Onion Flowers and Skipper

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The onions are blooming our chaos garden. They come back every year. I keep thinking I will harvest the tops for salads, but I am always overwhelmed with items from the CSA – never need to augment the crisper during the summer!

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There was a Southern Cloudwing – a Spread-winged Skipper – getting nectar from the flowers…enjoying a last hurrah of summer. (Ref. Maryland Butterflies and Maryland Biodiversity Project). Use the arrow to the side of the image below to go through the slideshow. The proboscis is visible in some of the pictures. Note the shape of the eyes and the fuzziness of the body.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Prototype Grinch? I was browsing through the 1914 edition of Tik-Tok of Oz (L. Frank Baum) on Internet Archive and one of the first illustrations in the book (John Rea Neill was the illustrator) looked like a prototype the Grinch! Do you see the resemblance too?

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 12, 2020

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

Top 25 birds of the week: September 2020 - Wild Bird Revolution – Starting out this list with bird pictures!

The wind turbines standing up to the world’s worst storms - BBC Future – Designing turbines that can withstand typhoons in the Philippines and Japan….at the same time climate change is making the storms stronger. We are going to need more of this kind of engineering.

Photography in The National Parks: Capturing Sunrise, Sunset, And the Milky Way At Mount Rainier’s Sunrise Area – Good views of Mount Rainier…and a photography tutorial…with ‘how to’ during the pandemic.

Home Valuation Needs to Consider the Risk of Climate Change - News | Planetizen – The piece is focused on sea-level rise but there are other climate change factors that might also need to be considered: increasing drought (i.e. some places that won’t have enough water to support the population living there) and – perhaps related – extreme heat/fire risk. Our government should not be willing to buy increasingly risky mortgages through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Cassowary Quest: A Tale of Danger and Defecation – Learn a bit about the cassowary – great picture and video too.

American Academy of Sleep Medicine calls for elimination of daylight-saving time -- ScienceDaily – I hope the drive to not switch times begins to gain momentum. It’s annoying – and not healthy for us either.

Dragonflies the Star of Photography Book About Their Lifecycle – We didn’t get to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens this year to photograph dragonflies (along with the lotuses). These pictures are awesome….and encourage me to think about spending more time near ponds next summer.

The rare plants that ‘bleed’ nickel - BBC Future – Phyto-mining may be an alternative to using heavy machinery, destroying an ecosystem, and producing toxic waste. Hopefully, the work being done now will quickly become the dominate way to mine nickel.

A Field Guide to Finding Cool Moths – Mothing is (not yet) as popular as birding. The techniques discussed in this article are a good start. I’m going to try leaving the porchlight on tonight – checking around it before I go to bed and then again when I first get up (when it’s still dark outside). I’ve seen and photographed several of the moths mentioned in the article:

Hummingbird moth (Maryland in 2016)

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Ailanthus webworm moth (Maryland in 2018)

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Luna moth (Missouri in 2019)

Polyphemus moth (Maryland in 2019)

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Understanding how birds respond to extreme weather can inform conservation efforts -- ScienceDaily – An example of how scientists use the data submitted by a large number of people into eBird to answer questions re the impact of climate change and the resilience of birds (or lack of resilience).  

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Prius Prime maintenance. The miles put on the car since the last service were minimal, but it was time for the maintenance. Everyone at the dealership was wearing masks but there didn’t seem to be any hand sanitizer stations (I was glad I had brought my own). I brought disinfectant wipes for the inside car surfaces when I picked up the car and then drove away with the windows open to clear out the air in the car….continued to wear my mask for most of the drive home.  

I’ve about used up the tank of gas I bought 9 months ago so I’ll fill it up and start plugging it in again to do all my errands with it as an EV. I hope there is a vaccine available by the end of the year --- and I’ll be out and about a lot more.

Mini-clover update. We’ve had gentle rain for the past few days and temperatures in the low 70s into the 80s. The clover is a cloud of tiny of green leaves on the surface of the bare spots in our yard. This is evidently good clover growing weather!

Monarch Caterpillar update. I only found one caterpillar this morning and it hasn’t moved much since I saw it yesterday. It’s large…hope it is about ready to make a chrysalis.

Fall in the Cutting Garden

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Flowers are not the only thing I get from the cutting garden at my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). I like getting extra basil and stevia as well. A few leaves of stevia in pots of tea give it just enough sweetness…and basil provides another flavor in my smoothies and stir fries. Both plants are about ready to go to seed. There are only a few stevia plants, but it seems I’m the only one going back to that part of the garden.

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Next to the stevia were some big feathery plants that I glanced at just as I was cutting the stevia. There were two caterpillars!!!! I knew the type they were from several years ago when I had some black swallowtail caterpillars on a parsley plant in a pot on my deck.

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As I walked to the end of the row where the sign that identified the plantings was located, I saw another caterpillar.

It turned out the plant was fennel! When I got home I did some research (I am old enough to remember having to go the library for references we now have with a simple search on our home computers!) and it is listed as a food plant for black swallowtail caterpillars! I also learned that the fennel seeds are edible and will harvest some of the seed heads on the plant next week. The leaves are being eating by caterpillars but otherwise the plants look ignored by other CSA folks.

The compost pile to the side of the cutting garden was very colorful. I guess some of the tomatoes and squashes had animal bites or got overripe before they could be picked/distributed.

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Of course, I got the usual fresh flowers. They are bracketing the red maple seedling this morning. I still have 2 kombucha bottles with flowers from the previous week as well.

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Frog in the street. I start out for my grocery shopping before 6:30 AM and these days it is still dark at that time. This week it was wet which might have also made it seem darker. After I passed the recycle truck heading further into the neighborhood, I saw a frog (in silhouette) hoping across the street toward the neighborhood pond! I stopped…to give it time to get across.  

Paintings of Flowers Indoors – September 2020

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Today the artists I’m featuring are from slideshows on Internet Archive that I looked at back in July and late August. It’s a treat to savor them again – and share them in a blog post. I picked out the flower pictures but there are many paintings with different subjects by all these artists. (Clink on the images below to see a larger version). The slide shows are well worth a look.

Rupert Bunny (1864 - 1947)

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

4 Caterpillars update. I found 4 Monarch caterpillars first thing in the morning. The one that was in the wheelbarrow then on a milkweed in another flowerbed may have moved to be closer to the other 3 since I didn’t see it for about 24 hours and now there are 4 on a group of milkweed near the front porch. The 2 of the 4 are now quite large. Hopefully, all of them will make their chrysalises in easy-to-see places so I can avoid disturbing them when I work in the flowerbed.

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Mini clover. We planted the mini clover 4 days ago and it’s already sprouted! (The clover is the small plants coming up between the other grass/weeds.) We’ve been watering the two areas every morning to give the seeds the best possible start.  Now there is rain in the forecast for the next few days so maybe we are about over the need to provide the extra water.

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4 Monarch Caterpillars

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I swept acorns from the driveway and picked up sticks that had fallen off the oak; the wheelbarrow was not very full when I started toward the front flower beds to do some bush trimming. I looked down as I started and saw a medium sized monarch caterpillar on the edge of the wheelbarrow closest to the handles. It was a shock since I had not been anywhere near any milkweed plants. I took the picture after I moved the caterpillar to a milkweed plant.

The caterpillar moved from the leaf I’d encouraged it to crawl to (used to transport it) onto the milkweed leaf right away and then rested – made it easy to get some pictures.

I checked some of the other milkweed plants that I had left in the front flower bed and found 3 other caterpillars!

By the time I finished doing some bush trimming and filling the wheelbarrow, the caterpillar that I’d found on the wheelbarrow was busy eating on the milkweed plant where I’d moved it.

The following morning, I went out early when the temperature was only about 60 degrees and saw 2 of the caterpillars actively eating. Hopefully, the others were still around too…just not actively feeding where I could see them.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Two woodpeckers on the birdfeeder. I was reviewing the videos from the camera we have on the bird feeder and found an interesting one from first thing in the morning back on the 6th….2 woodpeckers (red-bellied and downy) on the feeder at the same time! Both were females. The downy flew off without getting any seed but the red-bellied got something before she flew away.

Coloring Zentangle® Tiles

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I enjoy making the Zentangle tiles. Recently I’ve discovered that making a second pass at tiles – coloring them – is also very enjoyable. Here are two tiles - original and then colored. The look is quite different!

I’ve picked 8 others from the ones I’ve been working on for the past week. Coloring is a bit faster than the creating of the original tile, but it is Zen in the same way. It’s very easy to keep focus on the task rather than bouncing around to all kinds of thoughts. And when I’m done – I savor the creation…then let it go.

Allowing at least several days between the original creation and the coloring means that often the tile seems ‘new.’ I don’t remember the order I made the original pattern. The two rounds of activity on the tile are separate endeavors.

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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.

Maple Seedling

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A maple seedling has been added to the row of Kombucha bottles on the windowsill in my office. I did this several years ago with a smaller seedling and it lasted for a long time – the leaves eventually turning red (long after the leaves fell from the red maple tree in our yard). This one will have a place with the cut flowers for the next few months.

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I pulled the seedling while I was working in the front flower bed. It must have missed my attention previously. My husband filled the bottle with water for me to put it in since my boots were muddy.

It was one of four red maple seedlings I found.

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There were 5 tulip poplars!

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I filled the wheelbarrow with bush trimmings and milkweed (without caterpillars) – once again using that as the metric for my morning round of yard work.

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When I took the wheelbarrow back to the brush pile to empty, I noticed that the small puffball I had seen over a week ago was done with its development – had puffed its spores away.

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Miniclover. My husband mowed at the lowest setting (i.e. scalped) the areas of our yard that tend to have problems keeping their turf…we raked over the areas…and planted miniclover. In the past we’ve tried over-seeding with grass seed and it hasn’t worked very well so we decided to try something different. Now we are watering every morning (if it didn’t rain overnight) for the next week or so….and we’ll see what happens.

eBotanical Prints – August 2020

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20 botanical eBooks in August 2020! The time range is quite long in this group from 1700 to 1999. The 4 Weinmann books are the only ones in color this month and they are quite old – from the 1700s.

The volumes are all freely available on the Internet. The whole list of 1963 books can be accessed here. Sample images and links for the 20 new ones are provided below. (click on the sample image to see a larger view). Enjoy!

Phytanthoza iconographia, sive, Conspectus aliquot millium V1 * Weinmann, Johnn Wilhelm et all * sample image * 1737

Phytanthoza iconographia, sive, Conspectus aliquot millium V2 * Weinmann, Johnn Wilhelm et all * sample image * 1737

Phytanthoza iconographia, sive, Conspectus aliquot millium V3 * Weinmann, Johnn Wilhelm et all * sample image * 1737

Phytanthoza iconographia, sive, Conspectus aliquot millium V4 * Weinmann, Johnn Wilhelm et all * sample image * 1737

The Agricultural Grasses of the United States * Vasey, George; Richardson, Clifford, US Division of Botany * sample image * 1884

Pomona, or, The fruit-garden illustrated - containing sure methods for improving all the best kinds of fruits now extant in England * Langley, Batty * sample image * 1719

Icones pleurothallidinarum V76 1999 * Luer, Carlyle A. * sample image * 1999

Icones pleurothallidinarum V39 1991 * Luer, Carlyle A. * sample image * 1991

Jacobi Zanonii Rariorum stirpium historia : ex parte olim edita, nunc centum plus tabulis ex commentariis auctoris  * Zanoni, Giacomo * sample image * 1742

Institutiones rei herbariae V2 * Tournefort, Joseph Pitton de * sample image * 1700

An illustrated guide to the flowering plants of the middle Atlantic and New England states * Stevens, George Thomas * sample image * 1910

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign XXXVIII - 1900 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1900

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign XXXI - 1893 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1893

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign LVII - 1919 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1919

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign XLIV - 1906 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1906

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign XLVI - 1908 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1908

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign XXV - 1887 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1887

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign XXII - 1884 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1884

Journal of Botany, British and Foreign LIII - 1915 * Britten, James (editor) * sample image * 1915

Botany of to-day, a popular account of recent notable discoveries * Eliot, George Francis Scott * sample image * 1911

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 5, 2020

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

Why cavemen needed no braces – Our diet and behavior have changed a lot since the stone and hunter/gather stages of our species….and those changes have impacted our jaw (and teeth and air way). There are more health consequences than just crooked teeth. I’ve bought the book (Kindle version) to learn more.

Characteristics that give viruses pandemic potential – An article from The Scientist that is more future oriented. What we are experiencing with COVID-19 is something that could happen again. The article talks about various types of viruses that pose the greatest threats.

Peer into the Past with Photorealistic Portraits of Roman Emperors – Taking historical sculptures and drawings to the next level. The Smithsonian Magazine summary has images of Augustus, Maximus Thrax, Caligula, and Nero….the rest can be viewed in Daniel Voshart’s site.

Amazing Macro Winners of the International Garden Photographer of the Year 2020 – Visual treats. This it the type post that gives me ideas about things to try with my own camera.

1,200-Year-Old Soap Factory Unearthed in Negev Desert – The soap was made from olive oil and the ashes of the saltwort plant. The factory produced enough for export to places like Egypt and other parts of the Arab world.

Low humidity increases COVID-19 risk: Another reason to wear a mask – This finding does not bode well for the winter when many homes and workplaces have much lower humidity because of furnaces.

Top 25 birds of the week: Birds in Pairs – Beautiful birds….I always enjoy looking at the 25 pictures each week.

Hawaiʻian Snails: A Tale of Discovery and Rediscovery – I remember seeing a snail in a planter box at the airport on the big island while I was waiting for my luggage a few years ago…and I dug up the picture I took when this article prompted the memory.

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Wolverines Seen Roaming About Mount Rainier National Park – What a boon remotely triggered cameras can be….and then DNA testing of hair to determine relationships!

 Meet the Squad of Mosquito-Eating Species – Birds, dragonflies, newts, aquatic turtles, and bats. We haven’t noticed very many mosquitoes around this year, but we try to replace the water in our bird baths frequently and make sure our gutters are draining properly. Having the birds around our house probably helps…and the turtles at the neighborhood pond do their part.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Going to the basement during a storm. Our phones went off with tornado warnings – which is rare in Maryland. We went to the basement. It turned out to be only heavy rain for us (not very windy either); to the east and south of where we live there was a lot of damage with trees/big branches falling and shingles flying.

Cleaning the leaves off the deck. Over the past week we’ve had several fronts come through that have blown leaves and branches onto our deck. They were still wet when I went out to clean up. I dumped the sediment that had accumulated in the bird bath too.

Finding Witches’ Butter. I photographed the fruiting bodies of Witches’ Butter on our deck railing. The deck is over 25 years old and even regular treatment can’t keep it clear for fungus; it is only visible during times when the wood is wet for several days.  

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I’m more concerned about a window frame that has the same fungus growing. I’m not keen about replacing the window but we might have to consider it.

More Butterflies at the CSA

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There seemed to be even more butterflies at the Community Supported Agriculture cutting garden when I went to cut my flowers and stevia this week. I’d remembered to take my better camera so got some reasonably good pictures. I managed to identify all of them using the Maryland Butterflies web page when I looked at the images on my big monitor.

I’ve seen the Common Buckeye many times but they seemed to be a lot more of them in close proximity than I had seen before.

The Pink-edged Sulphur was a new one for me. I knew it was a ‘sulphur’ when it photographed it but didn’t see the edges clearly until it was on the big screen.

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The Red Admiral on the cone flower was one I don’t remember seeing before but it is evidently found through most of Maryland.

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I’d seen the Palamedes Swallowtails in previous year’s Wings of Fancy exhibits inside the conservatory. This was the first one I’ve seen in the wild. I realized it was a swallowtail when I photographed it and that it looked a little different than the dark morphs of tiger swallowtails that often are more common in this area.

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What a thrill to see three new-to-me butterflies this week!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Car service. We took my husband’s car to the dealership for a gear shift button repair (it popped off!!!). It turned out to be a recall item and they had the replacement part. Now the service is up to date on the car as well. My car will get serviced next week. We haven’t been driving much this year….but the cars do have a maintenance schedule.

Yampa Valley Festival of the Cranes. I started making my way through the videos. They are well done. It is positive story as well because Northwest Colorado’s Greater Sandhill Cranes have gone from endangered to threatened (1993) to special concern (1998). I’d like to go to the festival held just before their fall migration south some year….see the young cranes leaving the nesting grounds. Some of them end up in Bosque del Apache where we’ve been twice to the festival in November (cancelled this year).

Fledgling chipping sparrow. This is the time for fledging chipping sparrows (probably second brood). There was one that was trying to come to the feeder while I was out with my morning caffeine. It couldn’t quite manage getting on the perch so would flutter down to the deck railing and an adult bird would bring some seed. Hopefully, it will become coordinated enough to get its own seed soon.

New Phone

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My new phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10e – that is the smallest of the current Samsung phones (the others are too big for me to mange one-handed). I got it set up on the same day as it arrived with a little help from my husband. Last time I bought a phone the initial set up was done at Best Buy. This time the phone was delivered to the house from Verizon and we did all the set up at home. I have all the apps I use all the time working as expected and will do the others as I need them.

Setting up a new device is always a high-stress time – remembering infrequently used passwords…trying not to mess up the set up and having to back track (or worse yet…not be able to figure out how to back track)…somehow losing something unrecoverable in the transfer. With the phone I had the added challenge of applying the screen protector…making sure it was very clean before the application and that all the bubbles were out before the adhesive set.

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I’m past the anxiety now and enjoying the new device. The sunflowers cover I got Is OK but I think I might order a more unusual one (orange jewelweed) as a treat…maybe to remind myself that the phone is the ‘big present’ for my birthday later this year.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Clearing the crispers. I had quite a lot of produce left from last week’s share on the day I picked up the new one so I spent time in the morning putting as much as I could in the freezer. I’d managed to eat the 4 pounds of larger tomatoes but still had 2 pints of the cherry size…which freeze well with just a simple rinsing and then placing in a Ziploc.

The beets were more challenging. They had to be scrubbed and then cut up into bit size pieces that could be used in smoothies or cooked (stir fry or soup).

All the mild peppers I cut up and put in a Ziploc. The jalapenos I cut up and put in their own container….I’ll use them in small amounts – making taco filling (beef or chicken).

I still need to cook the spaghetti squash (next time we turn on the oven for something else). All the other things I had left, I ate as part of my lunch before I made the pickup later in the afternoon.

Zentangle® – August 2020

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There were a lot of tiles made in August….more than 3 per day. Picking just 31 of them was challenging. 16 of the ones selected were rectangles cut from separator cardboard in boxes of cat food. The rounded shapes in some of them are inked indentions from the cans of Fancy Feast! My plan for September is to limit myself to 2 tiles per day…but then ‘color’ old tiles if I want some more ‘pen in hand’ time. The rectangular tiles created with black ink are prime candidates for this activity.

There are two series that I developed during the month and some of them made it into the 31 selected: 3 of the ‘5 gingo’ series

And 4 of the ‘x string’ series.

And then here are the rest of the square tiles.

Most tiles were made in my early morning outdoor time on the deck…and I am increasingly sitting in a chair using the back of my iPad as a surface for the tile. I like the freedom to grab a pen and some tiles and just go wherever I want in the house or yard. That means there is no shading (don’t want to deal with the pencil and tortillon rolling around)….and I’m fine with that sacrifice.

The new pen I am experimenting with is a white Sakura Gelly Roll 08. The Sharpie Ultra Fine points are still my favorites, but I am experimenting with other pens that I have around. It’s been over a year since I got quite an assortment at the CZT class and I want to use them before they dry out.

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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.

Grasshopper

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Our weather is getting a little cooler. We are back to mornings in the 60s. It’s a good time to see some insects before they warm up enough to be more active. On a recent morning, the temperature was key to my photographing a grasshopper. It was still the entire time I watched it; I walked around trying to get a better angle.

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It is a Differential Grasshopper – note the patterns on the hind legs. It’s common throughout most of Maryland and evidently does very well in urban/suburban environments. It can cause crop damage but also has the redeeming characteristic (for allergy suffers) of eating ragweed.

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The rest of my walk provided some other photographic subjects – plants around the pond and reflections of park benches/trees/fire hydrant in the pond. The light was good from certain angles but almost too bright otherwise.

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I noted that there was a Bradford Pear hanging over the fence of one of the backyards that border the neighborhood water retention pond and a lot of small Callery Pear (the escaped and invasive form of the Bradford Pear) youngsters coming up milkweed meadow. Maybe the meadow will be mowed to keep the pear trees in check.

I didn’t see any sign that the milkweed plants have been eaten by Monarch caterpillars this season. The pods are not covered with milkweed bugs either. Overall – the area looks too free of insects and I wonder if it was treated with something – which destroys the value of having a milkweed meadow.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Yellow leaves in morning light. The morning sun hit the tops of the tulip poplars while I was outside, and the foliage looked very yellow. The leaves still look green in daytime light….but it won’t be long before they will turn yellow and swirl away from the tree.

Zooming – August 2020

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The images this month come from around my house and neighborhood…from the CSA. I didn’t get out and about to other places because it was too hot on so many days rather than any heightened risk relative to the pandemic (it declined a bit in Maryland during August compared to July). More than half the pictures were taken in my office, either through the window or of the flowers on the windowsill. The zoomed images of flowers are probably the ones I fined the most appealing. Photography is a key component to my enjoyment of having flowers around. Enjoy the August 2020 slideshow!

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2020

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Celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy….staying vigilant with masks and distancing. And then there are 10 little celebrations for August.

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There were three celebrations associated with melons which are always a big part of August – a sweet cantaloupe, a yellow watermelon, and the 6-part symmetry in a red watermelon.

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Sunrise at the neighborhood pond. It was a celebration to begin the day.

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Photographing a cicada. I always celebrate a cicada that I manage to see…and that remains still long enough for me to photograph!

The (clean) glass birdbath. The glass birdbath is always pretty….but when it’s sparkly clean it’s even better.

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Sweet potato sprouts. Finding new life in the pantry….letting the roots start growing…planting them outside. I celebrated that it happened…would have been eve better if it were earlier in the season.

Best picture of our cat. The cat is 18 years old and I finally managed a picture of him in motion that captures his overall personality.

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Dryer fix. My husband I celebrated that our dryer is fixed (that we didn’t have to buy a new one).

Kombucha bottles with flowers. I celebrate the flowers on my windowsill every time I look out the window. It’s a mood brightener every time.

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Smartphone replacement. I noticed that the side of my phone has spilt….the case was holding it together; otherwise it might split the rest of the way. It’s over 3 years old (I posted about it here back in 2017). My husband ordered a new phone for me and I found a case that I like…ordered a screen protector at the same time. More about the adventure of getting a new phone in a contactless way over the next week….

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 29, 2020

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

Ancient Artisans in Arabia, the Americas Invented Same Technology Independently | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Stone fluting… and the fluting is not the same so it may have had a different purpose.

Baby boomers show concerning decline in cognitive functioning: Trend reverses progress over several generations, study finds -- ScienceDaily – The impact of modern life in the long term?

Ramesses II Statue Unearthed in Egypt - Archaeology Magazine – Multiple statues have been found…made of black and pink granite.

Top 25 birds of the week: #Waterbirds – Beautiful birds…not as many from North America as I expected.

Stone Sculptures of ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ Characters to Adorn Medieval Church – Replacing weathered carvings. There are 14 limestone carvings that will be displayed at ground level for visitors to see before being installed on the church’s exterior.

On the Delaware, A Promising New Era in Cleanup of an Urban River – Like many urban rivers in the US – a lot of progress has been made since the mid-20th century….but there is still a ways to go. Many of the urban rivers are clean enough in some stretches for recreational use….but often not after storms when sewage systems and extra industrial waste might be in the water along with the storm water.

Are you being served? A short history of waiters and servers in restaurants – Many of us are still in the mode of only getting carry out!

Examining the Chemistry of Yellowstone National Park's Thermal Waters – A little chemistry lesson in this post. Many of the hot springs and geysers are basic…mud pots and steam-driven fumaroles are acidic.

U.S. Commercial Rooftops Hold 145 Gigawatts of Untapped Solar Potential – The big challenge is logistical and financial. It seems that a partnership between commercial properties and community/utility solar would be worthwhile. It would be much better to use commercial rooftops than farmland for solar panels and many of the rooftops are in areas that consume a lot of electricity as well.

Record-Breaking 60,000 Flamingos Flock to Southern France -The picture of an adult flamingo surrounded by babies/juveniles caught my attention. I didn’t know that young flamingos are gray!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Flu shot. I got to my grocery store’s pharmacy just after they opened at 8:30 AM – got a flu shot. The store was busier than when I do my grocery shopping staring around 6:30….but it was still mostly possible to social distance…and everyone was wearing masks. I’ll stick with the earlier time for my grocery shopping.

Butterflies in the Cutting Garden

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I took a few minutes when I was in the CSA’s cutting garden this week to photograph some butterflies. The first one is a battered Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark morph) on a sunflower. I always try to check to make sure it’s not a Spicebush or Black Swallowtail. This one has dashes on the edge of the forewing (instead of spots)….which distinguished it as the dark morph of the Tiger Swallowtail.

There were skippers all over the cone flowers.

I took a series that shows the proboscis in different positions…and why they stay for such a long time on one cone flower (there are a lot of places to find nectar)!

Aside from cutting some flowers, I also cut stevia. I chop it up to steep in tea….a nice light sweetness for the whole pot. I don’t think very many others know where it is because the plants don’t look like they’ve been snipped much. Their loss…my gain!

By the time I finished the bit of cutting and photography in the mid-afternoon sun, my mask was becoming decidedly uncomfortable. I appreciated the air conditioner in my car for the short trip home.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Grocery day. Every time I shop, I realize I am becoming more accustomed to shopping every other week rather than weekly as I have for my whole life until this pandemic. I’m now beginning to think that I’ll stick with the less frequent shopping from now on. It takes a little more planning, but the benefits are reduced time for shopping and I seem to be spending a bit less (maybe because I am planning better). My grocery store is not that far from where I live – so halving the gas/electricity for the commute is not saving much – although it could add up over time. Overall – this may be a pandemic habit worth keeping!

Through my Office Window – August 2020

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The usual birds kept coming to our deck for the water or seed (or both) this month: Mourning Doves

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White-breasted Nuthatch

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Blue Jays

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Carolina Chickadees

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Tufted Titmouse

Carolina Wren

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With occasional visits from American Goldfinches

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Common Grackle

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Downy Woodpecker

The House Finches seemed to be the most frequent visitors to the feeder. Near the beginning of the month we were seeing parents bringing fledglings to the feeder.

And then in recent days there were birds that seemed to be getting adult plumage.

Also - near the end of the month a Chipping Sparrow brought its fledgling to the seed under the feeder. The young bird was still in the mode of waiting to be fed rather than finding its own seed.

And it was voracious – here is the “I’m still hungry” stance!

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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More sweet potato sprouts. I found more sprouts on the sweet potatoes in the pantry a couple of days ago and put them in water. And this morning they had roots and tiny leaves! I planted them outside in two places near the other sprout and watered all three. The day lily leaves are beginning to grow rapidly again, and I hope the small sweet potato vines will grow fast enough to not be down in the shade.

3 Free eBooks – August 2020

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The Internet Archive is such a great resource. I’ve been thinking recently about how frustrating it was when I was growing up – getting to the library…finding something in the card catalog then discovering that it wasn’t available. Or going to the ‘Books in Print’ reference and finding a reference to a book that I wanted to get…but then finding the library didn’t have it and didn’t have an easy way to get it. Periodicals were in thick bound volumes….if the library had the publication. Somehow my hours at the library were more frustrating than enlightening. I became aware early on that ‘research’ in the library was not as productive as I wanted it to be. Now we have access to so much via a simple search on the internet; the more challenging problem is checking the validity of the references found.

The items I find on Internet Archive are general books that are dated…but reflect a perspective of the time they were written/created. I tend to look more at the images than read the text….but what a rich experience that level of browsing can be!

Grindon, Leo H. Lancashire – brief historical and descriptive notes. London: Seeley and Co. 1892. Available from Internet Archive here. I gleaned images from the book that depict children…an immigrant mother hunched over her baby, children out and about in wet or cold weather, a dinner hour where a younger girl appears to be barefoot and without a shawl/scarf, and then children working in a cotton factory and glass-blowing. The late 1800s were a time when some children started working early in their teens and worked long hours….enough that it impacted their health (i.e. rickets, lung problems).

Holland, Clive. Things seen in Japan. London: Seeley and Co. 1911. Available from Internet Archive here. Again – I selected pictures that include children. In the first one I noticed the shoes – placed on the ground under the bench…and what about the other child on the bench a little further away. The ‘big sisters’ in the other picture look a little tired…and how did the photographer know that the babies were all ‘little brothers’?

Sakai Hoitsu (Japanese, 1761-1828). The slideshow of this artist’s work is available from Internet Archive here. Do you recognize the deciduous magnolia?

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Watermelon symmetry. I cut the watermelon crosswise and noticed the 6 spirals…3 sets of 2 back-to-back spirals. Even familiar foods can surprise us! Maybe this could be a prompt for a hexagonal Zentangle pattern. Some paintings of watermelons before modern plant breeding show the 6 segments more clearly.

Toad, Tiger Swallowtail and Puffballs

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While my husband mowed the grass this past weekend – I took the compost bucket out to the pile and swept the deck (including the stairs down to ground level). The first surprise was at the compost pile: an American Toad. It blends in with the sticks around the bin.

It’s possible that the toad’s ‘house’ is a cavity under the compost bin since that is where it headed as I tried to get closer. It’s fun to think about the toad being under my daughter’s old turtle sandbox which is about 30 years old and has a great second act as a compost bin/ (maybe)toad home.

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I found a tiger swallowtail carcass amongst the leaves on the deck as I was sweeping. It was missing some parts (like the abdomen), but I saved it for some later photography. I see these butterflies frequently in our yard. The tulip poplar tree is a food plant for their caterpillars, and we have a large one at the edge of the forest.

After I finished sweeping, I noticed a white object – about the side of a tennis ball in the grass my husband had just mowed. When I looked at I more closely I realized it was a puffball. There was a slash in the ‘ball’ and it was disconnected from the ground…damage from the lawnmower probably.

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There was another tiny puffball nearby that was still attached to the ground and an older one that had been slashed earlier or may already released spores.

Back to the Tiger Swallowtail….

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I took close-up picture then got out the jeweler’s loupe to look at the scales.

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The wings were battered (missing pieces, some scales rubbed away) so this was not a newly emerged butterfly when it died. The scales that remain are still vibrant….tiny jewels even after death.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Two tiny leaves on the sweet potato. The sweet potato sprout I planted in the front flowerbed now has two tiny leaves. It appears to be getting comfortable in its new place – set to grow rapidly. The trick will be to keep it moist enough during the hot days we have in the forecast for the rest of this week.

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I was checking the plant when I went out to do another round in the yard using the ‘fill the wheelbarrow’ metric. It was a tough hour since my first task was sweeping the driveway. Acorns are hard to sweep into a pile because they roll! And the ones that have been run over by our cars are in pieces that don’t sweep up easily either; the little bit of curve they have seems to help them stick to the surface. I stopped before the wheelbarrow was full this morning…deciding that an hour was enough as the temperature climbed.