Bulb Planting

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I planted 141 bulbs in the back yard of my Missouri house in the 1st weeks of November: 16 iris, 20 allium, 30 hyacinth, 35 crocus, and 40 daffodils.

It was a harder job than I anticipated:

There is thick black cloth under the rocks in the defined beds near the house. I only planted a few bulbs there – in the area where a small cedar had died (I took it out, cut the black cloth, and planted the bulbs!

The areas under the pines were a good place for a few bulbs but I only planted on the sides that would get at least some sun during the day. It turned out to be not a very large area and I discovered there were more rocks in the grassy parts of the yard than I expected. My bulb planter broke partially under the strain.

There was one area that I particularly wanted to plant….near one of the windows I look through while I am at my computer. The soil was rocky there too. I opted to use the shovel to dig trenches then plant a mixture of bulbs. That worked well but it took me two days since my back bothered me – the contortion of digging and planting made it hard to keep my back aligned; I shortened my work times and the weather cooperated…got the job done.

I had thought when I started the project that I would plant some of the bulbs around the trees in the front yard…or the beds close to the house. But the defined beds have rocks over black cloth the same as the ones in back and the area around the trees is very hard. My alternative plan is to put a significant layer of mulch around the trees in early spring and then plant day lilies to make a ruff around the base of the trees like I had in Maryland. I don’t want to bump the tree trunks with the lawn mower or have to use the weed eater around them either.

I got a little sidetracked when I was looking for places to plant bulbs in the front yard: a very tall dandelion puff near the mailbox

And some Virginia Creeper than was protected by the bushes in one of the front beds….the red leaves looked very festive.

It feels great to have at least the fall bulb planting part of my plan for the yard completed!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 19, 2022

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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.

Energy crisis: How living in a cold home affects your health – The coming winter is going to be very difficult for many – particularly in Europe.

Parks of the 21st century: new ways to reinvent abandoned land – Parks always are signs of hope…the greening of places that might have been eyesores in the past. I wondered how much toxic remediation had to occur for some of the sites they described; its encouraging that we can clean up the messes we’ve made in the past!

Alcohol caused one in eight deaths of working-age US adults – The data used from the analysis was pre-COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the CDC has released data for 2019 and 2020 and it shows a larger-than-normal 26% spike in the alcohol-induced deathrate. In 2020, alcoholic liver disease and mental/behavioral disorders were the leading underlying causes of alcohol-induced deaths. Sad numbers….lots of people and their families impacted.

A field guide to the unusual raptors of the Southern US – I was pleased to see the snail kite in this article – a bird I saw on a birding trip to Florida in 2019.

Farmers in China, Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice – Very positive results. Hopefully we will eventually have perennial forms of other grains (wheat in particular).

The weirdest places you can find wild turkeys – Wild turkeys have made a comeback since the early 1900s…a restoration success story. Part of the Thanksgiving vibe this week!

Breast cancer survivorship doubles – An analysis of Canadian data from the 2007-2001. The study also highlighted the long-term side effects in these survivors…the need for new therapies to improve the health of women after surviving breast cancer.

Permanent Standard Time Could Save Lives, Explained by A Sleep Expert – I don’t like changing to/from daylight savings time; before reading this article, I didn’t care which one we chose to make permanent. Now I am convinced that we should stick with standard time! There are too many negative health impacts to staying on daylight savings.

How to avoid bad choices – The article is about the research on how to teach children ‘decision-making competence’ – not just a measure of raw brainpower but how well someone is able to appraise situations. There are many approaches but the goal is to get children and adolescents to start thinking about risk and danger in a more analytical way….on the way to adulthood.

Blind spots in the monitoring of plastic waste – The amount of plastic waste in rivers could be up to 90% higher that previously assumed. The current measurements are mainly based on surface observations…but plastic can be suspended or sink! This study tracked 3,000 particles from 30mm to larger objects like plastic cup. Knowing where the plastic is helps guide where clean up would be the most effective.

Donald Maxwell Illustrations

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Donald Maxwell was an English writer and illustrator active in the first third of the 20th century. This week’s free eBook selections are 5 of Maxwell’s self-illustrated books that are available on Internet Archive:

A dweller in Mesopotamia (1920)

Unknown Kent (1921)

The Last Crusade (1920)

Unknown Essex (1925)

Unknown Sussex (1924)

These are easy books to browse for the illustrations which are a mix of line drawings and color plates. Enjoy!

Cooking a Big Pumpkin

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One of the 10 pumpkins my daughter and son-in-law bought for their pumpkin carving event was not used.

My daughter volunteered to bring it over for me to use as decoration for Thanksgiving or to cook; I decided to cook it. I had cooked smaller pumpkins whole…but this one was too big to fit in the oven. I cut it in half.

I scooped out the seeds and put the bottom half in a large pan.

After cooking, it for 1.5 hours at 350 degrees (the top half was covered with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator to cook another day), it was soft enough that the pulp could be easily scrapped off the skin.

I filled two of my larger Pyrex containers with it and planned to use some in recipes the next day.

The next morning - I processed the pulp into puree in the food processor. It was a good color…more a yellow orange than a deep orange.

I made 3 recipes and used about 3 cups of the puree: pumpkin oatmeal muffins, pumpkin quiche, and pumpkin peanut powder soup.

I froze 2 cups of the puree, and another two cups is in the refrigerator. I’ll make a pumpkin custard with the refrigerator portion….and then I will cook the top of the big pumpkin. I am going trying a lot of pumpkin recipes over the next couple of months!

Our Missouri Yard – November 2022

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When I arrived home from my late October trip to Carrollton, TX, one of the red maples in our front yard had already dropped its leaves and the wind had blown them away. The other tree still held a few leaves but most of them were on the grass. The arrangements of the leaves on the grass were more interesting than the scraggly ones still on the tree!

I took pictures of the pokeweed fruits (the plants were in inconspicuous places in my back yard so I had let them grow). The fruits that were ripe before the frost (purple, rounded, and plump) are probably still edible by the birds but the immature fruits probably will not be eaten; I am leaving the plants with their wilted leaves standing…to see if that is what happens.

The roses that were blooming before the frost still had some color…although the draped petals are fading and brittle. The new leaves are red before they turn green, and they seem to have survived the frost just fine.

I’m looking forward to the changes coming as the days shorten and the weather is colder!

Ritter Springs

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Ritter Springs is a park near Springfield MO – north of the city in a rural area. It was our first visit to the park (one of our exploratory day trips this fall). There is a one lane paved road a short distance into the park then a gravel parking lot. A gate blocked the gravel road down to a pavilion; near the gate there was a map of the park and its connections to other nearby parks via trails.  

The park would have been a lot more scenic a few weeks earlier before most of the leaves fell. When we were there, drives of leaves accumulated everywhere…filling any low areas.

Even so we enjoyed our walk through the woods along the road and on mowed trails – looking for photo opportunities. I spotted shelf fungus that were bright spots in the fallen leaves,

A buckeye butterfly in a sunny spot,

The torn end of a recently fallen branch,

Some red leaves still on a young oak…protected from the wind by the bigger trees,

And a tree top full of cones.

But probably the tree I got most excited about was the Osage Orange. The tree had a very limited range in pre-colonial North America but has been planted by settlers as a hedge where its thorns deterred free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. It also has historical significance in plains states where is was widely planted in rows for windbreaks. This time of year it is easier to identify the trees with their huge fruits….or simply looking up after seeing one of the greenish orbs on the ground. There are a lot more of the trees in Missouri than in Maryland!

I took a closer look at one of the fruits.

Next time…we’ll go further into the park…maybe even all the way down to the Little Sac River!

Our New Neighborhood – November 2022

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The fall in our neighborhood peaked very quickly. It was already fading by early November but I still enjoyed trying to capture the remnants as I walked around the stormwater ponds. There were some leaves in the shallow water in the trough of concrete that feeds water into the ponds. I stopped to take some pictures looking down from the bridge.

And a few colorful leaves are still on the trees.

The oak leaves were thick at the edge of one pond…some wild asters growing through them…floating on the top of the water. I didn’t notice the fish swimming from under the leaves and water plants until I looked at image on my computer screen!

A red eared slider poked its head out of the water a little further away.

On the loop back toward my house, noticed a little color on along the path

And some brilliant red seedlings at the edge of the pond (will they survive to become trees?).

11 years of Blogging

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I started this blog 11 years ago this month – November 2011. It was one of the activities I started as I prepared to leave my career behind….anticipating that I needed new rhythms to take the place of work days. Writing a daily blog was one of the first ideas I had for a new daily rhythm, and it has continued to be an outlet for the evolution of my post-career years.

The broad categories of my favorite activities – reading, writing, traveling, photography/art - have been reflected during the 11 years…with the shifts I’ve experienced over the years evident in the posts:

My reading is almost entirely digital media now – dominated by Internet Archive and website feeds (via Feedly). I’ve gone through spurts of multimedia learning/reading (Coursera courses and webinars with details charts and references) but am in a multimedia lull right now. My interest in botanical prints has continued…with a goal of finding/browsing 20 new books on the topic each month. My interest in climate change has ramped up…and I have taken/plan personal changes; I’d like to leave the earth a better place…or at least not a worse place (that idea is getting more and more challenging).

Writing has been a way to reduce stress for me since the 1980s; I’ve trained myself to ‘write it down and let it go.’ The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated cultural divisions in the US has been a greater strain on that training than ever before and there was some faltering in late 2020/early 2021. I am realizing now that writing is, again, my most effective way to bolster my resilience to whatever happens.

Traveling for the first few years of the blog was motivated by my daughter’s location (in Tucson) with road trips to and from Arizona and traveling with her to Hawaii…then helping her move to Pennsylvania and then to Missouri more recently. My volunteer work (leading themed hikes with elementary school children, coaching high school teams doing water quality assessments in streams/rivers, etc.) enabled me to discover natural places close to home. Birding festivals became a favorite travel motivation (to New Mexico, Florida, and Texas) in the few years before the pandemic. Then it all stopped. Since the pandemic, our travel is day trips or for family visits (my parents and daughter) and then our moving to Missouri….and it has all been road trips.

My expertise (and equipment) for photography has increased dramatically over the 11 years. I go through phases…most recently an uptick in macro photography (with my phone). I have refined my Zentangles over the years…and going through phases: new tile shapes (other than square), white highlights, coloring (with different kinds of pens). There is a lot more artist creation in my life now than during my career and my blog has reflected that increase over the past 11 years.

That sums up the state of the blog 11 years in!

Here is a summary of the regular posts (weekly and monthly):

Gleanings 1st one was for week ending 12/31/2011…use the gleanings tag to see all the posts

eBook(s) of the week – 1st monthly post was in October 2012 (i.e. started out as monthly transitioned to weekly on October 9, 2020)…use the book of the week category to see all the posts

eBotainical Prints – 1st post with the eBotanicalPrints tag was on December 17, 2018…use the eBotanicalPrints tag to see all the monthly posts

Zoom – 1st monthly post was in August 2013…use the zoom tag to see all the posts

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – 1st monthly post in October 2012…use the celebration tag to see all the posts

Previous anniversary post: 10th anniversary

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 12, 2022

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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.

America’s largest transit bus charging station & microgrid open in Maryland – The headline caught my eye because I lived in Maryland for over 20 years – 8 of those in the county where this is happening! I hope other states have the same sorts of projects in the works.

NASA Finds More Than 50 Super-Emitters of Methane – Finding them is only the first step….how many of them will be situations we can reduce or stop the emission?

Iron induces chronic heart failure in half of heart attack survivors – This study prompted testing of iron chelation therapy to remedy or mitigate the effects associated with iron in hemorrhagic myocardial infarction patients.

Unique Bronze Age belt discovered near Opava – Half my ancestors came from the area that is now the Czech Republic…I am drawn to articles about the history of the region.  The belt is quite beautiful…but was it a practical item of apparel?  

What happens if our circadian rhythms are out of whack? – WHO has proclaimed that disrupted circadian rhythms are a probable carcinogen. The study discussed in this post was about the mechanism that circadian rhythm disruption triggers lung tumors.

View 16 Breathtaking Images from the Nature Conservancy’s Annual Photo Contest – Take a little break….look at awesome images of our world.

Mississippi River Basin adapts as climate change brings extreme rain and flooding – This year the stories about extreme weather seem to be more frequent – and wide ranging in terms of water. The Mississippi was low enough for barge traffic to be impacted because of drought…yet there were floods along part of the river just last summer.

Eye-opening discovery about adult brain's ability to recover vision – An unexpected success…opening new ways to treat a vision impairment (LCA) and maybe prompt a re-look about how the adult brain can re-wire itself relative to vision.

The World’s Whitest Paint May Soon Help Cool Airplanes and Spacecraft – A way of making paint that was previously too thick/heavy for things that move. The thicker version works for homes and buildings. We’ll need this technology to reflect heat without expending energy!

Greater cloud cover may be narrowing the gap between daily high and low temperatures – Simulating clouds explicitly. Trying to understand why nights are heating up faster than days across the globe.

Snow and Ice Photography

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Herbert Walker Wagner’s Snow and Ice Photography was published in 1938 and is available on Internet Archive. My takeaways are from two perspectives: 1) composition ideas for my next encounter with snow and ice and 2) as a historical record of the state of photographic art in the 1930s – just before World War II. The ‘looks like’ (ice herd example) idea emphasized through cropping and the naming of compositions are my top two compositional ideas from the book. Historically – the realization (again and again) about how much easier it is now to take and enhance photographs; digitization and software has changed photography tremendously.

Enjoy the three samples I picked to include in this post…there are many more in the book which is well worth a look!

Kittens! – Month 3

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Month 3 included a big milestone for our 3 kittens: they handled minor surgery well; Sooty (the male) was neutered and Puma and Pooky (the females) were spayed. They were a little less active for a few days after the surgery but resumed their more boisterous activities within a few days. We had our big cat tree turned on its side and put away the wand toys that encourage jumping until the females got their stitches out a week after the surgery. All three had their claws trimmed before their surgery; that might have discombobulated them more than then surgery…they couldn’t grab onto carpet as they raced around the house or their scratching posts (or things they are not supposed to grab onto!).

My husband is still enticing them into their suite for the night with a late evening snack. Restricting their access to 2 rooms has helped keep the odd thumps in the night to a minimum. They adjusted to the time change without incident although my husband updated a lamp in their suite that was on a timer to not change to new time which might have helped.

Sooty (the male) is still the largest of the three. He is the only one that likes the cat bed that my daughter gave us since her cat didn’t use it.

They all like to sit (sometimes nap) in upholstered chairs – usually one at a time rather than sleeping in a cuddled group as they did when they were younger. Pooky is shown in an old rocker recliner. She is the only one with different colored digital pads.

Pooky and Puma weigh the same…but Puma looks bigger because her fur stands out more.

Puma might have the loudest purr; I hear her more often than I do the others.

I am trying to train all three kittens to not jump onto the kitchen counters. I have a magazine that I used a few times to gently nudge them off….and usually now I simply pick up the magazine and they exit the counter. They still seem to enjoy watching the action in the kitchen from the back of the couch!

Josey Ranch – October 2022

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The work to replace the decking on the boardwalks around the cattails end of the lake at Josey Ranch has been completed.

The damage to the concrete walkways from the drought and the maintenance trucks is still there and is evidently not going to be repaired anytime soon.

My visit toward the end of October was later in the morning, and I didn’t see as many birds as usual. There was one female grackle…not the larger crowd that used to be at there all during the year with raucous calls.

The Great Egret that I see almost every time was still there.

The Snowy Egret was new this time. It was on the other side of the lake in the grass at first then moved to the new decking on one of the boardwalks. The wind ruffled its feathers.

The swans were asleep on the bank.

There were a lot of white feathers in the water and in the grass. I took a series of pictures. Many of the feathers looked relatively fresh, and I wondered if they were from normal preening or a disaster that befell some white bird.

I saw some small birds on the water and walked closer to see them. The Ruddy Ducks were either passing through on migration or maybe they will stay for the winter!

These are diving ducks so it takes some effort to photograph them if they are feeding!

As I walked back toward my car, a turtle was poking its nose out of the water. The lake has been cleared of snags that the turtles could use for sitting on cool days, unfortunately.

Overall – the winter birds had not shown up yet at Josey Ranch by late October. I expect to see more in November.

Carrollton Yard…before a first frost

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It was fun to see so many flowers in the Carrollton yard – blooming into late October since there had been no frost. I enjoyed the colors and blooms realizing a lot will change soon.

Things could look very different by the time I am there in November.

I always enjoy photographing the red yuccas. My favorite picture from my time in Carrollton in late October is the flowers and seedpod together. The flowers might not get enough time to complete the cycle into seed pods, but the plants have already had a good year producing seeds.

Spoils of Halloween

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My son-in-law always hosts a pumpkin carving party for his research team before Halloween. This year, 10 pumpkins were purchased for the event; it took two carts to get the pumpkins from the store to the car.

My daughter missed getting a group picture of the results…sent pictures of the three they had on their steps for Halloween (with and without the lights inside).

Like last year – the squirrels are enjoying the spoils of Halloween pumpkins! They start with the carved parts…enlarging the eyes and mouth…small bites until there is almost nothing left to go into the compost! They apparently started with the pumpkin on the top step.

Cosmos and chives

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At my home in Missouri, we had some overnight frosts. That was not the case in Carrollton, Texas where I spent the last week of October. The cosmos flowers were still blooming!

There were still buds and insects too!

Before I left to come home, I decided to collect seeds from the chives to plant around the edges of some flower beds in my Missouri home next spring.

The plants had formed, and the capsules had popped open. The rain had knocked the seed heads over and into the still-green leaves and steppingstones.

The plants had formed, and the capsules had popped open. The rain had knocked the seed heads over and into the still-green leaves and steppingstones.

I picked up the heads carefully and used scissors to cut the stem…collected a bin full of them. They were still wet from the rain, so I opted to cut more of the stem part of the head away and spread the seeds/capsules on a paper towel to dry. I brought them home in a recycled envelope. They are now emptied into a box in my office – keeping dry – ready for planted after the last frost next spring!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 5, 2022

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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.

How Tucson, Arizona is facing up to a 1,200-year drought – Harvesting rain!

The demented gift American politicians handed to China – About electric buses….and more. The suggested acronym by the author: GAGA (Give American Greatness Away).

New clues into a serious neurodegenerative disease – So many sources of cognitive decline….and we are just beginning to understand some of the mechanisms (and thus effective treatment). The research described in this post is about frontotemporal dementia.

World headed in wrong direction one 5 key mechanisms of climate progress – And the 5 are: share of unabated fossil gas in electricity generation, carbon intensity of global steel production, share of kilometers traveled in passenger cars, mangrove loss, agricultural production of GHG emissions.

Researchers reveal why shingles can lead to stroke - The risk of stroke is elevated for a year after having shingles. This study found that prothrombotic exosomes which can cause blood clots are found in those with shingles…and persist after the outward symptoms of shingles are gone. Using antiviral agents longer with the addition of antiplatelet and anti-inflammatory agents could help reduce the risk of stroke.

Will we ever…. live in city sized buildings? – Maybe. But would it be pleasant? Maybe an apocalyptic event would force us to do it to survive.

Vitamin D deficiency linked to premature death – The study evaluated 307,601 records from the UK Biobank. Take away message from the results: ensure that vulnerable and elderly maintain sufficient vitamin D levels throughout the year.

Omicron keeps finding new evolutionary tricks to outsmart our immunity – Variants within a variant!

Powerful Aerial Photos Show the Consequences of Drought on the Colorado River – The dry situation in the western US.

Cats react to ‘baby talk’ from their owners, but not strangers – And does this mean we are more than just a food provider in their world?

eBotanical Prints – October 2022

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20 botanical books in October. I continued to enjoy books about gladioli – finding them in September but saving them to browse in October; they are catalogs from a nursery that specialized in the bulbs that was in Indiana. I will probably plant some gladioli bulbs next spring…bring back some memories of my grandparents growing them for cut flowers during my childhood summers.   

There was a botanical atlas and textbook this month. And - I found quite a few publications by German botanists in October; 13 of the 20 books are in German!

The whole list of 2,492 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the October 2022 books with links to the volumes and sample images is at the bottom of this post.

Click on any sample images in the mosaic below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the October 2022 eBotanical Prints!

Kunderd gladioli : 1925 / A.E. Kunderd * Kunderd, A.E. * sample image * 1925

Fourteen weeks in botany : being an illustrated flora  * Wood, Alphoso; Steele, Joel Dorman * sample image * 1879

Kunderd gladioli : 1922 * Kunderd, A.E. * sample image * 1922

The Botanical Atlas: A Guide to the Practical Study of Plants, containing Representatives of the Leading Forms of Plant Life, Vol. II * M'Alpine, Daniel * sample image * 1883

Kunderd gladioli for 1923 * Kunderd, A.E. * sample image * 1923

Kunderd gladioli for 1929 * Kunderd, A.E. * sample image * 1929

Lehrbuch der praktischen Pflanzenkunde in Wort und Bild * Hoffmann, Carl  * sample image * 1880

Die Coniferen und die Gnetaceen V2 * Strasburger, Eduard * sample image * 1872

A text-book of botany * Strasburger, Eduard; Schenck, Heinrich; Noll, Fritz; Karsten, George; Lang, William Henry * sample image * 1908

Vegetationsbilder ser 1  * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1904

Vegetationsbilder ser 2 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1905

Vegetationsbilder ser 3 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1906

Vegetationsbilder ser 4 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1906

Vegetationsbilder ser 6 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1909

Vegetationsbilder ser 7 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1910

Vegetationsbilder ser 8 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1911

Vegetationsbilder ser 9 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1912

Vegetationsbilder ser 11 * Karsten, George; Schenck, Heinrich * sample image * 1914

Vegetationsbilder aus Südbrasilien * Wettstein, Richard * sample image * 1904

Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Vegetation der Canarischen Inseln Bd 2 T 1 Lief 2 * Schenck, Heinrich; Schimper, Andreas Franz Wilhelm * sample image * 1907

Springfield Conservation Nature Center

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A few days after the first hard frosts of the year in Springfield MO, we took a short hike on the Springfield Conservation Nature Center trails. The morning was cool and sunny – a near perfect fall day to be outdoors. The forest was full of color. One surprise: there seemed to be more green leaves on the ground than usual; perhaps the trees were caught by the frost before they could change color.

We spotted a young turtle sunning on a log…warming up.

A larger turtle climbed up on the same log. It went back in the water rather than joining the smaller one.

There were ducks preening/snoozing on a log in the water. Their legs and webbed feet looked very bright in the morning sun.

I couldn’t resist some macro images of late flowers…a few insects…even at caterpillar!

Our last ‘find’ of the morning was in the parking lot as we were getting ready to leave: a praying mantis making its way across the asphalt!

A morning well spent….

Red Cabbage

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My rule of thumb is to always buy the more colorful version of veggies when they are available – so I always buy the red cabbage rather than green (unless the red is not available)! The extra nutrients in the red cabbage make it worth the little bit of extra cost. However - red cabbage always looks more purple than red to me.

The outer leaves come off easily enough – to roll and then cut into thin slivers for slaw, but the leaves quickly are so tightly wrapped together that they cannot be separated; I cut cross sections through the head and then cut the pile on the board until the pieces are small enough for slaw. I am always fascinated by the patterns of the white and red/purple in the cross sections.

Of course, I never use the whole head at once…and I’ve saved pieces for a few days to see how the patterns change as they age. They shrink a little as they dry…and the purple color may deepen! The white part gets bumpy and begins to look spongy!

Zentangle® – October 2022

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31 days in October….31 Zentangle tiles. A lot of the tiles this month have a seasonal palette: orange, muted red, pale green. I had a purple gel pin that I was using up too. Most of the tiles in the mosaic were made in London, Ontario during the hotel room part of my ‘retreat’ from my normal routine. One of the ways I filled the time I gained from not doing online activities or interacting with people was making the tiles. I had taken plenty of supplies.

I also drew 31 tiles that I didn’t color. I’ll probably finish them next month…maybe post the before and after images.  

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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.