Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference – Day 2

The biggest take away from day 2 – and really from the conference as a whole – is the shift in the conversation focus re climate change from problem to solutions….it is hopeful rather than doom/gloom.

So much good material referenced in the conference….here are some of the sites I’ve looked at so far.

Project Drawdown. Drawdown is the point in time when the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere begins to decline on a year-to-year basis. The focus of this is site is, therefore, about solutions…things we can implement now….with the goal of reaching drawdown by mid-century. There is also a 104-page downloadable The Drawdown Review (free) available from the site.

American Public Health Association page about Climate Change. There are regional factsheets about the health impact of climate change plus some climate-relevant COVID-19 resources.

The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. Infrographic about “Health and climate: co-benefits.”

Center for Climate Change & Health. Climate Change and Health: A Framework for Action (another infographic)

These links are skewed to the last session of the conference because I’m still overwhelmed and trying to figure out how to organize what I have in my notes. The conference organizers are posting the videos and saved chats to the shared folder by sometime next week (I think). I’ll start with reviewing my notes this week and then add to the summary of what I’ll keep over the next few weeks. I’m envisioning a list of annotated links – at minimum. Some parts of the conference were done as concurrent breakout sessions….so the videos for the sessions I did not attend will be totally new material for me.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Summer squash custard. Before I went to pick up my share for the 3rd week of the CSA, I used up all the summer squash I had in the crisper making a custard with pecan topping. It made an excellent light lunch.

Lots of day lilies. The deer have eaten more day lily buds…so I am cutting all the ones that are mature enough. Today it was 6 stalks. There will be more ready to cut tomorrow….if the deer don’t get them first

3rd week of CSA. Look at the list of veggies. It was 2 overflowing bags (the fennel, carrot, and beet tops were sticking out)!

I was glad I cleared out the crispers before I did the pickup. When I got home, I managed to get almost everything into the two crispers. The Caraflex (pointy head) cabbage didn’t fit. Tomorrow I will probably have to process some of it into the freezer.

Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference – Day 1

The Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference (MACCEC) was a conference that went virtual because of the pandemic.  I anticipated that it would be an intense 4 hours in from of my computer. I set up to use both of my screens – one for the WebEx and one for note taking/agenda/etc. Initially, I thought I might use a headset for the audio but quickly decided that 4 hours was too long for that. I also thought that I might get up and move around more during the sessions, but I was too busy interacting with polls and chat…and taking notes. I only got up and moved during the breaks!

Now that it is the ‘morning after,” I’ve had some hours to digest what happened on the first day. It was overwhelming at times while it was happening – and in a different way than an in-person conference is overwhelming. The flow of chat during the presentation is often invigorating but also distracting. It requires multi-tasking. Sometimes I tuned it out to focus on the presenter entirely.

Like most conferences, the speakers were often rushed so that we could stay in the time windows on the agenda. The charts were posted which made up for the rush somewhat…but not completely.

There were breakout sessions that ended up having some similarities with in-person conferences since one time I got lost for about a minute…couldn’t find my session!

The big take aways from the first day were:

• information is out there for climate change educators…choosing what works best for their situation

• education on climate change is interlinked with JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion)

• always get to solutions…don’t stop with defining the problems

The ice-breaker activity was to determine the native inhabitant of land where participants were located using the https://native-land.ca/ website. I learned that where I live is Piscataway land. Where my daughter lives in Springfield MO is Kickapoo, Osage, and Sioux land. The land where my parents and sisters live in Texas (Carrollton, Flower Mound, and Sherman) was Kickapoo and Wichita land. Got us all thinking about how the land, water and air have changed since then…what we can and should restore.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Deer found the day lilies. The deer ate many of the day lily buds in the past few days. I am cutting a few every day as they manage to mature enough to bloom indoors.

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I found one already blooming under the milkweed this morning – a different variety than I had cut before. The stalk was shorter which probably helped it escape deer notice. Other buds are hiding in the same way…and I hope they will remain for few more days until they are ready to be cut.

Oak shedding acorns. Our oak tree dropped quite a few immature acorns on our driveway in the past few days. There are so many…. not many left on the tree to mature over the summer.

Gleanings for Week Ending June 27, 2020

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.

What if all viruses disappeared? - BBC Future – We are more aware of pathogenic viruses….but there are a lot more that are not pathogenic to humans….and are often beneficial (directly and indirectly).

Scythian Warrior's Genome Analyzed - Archaeology Magazine – Surprise! Discovered in 1988 and assumed to be a young warrior based on the weapons in the grave. DNA revealed it was a girl and was younger than 14 years old.

90 Percent of U.S. Could Be Powered by Renewables by 2035 - Yale E360 – Technically feasible…but do we have the determination as a country to do what we need to do for future generations?

Repetitive negative thinking linked to dementia risk -- ScienceDaily – But can training/therapy to reduce negative thinking reduce the risk? Whether it does or doesn’t – it seems that people who perceive the positives in their lives are more satisfied/happy….so teaching strategies to enhance that kind of thinking is probably worth it.

How Iceland is undoing carbon emissions for good - BBC Future – Examples of how Iceland is pushing the technical envelope for carbon capture even in heavy industry.

What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others - The New York Times – Tools most common in resilient people: realistic optimism, a moral compass, religious or spiritual beliefs, cognitive and emotional flexibility, social connectedness.

Memory consolidation during REM sleep: Researchers identify neurons responsible for memory consolidation during REM sleep -- ScienceDaily – I remember the babies I’ve known well having frequent REM sleep….they are doing a lot of memory consolidation!

Top 25 birds of the week: Camouflage – They are easy to spot in these zoomed pictures….in the field, their camouflage is highly effective.

Urine test reveals quality of your diet -- and whether it's the best fit for your body – Interesting work. Maybe in the future we’ll get feedback from the toilet about the ‘health’ of our diet as easily as we get feedback about heart rate and sleep quality from wearable devises now.

The Winnowing of the Wilson’s Snipe – A bird that could fit in the camouflage group…but this bird is special – it makes sound with specialized tail feathers!

Unique activities for yesterday:

Three kinds of day lilies. I have three different kinds of day lilies blooming right now. I love having the flowers in my office and something new opening every day!

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Ice maker repair. My husband ordered a replacement part for our ice maker once we started having water overflowing the unit and accumulating in the freezer. He’d done some research online and it seemed likely that the new part would fix the problem. It came and after a few days of the box sitting around to decontaminate, we pulled out the refrigerator to install it (using the opportunity to clean the floor too). This is the type of thing we would have called for repair service pre-pandemic. There are areas where we’ve become a lot more resourceful in recent months and I wonder if we’ll continue that trend post-pandemic.

CSA Begins

Our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) finally started this week. The cool weather in mid to late May slowed down the development of the items normally ready in the first weeks of June. I am so ready for the glut of fresh veggies! We sign up for the medium share which is always a bit overwhelming in the beginning. Last year I was traveling a lot in June and the freezer got filled up very rapidly. I did learn to prep and freeze leafy greens for use in smoothies….my favorite summer breakfast.

The farmer has added signs to the side of the barn where the shares are distributed emphasizing the changes this year because of the pandemic. There were yellow markers sprayed on the gravel 6 feet apart so the line could space out appropriately. For the first day of the season, everything worked very smoothly – even for the two people in front of me in line who were new to the CSA this year.

The first share of the season included (from left to right):

• Butter lettuce – I had the outer two rounds of leaves in a salad almost immediately.

• Radishes – I cleaned and froze the leaves to use in smoothies and had one radish in the salad with the butter lettuce

• Garlic scapes – I will have these cooked with scrambled eggs or as a topping on chili or in a salad. These are one of the treats of getting veggies from the CSA.

• Collards – I had a choice of kale, collards or chard and picked the collards because I already have some kale left from the grocery store and I like collards better than chard.

• Strawberries – These will be gone very quickly…another treat of the first weeks of the CSA.

• Red leaf lettuce – I could have gotten Romaine, but I opted for the more tender and colorful red-leaf.

• Spinach – I was pleased it was in a bunch rather than having to weigh leaves -  always slow going. I cut the root end off the bunch and cleaned the leaves thoroughly before putting it into the same bag as the radish leaves….to use in smoothies in the upcoming week.

 That’s quite a pile of veggies!

Unique activities for yesterday:

Climate and Sustainability Webinars (via Zoom). The first one was yesterday and was focused on healthy soil. They continue every other week for the remainder of the summer. I’m looking forward to the upcoming topics: regenerative gardening, regenerative landscaping, what can the pandemic teach us about being (un)prepared for climate change and other global disasters, the power of individual choice and climate change is bad for your health. I am already way over the number of education hours needed to sustain my Master Naturalist certification for 2020 but these are too interesting to pass up!

Turkey Vulture. Just before the webinar started, I noticed a vulture swooping low over our yard…and then – Surprise!!!e - it landed on the roof of our covered deck. It seemed to be making eye contact with me through the window.   I see them frequently soaring over the landscape….but usually not at such close range! I took a picture zoomed a little then zoomed more to get more detail on the feet and head.

Gleanings for Week Ending 6/13/2020

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.

Why some older adults remember better than others -- ScienceDaily – The article seems to be more about the technology that enables these studies….hints at findings that may eventually be actionable.

The World’s Forests Are Getting Younger and Shorter, Research Finds - Yale E360 – This article is a little confusing. It says that ‘climate change is altering the age and structure of the world’s forests’….but it’s more than climate change. It’s also land use decisions (like logging , conversion to agriculture, introduction of invasive species) that have changed the forests. I was disappointed in the article although the last sentence seems obvious: “We as a human society are hitting these forests so rapidly with so many different changes that they can’t keep up.” Now the big question is – what are we going to do about it?

Remains of 60 Mammoths Discovered in Mexico | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – North of Mexico City.

Photographer Captures ISS Transiting the Sun in First Solar Photo Shoot – A challenge…requiring lots of planning, practice….and then success!

Top 25 birds of the week: LBBs - Wild Bird Revolution – Little brown birds…. they are everywhere.

Ancient Roman Mosaic Floor Unearthed Beneath Italian Vineyard | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Finally returning to a site first discovered in 1922 and making this find within a week of starting excavations. The mosaic floor is well preserved a few meters below the vineyards surface and is thought to date from the 3rd century AD.

The Infant Gut Microbiome and Probiotics that Work | The Scientist Magazine®  - Evidently the infant microbiome has changed in the past 100 years…even among breastfed babies. And maybe that explains some of the immunologic problems in young children. There are indications that the probiotic helps babies nutritionally and immunologically.

Two bacteria allow spittlebugs to thrive on low-nutrient meals -- ScienceDaily – One of the bacteria uses aerobic glycolysis to process glucose to synthesize 7 essential amino acids plus 2 biproducts that the other bacteria uses to create ATP to produce 3 additional essential amino acids. It’s a similar two cell type process used by cancer cells.

An Encounter with Mating Gopher Snakes – Springtime out in nature…. this article from Idaho.

The gilded mummy of Lady Isaious | Egypt at the Manchester Museum – A Graeco-Roman Period mummy from the 1st century CE.

Unique activities for yesterday:

A large Zentangle tile. I printed a page (on card stock) from The genera of the plants of the United States illustrated by figures and analyses from nature by Asa Gray and Isaac Sprague published in 1848 available from Internet Archive.

Then I used the lotus as the ‘string’ for an 8.5x11 Zentangle tile. Like most strings….it mostly vanished. It took me about three days working for short periods of time to finish. Next time I’ll use more colors so that the botanical print ‘string’ remains more visible.

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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.

Gleanings

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

Gleanings for this week

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Volunteers Spot New Sites in Aerial Images of England - Archaeology Magazine – Volunteers and lidar scans…a productive combination!

Seven highlights from 70 years of the National Science Foundation - The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy - AGU Blogosphere – Deepwater Horizon oil spill, public radio and television, ozone hole, strong curricula for introductory science, deep-sea exploration, student opportunities, and COVID-10 response. It seems like the list it too skewed to recent years.

We don’t need nearly as much protein as we consume - BBC Future – Another recommendation of getting nutrients from food rather that highly processed food or supplements….and moderation too. Skewing the diet toward protein at the expense of other nutrients is not healthy!

The Coolest Kingfishers from Six Continents – I’ve seen the first three! All three in south Texas and the Belted Kingfish elsewhere too.  Kingfishers are an easily recognized shape….heavy bill, bigger head relative to body…etc.

How Americans are coping with COVID-19 stress -- ScienceDaily – This report was prior to the additional stressor of George Floyd’s death….the racism of police evident in the videos of the event and the response to protests that seems too militarized. It seems like 2020 will be a pivot point in our nation’s history and how we all respond to the stressors of the year is important in the outcome. I hope that we can show the best of ourselves…our utmost caring for all people and our planet that is our home.

Ice Arch Persists Despite Warm Arctic – It won’t last long…the ice arch which prevents sea ice from drifting south generally breaks up in June or July. Last year it broke up in mid-April.

'New' Footage of Benjamin, the Last Tasmanian Tiger Ever Seen Alive | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A 21-second video from 1935.

Top 25 birds of the week: Seabirds - Wild Bird Revolution – I’ve seen most the North American birds in these photographs….except for the puffins.

Babies know when you imitate them -- and like it -- ScienceDaily – Most parents probably realize this to some extent…but the research teases out more specifics about how babies respond to knowing they are being imitated.

The remarkable power of the prickly pear - BBC Future – Grown as a crop for food in arid areas and then using the waste left after the food is extracted to generate biofuel. Wish we had more processes like this.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Aftermath of thunderstorm. I did another early morning in the outdoors – noting the aftermath of the thunderstorm the night before. Both birdbaths had been filled by the rain. The one in front is surrounded by day lily leaves…I’m not sure how often it is used by birds, but I like the way it looks from our front door.

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The sycamore tree trunk still looked very wet. I had forgotten the Virginia creeper climbing up. There were a few sycamore leaves that were blown into the yard…but the wind must not have been too bad.

The wetness of the leaves kept some of the maple leaves flipped over. It’s always surprising that the underside is so light in color.

Finally, I noticed a dead bee just before I settled into my chair. It must have gotten into the screened part of the deck and not been able to escape.

The rest of my outdoor time I spent making a couple of Zentangle tiles….and listening to the birds.

Mint as a fresh veggie. Mint grows so easily and comes back year after year. My front flower bed has a lot of it…enough to use it for more than a garnish. I cut a handful of stems and strip the leaves – it is the leafy green in a smoothie with chocolate protein powder. Yummy!

A Zentangle Prompt

Make a two tangle tile today with ROSCOE and SAND SWIRL.

Here is a tile I made yesterday based on the prompt: Three patterns to combine in a tile today: FAUX WEAVE, FEATHER FALL, and MEER.

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

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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.

Zooming Photographs and Tripoli Prompt

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

Zooming

Last May I took over 2,500 pictures…this May there are just under 1,000. There are still a lot to choose from…and I do use the zoom on my camera a lot. All the pictures this month were taken from around my house. Enjoy the slide show!

A Zentangle Prompt

Make a tile with TRIPOLI as the central tangle. I found this pattern to be challenging the first time I did it a few years ago. So give it a try. Feel free to try some patterns inside the triangles and/or use another pattern (like TIPPLE or CRESCENT MOON) to file some of the tile.

Here are some tiles I made yesterday – savoring the patterns from the last six days. The first was a hodgepodge of almost all the patterns. Then I settled down to 2 patterns (and auras). It was the beginning of a trend because the next one was two patterns with more obvious shading around the edges…and the last was a montotangle tile (gingo)! I enjoyed Tangler’s Choice day and I hope you did too.

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Unique activities for yesterday:

Last grocery delivery. I’ve decided to go back to venturing out to the grocery store in June after more than two months of almost weekly deliveries…so this was the last delivery. I’m glad the option was available to us but found it stressful to be online while my shopping was done (to OK or reject substitutions) and then sorting through the bags left on the porch to put away the refrigerator items and leaving the rest to sit a few days (usually in the back of one of our cars) before unpacking. And I didn’t like the quick accumulation of so many plastic bags. All the shoppers seemed keen to do a good job but some were very inexperienced with grocery shopping/the store.

Low weight of the year. I didn’t have any dark chocolate on hand, so I celebrated with sweet potato custard with pecans on top – the making and enjoying warm from oven.

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

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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.

eBooks, Rose and Shards Prompt, and Chipmunk

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

3 Free eBooks for May 2020

It’s time for me to look back at the eBooks I’ve been browsing this month and pick three. I cheated a little since the first one is 11 volumes. These are quite a visual feast and all published around 1920.

Mathews, Gregory Macalister et al. The Birds of Australia. London: Witherby & Co. 1910-1927. I am working my way through all the volumes on Internet Archive: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven. Mathews was an extreme splitter….so focus on the illustrations rather than the classifications. I am including some sample images from the volumes I’ve browsed so far.

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Herben, Beatrice Slayton; Richardson, Frederick. Jack O'Health and Peg O'Joy - a fairy tale. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1921. Available from Internet Archive here. I was interested in the illustrations by Frederick Richardson.

Littlejohns, John. British water-colour painting and painters of to-day. Toronto: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons. 1920. Available from Internet Archive here. Lots of variety in this collection. Some are what I expected but the one I picked for the sample image was a standout….something different.

A Zentangle Prompt

RIBBON ROSE for the central tangle(s) and SHARD for the border/frame. Your choice whether to make the center or the frame first…. or create two tiles to try both!

Here are tiles based on the prompt: Make a tile where PHICOPS is the primary tangle. Feel free to fill out the tile with a tangle of your choice.

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Unique activities for yesterday:

Summer clothes. The weather has finally gotten warm enough that I got out all my summer clothes and packed all the rest away in large suitcases that work better for out-of-season clothes than for traveling. Sometimes I leave out a few cool/cold weather clothes if we are planning a trip to the Rockies….but that is not happening this year. I also packed the t-shirts I wear for volunteering since that is not happening this summer either. The closet is less crowded. Another positive discovery – I have managed to get rid of clothes I wasn’t wearing in previous seasons; I only identified one item that is going in a giveaway pile!

Chipmunk under the bird feeder. There was a chipmunk cleaning up under the bird. I hadn’t seen one recently although we have had them periodically since we moved to the house over 20 years ago. This one was examining each bit of debris although most were hulls rather than seeds.

Last iris. The last iris bud opened. It will be the last flower in my office until the day lilies start blooming. The day lilies are a little later than usual sending up their bud stalks because of the cooler-than-average weather. On the plus side – there is dense leaf growth which bodes well for the plants having lots of energy to bloom now that the temperatures are consistently warm.

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

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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.

Venturing Out and Weekly Gleanings

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

A Zentangle Prompt

Inspiration for a pattern can come from our environment. Sometimes creating a pattern is relatively straightforward. The prompt for today is to create your own pattern based on the picture of tiles to the right. Hint: start with a grid of squares. Use your pattern in a tile. Other patterns in the tile are tangler’s choice (i.e. whatever you want).

Here are some tiles I made based on yesterdays prompt: Make a tile using the gingo pattern.

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It is one of my favorite patterns for mono-tangle tiles.

Venturing away from Home

I went to Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant to record a Facebook Live Zentangle session. It was the first time I had driven my car in May! It was also my first volunteer gig since early March – and a good experience – but I realized how out of practice I have become with getting out and about. There was a ‘newness’ to my car even though I’ve had it for a few years. Mt Pleasant is a place I know very well but hadn’t been there since January; it felt unfamiliar.

I was glad the flip chart pad and gallery board were wrapped in plastic trash bags because it was raining heavily when I got there. It took two trips to get into the building and I was glad I had worn a windbreaker and waterproof boots.

The mask that I wore during set up did not stay in place as well as I wanted. I need more experience with securing it and being certain that I can breathe well enough through the layers of fabric. It’s a good ‘lesson learned’ before I venture out to try doing my own grocery shopping in June.

The materials I had prepared ahead of time worked well…minimizing the amount I had to create while I was talking.

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The Facebook Live session lasted about 20 minutes and made a three-part tile using TIPPLE, CRESCENT MOON, and either MEER or POKEROOT. I missed not being able to create a mosaic of the student tiles at the end. Here are tiles I made with the patterns after the session.

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I’m not sure how any of my volunteer gigs will be possible anytime soon but I’ll probably do some hiking at Mt. Pleasant…on a sunny day…another small ‘venturing away from home.’

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

Gleanings of the Week

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Soak in the Details of the Moon with this High-Definition Photo – A backyard astrophotographer with a lot patience.

Record conservation study of Tutankhamun's tomb solves mystery and raises new questions – Teasing out more history from a much-studied place.

Top 25 birds of the week: Bright Colours - Wild Bird Revolution – It’s a gray rainy day as I write this….I am appreciating the colors!

New Thoughts on Turkey’s Oldest Temple Complex - Archaeology Magazine – Gobekli Tepe…built by hunter gatherers over 11,000 years ago….requiring hundreds of people to construct. I first learned about it in a Coursera course a few years ago.

NASA's ICESat-2 measures Arctic Ocean's sea ice thickness, snow cover -- ScienceDaily – ICESAT-2 was launched in September 2018; I learned about it during visits to NASA Goddard during my HoLLIE class in spring 2018. It’s good to get an update on it now.

The ingredients for a longer life - BBC Future – Study of populations where many live to 100…focusing on eating habits, social connection, a few cups of tea or coffee, sweet potato and bittersweet melons, landscape…and moderation.

Saving energy and lives: How a solar chimney can boost fire safety -- ScienceDaily – If a building has a solar chimney, it will suck smoke out of a building during a fire…giving people more time to escape!

Risks of Clutter, Tips for Decluttering Your Home | Berkeley Wellness – I had intended to spend some of the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ time de-cluttering. But I moved on to other projects. Now I am returning to the idea just as I am beginning to tentatively venture out. The clutter in my house is not enough to make it unsafe…but I do have a lot of stuff that I no longer need.

Tracing the human genetic history: Every tooth tells a different story – Another data point for forensics when DNA is not available. Teeth often survive for longer than other parts of the body.

New evidence of watery plumes on Jupiter’s moon Europa - GeoSpace - AGU Blogosphere – I’m missing Charles Cockell’s Life in the Universe Pandemic Series. This article is about new analysis of data collected by the Galileo mission flyby of Europa in 2000.  The ESA Juice mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2022, will study the potential habitability and underground oceans of three of Jupiter’s moons: Ganymede, Calisto, and Europa.

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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.

Weekly Gleanings, Racoon Visits and Rearranging Office

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

(I’m still social distancing/staying at home as much as possible….but am changing the title of the blog posts to reflect the accumulation of topics in the posts. I’m tired of only the date changing in the title since March 15th, 2020)

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Racoon in early morning of 5/12…and then on 5/15! I was downloading the birdfeeder cam videos and noticed right away that there was an odd one just before 2 AM on 5/12….it was a racoon! It was a female probably hungry because she has babies still in the den – too young to eat on their own.  It didn’t appear that she got anything from our feeder.

We had another racoon visit on the 15th just after 2 AM. I couldn’t tell if it was a female or not. It could have been another racoon or the same one giving it another try. The animal used a different strategy to get the seed coming at the feeder from above rather than below….but the strategy didn’t work. It looks longingly at the feeder from the bench on the deck before it leaves.

Rearranging my office.  It’s a work in progress.  The room has been my office since we moved into the house in November 1994 – and it’s the best room in the house for an office because it looks out to trees. I bought the three-piece computer office tables from IKEA as we moved in and had them connected in an L until about 9 years ago when I wanted better access to the windows. I detached the longer table from the corner piece at that point. Then I detached the shorter table about a year ago so I could use the whole surface area of the corner piece…and now I’ve moved the small table by the window but pulled out a bit. When I am sitting at the small table, I have a clear view of the bird feeder. We’ll see how it works. I might not like it in the afternoon when the sun shines in and I need to close the curtains to keep the room from heating up.

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

And now for the gleanings from my news feeds during this past week….

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Check Out the Beautiful Flowers in Bloom at the Keukenhof – I missed going to Brookside Gardens this spring. I’m glad there are beautiful photographs like these and that we have the forest behind our house.

Researchers Reexamine Ritual Sacrifices in Ancient Mesoamerica - Archaeology Magazine – Evidently there is skeletal evidence that there were 3 distinct methods used for heart extractions.

Researchers Uncover New Evidence That Warrior Women Inspired Legend of Mulan | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Not specifically Mulan but there is physical evidence that female warriors road across the steppes of what is now Mongolia around the 4th or 5th century AD which is about the time the first historical mention of Mulan appears.

Dolphins, Surfers and Waves Sparkle in Bright Blue Bioluminescent Glow Off California Coast | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Dinoflagellates. Watch the two videos.

Top 25 birds of the week: Birds of Prey - Wild Bird Revolution – This group includes a Snail Kite – which we saw in Florida a little over a year ago. (I posted about it too!)

Nearly half of US breathing unhealthy air; record-breaking air pollution in nine cities -- ScienceDaily – I was surprised at some of the cities listed on the top 10 most polluted cities (short term particle pollution)…and the comparison of that list with the year-round list was interesting.

Cool Facts About Common Backyard Wildlife – The list includes racoons. Evidently racoons are usually very clever about accessing urban/suburban food sources. So far – the design of our bird feeder is working…frustrating the racoon.

Infographic: Building Bacteria to Fight Cancer | The Scientist Magazine® - Work being done in mice at this point…goal is to target tumors specifically and minimize side effects of treatment.

Paleontologists reveal 'the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth' -- ScienceDaily – 100 million years ago the Sahara had flying reptiles and crocodile-like hunters!

Great Lakes Without Winter Ice – A picture taken from the International Space Station in February.

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/11/2020

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Sending in my absentee ballot for the Maryland primary. The primary was moved to June 2nd and is being done by mail for most voters.

Life Magazine in 1962. My youngest sister was born in 1962. Internet Archive has one issue for that year. It had ads for Carnation Instant Milk, Pepsi, Chef Boy-ar-dee, and Kodak film. There was a story about Paris fashion that was not as interesting as I thought it might be. The article with the most pages and caught my interest was called Sights that Never Lose Their Magic and included pictures of  Paris, London, Venice, Hong Kong/Avila, Gizeh, Istanbul, Fuji, Angkor, and Taj Mahal. The last one is probably my favorite – moonlit instead of blazing sun. (click on an image to see a larger version).

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Taking out kitchen scraps to the compost pile. I’d been collecting the snippets in the kitchen and took it out to the compost pile since the container was full – after adding a spent iris flower this morning. I should take it out more frequently since there was mold growing in the bottom. I took some pictures of tiny flowers growing in our yard and some shade loving plants under our deck on the walk back to the front of the house.

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Checking the iris stalks that weathered the 2 nights of cold temperatures. They survived. Their location is somewhat protected, and the buds seem to be maturing normally.

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

And now for some goldfinch observations….

House finches are frequent visitors to our feeder…goldfinches not as often. But they have been showing up a little more frequently and the house finches seem to accept them as non-competitors at the feeder.

The males have their summer plumage at this point, so they are easy to spot.

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/8/2020 - Gleanings

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now – the Gleanings for this week

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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

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

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

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

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

And now for the weekly gleaning list….

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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

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

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

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

And then there are the gleanings for the past week:

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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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.

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!

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 – 4/3/2020 - Gleanings

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

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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:

• What is all this astrobiology?

• The astrobiology of the night

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.

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 – 3/27/2020

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.

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.

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.

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

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!