30 years ago – June 1991

/

Looking back at June 1991 – it seems that life had a faster pace…almost an unsustainable pace but common in families where the adults work and the child is less than two years old. We had company for 2 weeks out of the month. The first was a visit from a sister that had recently moved into a new house and needed a break for the flurry of that activity; we enjoyed several outings to the park and Ladew Topiary Gardens…discovered that McDonalds was an excellent place for lunch with a 21-month-old.

The second visit was a sister’s family – that included their daughter (a week older than my daughter). We prepared the girls prior to the visit by showing them pictures and videos of each other; it worked…they were immediate buddies. We went to parks and several museums (one was The Cloisters which was a children’s museum then and is now a wedding venue, another was Rose Hill Manor Park & Museums)…read books, splashed in the small pool on hot days, and enjoyed every inch of our house and yard. One was talking more…the other seemed to enjoy more complex books. We all had ‘Maryland is for Crabs’ t-shirts! In the picture below my daughter is hugging a tree along the Cunningham Falls State Park boardwalk – one of the outdoor places that was enjoyable for everyone in our group.

1991 06 img802 (36).jpg

Being outdoors…doing something with water…was one of my daughter’s favorite activities. We had tomato plants and gladiolus getting ready to bloom in the garden around the oak tree.

A summer cold made the rounds. My daughter had it for a few days…mine lingered and I eventually went to the doctor – got medicine for ear and eye infections.

In world news – children in Iraq were dying of cholera and other water borne disease…the Kuwait fires were slowly being extinguished.

Overall – it was a month full of juggling work with home life. I can’t say that it was a balancing act…it was more of a blending and using every minute optimally…exhausting but rewarding.

By the end of the month, I already had plane tickets to visit Texas in July. My husband would be with us on the flight down then continue to San Diego for a conference…the blending rather than balancing strategy again.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2021

/

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.

Top 25 birds of the week: Terrestrial Birds – Several ancestors of chickens in this group!

3D-printed material to replace ivory -- ScienceDaily – ‘Digory’ made of resin and calcium phosphate particles….can be used to restore old ivory artifacts.

Managing Colorado River risk | Science – The reduction of water in the Colorado River basin over time…the challenge of managing that reduction for 40 million people that depend on the water source.

Death metal: Evidence for the impact of lead poisoning on childhood health within the Roman Empire – A study of 173 skeletons from 5 sites dated AD 1st-4th centuries.

First State National Historical Park Gains 254 Acres – This could be a good day trip for my husband and I…getting there early enough in the morning for it to not be cool enough for a good hike.

Incredible Close-Up Portraits of Solitary Bees Highlight Their Character – Wow! A great project done during COVID-19 quarantine!

Human Teeth Hold the Secrets of Ancient Plagues - The Atlantic – Finding ancient pathogens in old bone….an interview with Johannes Krause, director of the archaeogenetics department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Teeth are like a time capsule: bits of blood protected by the enamel.

Cool and COVID-safe: How radiant cooling could keep our cities comfortable and healthy -- ScienceDaily – Looking for ways to stay cool at lower energy costs than traditional HVAC systems.

Tiffany Stained Glass at Art Institute of Chicago | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A church window transitioned to a museum and restored…now on display.

Mysterious Ailment Blinding and Killing Birds in Washington, D.C. Area – Glad we’ve had our feeder and bird baths put away for the past 6 weeks or so since we are in the process of getting our deck worked on. Fledglings of blue jays and grackles seem to be the birds impacted the most.

3 Heinrich Schliemann Books

/

Heinrich Schliemann was a pioneer in the field of archaeology focusing primarily on pre-Hellenistic archaeology. His techniques were often destructive by today’s standards but that is often the case with pioneers in the field. He did publish his finds and I browsed through 3 of them back in May - all freely available. I’ve selected a few images from each of the books.

The Book of the Mycenae (1877)

Is that the back part of a crane on the right side of the pot? The three disks give me ideas for Zentangle tiles. Two of them are clearly nature based – an octopus and a bee.

Ilios : the city and country of the Trojans (1880)

The simplicity of the gold bracelets…I wondered if people wore them all the time once they put them on or if they were items were only worn intermittently. The decoration on the whorls – another source of Zentangle patterns. It’s appealing when a culture has the practice to make ordinary objects into art.

Tiryns; the Prehistoric Palace of the Kings of Tiryns, the results of the Latest Excavations (1886)

(Use the arrows to move through the three sample images to take a closer look). This is the only book of the three that has color images…using it effectively to depict the fragments of wall painting with the whole pattern derived from the fragments. The fragments of vases were complete enough to have meaning on their own. The terracotta idols appeared to be mostly women!

I posted about Sir Arthur Evans a few weeks ago. He was another pioneering archaeologist with some overlap with Schliemann; Evans took over the excavation of Knossos after Schliemann’s plan to do so ended with his death.

Enjoying Home

/

There is so much to enjoy about just being home. Even yard work is appealing! On the third day back – I was out early with the goal of cleaning out the front flower beds. I didn’t have enough energy to set the goal to completing the job…instead strived for two wheelbarrow loads back to the forest/brush pile. It was not too difficult and my long sleeves/gauntlet gloves protected my hands from poison ivy (there might have been one plant) and blackberry thorns.

I took short breaks to photograph tiny mushrooms, blooming clover (the clover we planted last fall in the problem areas of our yard is growing well), cicadas at every turn, and tiny blooms on our bushes.

I already have plans for another round in the front yard and then will begin work on the chaos garden (which is completely wild this year).

My husband and I have enjoyed some short ‘field trips’ to Brookside Gardens and to view the recent partial solar eclipse. One field trip per week is probably about right for us – even though we are still spending most of our time at home. We are choosing venues where there are outdoors…usually in the morning (sometimes very early)…where there are unlikely to be crowds. There are a lot of places we’ve enjoyed in the past that we haven’t been to for over a year!

Since I knew I would be going to Texas several times this summer, I opted to not sign up for the CSA this year; I’m going to the Farmers Market instead which happens ever Sunday. It’s worked well so far. I got spinach, broccoli and snap peas the first week…spinach, squash, and artisan bread with pecans and golden raisins the second week (the spinach is for green smoothies). I’m still a little overwhelmed with veggies since my husband doesn’t eat them…but I know how to freeze any that I have left over!

Last Sunday when I was pulling into the driveway after my trek to the Farmers Market, I noticed a lot of cicadas on the day lily leaves growing around our oak tree. Do you see three in the picture below? The temperature might have still been a little cool for them to be flying around. One of the things I like about our yard is how much wildlife we have around!

20210613_094953.jpg
20210613_114853.jpg

I picked up some cicada carcasses from the driveway and did a little macro photography after I put away the produce.

I also brought in some stalks of day lily buds; it’s the same every year at this time – cutting the buds as soon as they are big enough to open in water…before the deer eat them!

I enjoy just about everything about being home…rejuvenating myself for my next foray away in mid-July.

Rose Georgina Kingsley

/

One of the books that I added to my list of botanical print books this month was Roses and Rose Growing by Rose Georgina Kingsley. The pictures of roses and learning a bit about the author appealed to me.

She does not have an entry in Wikipedia…not even listed in the entry for her father, Charles Kingsley. She was the oldest child and evidently followed her younger brother to Colorado Springs in 1871 (a few years before her father died) but was back in England and establishing Learnington High School (now The Kingsley School) for girls by 1884.

Her first book that I found on Internet Archive was South by west; or Winter in the Rocky Mountains and spring in Mexico – published in 1874, a year before her father died – about her experience in Colorado and travel into Mexico. Her father wrote the preface and edited the book; her name is not on the title page even though she wrote everything except the preface and created the illustrations! The metadata on Internet Archive makes the attribution but puts her name in brackets. Maybe it was easier to get the book published with her father’s name.

All the other books I found for her on Internet Archive are from the period where she was also establishing and running the school:

The Children of Westminster Abbey in 1886

The History of French Art in 1899

Eversley Gardens and Others in 1907

Roses and rose growing in 1908

Garden colour: Spring in 1911

I was surprised that I couldn’t find a complete biography for her.  She left a legacy in her writings and her school that is significant – maybe that is the way she wanted to be remembered rather than what someone else wrote about her.

15 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

/

15 months in….The pandemic is waning - although not as rapidly as it would be if more people were vaccinated. It is frustrating that we have not reached herd immunity levels via vaccinations already. At this point, there are vaccines available to all over the age of 12; many states have closed their mass vaccination sites and transitioned to smaller venues due to lower demand. The variants are causing localized surges in cases among unvaccinated people; so far, the vaccine is still effective against the variants although a bit less so for some variants. I am continuing to wear a mask any time I am in close proximity to other people (particularly indoors)…thinking about those that are too young or impacted by immunological challenges. I’m glad that most states are working to address vaccine hesitancy….hoping that those efforts will increase the numbers of people vaccinated enough to achieve herd immunity but worried that some areas of the country will continue to be hot spots for COVID-19 into the future. As time goes on, it is harder to be sympathetic with people that refuse the vaccine…and then get sick…and increasing the probability that at some point a variant will emerge that the vaccines don’t stop.

I continued the trip way from home over the past month and returned home. It was a huge change after being at home all the time during the pandemic. It was invigorating and stressful at the same time; I became more aware of my changed perception of other people. Keeping distance has become habit. Many times wearing a mask prompts silence too; it’s time to reinstate greetings to people we meet on sidewalks and gardens!

After I got home, the different between my area of Maryland and the places I traveled through (in Texas and Missouri for the most time) were noticeable. The CDC map shows that Maryland’s vaccination rate is higher than where I had travelled – but I noticed that people here are still wearing masks more frequently too. When I got to the grocery store (in the early morning), everyone is masked. At the Farmers Market, most people are wearing masks even though it is outdoors (likely to be close to other people though). At Brookside Gardens, people have a mask with them and put it on if they are close to other people. I haven’t ventured out more than that. My husband (also vaccinated) is still doing curbside pickups rather than going into stores.

I have re-started checkups. Dentist was first; I needed 3 crowns (one a replacement of a 30-year-old crown and the other two were for teeth with big fillings). Optometrist was second; my eyes had changed enough (my eyes has improved!) to need new glasses; I used that as an excuse to get red frames for my computer glasses. There are still more appointments to catch up on everything I delayed since March 2020.

I’ve started wearing earrings and makeup again although not on days I will be wearing a mask.

With all the activity of the road trip, the number of webinars over the past month dropped. Now that I am home again, I am enjoying the Maryland Ornithological Society Convention webinars with my husband. Others are on my calendar for upcoming weeks. There are some that I might watch that were recorded while I was traveling…it’s a bit overwhelming!

Overall, it’s been a good month. I’ve expanded my horizons, but life is not back to the way it was pre-pandemic. There are some aspects that maybe I don’t want back!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 12, 2021

/

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.

Water treatment: Removing hormones with sunlight -- ScienceDaily – Research to find and remove micropollutants. Micropollutants have become more concerning over the past few years as research has shown the potential for health impacts.

Which processed foods are better than natural? - BBC Future – Processed foods are not all unhealthy. Some are better than fresh (for example, canned tomatoes, pasteurized milk). But watch out for ultra-processed foods – ones derived from foods and additives; they can alter gut bacteria, cause inflammation….and many people have a tendence to overeat ultra-processed food.

Top 25 birds of the week: endemic birds – Birds found only in a small area of the world…and no where else. My favorite is the Bee Hummingbird – smallest hummingbird in the world and only found in the Cuban archipelago.

Dietary cocoa improves health of obese mice; likely has implications for humans -- ScienceDaily – Hmmm…maybe my 2 squares of dark chocolate for 1st breakfast is not a bad thing at all…even though I am not obese.

Chipmunk Quest – We have had chipmunks around our house periodically. They are fun to watch. They seem to taunt our cat through the window!

Why Bald Eagle Populations Soared in the Last Decade | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A good news story of species recovery.

Europe’s Drive to Slash Plastic Waste Moves into High Gear – Hope similar efforts are made in the US. As an individual, it is hard to avoid single-use plastic although I have made an effort to avoid plastic shopping bags and buy products in paper/metal rather than plastic when that is an alternative.

Move Over, Cicadas: 5 Other Great North American Wildlife Hatchings (and Emergences) – The Brood X cicada emergence is beginning to wane in our area….it was interesting to think about other emergence type events. Maybe one of the events mentioned in this article will motivate a road trip in the next year or so.

Tropical species are moving northward in U.S. as winters warm: Insects, reptiles, fish and plants migrating north as winter freezes in South become less frequent -- ScienceDaily – Shifts already observable…others projected.

Report exposes power gap at US universities – Only one in ten top-earning faculty members is a woman.

Road Trip Home

/
_Resized_20210523_090636_.jpg

The closet in the guest room of my daughter’s house in Springfield MO was the best….but after being away from Maryland for more than 6 weeks (in Texas and Missouri), I was very ready to head for home. It was a rainy morning as I started out at 7 AM. I stopped as I was backing out and rolled down the window to take a picture of the rosebush by the driveway.

20210601_065157.jpg

I’d selected a different route than my previous road trips between Missouri and Maryland with the beginning and end segments the same as before: Springfield MO to St. Louis MO via I44 (the same), St. Louis to Charleston, WV via I64, Charleston WV to Morgantown WV via I79, Morgantown WV to Hancock MD via I68 and the I70 for the rest of the way home (the same). I made a stop for the night in Lexington KY which was slightly more than halfway.

My first stop was to buy gas about 1.5 hours into the drive. It was a rest stop as well and I bought a Stuckey’s pecan roll remembering that I always wanted to try one as a child and not remembering if my parents ever bought one for me. It was way too sweet, but I managed to eat half that first morning and the rest on the second morning of the road trip. The rest of the stops that day were at interstate rest stops – which I prefer – except the last one for buying gas so that would have a full tank for the next day. I also picked up a chicken teriyaki bowl from Subway for my dinner at the hotel. The drive was easy – no accidents and the few places the road was under construction did not slow be down much; I made it to the hotel within half an hour of the prediction my car’s nav system had made when I first put in the destination.

The second day was an even better road trip day. I got off an hour earlier…just as it was getting light. The highway was in good condition all the way and very scenic (Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland). The traffic was light (not many trucks) and I enjoyed the curving roads through the Appalachians and Alleghenies. The rest stops were less than an hour apart and I stopped at most of them; I only needed one stop for gas – shortly before I got into Maryland. I was in Maryland by noon and home by 3 PM.

This route will be my first choice from now on; I’ll be retracing it in July when I head back to Missouri and then Texas. I will probably choose a different hotel…one that is easier on/off and not at so close to the center of Lexington. Otherwise, I’ll do everything else about the same: use the interstate rest stops when I don’t need gasoline, eat food I already have the car during the trip as much as possible, wear a mask when there are a lot of people around.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 5, 2021

/

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.

Infographic: Animals of Different Species Hybridize | The Scientist Magazine® - Hybrids that fill a new environmental niche.

Britain’s Medieval Population Suffered From Cancer - Archaeology Magazine and Cancer rates in medieval Britain were around ten times higher than previously thought, study suggests | University of Cambridge – The same story from two sources. Cancer rates prior to the modern tumor-inducing chemicals from industry and tobacco were higher than previously thought.

Cities Have Distinct Microbial Signatures: Study | The Scientist Magazine® - Samples collected between 2015 and 2017 in transit stations in major cities. More than 4,000 known species…and 14,000 species that had DNA sequences not found in any database!

Top 25 birds of the week: Resident Birds! - Wild Bird Revolution and Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Biodiversity! - Wild Bird Revolution – So many bird pictures! I’m doing a little catching up this week.

The Blooming Mid-Atlantic – Near where I live…places I have been for vacation/birding.

Photography In The National Parks: Seeing The Forest For The Trees – A little lesson in photographing forests and trees and leaves from Rebecca Lawson

Greenland glacial meltwaters rich in mercury -- ScienceDaily – The study looked at nutrients in glacier melt…not expecting to find the high level of mercury. Now there are lots of questions about the potential impact on fishing – Greenland’s primary industry.

The nature reserve with a 500-year plan - BBC Future – Zealandia, an ecosanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand enclosed by a 5.3-mile predatory exclusion fence.

Arizona’s Meteor Crater – Another place I’ve visited… as seen by an instrument on Landsat 8.

Cicadas Fall Prey to a Psychedelic-Producing Fungus That Makes Their Butts Fall Off | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – I think I saw one with a white butt on my first walk around my yard!

eBotanical Prints – May 2021

/

20 botanical print books browsed in May and added to the list. I am in the process of browsing the  Flora Brasiliensis volumes (started in April…continued in May…and will be  finished in June). I browse the volumes in Internet Archive but it is easier to find all the volumes in Botanicus…enabling me to find them all very easily.

Something unusual in this group: The V12 pt 3 volume included some pages with scanning anomalies…but I thought they looked very art-like. The sample image for the volume is a normal looking scan (in the mosaic of images for the month); that are three examples of pages with the scanning anomaly below.

The whole list of 2,147 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the May books is at the end of this post.

Click on any sample images in the mosaic below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the May eBotanical Prints!

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V5, Pt2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V6, Pt1 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V6, Pt2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V6, Pt3 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V6, Pt4 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V7 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V8, pt 1 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V8, pt 2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V9 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V10 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V11, pt 1 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V11, pt 2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V12, pt 1 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V12, pt 2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V12, pt 3 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V13, pt 1 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V13, pt 2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V13, pt 3 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V14, pt 1 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum :quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas V14, pt 2 * Martius, Karl Friedrich Philipp von; Eichler, August Wilhelm; Urban, Ignatz * sample image * 1906

Road Trip from Dallas to Springfield

/

The car was mostly packed the night before; I got up and made mushroom and ham quiche for the family breakfast and left about 9:30 AM – hoping that the morning rush hour north of Dallas was over. The drive was estimated (by Google) to be about 7 hours but the day was misty and there was a chance of thunderstorms.

The rest stops along the way were much as I expected – fewer people wearing masks than when I drove from Maryland to Texas back in April. The rest stops were not crowded and were clean. All were quick and comfortable stops.

The same cannot be said for fast food places, truck stops and the travel plazas (turnpike). They were crowded and not as clean. And virtually no one was wearing a mask. Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri do not have high vaccination rates, so it was disconcerting.

I made the drive in 7.5 hours slowed a little by the wet weather and construction zones that required reduced speed. There were no accidents that slowed down traffic – fortunately. It was a bother to stop and pay tolls the old-fashioned way going through Oklahoma. I researched getting a toll tag and discovered that the Oklahoma system apparently does not integrate with any others. The ideal toll tag for me would be one that worked for Texas and Oklahoma toll roads (as long as it didn’t interfere with the tag I have that works along most of the east coast).

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 29, 2021

/

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 COVID is changing the study of human behavior – Hopefully we are learning something beneficial in the long run from the pandemic….there are also some very depressing aspects of our society that the pandemic has highlighted (that are negative for at least the near term).

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Migration – I am missing the birds I see most during migration times in Maryland this year since I am in Texas.

Kestrel Cam: A Story from Egg to Falcon – Moving from the 25 pictures…to a detailed picture of a small falcon’s life beginning.

Climate change threatens one-third of global food production – We have lots of reasons to make changes…to stop mistreating our planet and let it recover. This is another one.

Saint Petersburg Keeps the Sea at Bay – A big project started in 1979 and operational in 2011…built to withstand a storm surge from the Baltic Sea of 5 meters.

Thirteenth-Century Angkor was home to more people modern Boston – I was surprised….recent studies have shown other ancient population centers were more populous that previously estimated too.

How cities will fossilize – From BBC Future. Thought provoking…using Shanghai Tower as an example to illustrate what could happen.

Flashy plants draw outsize share of scientists’ attention – ‘Aesthetic bias’ when it comes to choices for research (and probably extends beyond plants).

New Monarch butterfly breeding pattern inspires hope – Signs that the monarch butterflies in the western US might be adapting to changing climate. It’s good to see a little positive news about monarchs.

Egyptian Archaeologists Accidently Discovers 250 Ancient, Rock-Cut Tombs – Still new sites to study even in a country that has been intensively studied for many years. This time the tombs are not ‘royal’ – may provide more insight into how ordinary people lived in ancient Egypt.

Sir Arthur Evans eBooks on Internet Archive

/

Arthur Evans was a long-lived British archeologist active in the late 1800s, early 1900s…and well known for his excavations on Crete. He documented his work in books with many illustrations – drawings and photographs; I enjoyed browsing volumes on Internet Archive recently.

The Palace of Minos (Volume 1 in 1921,  Volume 3 in 1930, Volume 4 in 1930) with Joan Evans (his sister). I was disappointed that the archive doesn’t seem to have all the volumes of this book. I liked the way the missing pieces of artifacts were depicted and the photograph of the statue from all perspectives rather than just the front.

Catalogue of Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum in 1893 with Percy Gardener. He was the ‘keeper’ of the museum for part of his career. The vases always give me ideas for Zentangle patterns.

26 21 05 (17).jpg

Cretan pictographs and prae-Phoenician script in 1906. They fit a lot on small pieces of stone!

The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos in 1906. Seeing patterns everywhere!

It is awesome to see that Evans managed to publish his finds with so many illustrations during his lifetime. Lots of research has happened since then…but these books are a wonderful baseline - worth browsing and sometimes taking a closer look at the drawings/pictures.

Carrollton TX Yard – Tree Trimming

/

Surprise – I opened the blinds one morning and saw a tree branch hanging vertically on the other side of the glass! I went out the front door to get a different perspective of the broken branch….from the front sidewalk and then from the street.

2021 05 IMG_4457 (5).jpg

Fortunately, my parents have a company that has taken care of their trees for years…and the owner could come to assess the situation on the same day. My parents opted to have all their trees trimmed at the same time as the broken branch was removed since the crew could do it the next day and they would leave the larger pieces (cut into shorter lengths) for fireplace wood next winter.

It was a good thing it was lawn waste day for their area since there was a big pile of branches at the curb by mid- morning. A big truck with a claw came and picked up everything (the person at the controls looked like he really enjoyed his job!).

By the end of the day – there was another pile as big as the first (view from the house and then from the street). The whole front yard would have been covered by tree branches if the truck had not picked up the early branch pile.

The 2-person crew worked from 7:30 AM to about 2 PM…a job well done.

After they left, we assessed the piles of wood. Some of them went to the wood rack immediately. Some might be big enough to use as plant stands…adding a layers to a garden area.

Want to count some tree (branch) rings? Use the arrows to move among the three samples. It’s hard to count the ones in the center….but even without those, think about which one might be the oldest branch…which is the youngest?

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 22, 2021

/

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.

Top 25 birds of the week -May 2021 – Starting out the gleanings list with bird photographs!

Why cats love to sit in boxes – even fake ones – All of our cats have liked sitting in boxes….it was fun to see some research showing that even the 2D shape is appealing to them!

An incomparable intellectual who fell through the cracks of history – A woman, of course. In this case it was Robert Boyle’s older sister, Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh.

Strange and surprising facts about Opossums – The only marsupial north of Mexico. Odd look and behavior.

Irish farmer stumbles onto ‘untouched’ ancient tomb – Turning over a rock and finding a stone-lined passageway!

Ancient pottery reveals the first evidence of honey hunting in prehistoric West Africa – Analysis of potsherds from Central Nigeria revealed that around 1/3 of the pots they came from were used for processing or storing beeswax! The pieces of pottery are from the 1st millennium BC.

Big Spring Lodge, Cabins Rehabilitation Lags at Ozark National Scenic Riverways – I hope the project now planned to start in the fall gets completed on time. The place would be a good vacation destination for us since my daughter lives in Missouri.

You are how you cook – Research on the cooking methods in different parts of China and the relationship to the type of grains utilized over time. The areas that boiled/steamed food tended to use millet over wheat or barley since the later two grains take longer to cook by that method.

Fighting dementia with play – A pilot study with a game consisting of a screen and floor panel with four fields that measure steps, weight displacement and balance….users attempt a sequence of movements with their feet requiring physical and mental skills. The pilot was promising. Perhaps these types of games will become one of the strategies to enable people to handle daily life longer.

Meet Benjamin Banneker, the black scientist who document brood x cicadas in the late 1700s – Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum are close to where I live in Maryland. I’ve been there several times (posted about it in March 2015 and December 2018, but hadn’t realized that noting the periodic cicadas was one of his numerous observations.

Hempson Ditchfield on Internet Archive

/

Peter Hempson Ditchfield was a prolific author and historian…and a Church of England priest. I browsed 17 of his books recently…all available on Internet Archive. There is a lot of variety. The illustrations are detailed….it required some discipline to choose just one from each book.

Sometimes illustrations are drawings of famous sites – like Stonehenge in Old village life; or, Glimpses of village life through all ages (1920).

32 21 04 (2).jpg

Some volumes are illustrated with photographs like in Oxfordshire (1912)….some skew toward the archaeology of a location like in Memorials of old London - V1 (1908) that included a detailed drawing of Roman sandals.

The second volume of Memorials of old London (1908) started out with a color illustration.

41 21 04 (1).jpg

Memorials of Old Kent (1907) was co-authored with George Clinch. The illustration I chose reflect the details in the architectural documentation. Vanishing England (1910) was the book I was browsing the day Prince Philip’s death was announced; it seemed a similar title could be used in 2021. The name of the illustrator shows on my sample illustration for the book; many of the illustrations in Ditchfield’s books are uncredited.

Ditchfield was second author on the two volumes to Memorials of old Lancashire (volume 1 and volume 2) in 1909 with Henry Dishwick.

The Cottages and the village life of rural England (1912) is the only book of the 17 that has an illustrator (A.R. Quinton) on the title page…and all the illustrations are in color.

51 21 04 (3).jpg

Bygone Berkshire (1896) and Byways in Berkshire and the Cotswolds (1921) were about published about the same locale 25 years apart!

Two volumes of The Counties of England, their story and antiquities (volume 1 and volume 2) were published in 1912, The Charm of the English Village was co-authored with Sydney Robert Jones in 1908, and English Villages was published in 1901. I chose a sample image that documented ornamental molding for the next to the last book in this group…a good reference (and ideas for Zentangle patterns).

The last Ditchfield book I browsed was The Manor Houses of England which was published in 1910 – the time between World War I when the world changed so much both from the war and from the 1918 flu epidemic. I liked the muted tints of the first illustration in the book.

03 21 05 (1).jpg

Ins and Outs of Walkers

/

My mother has been using a walker off and on for several years…all the time for the past year or so. Over that time – she has used 3 different walkers and learned some lessons.

20210511_132439.jpg

The walker that is best for her now is this one.

Tennis balls. One of the most common mods made to walkers is adding tennis balls to the feet. On the one she has now they prolong the life of the rear push locks.

Fold down seat. The first walker she used was like the current one but didn’t have a seat. It worked about the same for walking. The seat adds a place for her to sit anywhere she needs too (the kitchen is a place she uses the seat a lot…or as a perch to cut a flower outdoors) and can be used as a platform to take things along with her – a basket of clothes to/from the laundry, the newspapers out to the recycle, etc.

20210511_132417.jpg

2 wheels are better than 4. She used a 4-wheel walker for a time. It rolls very easily and worked well when she only needed the walker occasionally and she was going on longer walks. I remember a 4th of July when the family made a short hike down to the neighborhood vantage point to see fireworks; she enjoyed them from her walker seat! She used it in the house until the past few months. It rolls too easily for her to manage now.

Move 2 wheels to the inside of the walker frame to minimize width – increase maneuverability. The walker she is using now came with the wheels on the outside of the walker as had the first one she used. We moved them to the inside so that going through narrow places (doorways, hallways) was a bit easier. It’s surprising the difference that little bit of reduced width can make!

Folded size. Since the walker goes with her everywhere – the folded size and the ease of getting it folded/unfolded is important. The seat on the walker she is using now folds up and the sides fold inward. It fits easily into all the family vehicles.

Overall – the walker she is using now is honed to her needs….and she is making the most of every aspect of it!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 15, 2021

/

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.

Top 25 birds of the week: Camouflage – Birds that blend in….a photography challenge sometimes – finding the bird then zoom in enough to make the bird easy to spot.

You Can Now Explore the Louvre's Entire Collection Online | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Next best thing to being there.

The radical coral rescue plan that paid off – Restoration after Hurricane Iris hit Belize in 2001.

Experimenting with Tucson Night Lights – Streetlights accounted for only 13% of the light visible after midnight….so we need to address other types of lighting to reduce the impact of outdoor lighting. Streetlights have been the easiest to address because they are a single source, and the local government has direct control over them.

1,200-year-old children’s hand prints found in Mexican cave – Made by Mayan children…perhaps made during coming of age ritual…in black handprints at first…then red.

Pileated Visitation – The joy of having a pileated woodpecker around long enough to photograph.

Forget Stonehenge: the first know massive monuments are much older – 6th millennium BC (7,000 years ago) structures on the Arabia Peninsula. Mustatils built as monuments by cattle herders.

Bald Eagle Cams Are Active. Here are the best 4. – It’s the time of year to watch nest cams!

Prairie Ecologist – Photographs of the week – April 23 2021 – Prairie dandelions on different than the dandelions that come up in my yard in Maryland!

Photography in the National Parks: the yin and yang of a composition – A Rebecca Lawson post…beautiful and instructive.

14 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

/

I celebrated my vaccine becoming fully effective (2 weeks following my second shot of the Moderna vaccine) during the 14th month of the pandemic. It was a significant milestone. The big change was feeling safe enough to set off on a road trip to see my parents; I hadn’t seen them since the January before the pandemic was declared.

There are non-critical appointments that are being scheduled now – dentist, eye doctor, haircuts. My parents may be mostly caught up on those types of appointments before I go back to Maryland; I’ll start catching up for myself by June.

What a difference from May 2020 when the news was dire – hospitals overflowing in some areas of the country and many deaths were in senior living/nursing homes. We know a lot more about the virus now and there are effective vaccines. It surprises me that we may not reach herd immunity for COVID-19 because there are too many people that are reluctant to get the vaccine. I remember in the 1960s with the roll out of the polio vaccine…everyone going to the local school for the sugar cube. It made polio an extremely rare occurrence very quickly. It is frustrating and sad that there is a segment of US society in 2021 that is seems to be focused on their right to not get vaccinated rather than their health and the health of others.

Trying to end on a more positive note….

I have gone back to carrying a purse rather than carrying minimal essentials (car key, credit card, id) in a wrist band. The purse has room for my mask although I still tend to put my mask on in the car before I walk across the parking lot into the store. I like to not be in a rush to put the mask on or do it while I am walking.

It’s hard to know how crowded a park will be so I generally carry the mask with me….and put it on if there are too many people sharing the trails. I am conscious of probably wearing the mask more than the new CDC guidance. As it gets hotter, I’ll pay close attention to the guidance and be keen to take the mask off whenever I can!

Gleanings of the Week Ending Saturday May 8, 2021

/

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.

Top 25 Birds of the Week: Seedeaters! – Starting out the gleanings list with bird photographs.

Mapping tree inequality: Why many people don’t benefit from tree cover – Trees are an effective way to reduce the heat island effect within cities (i.e. where there are fewer trees it is hotter). Lower income communities tend to have fewer trees…and thus are hotter. As there are more hot days, the impact is becoming greater. There is also a beauty to trees…each one is an island of nature in a sea of concrete and asphalt. Increasing trees in cities and towns is an investment in physical and mental health!

Roman temple at Egyptian Emerald Mine – In the eastern Egyptian desert. The researchers found 19 coins, incense burners, bronze and steatite figurines, bones, terracotta body parts, and amulets.

Return of Brood X Cicadas – This brood emerges in the area where I live in Maryland. I am not there to see it, but I hope my husband can photograph some emerging cicadas. There should be lots of opportunities!

Invasive Jumping Worms Have Spread to 15 States – This species is in the middle of the country. I haven’t seen any yet in Texas, but they are in the state and my daughter might have them in Missouri. Hopefully, there will be a method to control them soon or the landscape of that area of the country could change…they are a small organism with a big impact.

A Retreat to Catoctin – This park is close  (about an hour) from where I live in Maryland. I’ve been there many times….maybe not often enough.

Hopes and Weeping Trees: What’s up with the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker? – Neat rows of holes in tree trunks? There is a sapsucker around. Sometimes hummingbirds will come to get the sap dribbling out of the holes. I am always pleased to discover a tree that has been visited by a sapsucker; I noticed when I was at Mt. Pleasant this spring that the tree that was convenient to a hiking route for school field trips (pre-pandemic) has been cut down so I will hunt for another one to share with hikers.

Trove of 2,000-Year-Old Bronze Mirrors Found in Ancient Chinese Cemetery – 80 mirrors….ranging from 3-9 inches in diameter. There are other artifacts recovered from the same cemetery….maybe more stories to come as the excavations and analysis of finds continues.

Charting ice from above – The Icebird flights….flying low over ice and open water. What if feels like to be part of the crew.

National Parks Traveler Checklist: Padre Island National Sea Shore – My husband and I have been to parts of the Padre Island National Sea Shore for snippets of time. Our plan to visit in 2017 to see more of the park was cancelled after Hurricane Harvey…maybe we should add it to our post-pandemic travel plans!