Ten Little Celebrations – February 2023

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A lot to celebrate this second month of 2023….here are my top 10 little celebrations:

A new low weight for the year. This happened several mornings of the month….and I celebrated each time since it was an indicator that my careful work to maximize nutritional value of more limited calorie intake was working.

Barbecue lunch at homecoming. My husband suggested that he get barbecue take out to have when I arrived home from my road trip from Carrollton. It is always a celebration to return home but the barbecue made it more festive.

Finding black bean chips. I have assumed that I wouldn’t be able to find my husband’s favorite chips (because they don’t cause blood sugar issues) when we moved to Missouri…so I celebrated when I found them again….a different brand but they taste the same. We are both enjoying them as our chip-or-choice.

Finding snack sized edamame pod packages. These have become my favorite high protein snack. I’ve enjoyed them before…but celebrated when I found them in smaller packages.

Spaghetti sauce soup. It’s a great way to use leftovers…or have a quick meal. I use a jar of spaghetti sauce, frozen sausage (cubed) or leftover baked chicken (any meat that is already cooked and seasoned) and lots of veggies. So easy…and so good. Worth celebrating.

Frost pictures (columns and ferns). I always celebrate frost days…particularly if the crystals are a type I haven’t photographed before!

Ice and algae on our neighborhood ponds. Winter field trips on 2 days not far from my own back yard! I celebrated getting outdoors for a short walk…not having to get in the car. My favorite sight were the neuron type shapes in the ice/snow of the pond.

Table Rock Lake. Celebrating a little field trip close to where we live in Missouri.

Birds at Josey Ranch. There always seem to be birds around at Josey Ranch…and this year I am visiting every month when I am Carrollton…celebrating the changes with the seasons.

Elm Fork Nature Preserve. A new-to-me natural area near Carrollton, TX. I celebrated the birds and forest there. I’ll be posted about the experience later this week.

Zooming – February 2023

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There were some sunny days in February – good for outdoor photography even if they were very cold! The ravages of winter on vegetation from last summer/fall is reaching an extreme. We’re all ready for the spring! Enjoy the February 2023 zoomed images!

Plant of the Month – Crepe Myrtle

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I had originally thought holly would be the February plant of the month but then I was drawn to the seed pods of the crepe myrtle. I’ve already included images of them in my earlier post about our yard.  Those were taken at a time it was cloudy.

More recently I photographed them again in very bright light although when I look at them in the images it almost seems like they are glowing from within! Right then – Crepe Myrtle became the plant of the month.

I like the way the pods split into wedges that are the seeds…that the interior is a lighter color than the exterior husk. That lighter color reflects the light better and creates the ‘glow from within’ look.

Hurray for some February color in the wild!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 25, 2023

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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.

The ancient diseases that plagued dinosaurs – Interdisciplinary teams are re-looking at dinosaur bones and comparing anomalies to diseases visible in modern bones….finding examples of dinosaurs with malignant bone cancer, septic arthritis, and airsacculitis. And it seems that there is a lot more to discover with the technologies now available to look at the fossils more closely and collaborating with vets (particularly vets that work with birds and reptiles).

A worthless life and the worthy death: euthanasia through the ages – The post is written from an Australian perspective and about Caitlin Mahar’s book: The Good Death Through Time. The topic is a thought provoking one….made more interesting with an overlay of history.  I wondered how much the growth of medical interventions has changed the way we envision ‘worthy death’ or is the phrase ‘death with dignity’ a better description now.

Residential solar advantages – 5 top benefits – This is something my husband and I plan to do…solar-plus-storage is our 1st choice. Residential solar also has advantages beyond the home itself: it can power your transportation home too!

Fructose could drive Alzheimer’s disease – More research is needed…but it is interesting that the fructose consumption has gone up in the US (in 1977-1978 it was 37 g/day….in a 2008 study, it was 54.7 g/day). Maybe reducing the risk for Alzheimer’s is another reason to eliminate ultra-processed foods that typically contain a lot of fructose from our diet.

High-paying jobs that don't need a college degree? Thousands of them are sitting empty – Making a career in the trades….and there is a lot of work available.

Why methane surged in 2020 – Interesting findings and how they were developed. The two main reasons: 1) heightened emissions from wetlands because of unusually high temperatures and rainfall and 2) decline in NOx due to COVID-19 lockdowns which broke the chemical reaction in the atmosphere that produces hydroxyl (OH) that serves to remove methane from the atmosphere.

Why aren’t energy flows diagrams used more to inform decarbonization? – Yes! These are easier to understand than a lot of other graphics. The ‘heating the UK with heat pumps or green hydrogen’ diagram caused a ‘learned something new’ moment for me!

Will we ever be able to predict earthquakes? – The answer might be ‘no’ – but there are still a lot of people trying. We can’t rely on predicting them to reduce the destruction in infrastructure and lives. Enforced building codes would reduce destruction and save lives since we already know the areas of high risk for earthquakes. It will be interesting to see an analysis of what the damage from the recent Turkey/Syria earthquake would have been if building codes would have been enforced (the ones that Turkey evidently instituted after the previous earthquake…and also if the ‘best in world’ standards has been enforced).

15th-Century Spices Identified in Royal Shipwreck – Analysis of plants from a 1495 shipwreck in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden: nutmeg, cloves, mustard, dill, saffron, ginger, peppercorns, almonds, blackberries, raspberries, grapes and flax. The findings provide insight on cuisine and trade of the era.

Did you know pronghorns shed their horns? – No…but it a good piece of trivia. I remember seeing pronghorns in New Mexico – racing our vehicle during a guided tour of Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.

Ceramics of Masayuki Imai

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Like many other museums, The Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum has contributed many volumes to Internet Archive. This exhibit book from 1985 is just one example. Books made to sell in museum gift shops during an exhibit quickly go out of print so being able to browse them digitally is the best way to savor an exhibit whose contents has long scattered.

Masayuki Imai ceramic art 1985 : Peabody Museum of Salem, 21 March-21 May, 1985

I chose 3 images from the book as sample images for their shapes and subjects. I like all things botanical and there were a lot of plants featured in Imai’s work; there probably are not many pots that feature floating pitcher plants like his! Cranes might be a more popular decoration…but the shape of the pot was unusual. The color of the 3rd pot was different than the majority of the pots, making it stand out.

The book includes a short biography of the artist. I did a search but couldn’t find an updated one.

Table Rock Lake

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On a sunny day last week, we headed south to Table Rock State Park – situated on the shore of Table Rock Lake. The drive down had many roadcut cliffs….curving highway…scenic. We parked near the boat launch and walked along the paved lakeside trail. There were frequent ad hoc trails going all the way down to the lake…using ‘stairsteps’ in rock down to water level. We saw at least one person fishing. There was rain in the previous days so the eroded rock held small pools of water.

The first side trail we took down to the water included a surprise. There was a whole watermelon at the water’s edge! How did it get there? Did someone put it in the water to cool down then forget it was there? We wondered how long it had been at the edge of the lake since we are well past the season for them to be in grocery stores. It was the only ‘trash’ we saw during our walk!

I was fascinated by the intensity of the color on wet rocks compared to the rocks that had dried out on the shore.

The water itself changed the way the rocks look too. These two pictures are of the same area but the water acts as a distorting lens!

I turned aroud and took some zoomed images of drying debris, a chuck of rock, and the layers in one of the ‘stairs’ – then made my way back up to the paved trail.

We started looking at the sights along the trail. There were limestone boulders along the edge and I started noticing inclusions in some of them. Some areas were forested…with enough underbrush to support communities of lichen and moss….and, my favorite, turkey tails (shelf fungus).

We didn’t see a lot of birds – and I didn’t get any pictures. It was not the best time of day for bird watching. I saw a nuthatch, crows, and turkey vultures…without even going into ‘birding’ mode.

There were not a lot of people in the park this time of year even though the day was warm enough for a picnic (there was one family with one children that was enjoying a snack). It is easy to imagine the place being full of people when the temperature is warmer…and everyone would enjoy the activities on or in the water!

Now to plan some other day trips….take advantage of any pleasant day to do a little more exploring of places within an hour of where we live!

Ice and Algae

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It was below freezing for almost 24 hours before I ventured out last week an hour or so after sunrise. The temperature was in the 20s and I anticipated capturing ice on our neighborhood pond. I bundled up in my heaviest coat and gloves…already had the lens cover off my camera since it is hard to remove with gloves on.  I noticed the robins were around and probably beginning to scout nesting locations.

There was a small group of Canada Geese; most stayed on the bank but two ventured into the pond through mats of algae. I began to worry that maybe the sun shining on the pond surface had already melted the ice even though the air temperature was still below freezing!

As I looked more closely I noticed that there was ice between the mats of algae! Some of the ice had a look of cut glass. There were leaves just under the surface in some places – distorted by the ice – but some are, quite clearly, oak leaves. The color of the algae is a nice contrast with the ice!

My favorite picture of the morning was a patch of ice surrounded by algae. The green mats creates a fuzzy (slimy?) frame around the ice structures.

I continued aroud the pond and noticed that a twig of red maple flowers had fallen onto the path. The tree blooms so early that the hard freezes sometimes are problematic. The red maple that this twig came from seemed to still have quite a few flowers that had tolerated the cold so the tree should still be producing seeds this year.

Overall – I’m glad I went out when I did. This could be one of the last times to capture ice on the pond since spring is one the way.

Edamame Pods

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Edamame pods have become my favorite light meal/snack. I usually look for shelled edamame for stir fries but recently discovered snack-sized packages of frozen soybeans in pods that are intended to be microwaved 2.5 minutes in the package…then eaten. They are unseasoned. I like them plain but variety could be added by sprinkling with your favorite no salt seasoning. They have 9 grams of protein…90 calories…along with fiber, essential fatty acids and isoflavones….probably one of the healthiest snacks around.

My daughter had introduced me to soybeans in pods served as an appetizer at a restaurant while we were in Canada. The learning curve to get the beans out of the pod neatly was an adventure…but didn’t take long. In restaurants they are often served with salt crystals. I’m glad I noticed the packages at my grocery store so I can include them more frequently in my diet.

The pods are left after the snack. They are not edible. Another edamame pod adventure: some macro photography (with my phone – a Samsung Galaxy S10e). The pods retain the bumps from where the beans were….and begin to curl as they dry. The inside has a lighter layer that looks like padding for the bean. There are also bristles and tiny dark channels on the outer part of the pod.

Now - I’ve collected enough pods over several days. I am putting them in my small compost pile.

A Photography Course

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My husband purchased Matt Kloskowski’s Inside the Composition course and we are working our way through the 21 modules.

I’ve done 6 modules so far. Each of them had a short lecture then an assignment…encouraging students to apply the concepts in their own landscape photography. Review and critique of my own photos has been enlightening.

The course has already helped me recognize some shortcomings in my photography –

I tend to like my macro compositions more than landscapes and one of the reasons is that I almost always have too much sky in my landscapes. Sometimes cropping can improve it…although I will try to do better when I am in the field from now on. A good example is this sunset I took back in December…the colors were outstanding…but there is way too much sky. I cropped part of the sky but maybe I should have cut some of the dark foreground too. The result is an odd shaped image but the composition is improved.

Some of my photography is almost like note taking…documentation rather than art: taking a picture to later use for identification of a bird or insect…or taking pictures of signage to read later (or act as a caption to other photos. But the rest of my pictures should be more than documentation. I need to improve my composition on those pictures even if I think about then as documentation of the place. My macro pictures generally composed better than my landscapes!

I tend to like birds moving left to right through my image – even though this breaks the ‘right third’ rule. I always make the assumption and a bird will be moving; we read left to right and our eyes tend to be trained for that direction. Inanimate objects tend to be better place on the right third but software easily flips the image if I forget (see sun yard ornament below).

I should learn to consistently turn my phone when I am taking landscapes. The sunrise picture with half the image a dark band is a good example. Again – cropping can help but it would be better if I’d learn get the composition right when I take the picture!

One of the only landscape pictures I’ve taken recently that I like, turns out to demonstrate some composition concepts. It’s a sunrise pictures but the large diagonals of the silhouetted tree branches in the foreground lead the eye into the colorful sky rather than just having large expanse of colored sky. The second layer of tree silhouettes adds more complexity and the recognition that it is a winter sunrise.

I’m looking forward to the modules still to come….

Frost Columns and Ferns

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There was frosty morning last weekend at our house, and I photographed the crystals about 30 minutes after sunrise…in a hurry because the temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and I hadn’t put on my coat! There was frost on the lamb’s ear and an old leaf that looked like crystals of sugar.

\I was more interested in finding more complex crystals. Our wrought iron table had frost all around the outer edge.

The first ones I saw were columns…sometimes in clumps…emanating from films of ice (that might have started out as water).

I was surprised to find very different crystals on the other side of the table! They were a lot like the frost ferns I posted about back in January. They were not quite as large, and they grew out of a thin film of ice rather than as ‘fronds’ around a common center as they had in January.

I wondered what caused the crystals to be different on opposite sides of the table. In the past, I found column type crystals when the temperature was closer to 30…the ‘ferns’ when it was 20 or below. The columns were on the side of the table closer to the hollies and some cedars; the ‘ferns’ were on the side next to the posts supporting the deck stairs. Could the vegetation be creating a slightly warmer temperature? Maybe next time – I’ll take a thermometer out to test that idea!

All photos were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S10e (most are at 8x magnification).

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 18, 2023

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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.

Farmers Find Wild African Cat Wandering Around Missouri – A serval found when a farming family set a live trap to capture the culprit leaving bones and feathers between their stacks of hay bales! The Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge came to the rescue. This is all close to where I live and I was saddened that evidently the new Big Cat Public Safety Act does not include the smaller non-native wild cats…and that someone was cruel enough to release this cat of the African savanna into the wild in Missouri.

Caribou have been using the same Arctic calving grounds for 3,000 years – Analysis of antlers found on the tundra….discovering some of them are 3,000 years old! But the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the globe. The elders of the village south of the calving grounds comment that they have noticed a lot more trees, less barren tundra. What will happen to the barren ground caribou as this habitat gets converted to forest?

Why fabric fraud is easy to hide – The fashion supply chain is fragmented and very dense….most apparel companies do not track their own supply chain (or don’t go past their immediate suppliers). Organic cotton is one of the prime examples of how end products labelled as organic cotton…might not be. It is hard to determine where the fraud is inserted in the process; the result is that the consumer is paying a premium price…not getting what they are paying for. And to improve the system will require big changes in the fabric/apparel business.

A Field Guide to Unexpected, Out-of-Place Wildlife – Sometimes animals have ranges that are changing or are a lot larger than we anticipate…sometimes birds are in very different places that their usual range!

Dirty Laundry: How much microfiber do we emit with our laundry – A study done in the UK…but probably relevant to the US as well. Microfibers from laundry in the UK weigh 6,850 to 17,847 tons per year. Yes…that’s a lot and pollutes water…however, it is a dwarfed by the 365,000 tons of clothing going into UK landfills per year.

Antibiotic use in farming set to soar despite drug-resistance fears – The increase in bacterial infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics (because of bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics) has been growing in recent years. Overuse of antibiotivs in agriculture is thought to be a major driver of the problem. Governments around the world have attempted to curb the use of antibiotics to promote growth but the use is still expected to grow by 8% between 2020 and 2030. The article includes a chart of agricultural antibiotics by country in 2020…and a projection for 2030.

The Lifelike Glass Models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka – Thousands of realistic models of plants and sea creatures made by a father and son from the 1860s until 1938.

8 everyday foods you might not realize are ultra-processed – and how to spot them – I am cutting back on ultra-processed foods this year. Some of the 8 listed in this article are easy: I don’t eat breakfast cereals, I only eat protein bars as ‘emergency rations’ (i.e. not frequently) and avoid yogurt, meal bases and sauces, processed meats, and margarine. I’m still looking for a soy milk that has fewer ingredients; will give up on soy milk soon if I don’t find one. And I try to buy bakery bread.

Did Philip II bring invasive fish to Spain? – Evidently his efforts to acquire fish and crayfish from afar spanned at least 25 years!

Study reveals that much still not known about cognitive decline - Data came from 7,068 participants in the 1996-2016 Health and Retirement Study. Participants were born between 1931 and 1941. Researchers measured their cognitive functioning at age 54 and how it declined until they were 85. At age 54, socioeconomic status, education and race -- explained only 38% of the variation in functioning. Those same factors explained only 5.6% of the variation in how quickly cognitive functioning declined in people between age 54 and 85. So much we don’t know about cognitive decline although it is pervasive in older adults, even those without dementia.

W. Westhoven – Engineer Artist

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Six South African Scenes and verse  was published the year Wilhelm Westhoven died (1925) and contained 6 of his paintings. I selected two of the paintings for this post…encourage looking at the book on Internet Archive to see the other 4!

According to a brief biography on Artefacts, he was born in German in 1845, wrote a paper about the Forth Bridge in Scotland (a cantilever railway bridge), and emigrated to the Cape Colony in 1892 where he was an engineer in the Department of Public Works until he retired in 1904. After reading the biography…I checked to see if the paper Forth bridge was available on Internet Archive….and am looking forward to browsing through its illustrations (here).

Settling in, developing new routines – 8th month

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We moved to Missouri eight months ago and have adjusted in many areas…but there are still things to do. My previous ‘settling in’ posts were made in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th month; it’s time for another update. The upheaval of the move is waning. The changes between our 4th month and now are more gradual; there isn’t the frenzy of activity like in the first few months. We’ve voted in the mid-term election, subscribed to a local news feed… are experiencing winter and working on our 2022 tax filing (it is more complex this year with the sale of a house and two state taxes). I’ve sustained my treks to Texas; it’s become apparent that the monthly plan might need to be adjusted quickly depending on the care my parents need; the priority of being available for my parents will keep me from signing up for volunteer gigs or university classes. Our three kittens are keeping us close to home too; they need a lot of attention but we have successfully done day trips and 1-2 nights away; my daughter checks on them when we are gone for more than a few hours.

There are still things we are anticipating:

Spring in Missouri. The rhododendron flowers were already fading by the time I first looked at the house…the irises had already bloomed too. I’ll enjoy seeing the flowers…supplemented with the additional bulbs I planted last fall. We are also talking about day trips for gardens and birding hotspots within the state.

All-electric. We are talking more about the order of steps we will take to move the house toward being ‘all-electric’ over the next 3 years or so…and then adding solar panels/battery.

Dark sky. My husband is keen to go to a dark sky site…hopefully once the temperature is a bit warmer, he’ll be able to do it.

Yard. I have been putting off contacting a nursery…but need to do it soon if I want things in before it gets too hot (and potentially dry) this summer.

Overall – we are not venturing out very much right now because of the cold…but we’ll do more outdoors in the spring. And maybe meet more of our neighbors too!

Our Nixa, MO Yard – February 2023

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February started out bitterly cold – with sleet/snow that stayed on the ground for days. I bundled up and ventured outdoors with my camera to document the situation in our yard. There had been some freeze-thaw cycles already, but the concrete and rock covered beds were still very white. A downspout had dribbled water than had frozen before it could escape. In the yard, the grass bristled through the whiteness; I left footprints, but they didn’t go very deep. The yard was pristine; our Missouri yard (and neighborhood) is not a deer highway like our Maryland house was.  The iris leaves in one bed seemed unfazed by the cold (hope that continues to be true!).

I went through the house to go out to the front because all the gates were frozen in place. I was surprised that mine were the only footprints on our sidewalk; with schools closed and the bitter cold, people were not taking walks as usual.

I was intrigued by the round seed pods on one of our larger crepe myrtles. The wind and gravity had emptied some of them, but others still contained the seeds from last fall.  The seeds were ready to scatter…they fell out easily with a nudge of my fingernail.

Frosty Valentine’s

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Valentine’s Day is a very commercialized celebration --- lots of red roses, chocolate and other candy often in red heart shaped boxes or the candy itself in the heart shape. If my husband and I do anything for Valentine’s – we do it on our monthly wedding anniversary which is within a few days of the 14th. This year it will be our 601st monthly anniversary!

One positive outcome of the commercialization of the celebration, I am anticipating lots of candy on sale on the 15th….hoping for a good selection to buy at a reduced price for my daughter and son-in-law to have in their campus offices for their meetings with students!

Another positive aspect to Valentine’s is its position in February. The winter can be gray, cold, and icy. Maybe Valentine’s Day should be a prompt to look around for beauty in the ‘wild’ to share with someone near and dear: a sunrise or the beauty of ice crystals at close range….choose to see beauty in February outdoors (or through a window)!

Coursera Again – Neuroanatomy

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The beginning of Coursera coincided with the beginning of the post-career portion of my life a decade ago. It burst on the scene offering auditing of online courses for free (a small fee was charged for the testing and projects for credit). I was like a “kid in a candy store”…so many topics of interest that I never had time for during my undergraduate/graduate years….and some topics that didn’t exist until more recently! I audited a flurry of courses in the first few years then settled into an occasional course – usually in the wintertime when I spend more time indoors; there was an uptick during the COVID-19 pandemic but not to the levels of the first few years.  

I recently looked at my records and discovered I have audited 74 courses! The topics are varied: art, anatomy, nutrition, history, meditation, education, entomology, exoplanets, poetry, psychology, design, and architecture! The nutrition course was one of the early ones…and is where I learned about the Cronometer site that I am still using to track what I eat so that can take off a few pounds.

This month I completed a Neuroanatomy course from the University of Michigan. It is a 7-week course; I completed 3 weeks before I went to Carrollton TX in late January and completed the other 4 after I got back. I did my usual notetaking as I made my way through the material – trying to learn the vocabulary and the anatomical structures. Now I find I want to learn more about neurobiology!

This course pointed me to a new-to-me source of reference books: PDF Drive. Just look at the list of books available for Neuroanatomy! There are lots of other topics as well. I am getting the “kid in a candy store” feeling all over again!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – February 2023

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There were a few days of snow and ice early in the month; I stayed indoors for the first days but then the sun came out and I decided to bundle up and walk around the neighborhood to document the event. The pumps in the largest pond were keeping some open water.

Two geese ventured out on the ice…but turned around and rejoined their friends on the bank before getting all the way to the unfrozen part of the pond.

The snow that fell on the slides in the playground had gone through some freeze-thaw cycles and was extending past the end of the slides!

The contrast of tree trunks and snow/ice was stark…the snow creating a different pattern than usual when the mulch around the trees is almost the same brown as the tree trunk.

My favorite sights of the morning were the neuron shapes in the pond. My theory is that the center part that looks unfrozen is either a shallow spot or has a lot of water plants near the surface. The ‘dendrites’ coming out from the center are cracks in the ice that are mostly refrozen. I zoomed in on one of the centers; the texture of the ice looks like cut glass!

Or maybe I was just thinking about neurons too much since I’ve been learning about them recently…stay tuned for tomorrow’s post for more about that.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 11, 2023

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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 the world feels so unstable right now – Intermittent instability of nonlinear systems of nature and global society –weather and climate, the economy, a pandemic, a war. We attempt to model nonlinear systems to predict these intermittent instabilities…but it is hard. Right now there seem to be significant nonlinear systems interacting: weather/climate + diseases (COVID-19 and bird flu (US)) + inflation + Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Completing The Electrical Circuit at Kilauea in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park – The technique to get a detailed ‘CAT scan’ of the volcano…..mapping locations of subsurface magma in 3D.

Ex-cell-ent Clouds off Chile’s Coast – Open and closed-cell marine stratocumulus clouds photographed by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. Learning more about these clouds….contributing to better weather prediction and improving the accuracy of climate models.

The Surprising Substances Ancient Egyptians Used to Mummify the Dead – Evidently some of the substances the embalmers were using came from Southeast Asia. Perhaps embalming instigated early global trade.

Algae robots transport antibiotics to infected tissues (infographic) – Researchers inserted the modified algae into mouse windpipes…they spread into the lung tissue and killed pathogenic bacteria!

Hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Designs were never built. Here’s what they might have looked like. – Computer generated models from David Romero.

5 expert tips to protect yourself from online misinformation – We all need tools to help us distinguish information from misinformation.

Montessori: The world’s most influential school? – I sought out a Montessori pre-K and K for my daughter about 30 years ago…and it fit her needs. I have no way of analyzing how closely the school adhered to classical Montessori ideals.

An action plan to prevent Alzheimer’s disease – Defining what 2nd generation memory clinics should include.

Gallup: Fewer than half of Americans believe US healthcare is good enough – Not surprising really – it’s expensive and we are all getting more skeptical that the system is as effective as it should be for what it costs. Evidently the people in my age group (over 55) were generally more satisfied with their health care than other age groups; people old enough to qualify for Medicare may not be as anxious about costs but I was surprised that I am in the minority in thinking US healthcare is ‘subpar’ rather than ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ based on the effectiveness issue and the structure of the system overall.

Maria Martinez (potter) in 1925

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The first picture in Carl E. Guthe’s  Pueblo Pottery Making - a study at the village of San Ildefonso published in 1925 is one of Maria Montoya Martinez that is widely used elsewhere (including in the Wikipedia entry for her). 1925 was before she started making her black ware pottery that survives in many museums. I recognized her name when I first started browsing the book; it was one of those times I appreciated Wikipedia and Google search to learn more about her before I continued browsing. I celebrated finding Guthe’s books on Internet Archive and the myriad pictures that documented the situation in 1925…the state of the art then, before she was producing black ware pottery.

1925 was during the time when much of the culture of the Pueblos was fading….the challenges of people trying to survive in the world. Fortunately, Maria learned pottery skills from her aunt… a “learning by seeing” beginning in her pre-teens. She, with the collaboration of her family members, continued to experiment and produce pottery throughout her long life (she lived until 1980) and taught others the same way she had learned. She helped establish pottery of the Southwest as an art form we recognize today.

Surprisingly, Guthe’s biography (archived from the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology) does not mention this book at all. His work establishing collections and institutions overshadows this book!

The Whole Orange

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I’ve enjoyed oranges all my life….sometimes cutting them in slices…sometimes in wedges. In recent years, I cut them in wedges so that after I eat the pulp, the peels fit nicely into the food processor.

Once the peel is chopped up, I let it dry on a plate to be used in cooking…or in hot tea.

It feels good to use the whole orange….getting all the nutrition from the fruit! I have some recipes that use the whole fruit as well; my favorite is cranberry orange relish that I make any time I see fresh cranberries in the produce section (usually November and December).

My mother reminisced that oranges were special treats of the holidays when she was child, and her mother often candied the peel. Every time I use the whole orange, I feel an affinity with my maternal grandmother…good vibes through the years!