate for my daughter and son-in-law (they seemed very drawn to it…we were happy to indulge them)!

I found am stainless steel yard ornament that I plan to give to my mother next time I go to Carrollton. I chose to get one with pink speckles to pick up the color of the oxalis and hydrangea in her garden.

After a little more than an hour at the Artsfest, we made the decision to find a restaurant rather than getting something from the myriad of food trucks and sitting on a curb to eat it! Overall – an excellent outing!

Later in the day, the Allen, Texas mall shooting occurred. It put a damper on the joy of the day. We are reminded again and again that mass shootings are unpredictable…can happen anywhere (evidently more frequently in the US than anywhere else in the world, and more frequently when there are few/no limits on guns). Thoughts, prayers, and more guns aren’t reversing the trend. If something does not change dramatically, we will eventually modify the way we live to make ourselves less vulnerable (i.e. not gather in larger groups, order items to be delivered rather than shop or go to an Artsfest, interact differently (or not at all) with anyone we don’t know)….a dystopian vision for the future.

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2023

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Glorious spring…cool mornings and very pleasant afternoons…flowers…travel. So much to celebrate.

Springfield Botanical Garden and Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Visiting gardens is one of my favorite spring activities! There is so much to see and celebrate as the gardens come back from winter…blooms abound.

Finding a lost ring in a gardening glove.  I celebrated finding a ring I thought I had lost in the tip of a gardening glove finger. It must have some off with the glove and then pushed to the tip when I put on the glove the next time. It was lost for over a month before I finally realized there was something in the end of glove finger!

Ducklings on the neighborhood pond. Another sign of spring – baby birds. The ducklings were all staying close to their parent…still tiny enough to be vulnerable to turtle predation.

Getting to Pensacola FL. We took our first multi-day vacation since before the pandemic. The drive to Pensacola took us longer than we anticipated but we made it. More posts about our adventures in the week ahead. We both celebrated when we got to the hotel after 13 hours on the road.

Indigo buntings. A small flock of indigo buntings was enjoying the grass/weed area near some buildings in Gulf Islands National Seashore….more than I had ever seen at one time! Celebrated noticing the small birds with vibrant coloring.

Home again. It always feels good to come home again after being away. It happened twice in April: once when I can back from Texas and the again when I returned from Florida. Celebrating being at home.

Mowing the yard. I celebrated that the new yard and new mower are going to be a positive learning experience during the growing season – the yard looks great and the work is helping me build up my stamina, get some ‘intensity minutes’ into my routine.

Forsythia with composting mulch. The idea to pull some none flowering weeds as mulch under the forsythia where there was bare soil has worked beautifully. I celebrated finding a place in the yard to put cut/pulled vegetation rather than taking it to the recycling facility.

Great day to put out mulch around trees in the front yard. After mowing the front yard the first time, I realized the trees needed mulch under them to make mowing eaiser. I celebrated that we had great weather on the day we bought the mulch and were able to complete mulching the trees in the front yard…and celebrated again every subsequent mowing.

Great day to put out mulch around trees in the front yard. After mowing the front yard the first time, I realized the trees needed mulch under them to make mowing eaiser. I celebrated that we had great weather on the day we bought the mulch and were able to complete mulching the trees in the front yard…and celebrated again every subsequent mowing.

Planting bulbs around the red maples. I realized that the mulch around the trees made it easier to plant bulbs too. I planted some summer blooming flowers – lilies and butterfly weed and gladiolas. I celebrated that it was so easy to do…and will be celebrating again when the plants bloom this summer.

Zooming – April 2023

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The zoom capability of my bridge camera (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS) is used in almost every picture I take! I rarely carry binoculars anymore since I’d rather have the option of taking a picture once I find the subject…and I am keen to minimize the weight of gear I carry around.

The locations for the zoomed images selected for this month are Nixa MO, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman TX), Carrollton TX, Coppell TX, and Springfield TX.

My favorite subject this month was ducklings! I was thrilled to find them in my neighborhood pond when they were only a few days old.

Enjoy my views of April 2023!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – April 2023

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Springtime view of our neighborhood from our backyard just after sunrise. The trees are leafing out…filling in more of the eastern horizon. The red bud is a break in the spring greens looking past the tennis courts.

Later in the morning I took some macro shots of fading daffodil blooms

And redbud flowers/leaves.

After spending time photographing the ducklings (see yesterday’s post), I made a project to photograph some of the trees in the morning like against the very clear sky. There was a little breeze but the light was bright enough to freeze the image!

The lawn around the pool was dotted with dandelions. I know that many hate the plants – wage war on them in their lawns – but I have come to appreciate them. I like their cheerful yellow flowers (and so do insects) and the puffs of seeds are always photogenic. I mow them but don’t do anything else to discourage them in my yard.

Ducklings!

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There are mallard ducklings on our neighborhood pond! I photographed them on the 14th – 10 ducklings still sticking very close to their mom.

The pond also hosts some turtles that might be large enough to pull a duckling under. The mother can probably protect them when they are in the nest or in very shallow water. I noticed that when they were moving about in the deeper water that the mother kept up a brisk pace and the ducklings stayed in a group rather than trailing behind (most of the time).

The ducklings must have to move their legs and feet very quickly to keep up with their mother. Their down is so fuzzy that they sometimes look out of focus as they bob along.

Plant of the Month: Hostas

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All the areas the hostas were growing when we moved to our Missouri house last June have hostas emerging – even the ones that were burnt by the very hot dry spell (their leaves shriveled and dried) after the bushes that shaded them were trimmed. It was thrilling to see the new leaves showing among the rocks in our flowerbeds! The greens and whites of their leaves made them my pick for “plant of the month” in our yard.

Enjoy some macro views of the hosta leaves – the curves…the lines…the color transitions. Little works of abstract art from nature!

Composting Mulch

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This is my first spring in my Missouri house, and I am still acquainting myself with the flowerbeds around the house.  A very fast-growing plant came up in the east flowerbed and spilled out in the yard. I pulled a wheelbarrow of the stuff and took it back to put on the bare soil under the forsythia bush. It covered about half the space.

A few days later, the 4-6 inches deep plant material under the forsythia had collapsed to about ½ inch. I decided the weed is perfect for composting mulch! I started pulling the remaining weed in the east flowerbed.

I uncovered hostas, irises, violets, and a maple seedling. I pulled the maple seedling but left the other others.

It wasn’t difficult to pull another full wheelbarrow of weed.

This time it covered remaining the bare soil!

The weed might grow back since I probably did not get all the rootlets…but I have other places in the yard I can use it for mulch. The strategy is to pull it before it creates seeds. My overall goal is to keep what the yard grows cycled into the yard…avoid spraying or fertilizing…plant more pollinator-friendly plants…and (over time) reduce the amount of turf.

Tree Mulching Project

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When we first moved to Missouri last summer, we hired a crew to mow/weed eat/edge our yard. This season I am doing it. The first time I mowed (with our new battery powered mower…a big improvement over the gasoline powered one we had in Maryland), it was obvious that the job would be easier if the trees had mulch around them – an area large enough to avoid any low branches. The front yard has three trees: 2 red maples and an Asian dogwood. The red maples are relatively young trees so the mulched area did not need to be large. The dogwood had a lot of lower branches that I wanted to keep – hence a larger circle of mulch.

The first step was define the circle I would cover with mulch with very short grass; it was a good project for me to learn to use our new weed eater (also batter powered).

My husband helped me pour bags of mulch and I spread it around with a rake. The red maples took 1.5 bags each and the dogwood took 3 bags.

My follow up plan is to plant some daylilies and butterfly weed in the mulch areas around the red maples. The base of the young trees in sunny because are relatively skinny trees; the plants should do well. I enjoyed the ‘ruff’ of daylilies I had around the base of our oak tree in Maryland, and I hope eventually that will happen around these red maples. The plants might make it easier to extend the mulch circles as the trees grow since they reproduce rapidly. There aren’t deer wondering through our Missouri neighborhood eating buds like candy (like happened in Maryland); I’m looking forward to having flowers!

Kittens! – Month 8

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Our three kittens are growing up! They still sometimes sleep close together on the (sheet covered) futon…but each with their own space rather than in a pile as they did when they were very young (Puma, Pooky, Sooty on the move from top to bottom in this picture).

The male cat, Sooty, is the only one to jump to the top of the kitchen cabinets (where there are indirect lighting fixtures). My husband thought the cat might not get down on his own, but Sooty is quite capable of that (as he demonstrated before my husband could get a step ladder in place to climb up to reach him).

The kitchen is where our biggest remaining challenges are with the kittens. They all like to watch food preparation and they are fascinated by running water in the sink. We had one instance of them chewing through plastic packaging on bread (fortunately that has not been repeated). My husband provides the kittens a snack to draw them away from the kitchen while I prepare a meal …but they are back once they finish eating. I have learned to prep faster!

They have a tent that they’ve all used at various times for some private space although there are occasions that the two females (Puma and Pooky) nap together. Sooty is bigger and demands the whole space.

The 2 hammocks we have are also popular napping spots. The hammocks were handed down from our previous cats. Sooty was the first to claim the leopard one.

The kittens have learned to use scratching posts rather than the furniture (most of the time). They tore one rope wrapped post apart and they like the new one as a pedestal almost better than for scratching (Pooky, Sooty, Puma).

The cat donut is in the background. They all enjoy it – sometimes as part of an obstacle course and sometimes for napping. Occasionally it has two at one time in it – on opposite sides.

We have baby latches on several cabinets now….all of the kittens had become adept at opening lower kitchen and bathroom cabinets…getting inside…not always as adept at getting out. Fortunately – we didn’t have an instance when all three of them were stuck; the kitten(s) on the outside would stay close…our clue that a kitten was trapped.

Overall – we are still having fun keeping up with the kittens. We have left them for one overnight with our daughter checking on them and they were unphased. We’re taking a 5-day vacation this month; even though our daughter will be with them one or two times a day, we are anticipating they will be needy kittens when we return…another milestone for them and for us.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2, month 1, month 2, month 3, month 4

Spring Bulbs

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Before I went off to Carrollton, TX the last week of March, the bulbs I planted last fall were beginning to bloom in our Nixa, MO yard. We had some very cold nights and the flowers seemed to take a very long time to open. There were only two crocus; one looked battered and the other looked like it had been eaten! Some leaves of another bulb were eaten as well (maybe it was a hyacinth). The hyacinths were a bit deformed too.

A little over a week later when I returned home – everything was blooming profusely outside the window of my office. The daffodils are probably the bulbs that are doing the best and will come back year after year. The squirrels have left them alone too. My plan it to hold off mowing the area for a few weeks – giving the bulbs time replenish and grow….be good to bloom next year.

The days are getting longer. The sunrise is at its best around 6:30 AM when I am in my office to enjoy it so I am OK with daylight savings time again!

Hot Pepper Suet

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Most of the winter the squirrels quickly ate the suet we put out…with the birds getting a minor share. Now – the birds are getting virtually all the hot pepper suet! The spiciness does not bother them. My favorites are the blue jays which would sometimes visit our patio area but were never there for long. Now they come to the suet several times before moving on.

And the squirrels don’t like the hot pepper spiciness at all. I have seen a squirrel at the suet feeder, but they leave within seconds! Maybe this is the only kind of suet we’ll buy in the future!

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2023

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March has been a bit different than I expected…a lot more very cold starts to the days which have made it harder for the spring bulbs I planted last fall. Still – there was plenty to celebrate.

Clean car. The dust (and maybe salt) is rinsed off the car. I celebrated the days of driving a clean car…until I drove around the gravel road that is the wildlife loop at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge! The door and hatch seals keep the dust from getting into the car but the spaces before the seals are covered and the car wash does not reach it!

Banana bread (that included the peels). I will never make banana bread without the peels again. Yes – organic bananas are a bit more expensive…but the bread is so good….well worth it.

Plans for our back yard. So many ideas…and enough time to make them happen! The evidence of the work I did last fall (planting bulbs) is giving me confidence that I can do more. Maybe I’ll even become a gardener.

Frosty forsythia. The cold mornings were problematic for some of early blooming flowers, bushes, and trees. I celebrated that I captured the beauty of frost on the forsythia flowers.

Pumpkin soup. I was surprised that I had more than 4 cans of pumpkin in my pantry….not sure how it happened. I opted to make soup with one of them. Tastey…colorful…a celebration with winter fare on a cold March day.

Staying standard time for sleep. I like for the sun to be coming up when I go down to my office and didn’t like the beginning of daylight savings time because it was suddenly dark again at that time….so this year I opted to not change my sleep schedule from standard time. I celebrate the light every morning with my first cup of tea.

Walking around the neighborhood ponds 2 days in a row. It seems like the month has had a lot of cold or wet days, so I celebrated when there were 2 warmer sunny days to make pleasant walks around our neighborhood ponds.

Two mockingbirds. This time of year, I look for pairs of birds around where I live. This year, I celebrated two mockingbirds close to my house. I hope they nest somewhere nearby. Last year we had a blue jay nest in one of our front yard red maples and barn swallows nested under our deck. There must be nests of mourning doves and finches nesting nearby too because we have so many of them.

New low weight for the year. Celebrating another month of taking off some weight. This needs to continue for as long as it takes to reach my goal (and then some to sustain it)!

Birdsong in the morning. The birds chorus in the morning and I celebrate the start of the day with them. I try to identify the birds I am hearing…a lot of robins usually but others join too.

Bradford Pear

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The Callery (Bradford) Pear trees near the entrance of our neighborhood are blooming. It was cold and windy when I went out to photograph the flowers. Supposedly the trees have value as early season food for pollinators – but I didn’t see any – probably because it was so cold.

Their trunks are heavy with lichen…which I like to photograph….magnified with my phone. On the day I was out, lichen was one of the few macro opportunities since everything else was moving too much with the wind. The textures (crevices of the bark, delicate lobes or nets of lichen, ovoid shapes on the top of the larger lichens) and colors (brown and black of the bark; orange and greenish gray lichen) are nature’s abstracts.

My house was built near the end of the 90s so the Callery Pear trees in the community space at the entrance might be nearing the end of their lifespan which is typically less than 25 years if they were planted about the same time as my house was built. The trees appear to have been radically trimmed not that many years ago and that might have prolonged their life since the trees tend to be damaged by wind (big branches or trunks breaking). Hopefully another species of tree will replace them since most conservation agencies view the trees as invasive and not as appealing as they were decades ago. I know I have a Callery Pear hybrid that came up very close to a crepe myrtle. I cut it down as soon as I discovered it…and punctured myself as I was hauling it out before I realized that it had thorns! I am still cutting all the leaves that sprout from the stump since I don’t think I can dig deep enough to get it out without also digging up the crepe myrtle.

But – they do have pretty blooms in the spring.

Plant of the month - Daffodils

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At the beginning of March – the daffodils were already blooming in Carrollton, Texas.

I was full of anticipation for daffodils at my home in Nixa, Missouri since I had planted bulbs last fall…it took another 3 week for my daffodils to open! There was a lot of cold weather all during those weeks. I did photographs over almost a week of a bud outside my office window (there is a screen on the window which make the photos ‘soft’ focus…but I find it appealing). I was worried that the flower was going to open overnight…but it was so cold that at one point (temperature in the teens) the stem bent and the bud was in the grass. Fortunately, the stem recovered and the bud opened.

I walk around on the house on a day that it was a little warmer (temperature in the 40s) and was pleasantly surprised by some daffodils in a bed that isn’t visible from any of our windows. The bulbs were planted by the previous owner. They were on the west side of the house and must have been warmed by the sun shining on the brick wall during the cold days. They were all past prime….fading frills.

And now I am hoping the other spring blooming bulbs are going to bloom too…following the daffodils.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 25, 2023

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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.

Arctic river channels changing due to climate change – The prediction was that Arctic rivers would be destabilized by atmospheric warming…that thawing permafrost would weaken riverbanks causing faster channel changes. Using 50 years of satellite data for areas of Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories (which is experiencing the sharpest atmospheric warming due to climate change), researchers have discovered that greening of the area due to warmer temperatures has caused the riverbanks to be more stable…decreasing the sideways migration of river channels by 20% in the Western Arctic!

US Energy Storage Made Record Gains Last Year – A good new story! Something I didn’t know too: “they US remains the largest demand market for energy storage in the world.”

A pool at Yellowstone is a thumping thermometer – The water vibrates…the ground shakes. The intervals between reflects the amount of energy heating the pool at the bottom and how much heat is being lost from the surface.

Awe-Inspiring Videos Show Powerful Ospreys Diving in Pursuit of Prey – Photographer Mark Smith’s Osprey pictures/videos. I saw this post and the photographer was mentioned in the composition class I was views on the same day!

Crocodiles are uniquely protected against fungal infections. This might one day help human medicine too – Crocodiles have unique defensins (components of white blood cells and mucous membranes) that are inactive at neutral pH (as in the blood) but are active in sites of infection where the pH is lower (i.e. acidic). There is a lot more research and trials between this finding and application to humans.

'All work, no independent play' cause of children's declining mental health – The reduction has happened over decades. I was surprised by the quantification: “Between 1950 and 2010, the average length of the school year in the U.S. increased by five weeks. Homework, which was once rare or nonexistent in elementary school, is now common even in kindergarten. Moreover, by 2014, the average time spent in recess (including any recess associated with the lunch period) for elementary schools was just 26.9 minutes a day, and some schools had no recess at all.”

Mesa Verde National Park has plan to save Spruce Tree House – The area has been closed since 2015 because of concerns that layers of sandstone could peel away from the arch at any time. There is a lot of work involved and the plan is current open for public comment. When we visited Mesa Verde back in 1980, it was still open to visitors. Mesa Verde is still a National Park I would like to revisit.

Toxic red tide is back in Florida – Another deterrent to making a road trip to Florida….although it appears that right now there are no red tides in the panhandle…which would be the closest destination for us…I’m thinking maybe Pensacola.

Here Are the Incredible Winners of the 2022 World Nature Photography Awards – A little eye-candy for this week. ‘Fungus Horizon’ is my favorite.

Heat pumps for every home – A good introduction to heat pumps. I want a variable speed heat pump that uses the existing ducts in my house!

Our Nixa, MO Yard – March 2023

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The bulbs are up in our Missouri yard but making slow progress toward blooming because we keep having cold days! There are irises from a previous owner; I added more last fall along with daffodils, crocus, and allium. There is something growing low and around the irises that is very green (I suspect it is a weed/invasive but I am leaving it alone because I like its greenness).

The hyacinths are up and one tried to bloom. Most are still waiting to raise their buds above their leaves.

I am waiting to cut the decorative grass until late May…give insects overwintering there a chance to hatch and provide food for nesting birds.

The robins are back, of course. They don’t come to our feeder (they are not seed-eaters), but they are in our yard finding food – a good indicator that the yard might not be overwhelmed with chemicals. I am keen to let it grow as naturally as possible since I want birds and pollinators to be healthy here.

I have a clearer view of the sky in this house than I did in Maryland; the trees are not as dense or large. There is a river birch and oak in our neighbor’s yard that might provide an opportunity for a picture of the moon resting on branches…but I didn’t catch it this month. My camera’s night scene setting did a relatively good job of getting the moon in focus (Canon PowerShot SX70-HS on a monopod…me standing in my yard a few feet from my home office).

Overall – I like our new location…and plan to spend a lot more time in the yard when the temperatures are a little warmer.

An Egg

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I started with an idea to use an egg for a photo project. Originally the plan was to put the egg in different containers…contrasting the colors and shapes of the egg with its container. I started with the small bowl from my blue tulip depression glass. It was too big!

I looked closer….to get the wobbly crescent of blue color on the egg from the sunshine through the glass. I also noticed the shadow on the left and how the pitted surface of the eggshell was more noticeable near the line between sunlight and shadow…just as the moon craters stand out at the edge of light and dark of a crescent moon. I also got an inkling of the window screen shadow on the egg.

Looking even closer at the egg…the pits and screen shadow.

I repositioned the egg to the windowsill and saw that the shadow of the screen is distorted by the shape of the egg!

Another change in positions and getting closer so that the pits of the shell show again. Where did those little flecks of orange come from?

Overall – a quick project…and quite different than I anticipated….more about the egg, shadow, pits…than the container for the egg!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – March 2023

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The temperature has fluctuated wildly – from the teens to 70s this month. I took walks on two of the sunny days. We’ve had enough rain that the drainage into the ponds had running water on both days, and I stopped on the bridge to take pictures of leaves from last season in the rippling water. Oaks, maples, river birch, and red buds are represented.

There is almost always a pair of mallards about….and lots of robins.

Some branches from a magnolia in a nearby yard are upright in the pond. I wonder how long they will last…..or maybe someone is trying to root them (i.e. start new trees)?

The turtles are more active on warm days. They all appear to be red-eared sliders. Their snouts are usually all that is visible unless they are closer to shore or sunning on some high ground in the pond.

One day I started out in sunshine but there were more clouds than I anticipated. I took some landscape shots….experimenting with backlight and the curving walkway through the trees around our pond.

Some geese were on the walkway (and this time of year I give them space since they might be aggressive) so I went up to the street to complete the loop to my house. I noticed that the stormwater drain is labeled ‘no dumping – drains to river’ with a metal shield; in Maryland the labeling was painted onto the concrete.

The red maples are some of the earliest trees to bloom. The trees along the path don’t have low branches so my pictures of the flowers rely on my camera’s zoom.

Sometimes I photograph something because I didn’t anticipate it…the oak leaf stuck in the chain link of the tennis court is an example.

Another is the mats of algae on lower spillway between the two ponds. They had washed from the upper pond but are doomed to dry out on the spillway if another rain does not come soon. Still – they were ‘emerald isles’ at a time of year where there is still a lot brown in the natural world.