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

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Looking for sunrise. I am always up before sunrise, but I often get busy with other things in my office (which is on the west side of the house) and miss the sunrise. Yesterday was not a spectacular sunrise because it was clear….but I did like the bit of color and the silhouettes on the horizon.

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.

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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.

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

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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.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/16/2020 - Digiscope

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing Life Magazines from 1939. I’ve been working my way through the scanned issues of Life Magazine available on Internet Archive. 1939 was before the US entered the World War II but the pages of the magazine are full of pictures of Europe…of the wreckage in Warsaw and Hermann Göring….along with ads for Studebakers. The pictures are snippets of history – what people were seeing as ‘news’ at the time.

Digiscoping. My husband bought a gizmo to hold a cell phone to the eye piece of our birding scope….allowing a capture of images through the optics of the scope. I did a test on a cold, breezy morning – through the window (a French door in our breakfast area).

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The maples were looking very golden…with samaras and new leaves.

We reconfigured the tripod a bit…took the carrying case off the spotting scope…before I tried some pictures of the tulip poplar. The flowers (tulip like!) are beginning to open. The leaves are large enough to see their distinctive shape.

Overall, it was a good experiment. My husband thinks another mount will work better for us…and trying again on a day that isn’t so breezy would be easier too. Eventually we might even get good enough to photograph some birds back in our woods.

Making chili. We got a large package of ground beef in our last grocery delivery, so I suggested that we make chili to use 2 pounds of it…and then freeze the rest of it in 1-pound packages. I had beans that I had cooked early in the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ regime in the freezer. My husband orders a supply of our preferred chili mix – so we had that on hand. The only thing we were missing was a can of tomato sauce. We substituted spaghetti sauce! When the chili was done, he had his in tortillas (i.e. a chili soft taco) and I had mine over bulgur wheat. We have a lot of leftovers!

Finding a forgotten pair of jeans. I reorganized my closet about a month ago to work my way though all my pairs of jeans/slacks while I am at home…and discovered a pair of jeans I had completely forgotten about. And they fit! My plan had been to discover things that needed to go in the ‘give away’ pile. So far – I haven’t found anything in that category.

Seeing a goldfinch ‘sheltering’ on the screen near the birdfeeder. I noticed a goldfinch under the eve on the screen of our covered deck in the morning. It seemed very intent on whatever it was doing. Then it flew to the feeder to get some seed and look around a bit…then went back to the screen. It appeared to be eating the seed it had gotten from the feeder. I wonder if there was some kind of drama earlier that made the finch leery of our feeder.

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

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/15/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Photographing ‘still lifes’ around the house. I decided to look for some photo opportunities around the house…and picked my 4 favorites to share here. The first one is the collection of windfall that I photographed a few days ago. The samaras are wilting and the pine needles are turning yellow. I liked them on the small blue glass plate.

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The second is a part of a macramé wall hanging my sister made as a gift for me at least 35 years ago. She incorporated a shell slice that I had bought and given to her as a stocking stuffer at Christmas.

The third is a portion of my earring drawer. They are organized with a small box for each state. Maryland, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are the ones with lots of earrings in them.   

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The fourth is a scarf drawer. I need to look for more opportunities to wear scarves I’ve collected over the years…some of them might work as face masks.

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Catching up on Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safari videos:

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

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/14/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Hearing the Carolina Wren in the early morning. It’s generally too dark for pictures when I first hear the Carolina Wren. It was singing again around 9 AM and I managed to follow the sound and get a picture.

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

Noting that it’s 3 days past the COVID-19 model’s projected peak for resource use in Maryland! The peak for ‘deaths per day’ is still 4 days away. So far the downward trend has been bumpy….hopefully it will look more definitive over the next few days. I also read a thought provoking article “This is what it will take to get us back outside” from MIT Technology Review.

Cooking sweet potato custard. I baked a sweet potato for dinner recently and had half of it leftover so I made a small custard with it….using the same recipe as for pumpkin custard. I used 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, and 1/4 teaspoon cloves. After that was thoroughly mixed, I added the milk to make it the right consistency. I decided to add chopped pecans once I got it into the baking dish for ‘crust on top.’ Then baking: 425 degrees for 15 minutes and 350 degrees until it was done. My husband and I each ate half as an afternoon snack. It was a big success using a leftover!

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Getting a 3rd grocery delivery. I scheduled the deliver for 3-4 in the afternoon so the shopping was done between 2 and 3…I made sure I was at my laptop so I could participate in the decisions when the item on my list was not in-stock. I am trying to go for a bit longer than a week between deliveries, so we had a porch full of stuff. We put the non-perishables in the back of my car for a few days and the refrigerator items were put away…followed by thorough hand washing and wipe down of surfaces. The unloaded plastic bags are bundled up in the back of my car to return for recycling next time I go to the grocery store – even though I have no idea when that will be.

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Participating in a Zoom session with other volunteers. A little virtual socializing.

Getting a request to present in a Facebook Live session in May. When they asked if I was available on a date, I realized that my calendar was completely empty! I didn’t have to look. It’s good to have a milestone like this; it isn’t a ‘back to normal’ because we are still maintaining social distance….but coming out a little from the ‘stay at  home as much as possible.’

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

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/13/2020 – 30 years ago

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Taking portraits of a Common Grackle. The grackles are little too big for our feeder but one flew to the sycamore and sat around for long enough to be photographed….picking up the nuances of color in the feathers. They are not an ordinary black bird! And the yellow eyes give an additional zip to their appearance.

Cooking barbeque chicken slowly. I decided to cook chicken breasts loaded up with barbeque sauce and a little extra olive oil…for 6 hours. I used two forks to pull apart the meat about 30 minutes before we ate to let the sauce get to every bite. Very yummy…and we have plenty leftover for another meal too. 

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

I started posting about what was happening to me 30 years ago beginning last November. And I’m continuing the monthly post now, looking back to April 1990….

My baby was old enough to be crawling, enjoying looking out the window at birds and her dad washing the car, intrigued watching herself be dressed in front of a mirror, sometimes cranky as her teeth appeared, and playing pat-a-cake. Her increased mobility gave her more opportunity to explore on her own – biting the play pen to see if it tasted good (or helped her gums feel better), checking out the cat’s favorite box (the cat looking on placidly), and striking a pose to rest or just look about.

We had company from out of town and visited some sights around Maryland and DC with her for the first time. Of course, she was too young to remember any of them: Mount Vernon, Catoctin, Arlington Cemetery, Jefferson Memorial, National Zoo, Brookside Gardens and the Aquarium in Baltimore.

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The Aquarium was her first time in a backpack (since they don’t allow strollers); it was an experience for me too.

I was getting ready go back to work part time in May – having a few interviews for the assignment I would have until I started back full time in the fall. While I was preparing myself, I was doing things to make the change for my daughter easy too. We transitioned from cloth to disposable diapers, dropping the diaper service. She had her first days in family day care during the last week of the month…and seemed to enjoy the interaction with the other young children. We were very fortunate to find a wonderful the provider right away; my daughter was with the same family day care until she started Montessori pre-school.

I was off from work from mid-August 1989 to early May 1990….the longest time period I was not working in my career. It was a time of huge transition and I realized at the time that I was extremely fortunate to not have to rush back to work juggling the changes at home with a career immediately after my daughter was born. The company I worked for was ahead of the times in terms of medical leave and then unpaid leave with a job to come back to.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/12/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Aargh! Brown-headed cowbirds. This is the first year I’ve noticed cowbirds coming regularly to our feeder. There is a pair that seems to be hanging around and I’m concerned that we’ll have baby cowbirds demanding food from the robins and sparrows and cardinals and maybe even the finches.

Making a new plan – then changing it. I had big plans for my front flower beds yesterday afternoon because it was so warm – mixing soil with compost and planting some seeds, placing the glass bird bath on its stand and filling it with water. Then I looked more carefully at the 10-day forecast and remembered that there had been ice in the birdbath cantilevered from our deck for the past 2 mornings. Planting seeds needs to wait until after danger cold temperatures…and I wasn’t keen on the glass bird bath having frozen water in it either. So - I picked up sticks that had fallen from several trees. The oak and sycamore always have small twigs around them after gusty days. But this spring I noticed our cherry does too. There are a couple of larger branches that aren’t getting leaves this year. I told my husband that he’d have to help me when I cut them – although I want to wait a little while to make sure they aren’t going to leaf out.

Photographing windfall. While I was making multiple trips to the brush pile with loads of twigs, I noted small bits of trees that had blown to the ground: a twig from a pine with very green needles still attached, groups of samaras blown from the red maple before they could fully ripen, and some seed pods formed last fall on the tulip poplar. I gathered up my treasures before going inside. Just after I put them on the kitchen table, I noticed that one of them had a hitchhiker.

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A tiny spider crawled around. I quickly tried to get a picture, but it was moving too fast and was very small. I decided to use the jeweler’s loupe to contain it…and get the picture with my cell phone The jewelers loupe is 22x magnification…it was a very small spider!

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I took a close look at the junction between the pine needles and the twig with the clip-on macro lens on my cell phone. The twig has wrinkles at the junction!

The samaras from the red maple have been a topic previously. They are drying out and losing their color…but still are quite beautiful with the green and muted pink.

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The pods from the tulip poplar are thoroughly dry. One still contained some seeds. I pulled a seed out to photograph. I’m always in awe that such a tiny seed grows to be such a big tree!

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

I am opting to continue this series of blog post to emphasis how different this time is. This is the longest time I’ve stayed home that I can remember. While I am here, I am choosing things I enjoy doing and documenting some of them in this series….and following recommendations to keep myself and others healthy. Overall – the emotional roller coaster from the early days has become more subdued. Every day I become more confident that the way I am living now is sustainable for as long as it takes. My wish for everyone is to

Stay well and help others to be well too.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/9/2020– Macro Luna

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Baking a carrot cake. There is plenty of time to cook these days – a special dessert is always welcome. I opted for a variation of a recipe I found online…with some modifications:

  • Whole wheat flour rather than white

  • Heaping teaspoon of cinnamon

  • ½ cup less sugar since I was using applesauce and sweetened coconut

  • No pineapple and since I didn’t have the juice I used a tablespoon on lemon juice and then added water to make 1/2 cup liquid

  • No nuts

  • No frosting

  • Made cupcakes rather than a larger cake (We enjoyed cupcakes right out of the oven with butter, later with orange marmalade or ginger preserves…or reheated with butter). I had enough batter left to make a small sheet cake we will probably freeze for later.

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Noticing that the Dark Eyed Juncos are gone. I looked back at our birdfeeder camera and the last day they were recorded at the feeder was 4/6. Last year they left around the same time. In 2018 they were still around on 4/7 but were gone by the 9th.The birds are only in our area for the winter. They may go north for the rest of the year…or just a little west to the higher elevations of the Appalachians.

Blooming azaleas.  Several buds have opened since yesterday. I took pictures between the rain showers.

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

And now for the second installment of macro photography with our mail-order bugs. Today I am featuring the Luna Moth. It’s the one pictured in the upper right of this picture – our order from The Butterfly Co.

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I saw one at a Missouri rest stop last summer; they can be found in the US east of the Great Plains. So - Luna moths are native to Maryland – like the Cecropia Moth. It’s smaller and not as brightly colored. The antennae of the male Luna Moth are tan colored rather than deep brown of the Cecropia’s. But the antennae are arranged similarly in pairs along the rib.

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The wings have eye spots that are very different than the Cecropia. The Luna’s have a clear membrane in the center! The bit of color seen is the color of the Styrofoam that The Butterfly Co. used to pen the specimens. Also notice that the ‘scales’ on the Luna wing look more hair-like.

The wings are a pale green outlined in brown and with a few brown marks.  The shape of the wing looks like an exaggerated swallowtail.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/8/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Hearing the phoebe first thing in the morning. I am hearing a phoebe outside my office window every morning as I begin my day. Maybe it’s in the sycamore. Maybe its nest is nearby. I know from the time that the sun has just come up this morning but the clouds are hiding it; it’s too dark too look for the bird and try to get a picture.

Cleaning off the covered deck furniture. With the temperature forecast to get into the 70s in the afternoon, I cleaned off the table and chairs on the covered deck in the morning so I could spend time there in the afternoon. Everything was very dusty since it hadn’t been used over the winter. The furniture is over 20 years old and had been on the covered deck since we got it. It is undercover but ‘outdoors’ and I noticed there are some bubbles in the paint on the metal parts. It probably needs to be sanded down, primed, and repainted…which I am not enthusiastic about attempting.

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Walking the neighborhood. The forecast here is for cooler/wetter/windier after today so I wanted to get out and enjoy the sunshine…look around the neighborhood. Things change fast in the spring. Our cherry tree lost most of its petals overnight when thunderstorms rolled through. Most of the petals were on the ground. At another house the driveway was polka dotted with petals.

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The azalea still just has buds (and the deer have browsed the bush so there are not very many buds left).

A neighbor has a deciduous magnolia in bloom and it held its flowers in the storm.

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There is another tree blooming nearby. A fruit tree?

I recognized the redbud. ‘Cauliflory’ is a recent vocabulary word I learned from a tree tutorial; it means that the flowers are on branches and trunk…not where the leaf buds are…and that is how redbuds bloom!

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There were several kinds of maples in various stages of producing seeds.

When I got to the pond, I noticed several flowers nearby (dandelions being everywhere but not always so thick as near the pond).

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And then I looked more closely at the water retention pond itself. There were turtles! There were two large ones and one small. They were all Eastern Painted Turtles. The two big ones slipped into the water and then came back. The smaller one didn’t move except for the head and I noticed the scutes looked like they were peeling. Maybe they do that more when the turtle is growing up?

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And there were robins just about everywhere.

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Enjoying some outdoors-with-the-laptop-time. I tried standing at the table on the deck…that lasted for about 10 minutes…then I spent about an hour in one of the chairs. It was a great way to savor the spring day…listening to the birds (they came to the nearby bird feeder while I was there) and windchimes and breeze through the forest.

Catching up with the Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safaris:

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







Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/7/2020 – Macro Cecropia

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Taking pity on the red-bellied woodpecker’s contortions…..refilling the bird feeder. I noticed the woodpecker late in the day on Monday…waited for it to dry out a little yesterday morning before I refilled the feeder. The pictures are clips from our birdfeeder cam videos.

Putting away groceries. The non-perishable groceries had been sitting in the back of my car since Saturday evening. We had put them there after they were delivered….to give any coronavirus time to dry up and die before we put them away.

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Washing the plastic table covering – making a Zentangle mosaic. I’ve had the covering for over 20 years and have generally just wiped it down thoroughly. It was time it seemed grubbier than usual, so I put it in the washer with a few towels. I hung it over some deck chairs to let it dry thoroughly afterward. Then I made a mosaic of Zentangle tiles under it when I put it back on the table. Now we have new art to look at while we’re eating…during the pauses in conversation.

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Creating some face mask variations. My husband discovered that his favorite pizza place does not deliver to our area….so he will pick it up as he has done in the past. He’ll wear a face mask as recommended by the CDC. I got some hair ties (covered rubber bands) in our last grocery delivery and I have coffee filters on hand. He had some old handkerchiefs to make his. If I must go out, I’ll make mine from a bandana or washable silk scarf. We are not going out very often so it will be easy enough to launder the cloth part of the mask after each use.

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

Noticing a Northern Flicker in the yard – next to a robin. I saw the robin first through my office window then noticed the other bird when it moved. I had on my computer glasses, so my distance vision was not great. Then I used the zoom on my camera to id the bird…and take the picture in the next second.

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

And now for the first installment of macro photography with our mail-order bugs. Today I am featuring the Cecropia Moth. It’s the one pictured in the lower part of this picture – our order from The Butterfly Co.

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I used my smartphone with a clip-on macro lens for this session. The Cecropia is the largest moth in Maryland. This one is a male based on the antennae. They are somewhat feather-like in that they have a central rib…but the stems off the rib are different. The Cecropia stems seems to be in pairs and there might be tiny fibers connecting each pair. I’ll have to get more magnification with a loupe next time (and be very careful not to break the antennae off).  

A few years ago, we had the caterpillars at the Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens, so I am more familiar with the caterpillar than the adult moth. I didn’t unpin the specimen for this round of photographs but I know that it doesn’t have mouth parts….all the calories for the life of these moths are eaten when they are caterpillars. The adult form is only mating and laying eggs!

The wings have scales – sometimes looking like scales on butterfly wings…other times looking fur or hair-like. Another opportunity for my next round (using the loupe rather than the clip-on lens).

The downside of the loupe is that it works best sitting on the specimen…and inevitably some of the scales will come off. I am giving my husband the opportunity to photograph the bugs before I do anything that might damage them. Tomorrow’s post will be about the Luna Moth.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/6/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Perusing the updated IHME model. It was updated on April 5th (prior release was April 1st). In the new model, Maryland peaks earlier on April 18th rather than April 29th…and the peak deaths are higher too (138 rather than 53). The number of ventilators needed has increased to 1,040 from 659. There have been cases in nursing homes and a psychiatric hospital reported recently – even with the increased precautions that had been taken at those facilities….a vulnerable population that are at higher risk…leading to a cluster of deaths. As I looked at the results for Maryland and other states, I noticed that the error bars on the projections are quite high….still a lot of uncertainty out there. The model predicts New York’s peak in will be on 4/8th.

Creating a botanical print inspired Zentangle® tile. I am working my way through the 11 volumes of Flora fluminensis available on Internet Archive….found inspiration for a Zentangle today in vol 7. After I made the 4 botanical-like shapes, I couldn’t resist added auras to fill in all the blank space! The tile itself is from a yellow folder that I cut into 3.5-inch squares. The Ultra Fine Point Sharpie was a light green.

Replacing a screen on the screened deck. We have a few screens with holes and one that seems to attract Carolina Wrens to enter…and then have trouble finding a way out. My husband put new screening material in the frame this morning and reinstalled it yesterday. There are at least 3 others that need to be replaced and he thinks he may only have enough material on hand to do one more. He’s planning to use all the material he has over the next few days (one screen a day). One of our strategies is to do projects over multiple days and enjoy the tasks multiple times.

Noticing the sycamore branch beginning to wilt. The water is probably not getting up the stems as efficiently as would be the case if the branch was still attached to the tree. I took a picture of a group of leaves near the center of the branch…miniature sycamore leaves. The branch will probably go into the brush pile tomorrow.

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Finishing the second module of the Fashion as Design Coursera course…Heroes. I should have probably done the module over 2 days…but I got caught up in the topic. I still have 5 modules of the class to go.

Clearing off the accumulation on the kitchen table – cleaning it thoroughly. Magazines and mail had accumulated on our breakfast table. The magazines are now positioned between our chairs in the den and I have a pad of mall post-it notes to indicate that I’ve read a magazine…that it can be recycled when my husband gets around to reading it. I wiped down the plastic covering but it didn’t come entirely clean. It’s almost 20 years old!

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

--

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.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/5/2020 – Our Yard

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Wearing Sherman TX earrings. I hadn’t worn them recently. I bought them in a boutique on the square after lunch at Fulbelli’s. Savoring the memory!

Seeing a Carolina Wren with nest material. The bird (probably a male) appeared to be looking around to see if a female was noticing his find. I didn’t see exactly where he went but it was in the general direction of our gas grill. We had a Carolina wren nest built in the grill a few years ago. I hope it isn’t happening again!

Loosening sense of the day of the week. It’s harder to remember which day of the week it is because the days are so much the same. I try to include some variety every day, but the activities are not pinned to a day of the week (except for laundry which, for some unknown reason, we still do on Saturdays). If the pandemic was not raging, I’d be volunteering 3-5 days a week with Howard County Conservancy’s outdoor field trips for school groups, guiding Robinson Nature Center visitors at the salt water Touch Tank, and (by mid-Month) morning shifts at the Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy (butterfly) exhibit. None of those organizations are open now. The calendar for April is a big blank.

Mowing the grass…doing some yard work. It’s the first mowing of the year…not really grass, mostly weeds. My husband did the mowing after I picked up twigs and small branches under trees to make the mowing easier. I also started a new compost pile with kitchen scraps and paper shreds.

Photographing the best of our yard. The trees are pretty this time of year. The red maple samaras are ripening. Soon the squirrels and birds will enjoy them, and they’ll helicopter off the tree. From afar the tree looks golden brown…looking more closely the colors are more appealing.

The tulip poplar is full of new spring-green leaves. Soon the buds will open. Right now, the buds are surrounded by small leaves. The trees themselves are far from the ‘wall of green’ they will become.

There are a lot of violets blooming in the thin grass under the trees.

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The cherry tree is still full of blooms, but the petals are beginning to fly.

The plum has lost its flower petals, but the rest of the flower is still visible among the new leaves that are a red-purple color.

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I heard a cardinal high the oak tree. The buds are larger than they were a week ago…but there are no blooms or leaves yet.

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Trimming hair. My hair was short enough going into the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ mode but my husband needed to have the hair on the back of his neck trimmed. Fortunately, we have clippers and it was easy for me to do; it bothers him when he wears a shirt with a collar so wanted it gone. Otherwise, he’s letting his hair grow too.

Looking at the COVID-19 cases per 10K population map from the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. It goes down to the county level. There is also a social distancing activity map down to county. Interesting….and scary at the same time. I try not to spend too much time looking at them.

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







Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/3/2020 - Gleanings

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Photographing the sunrise. I seem to get busy and miss the sunrise most mornings…but not yesterday!

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

Noticing more sycamore leaves emerging. There are now three buds that have popped…lots of tiny leaves.

Making experimental face masks from materials I have at home….for when/if we need to go out. I made a mask with a paper napkin, small binder clips, the cut off top of a small gift bag (for the loops). The napkin would be replaced after each use…the rest sprayed with Lysol. It would probably fit better over the nose if I made some pleats. Even better using a scarf (or paper towels) and two hair ties/covered bands. (How to videos I watched). This is all about protecting others; I don’t want anyone to get sick if I happen to be an asymptomatic carrier.

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Started Fashion as Design course on Coursera. The week 1 optional 2-hour video of 4 speakers and then Q&A (Under Review and then Reading) on the topic was well worth it.

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

And now for the normal weekly gleanings post….

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. 

25 Photos of Madeira's Dreamy Fanal Forest by Albert Dros – Calming nature. It is a quite different forest than the one I see from my office window. Both views are much appreciated.

Tips for how to stay happy in troubling times - BBC Future – Hopefully, some of these work for you. I find that limiting the time I spend catching up on ‘news’ is the one I need to keep reminding myself about; it’s so easy to get absorbed in all the pandemic news (none of it good). I want to be informed but not 24/7.

Monarchs Covered 53 Percent Less Area in Mexico this Winter | The Scientist Magazine® - The last paragraph of the article was the worst news: “The butterflies have already begun their journey north but there is not enough milkweed in Texas to support the butterflies’ reproductive cycle this spring.”

How your personality changes as you age - BBC Future – It seems like there are a lot of positive general trends in personality as we age: more altruistic and trusting individuals, willpower increases, a better sense of humor, more control over emotions. They’re calling it ‘personality maturation’ and it continues until at least the 8th decade of life! And its observed across all human cultures.

Top 25 birds of the week: Eagles - Wild Bird Revolution – Never can resist the birds….

On This Scorching-Hot Exoplanet, a Forecast of Molten Iron Rain | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – 640 light-years outside our solar system

Tour A National Park from The Comfort of Your Couch -  Hmmm….I’m going to start working my way through the virtual tours….Maybe one a day?

Unprecedented preservation of fossil feces from the La Brea Tar Pits: A 50,000-year-old Snapshot of Los Angeles trapped in asphalt -- ScienceDaily – The La Brea Tar Pits have been studied for more than a century….but apparently there are still things to learn from them. Fossilized rodent pellets found in context (so definitely not modern, they also were radiocarbon dated to ~50,000 years ago). They are preserved along with twigs, leaves and seeds….an intact woodrat nest!

Massive Mammoth-Bone Structure Found in Kostenki, Russia - Archaeology Magazine – A circular structure about 41 feet in diameter…made with bones from at least 60 mammoths.

Tree Tapping Isn’t Just for Maples – The 2020 season is over for getting sap from trees – this is still an interesting article about how it is done…and other trees that also have sweet sap. I was surprised to see sycamore on the list.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/2/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Finishing the Coursera course: In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting from MoMA. The last module was about Yayoi Kusama – the only artist featured in the course that is still alive and the second woman.

Making a Yayoi Kusama inspired Zentangle tile. Kusama’s Accumulation 18a from 1962 is made with paper savers (circular adhesives to reinforce holes punched into paper) and charcoal on paper. My tile is smaller, lightweight cardboard instead of paper…and it was brown instead of white. I used some very old paper savers that were a woven material (I had saved them in the office supply cabinet even though I didn’t think I would ever have a use for them); I wondered if the adhesive would still work…was pleasantly surprised when it did. And I used a graphite pencil instead of charcoal. Once I had done the paper savers and pencil…..I diverged by coloring the holes green….and added a black circle on each paper saver (feeling the nubs of the weave). I took a series of pictures of the progression.

Tracking the changes in the COVID-19 Projections. The model gets a daily tweak as new data is available. I made some notes the night before so it could detect some of the changes between the 4/1 and 4/2 version of the model.

  • The peak for the US overall moved from 4/16 to 4/15…one less day to prepare.

  • For Maryland the peak moved from 4/28 to 4/29, the peak death day rose from 51 to 53 deaths, and the peak number of ventilators moved from 638 to 659.

Hearing about my daughter’s transition from in-classroom to virtual teaching (university level). My daughter has been calling when she takes her (almost) daily walk around her neighborhood in Missouri. A positive bit of news: her gen-ed class has transitioned to virtual mode. She thought the first class might have been a fluke because about the same number of people attended as were in her classroom before the pandemic; she thought that maybe the students were curious enough to make the effort to attend; but then they joined again for the second virtual lecture…so now she is realizing she and her students have made a successful transition.

Photographing a minute at our birdfeeder. A lot can happen. The gold finches were there at the beginning of the minute – 3-4 of them. Then the female red-bellied woodpecker showed up and scattered the other birds. She ate some seeds at the feeder then got a peanut and flew away. I noticed a female cardinal below the feeder about that time. A second later, a chickadee arrived…quickly got some seed and flew back o the safety of the trees.

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

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/30/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Hearing traffic noise in the early morning. I woke up about an hour before my time to get up and heard traffic noise. We’re close enough to I95 that sometimes in the winter when the trees don’t baffle the sound and the weather conditions are right…we hear the trucks. I hadn’t heard it as much recently and thought it was the effect of the pandemic. Today it seemed more like a pre-coronavirus Monday. I dosed until my Fitbit vibrated at the usual time.

Discovered HiJinx podcasts from my local library. I listened to the most recent one - ‘A most notorious woman’ about a Grace O’Malley – Ireland’s Pirate Queen. (Anne Chambers’ book on O’Malley available at Internet Archive here.)

Seeing deer just after 8 in the morning….going back to the forest. I wonder where they spent the night. The forest behind our house is part of the green space along the river. Did the deer spend their night elsewhere or did they leave the forest for a morning browse on tender plants in the neighborhood (like my daylilies) for ‘breakfast’ and were returning to the forest because a car or two had come down our street.  

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Later in the day – when it was warmer – I walked around the yard and noted that the daylilies were recovering from the deer browsing several weeks ago. They were not eating them this morning. Also, the daffodils are on their last legs. I took some macro shots of them.

More violets were blooming.

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Dandelions are becoming more numerous too. I’m being lazy and leaving them alone. After the heavy rains a few years ago caused some of our lawn to turn to dirt with patches of grass I have come to appreciate the deeper roots of dandelions that hold the soil.

The leaves on the tulip poplar are a little bigger but the flower buds are not open yet.

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The cherry tree was attracting bees!

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It was a wonderful sunny day and warm enough to have the windows open again. Hearing birdsong in the forest never gets old.

Remembering something I forgot to include in the post for last Friday – my husband had a telemedicine session. It was a first for us. It was a follow up after some tests and lab work from back in February….not coronavirus related. It was a lot less stressful than going into a doctor’s office during this time.

Receiving a communication from our Community Supported Agriculture farmer about what they have been doing to social distance while they work and the modified share pickup process planned when the season starts for us in June. I am reassured that they are thinking ahead…that I can still enjoy the bounty of fresh veggies this summer.

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Photographing the sunset. The sunset is not in my line of sight from my desk, but I can see it if I stand in front of the window and look to the left. I timed it right last night. The clouds reflected the orange light in an arc over the tall trees.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27, 3/28, 3/29





Zooming – March 2020

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17 pictures taken in March…full of spring blossoms and bird activity. All but four are from around my house and neighborhood…after the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ guidance was issued. The four are from Brookside Gardens…very early in the month before we cut back on doing anything other than groceries away from the house. Included in the slideshow:

  • Moon

  • Maple samaras

  • Reeds in water

  • Blue jay

  • Bird-of-paradise (flowers)

  • Azaleas

  • Miniature iris

  • Squirrel

  • Red-bellied woodpeckers

  • Cowbird

  • House sparrow

  • Plum blossoms

  • House finch

  • Goldfinch

  • Carolina wren

  • Deer

Enjoy the slideshow!

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2020

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Every month I write about 10 little celebrations. There is a big celebration as I write this –

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….

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Brookside Conservatories. Early in March, before the state and counties started closing facilities, I went over to Brookside Gardens…already taking the social distancing and handwashing/no face touching precautions. The conservatories were warm and lush as usual – always a cause for celebration. I’m glad I got to see them before they were closed.

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Sunrise on grocery day. For the first 3 weeks of March I was still going to the grocery store but even earlier than usual so there would not be many people in the store. The sunrise on a couple of those trips was glorious and started the day off wonderfully!

Virtual birthdays. There are family birthday’s in March…celebrated with alternatives to gathering in one place!

Dutch chocolate protein powder. It’s always worth celebrating finding something that tastes good (in smoothies) and adds a nutritional punch!

Grocery delivery. As the month progressed there were more people in the store even at the early time…even during senior shopping hours. I was skeptical that I would like grocery delivery, but my first experience late in the month was positive. It’s something to celebrate since we’ll be doing it for at least the next month or more. I am feeling more confident that we are doing everything we can to stay well.

Spice cake muffins with applesauce. The muffins made a chicken dinner into a celebration.

Crocus in the yard near the oak tree and daffodils 4 feet out of the flower bed. Replanted by squirrels? It’s always a celebration to find flowers growing in an unexpected place.

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Thundercloud plum in bloom. The week that the plum blooms is always a celebration. It’s usually the first tree blooming in our neighborhood.

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Achieving a 1st weight loss goal. Finally – getting the weight I gained over Thanksgiving and Christmas off! I celebrated with dark chocolate and will push forward to get lower…down into the ‘normal’ range for my height.  

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/28/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Watching Winchester Mystery House Virtual Tour. I saw the blurb about the tour in one of my news feeds…and followed the link to view it (a little over 40 minutes). I remembered having an afternoon free during a business trip to San Jose – probably over 10 years ago - and touring the house. It was memorable and this virtual tour showed it very well…a good reinforcement to the memory.

Turning electronics off during thunderstorms. There was a line of thunderstorms that came through while I was watching the Winchester House Tour….I switched to watching on my laptop screen (on battery) rather than my big monitor. The lightning and rumblings passed quickly; the rest of the day was just rainy.

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Stir-frying with ground turkey. Using a seasoning packet I found in the pantry – a few months past the ‘use by date.’ This was my first experience using ground turkey; I’d put it on the list since it would be easy for the shopper to get what I wanted. We liked it – but I think I’ll go back to chicken breasts for next time. Maybe I’ll used ground turkey for chili though.

Taking end of day photos. It was a raining most of the day – not a good day for pictures…so I opted to experiment with the ‘night scene’ setting on my camera for the ‘through the window’ picture in the early evening.

Reviewing the birdfeeder camera videos. Saturday evening might become my regular time to review the videos from the birdfeeder cam for the week. It worked well for this past week. Here are the highlights:

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On Sunday – a Carolina Wren was in the first video of the day at 7:38 AM…a female Cardinal was in the last. A frustrated squirrel was first at the feeder on Monday about 8 AM.

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On Tuesday, a female Red-Bellied Woodpecker was first at 7:47 AM. On Wednesday, a pair of House Finches were at the feeder at 8:27 AM and there was a grand finale with a pair of House Finches and a female Cardinal at 5:40 PM.

On Thursday, the Carolina Wren came while it was very foggy at 7:06 AM. There were a lot of birds at 5:49 PM: female Red-Bellied Woodpecker with a Titmouse and a Carolina Wren. Then a chickadee just after the woodpecker flew away with a peanut.

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On Friday, a Titmouse was the first visitor at 6:55 AM. And the Cowbirds arrived – males first…then females…then male again. The last bird of the day was at 6:45 PM…a male Cowbird.

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On Saturday, the Carolina Wren was the early bird at 7:31 AM. There was a grand finale at 6:48 PM with House Finches and Chipping Sparrow. Most of the time the house finches come as a male/female pair.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/27/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Blooming violets. As I was getting ready to do some yard work, I noticed that the violets were beginning to bloom in our yard. I couldn’t resist taking some pictures. I appreciate their deep color…and that they grow in the area of the yard that doesn’t get enough sun for the grass to grow well. They help to fill in some of the holes…keep those parts of the yard from becoming bare soil.

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Spreading out compost from bin. The bin was getting a little full and most of the kitchen scraps and dried leaves were decomposed…time to put it someplace else and start again. I decided to put in in an area of the front flower bed where I will plant some flower seeds. I got the wheelbarrow and loaded it up.

Aargh! The tire was a little flat on the wheelbarrow. I could feel my back not responding well as I pushed it up the slight hill to the front yard. I dumped out the load, spread it out a bit and decided my back was complaining enough to just stop; I managed to put my tools away. I’ll mix the compost with soil another day.

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Popping buds on the Ninebark shrub. Next to the area spread with compost, I noticed the Ninebark leaves were emerging. They are still so tiny it’s hard to see them when looking at the whole bush; looking more closely, they have a lot of sunrise/sunset colors…and texture. The picture also shows another outdoor task for another day…weeding the area around the shrub.

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Hearing more sounds from outdoors – an open window. The temperature was in the 60s with very little breeze so I opened the window in my office and enjoyed hearing more birds nearby…and back in the forest. There was a lot of activity. The smells of spring came in too. It was supposedly a high tree pollen day; I didn’t seem to have any allergy problems. The fresh air felt and smelled good.

Receiving a grocery delivery. This was our first experience with a grocery delivery; it was a good one. The shopper was interacting with me while she was in the store filling my order which allowed me to participate in selecting substitutions. And then it all arrived at my front porch about 15 minutes after she finished. The only downside is getting a lot of plastic bags; I will return them to be recycled at the store at some point.

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Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25, 3/26

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 28, 2020

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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.  

Tree Rings, Wildfires, and Climate | The Scientist Magazine® - Evidently the linkage between winter precipitation and fires in the spring in California – long documented in tree ring studies – has disappeared. Wildfires now are as likely to happen after a wet winter as they are after a dry one.

New Research Shows Healthy Agriculture Means Healthier Birds – Honing our understanding of healthy agricultural schemes that promote healthy farmland birds.

How cutting your food waste can help the climate - BBC Future – Over the past few years, I have started composting and reduced my food waste by eating food – never forgetting what I have in the refrigerator. Keeping a mental inventory of fresh fruits and veggies…freezing anything that I might not use before it goes bad….has been key. I enjoy frozen bananas in smoothies more than the unfrozen! This time at home (social distancing) gives me an opportunity for another round of reducing food waste….although it’s harder now since I’ve done all the easy actions.

'Grand Challenge' review stresses global impact of microplastics -- ScienceDaily  - Where major research and discovery are needed re microplastics impact on the environment and health. Recognizing that all plastic is not the same and new tools will be needed.

20+ Photos of a Snow-Covered Winter Wonderland in the Forest and 15 Incredible Finalists of the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest – So many beautiful pictures. I needed the boost of natural images this week.

Dragonflies are efficient predators: They consume hundreds of thousands of insects in a small area -- ScienceDaily – Exploring predation in the insect world…its impact on prey species and the community.

A Naturalist’s Guide to the South African Cape – Some unique species.

Top 25 birds of the week: Migratory birds - Wild Bird Revolution – I always enjoy the 25 bird pictures each week.

Sinking ships to stop erosion - The Landslide Blog - AGU Blogosphere – The example shows ships sunk after World War I to stop erosion…and now more than 100 years later – it’s obvious that it worked!

Staying in? Keep learning with science activities that kids and families can do at home | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Some resources from NOAA….ocean and atmosphere topics to explore without leaving the house!