Ten Little Celebrations – April 2022

/

April was a whirlwind month---with more than the usual amount of drama because of our plan to move to Springfield, Missouri. More than half the little celebrations I selected for the month have to do with the move:

Finding a house we liked and getting it under contract. It was new (and high anxiety) to do the contract with only seeing it virtually…thrilling to do the walkthrough to confirm that it was THE HOUSE for us.

A good driving day is always welcome, but we particularly celebrated one of the days heading home; perhaps a sunny, spring day is balm to the stress of the drive and the anticipated events of the next few months.

Home again is always something I celebrate. This time I savored the house that has been home since October 1994…realizing that soon I would be transferring the joy of homecoming to a new place.

Initiating contact then selecting movers. This was not a single day event, but I was pleasantly surprised at virtual inventories and other options. There are some things that have changed for the better since my last long distance move in 1983.

22 boxes packed in one day. I set a goal for myself to pack 20 boxes a day for a week and I achieved that goal! I celebrated the most on the highest day (22 boxes).

There were other things to celebrate in April…

Early morning at the grocery store. I love the quiet at the store before 7 AM with spring far enough along that it is light at that time…but still full of morning color.

A medical test that found nothing. Sometimes finding nothing is worth celebrating…particularly as we get older.

No traffic on the Bay Bridge. We made a 2-day trip to the Eastern Shore (birding field trips) and celebrated that we didn’t have traffic on the bridge – coming or going.

No traffic on the Bay Bridge. We made a 2-day trip to the Eastern Shore (birding field trips) and celebrated that we didn’t have traffic on the bridge – coming or going.

A wealth of birds. There were 4 field trips over 2 days…and we celebrated that we saw so many birds – some species in larger numbers than we had ever seen before. Stay tuned for blog posts coming next week.

Japanese Garden. I enjoyed our visit the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield MO although the celebration came afterward as I looked at my pictures (too noisy from the mowers while I was in the garden).

Missouri to Maryland

/

We made the road trip back from Missouri – having walked through the house we are buying and brief by the house inspector (the final results were still pending, but we did get to talk with the inspector about the house while he was in the house). The route was a reverse of the one we had taken from Maryland (see my post here). The weather was dry both days….much appreciated. The temperatures stayed cool even though the sun was shining most of the time. On the first day, our route started in Springfield, Missouri, crossed southern Illinois and Indiana, and ended in Lexington, Kentucky.

The part in Missouri parallels old Route 66…one of the rest stops highlights that history. Evidence of spring is easy to find at every stop.

I wondered how long the leaning tree near one of the picnic areas - caught by neighboring trees before it could reach the ground - would stay in that precarious position.

I zoomed in on the back of one of the horse sculptures at the Kentucky welcome center: Peacock feathers!

The next morning we left before sunrise and I took a picture the sunrise blush silhouetting trees on a ridge. The route the second day was from Lexington, Kentucky, through West Virginia, and ended at home in central Maryland.

More spring: dandelions already going to seed before the other plants in the bed even have buds, red buds planted along the roadway and rest stop parking lots, azaleas just beginning their bloom, daffodils still blooming in the mountains (done for the season at lower elevations). There was enough breeze to extend the flags in West Virginia…but not at the same time!

And then we reached Maryland. The scenic overlook/welcome center had good views of the lake and daffodils were still blooming there. The Sidling Hill stop had yellow tulips. And then we didn’t need to the stop at South Mountain. We were keen to be home!

Even though the weather was good for driving, my husband and I realized during our first day driving that our two days in Springfield had not been long enough to recover from the trek to Missouri. He was having lots of neck and shoulder aches and I was feeling exhausted. We agreed that short turn around trips with that much driving should be avoided from now on!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 23, 2022

/

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.

Virologists Identify More Than 5,000 New Viruses in the Ocean – Another indication that we still have a lot to learn about life on our planet.

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Habitats! – Beautiful birds! I always enjoy seeing photographs…seeing birds I know and some I don’t!

The Jumping Slugs of the Pacific Northwest – A little different than the slugs I’ve seen. These have a vestigial shell on the top of their ‘hump.’ There was a new-to-me skeletal name in the article: slugs have a hydrostatic skeleton!

Aging clocks aim to predict how long you’ll live – Really? The value of the various aging clocks is still TBD.

Wildflower Fungi – This post was from the Master Naturalist group in Springfield MO. I am paying more attention now that I am moving to the area.

Deforestation drives climate change that harms remaining forest – Deforestation causes changes in a regions air temperature and precipitation…instigating changes in the whole region rather than just the part where the forest was removed.

Scientists Identify 50,000th Spider Species on Earth—but Thousands More Are Waiting to Be Discovered – It’s humbling to realize that there is so much about our world that we don’t know….have not discovered.

Amid Hopes and Fears, a plastic boom in Appalachia is on hold – Another sad trend in Appalachia…still hitching their future to fossil fuels. The jobs look good but the long-term jobs are few and the market for their products is not a positive one. Everyone wants to reduce single use plastics as much as possible.

Study suggests tree-filled spaces are more favorable to child development than paved or grassy surfaces – Playgrounds need more trees!

Germany’s Nature Society Crowns the 2022 Nature Photographer of the Year – The first picture is of a male kestrel. That caught my attention…and then I browsed the rest of the photos.

Springfield Botanical Garden – April 2022

/

The tulips were beginning their big bloom at the Springfield Botanical Garden when I visited in mid-April. The sunny day made their colors pop. Much of the rest of the garden may be just waking up but the tulips are in their glory.

The Master Gardeners were out working to get the demonstrations gardens prepped for the season….it was a dry day between two days of rain.

We walked over to the garden’s Botanical Center….more tulips in the planters and a surprise: columbines! It was windy but I managed to get a passable photo.

Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden

/

I’d been to the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Garden before…but not the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden part of it. It was a treat to see it during a free afternoon on our quick trip to Springfield to see our new house.

It was a cool, sunny spring day…not as Zen as the garden probably is on most days because the mowers were at work. The noise does not ‘show’ in the images, so I find myself enjoying the gardens even more via the photos! I was on a mission to photograph the lanterns/sculptures of the garden.

Next time I go – I will stroll. I’m planning to become a member of the place after we move and visit frequently.

Maryland to Missouri – a road trip as passenger

/

I’ve been making road trips between my home in Maryland to Missouri on my own until recently when my husband went with me to see the house we are buying. It was so different to be a passenger rather than driving myself!

The route was familiar and there were no cold weather hazards this time. More daylight made it possible for us to start the drive before 7 in daylight – leaving behind the fading blooms on the cherry and plum tree in the front of our Maryland home.

The first day of the trek was the easiest; it was cloudy with mists and sprinkles…occasional sunshine.

The daffodils were still in full bloom at the South Mountain rest stop; the elevation makes a difference; the flowers have already faded at hour home closer to Washington DC/Baltimore.

I took a few extra minutes at Sidling Hill to photograph the road cut. It is awesome.

There were plenty of rest stops along the way – a quick walk to the facilities through the damp.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

And the bridges at Louisville KY.

We stopped for the night at a hotel in Corydon, IN that has a historical marker in its parking lot!

The next day was harder after we were about halfway through the drive – very heavy rain. The early rest stops still held some beauty – trees on ridges, violets and spring beauties and dandelions.

It was safe to take pictures of the arch at St. Louis because I wasn’t driving!

The pictures taken at the rest stops in Missouri were through the window because of the rain. For some reason the fire hydrant near a picnic table tickled me.

And then we were at our hotel…glad that the heavy rain did not include lots of thunder/lightning and high winds that had been part of the forecast.

Bidding on a House from Afar

/

We bid on a house in Springfield MO from afar (at home in Maryland). It has been accepted and we are starting a road trip to see the house in person – remove the ‘sight unseen’ rider in the bid and get the earnest money to the title company. I am writing the post about how we got to this point. There is a lot that has changed since we bought our current house more than 25 years ago.

I have been looking at houses that came on the market in Springfield MO via realtor.com for more than a year – familiarizing myself with the neighborhoods and the types of housing that were available. When my daughter was looking for houses last spring, I honed my search with her criteria, and she found the house she wanted quickly.

I thought I had my own criteria well defined…but it is only in the past few weeks that I realized that I was getting enthusiastic about houses that really would not work well for us. It was too easy to overlook the number of steps going into the front of house (and from the garage); I knew I wanted as few steps as possible; with this move, my husband and I wanted a house where we could ‘age in place.’ My husband wanted to do astronomy from our back yard. That requirement often seemed to be in direct conflict with an easy-care yard and connection to city water/sewer. I found myself toying with the idea of a larger property with well/septic and hiring someone to keep the yard/field cut. There was about a month when I thought we wanted a house that was all on one floor; I quickly discovered there were not many that had enough square footage and my husband pushed the idea that we needed a basement as a storm shelter since Missouri is back into the part of the country that has violent storms.

I made a trip to Springfield and looked at some houses; a learning experience – nothing to bid on and we needed to get our ‘proof of funds’ letter from the bank organized anyway. Over the past couple of weeks, we kept thinking that more houses would come on the market; there were quite a few but they weren’t perfect matches and many sold very quickly. We did 3 virtual tours – discovering more problems with them than we expected: no good view of the sky, too many steps and sometimes they made the third garage unusable for a vehicle, sloping lots, small closets, etc.

Then one came on the market that looked near perfect. The problem was the only picture of a laundry room showed it in the basement…which meant stairs to do our laundry. We asked if there was a laundry on the main floor and there wasn’t. We rejected the house for about 24 hours. After going to sleep frustrated with the houses available, I woke up realizing that if everything else was right with that house, we’d put in a way to get the laundry between floors. We asked for a virtual tour. Everything else was right….AND there was a laundry chute already in the house which would make it relatively easy to put in a dumbwaiter type device for the laundry!

We worked with our realtor on an offer. They had a system where it could all be done electronically. Our agent sent our offer to the seller’s agent via email. And less that 24 hours later, the offer was accepted. Our focus now is on traveling to see the house, being there when the inspection is done…preparing to move.

The house hunting phase of the process is complete.

Food for the Road

/

I’ve honed the food I take with me on road trips during the pandemic…until recently wanting to have everything I would need to eat in the car. Now I am more likely to be comfortable getting takeout for a meal. The motivation is shifting to 1) the types of foods that are often hard to find on the road (fruits and vegetables) and 2) minimizing the time stopped for food during the driving day.

My favorite veggies and fruits for the road are ones I can prep to eat while I am driving: celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, grapes, carrot chips or sticks, turnip wedges, bell pepper strips, small cucumbers with the ends cut off. Apples are OK but they need be cleaned, labels removed…and there is a core afterward.

I’ve tried freezing grapes – using them as part of the ‘ice’ when I first start the trip; they aren’t as easy to eat going down the road after they thaw (too squishy and sticky). I

t takes some prep to get the veggies into shape for going down the road. Sometimes I pack them in jars/bins…but they are easier to eat going down the road in Ziplocs; I am accumulating a collection of reusable, resealable bags! Otherwise, the ice chest has water (frozen in the bottom of the bottles). Soft drinks are very easy to buy from vending machines or places I stop to buy gas….no need to take ice chest space for those.

Outside the ice chest – I always have dark chocolate, protein bars and mixed nuts for the road…bags of microwave popcorn for the hotel rooms (the rooms I book always have a small refrigerator and microwave).

My favorite quick meal along the way is a McDonalds Breakfast Burrito. I can eat it while driving and one is a perfect size for my 2nd breakfast!

Sometimes I have a protein in the ice chest – some chicken salad or microwavable frozen chicken/veggie nuggets. If it’s just me, I often decided that I really don’t want to leave the hotel once I am there….it feels good to not be out and about after driving all day!

A road trip with my husband will require more takeout meals but hopefully after we get to our destination for the night. The food he likes to eat going down the road is more limited than mine…skewed toward fruit rather than veggies. I’ll take a larger ice chest to make sure we both have foods that we like to eat while we are going down the road!

25 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

/

The positivity rates and hospitalizations continued downward but in Maryland they are not down to the lows we go in the summer of 2021 before the Delta variant came along…and then the Omicron spike. Still – most of the mask mandates have been allowed to expire. My daughter reported that at her university there seemed to be a lot of strep and flu infections after the mask mandate was lifted; masks were protective for more than COVID-19! I have continued to wear my mask when I am indoors (at the grocery store and when I waited to get my car serviced, for example). All the doctor’s offices where we’ve had appointments are still requiring masks.

When I made my road trip from Maryland to Texas (via Missouri), I put on my mask at rest stops and when I registered at the hotel…when I went grocery shopping while I was in Texas. I took my air purifier with me too. I was traveling through areas that had higher positivity/hospitalization rates than Maryland and noticed that there were very few people wearing masks. There are some analyses of sewage around the country that have indicated the presence of the omicron sub-variant that is problematic in Europe in the US but, so far, there does not appear to be an uptick in COIVD-19 cases here.

I am masking when I look at houses – both to protect myself and to be considerate of owners of the houses I am viewing. I do as much as I can online before I see the house in person.

The one place I did not wear I mask indoors this past month was at a baby shower while I was in Texas; I’m far enough past the event to know that no one there was infectious!

I still feel vulnerable because of my surgery earlier this year and my recent illness while I was traveling; I am not as confident that my immune system is as robust as it was a year ago; I am continuing my strategy of masking. My husband and I got our second COVID-19 booster soon after the recommendation came out. As we both continue our search for a new house, the vaccine and indoor masking are our risk reduction strategy…at least for now.

Another observation - my husband had an outpatient procedure this past month, and the COVID-19 process was still in effect: they required that I wait in the car for 1.5 hours rather than a waiting room. I was fortunate that I could park in a sunny place since the temperature was in the 30s!

Overall – the pandemic appears to be waning. People are making individual decisions about masking and the amount of masking varies a lot from place to place. This is the new normal?

30 years ago – April 1992

/

April 1992 was probably the most traumatic month of my career…I ended my work on what I had come to think of as ‘the project from hell’ but hadn’t settled into my new assignment. My husband had helped my situation when he bought our first laser printer in response to the long hours I spent working at home after a full day at the office. It also helped to be away at a company sponsored event in LA for a week…respite from the toxic work environment; one of the phrases I picked up from the speakers was from Herb Cohen – “Care…but not too much” – a message I needed to apply!

My daughter was a full of energy and enjoying her new bedroom arrangement – no more crib; she was enjoying a twin bed. Her Easter morning was probably one of her best ever – she enjoyed finding the plastic eggs ‘hidden’ all over our den and the Winnie-the-Pooh characters I had purchased at the Disney store when I was in LA. The day was too damp to do any egg hunting outside.  Toward the end of the month, it was warm enough for a trek to Wheaton Park where she picked a zebra to ride on the Merry-go-round.

Overall – a memorable month. I am so fortunate that my family kept me emotionally grounded enough to weather the upheaval at work.

Coming Home from Texas

/

The morning I left Texas, I was up early to treat my bug bites and the sensitive skin left from my round of hives. The bites were my main concern…lots of calamine lotion on them to stave off itching. I did the last bit of loading into the car; my parents woke up a little early to see me off. It was dark when I set out. There was about an hour when the sun was in my eyes after the sun came up, but the weather was crisp and clear - great for driving.

I stopped at a Pilot for a rest stop in Texas (and to get my morning caffeine). The upper part of the wall was decorated with ‘Texas tourist art’.

The part of my route in Arkansas was easy…just a little construction around the cities but didn’t slow me down.

The last rest stop in Arkansas had a tree with a fresh wound…a big branch must have come off recently. .

I crossed the Mississippi into Tennessee at Memphis heading toward Nashville. The drive was easy enough that I talked with my daughter on the phone (through my car) - noticing areas of recently downed trees along the highway and a kettle of birds (I think they were pelicans…certainly were not vultures…at 70 mph I didn’t take my eyes off the road for better identification).

I turned north at Nashville toward Bowling Green, KY which would be my stop for the first night. Overall – I made it to Bowling Green 20 minutes earlier than my car’s projected ETA first thing in the morning! It was a long day of trouble-free driving.

The next morning, I got up even earlier since I was trying to get myself back to east coast time. It was dark when I set out again even though I was on the eastern side of the central time zone. The driving was easy at first. It was a weekday but I managed to miss rush hours in the few cities along the way.

By late morning I was in West Virginia and enjoying the scenery….shortly after a long highway construction/special closure caused a 30 minute delay but the weather was good and the rest stops along the highway were frequent.

After a rest stop that included buying gas as I got close western Maryland – I got a rude surprise: snow and wind. I didn’t stop at the first rest stop in Maryland. It was white knuckle driving by then and continued for about an hour through Garrett and most of Allegany Counties. I was lucky that I68 did not have much traffic and few trucks. Everyone slowed. And we all made it through to Sidling Hill where it was cold but not snowing at all! My car was covered with salt, grit…and melting ice.

The sensor in my windshield gave an error that cleared after I use the wiper fluid/wipers so the adaptive cruise control functioned through it all. By the time I got home I had calmed down a little from the stress from that hour of hard driving. The exhaustion from the two days of driving (or maybe more the last afternoon) set in the next day. I took a long nap!

Being Sick While Traveling

/

There was one time I had a terrible cold while traveling during my career – but I was never sick enough to seek medical attention until my time in Texas last month. It was quite an experience.

I was tweaking the dose of a medication per my doctor’s instruction and, at first, I thought my high heart rate and feeling hot was caused by that change…but it continued to get worse over the next 24 hours. I finally noticed a pink area of skin on my abdomen and went to an Urgent Care…where I was diagnosed with cellulitis by the doctor (after the first place I called would not accept Medicare…aargh!). At first the antibiotic seemed to work very well. My heart rate declined back to normal with a few hours of the first dose. The pink area was reduced in size and fading after the second.

Trouble started about the time I took the 4th dose. I haven’t taken much medication so didn’t know any antibiotic I was allergic too…it happened that the one prescribed caused me to itch…I scratched…welts formed ---- HIVES! It was scary since it was described as an indication of an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. I managed to take some Benadryl and reach a doctor to switch me to another antibiotic.

I thought everything was going well – finally. Then I somehow attached something that bit me multiple times (maybe it was multiples of the same insect?)…so I had the remnants of hives (that were no longer itching as much) and bug bites that were new and itching. I covered all of it with calamine lotion to keep from scratching.

Fortunately - I was recovering by the time I started the two-day drive between Texas and Maryland. That trek is the topic of tomorrow’s post.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 2, 2022

/

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.

Where Have All the (Big) Cypress Trees Gone ... And Are They Coming Back? – The cypress stands survived logging but they may never again be as dominant as they were before. The largest trees now are about 3.5 feet diameter; the largest stumps from logging are about 5 feet diameter.

8 bird migrations, from past to present – The annual movement of birds is a part of spring….part of the yearly progression.

Cherry Blossom Time In Washington, D.C. – I was glad to get home in time to see the cherry tree in our yard bloom; it’s a little behind the trees in DC (we are a little north and not on the water).

Nature Conservancy to build solar farms at abandoned coal mines in Virginia – And thus an energy producing community, continues…leaning into the future!

The sound of Merlin: like Shazam, but for birds – An app that IDs birds by their songs…a learning experience to take on a walk.

Higher risk of temperature-related death if global warming exceeds 2°C – We’ll have to be more aware of heatwaves. Perhaps we would modify our behavior during those times…and medical interventions might help. There is a heat threshold above which our bodies are not adapted very well…that will cause increasing problems.

Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien Portray a Lush ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape – Another perspective of Tolkien…through his art rather than writing.

No breathing easy for city dwellers: particulates – Southeast Asia has seen the largest annual average increases in concentration and mortality rates between 2000 and 2019 from this type of air pollution.

How climate change is leading to bigger hailstones – The records for the largest hailstones have been broken in the last 3 years in Texas, Colorado and Alabama….reaching sizes of up to 6.2 inches in diameter. Large hail causes a lot of damage…if the incidence of large hail increases the damage/costs will trend higher too; the post includes a picture of a car damaged by large hail…daunting to anyone that doesn’t have their car parked in a garage.

Missouri Man Indicted For Fire That Destroyed Ozark National Scenic Riverways Visitor Station – I am paying more attention to news about natural areas in Missouri…now that I am preparing to move to the state. It’s sad when this type of destruction occurs – hard to fathom why someone would burn a visitor station.

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2022

/

March was a busy month with a variety of little celebrations – both at home and traveling.

Brookside Gardens. Brookside is one of my favorite places for photography….in any season. There were plenty of plants to photograph/celebrate in March 2022.

Snow that didn’t stick. The temperature can vary so much in March. I celebrated a snow that was pretty…but didn’t stick to the streets or walkways.

Successful transition to alternative laptop. My laptop died suddenly and completely…had to be sent to Dell for diagnosis and repair (under warranty). I celebrated that my husband helped me 1) make sure I had everything off the drive (i.e. we took it out of the laptop and accessed it from another computer…I got everything I’d been working on since the backup which was about a week old…and we made another backup) and 2) provided an alterative laptop for me to use until Dell could make the repair and return it. Writing this – I realize how much I appreciate my husband of almost 50 years still dropping everything to help me through a problem.

Big pictures fit in my car. I celebrated that the last of our big pictures fit in my car…got transported to Missouri…won’t have to go on the moving truck.

House hunting in Springfield. I learned a lot on my first round of house hunting in Springfield MO…celebrated that the process of moving has begun.

Getting to Carrollton…healthy parents. Both of my 90+ year old parents were healthy during my visit…something to celebrate after not seeing them since November.

Travel scale fixed. I was chagrined to discovered that my travel scale was not working….a little panicked that I would gain weight during my two weeks away from home. I celebrated when replacing the battery solved the problem!

New low weight of the year. And then shortly after my scale was working again – I achieved a new low weight for 2022…I always celebrate those days (usually with a little extra dark chocolate).

Antibiotics. I’ll write about my adventure of getting sick while I was away from home in a few days…will just say now that I celebrated when antibiotics worked very quickly.

Home again. I am home again as I write this…and celebrating as usual after a road trip. I’ll write more about how I got home and the backlog of activities in the upcoming week.

Carrollton Yard in Early Spring – Macro

/

I posted about the larger view of the Carrollton yard last week; today the post is from the macro perspective. I started indoors where my mother had some vases of spring blooms (daffodils and hyacinths) that looked cheery.

A few days later, I walked around the yard…the hyacinths and daffodils were mostly spent so I photographed other flowers: oxalis, Japanese quince, dandelion. The dandelion is my favorite.

The new rose leaves were not wet…but the new leaves must have some waxy material that protects them from cold temperatures this time of year.

A larger rock under one of the old mulberries had several kinds of lichen growing on it. The encrustations overlap and I found myself wondering if, in the overlap, are they melding or overlapping. Lichen are an organism that operate on an entirely different timescale than me do; some might continue to slowly grow and dissolve their rock for thousands of years.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 26, 2022

/

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 triple-pane windows stop energy (and money) from flying out the window – How long will it be before all window replacements and windows in new houses will be triple paned? I guess is depends a lot on affordability….and then availability. I like that they reduce noise too.

Yellowstone At 150: Challenges Go More Than Crowd-Deep – A post about Yellowstone’s past, present…projections for the future. My husband and I have only visited the park once…hopefully we’ll be able to see it again.

Beware the joro spider. Scientists say the giant, but harmless, arachnid is spreading – A native of Japan…it has been in the southeastern US for the past decade. It may be poised to continue up the eastern seaboard. Fortunately, they are not lethal to humans and the eat mosquitos/stink bugs.

Top 25 birds of the week: Seedeaters! – We see some of these at our birdfeeders!  

Cognitive Bias Codex, 2016 – A graphic I had not seen before….very thought provoking.

Revealing an Ice Age Route of Indigenous Peoples – Vancouver Island…analyzing lake sediments. One of them, Topknot Lake, was evidently never covered by glaciers so the sediment was very deep.

Hidden dangers lurking in your kitchen - A little history…and one that is relevant to my house hunting: I don’t want to buy a house with gas stove…if I do, it will be replaced with an electric ASAP.

Common house plants can improve air quality indoors – Modern homes are more airtight than ever…and indoor air quality can become a problem. Good to know that plants can help – and they are generally aesthetically pleasing too.

Spring is starting sooner and growing warmer – (A color coded map) Almost the whole US is experiencing earlier Spring. A small area of North and South Dakota is the exception.

Here are the world’s 25 most endangered cultural heritage sites – The post is a summary from Smithsonian Magazine. More details are available from the World Monuments Fund. There are sites in Ukraine that are in danger from the war there – will probably be on the next list (Smithsonian post and article with pictures of the 7 Ukranian UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Carrollton Yard in Early Spring

/

I walked around my parent’s yard in Carrollton and took some pictures of winter giving way to spring. The greenery is still sparse enough that the debris from last season is visible. There are a few tiny flowers (note the pentagon in the center).

Some English Ivy is climbing the old mulberry. In recent years, several mulberries in their yard have been cut down (before they fell). They were probably planted shortly after the house was built.

The hyacinths are about done for the year. There were not as many daffodils this year. The Japanese Quince is an early bloomer with wonderful color.

In the front yard there are grape hyacinths around the base of another mulberry.

The high point of my walk-around was noticing an insect under a dandelion! It walked out of the shade…posed for a portrait.

This time of year…the yard views are more nuanced than they will be later which there will be a riot of perennials/annuals and warmth loving flowering bushes. I look forward to seeing them - anticipating being in Carrollton more this year as I move to Springfield MO. The the trek to see my parents from my new home will be much easier than from Maryland.

Road Trip to Texas

/

My trek from Springfield MO to Carrollton TX was on a blustery March day. I wanted to leave a bit before 7 AM…the recent switch to daylight savings time meant it was very dark at that time!

The only picture of the travel day was from the sun room of my daughter’s house as I ate my small breakfast and noticed that the moon was very bright in the tangle of trees.

My route was west at first, so the moon was in my view as long as it was dark, and a colorful sunrise developed in my rear-view mirror…then a very bright day (I was glad when the sun got a little higher and wasn’t shining straight through from the back of the car).

The driving was easy….all interstate this time because of a stretch of construction and a missed exit in Tulsa for US 75. Instead of turning me around to get on the usual US 75 south, my navigation system recalculated to keep me on the interstate to Oklahoma City and then down I35 to Carrollton TX. At first all was well, and I noticed lots of new calves in the fields (and an amorous pair of adults), soaring birds (mostly vultures but there were some hawks as well).

The challenge began after I passed Oklahoma City and was heading south on I35. There were still lots of calves in the fields to notice, but the road had multiple active construction sites that narrowed the highway to one lane in each direction. The wind had picked up as well so between construction zones when the speeds picked up again, I didn’t want to be anywhere near a truck; the wind was causing the big rigs to move around a lot in the lane. I had to consciously relax my hands rather than gripping the steering wheel!

The delay was not too bad. I arrived in Carrollton about 30 minutes later than the original projection. Without the construction zones, that route will be my preferred one between Springfield and Carrollton because it is all interstate…no speed traps going through towns like on US 75. The Oklahoma interstates don’t have as many rest stops (West Virginia is the best state for rest stops on my recent road trips) so most of the stops are at fast food places or truck stops…not very scenic. The road itself is not bad…through farmland and then the Arbuckle Mountains which make for curving highway…fun to drive when it isn’t too windy. Once we move to Springfield…I might leave even earlier to make some stops in places I experienced as a child (like Travertine Creek)!

This time I was glad when the drive was over…primarily because the wind was so strong. There was a wind advisory for the whole area that extended into the next day too. Fortunately my parents trees have been pruned professionally….do downed limbs. I was glad to not be on the road for more than a week when I head for home (Maryland).

Springfield Yard Macro – 1

/

Last week, I walked around my daughter’s yard with my macro lens. I focused on the trees as first; none if them are leafing out yet…my theme shifted from buds to bark. There was a good collection of lichen and moss on the older maple by her garden room. I like the different textures of the lichen and how green the moss looks even when the temperatures are still relatively cold.

Perhaps the most spectacular ‘bark’ was on the river birch. There are layers of bark that can look like sandstone….or overviews of the desert southwest (complete with some green in one image). But these are all macro images of a river birch tree trunk.

A cherry lenticel. In our area of Maryland some cherry trees were already beginning to bloom…but not this one in Springfield.

A healed wound where a branch was cut – or broke – a long time ago in the life of a large oak probably planted in the 1950s when the house was built. The neighborhood is full of 70-year-old oaks. Some are not in good shape. This one had a large branch removed well before my daughter bought the house. The branches the tree normally sheds are relatively small…normal for a healthy oak.

Tomorrow---the rest of the macro pictures from my walk around the yard….

Road Trip to Missouri

/

I set out on my 2-day drive to Missouri the morning after a winter storm came through. Fortunately, the roads were all clear…no snow or ice on the interstates and only a little packed snow in the rest stops during the first morning. I decided to walk fast at my rest stops rather than wearing my coat in the car. It was very cold and breezy along my route from home in Maryland to a hotel in Lexington, KY the first day then warmer on the second day (my fleece vest was still needed but I didn’t need to walk fast). I noticed my skin had become very dry during the first day (when the temps were in the teens and low twenties for much of the day)…didn’t recover until I was in Missouri for a day.

I had braced for higher gas prices. I bought gas 3 times with the price ranging from $3.99 to $4.55 per gallon. After hearing so many stories about getting stuck in winter weather on highways, the tank never got below ¼ full. I also had a sleeping bag in the car….just in case. Thankfully there were no weather related traffic problems.

My route the first day was very scenic….starting out going west through Maryland to familiar rest stops at South Mountain and Sidling Hill. There was snow at both stops. The parking and sidewalks at South Mountain were totally clear but icy at Sidling Hill (I walked in the road rather than on the sidewalk!). Note that my car was still relatively clean at that point….it did not stay that way in West Virginia.

The roadcut at Sidling Hill had ice falls where the water seeps out of the rocks.

The interstate route through West Virginia must be one of the most scenic in the country. This time it was very cold too.


The snow on the ground was not melting even in the sunshine…and the wind had caused drifts across some sidewalks. The highway crews had done an excellent job treating the highway and the access roads into the rest stops. There were some patches of white on the highway that I thought was blown snow at first…but it was salt! My car became more white than red!

The snow was melting at the one rest stop in Kentucky….making the picnic area soggy. It was still cold but warmer than then morning…and much appreciated.

I stayed at a hotel I’d stayed in previously. My room was in a wing that is probably slated for renovation soon. The chair at the desk/table looked like one we had taken to the landfill! I noticed that I had salt on the back hem of my jeans…must have touched the running board getting out of the car.

Lexington was very dark when I headed away from the hotel at 6:30 AM. I took no pictures until the 3 rest stops in Indiana.

I discovered that the Goshen Rest stop has a wetland behind the building…a bridge over the little stream. There were a lot of redwing black birds in the trees.

My route is very brief in Illinois. It stopped at the welcome center and then by buy gas.

I’m glad a made the stops in Illinois because I got stuck in traffic in St. Louis. There was some roadwork that closed some lanes at the exit to I44 just after the bridge over the Mississippi River. On the plus side – the traffic was stopped for long enough for me to take a picture of the arch. This is probably the only picture I will ever get from this vantage point!

There were the two rest stops along my route between St. Louis and Springfield. The day was a comfortable spring day…with puffy clouds. I noticed that the Route 66 stop had a ‘Diner’ sign over the vending machines with food items!

After unloading the car…my daughter directed me to the nearest car wash to get the salt off the car.