Gleanings of the Week Ending January 13, 2024

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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.

What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? – The two most recent ones are COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS. Death from the 1918-1920 flu pandemic was larger than both together….and the population of the world was less then too.

Moments of hope and resilience from the climate frontlines – Drought then intense rains leading to rolling blackouts, damage to infrastructure, agriculture failures, mosquito spread diseases. Heat stress leading to deaths of people and wildlife, wildfires. Protecting and rehabilitating damaged habitats. A new normal….not anyone ready. Heat officers to help residents cope. Coastal erosion (caused by coastal development, rising sea levels and storm surges). Taking two years rather than one to dry firewood in Lapland. Solar panels positive impact on health care in India (and anywhere where electric power is unreliable). Crop irrigation required where it previously was not. Learning from our past, simpler lifestyles.

European Imports of Russian Pipeline Gas Dropped by Half Last Year - Europe has implemented measures to conserve energy and has ramped up wind and solar power. Last year, Germany, the largest economy in Europe, drew more than half of its power from renewables for the first time.

NASA Captures Stunning Images of Jupiter’s Moon Io on Closest Flyby in 20 Years – Image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Io is the most volcanically active planetary body in our solar system with 100s of volcanos.

Christmas Trees on the Beach – The innovative ways communities are using the cut trees after Christmas!

How humans have changed the Earth’s surface in 2023 – Overhead pictures tell stories of the past year. The picture of the drained Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was startling.

Photographer Travels Europe to Document Incredible Starling Murmurations – I see smaller murmurations every road trip….never in a situation to photograph them! They are not always starlings. I remember seeing one in Florida that was tree swallows.

Could Climate Change Cause More Lakes to Turn Bright Pink? – Single-celled, salt-loving halobacteria. There is a new pink pond at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii…but it has been happening in the Great Salt Lake’s North Arm for several decades.  The number of pink ponds could increase with warmer temperatures increasing evaporation (and increasing the salinity of waters).

Next Solar Eclipse, In April, Expected to Attract Upwards Of 4 Million Tourists - Great American Eclipse has developed a geographic model to estimate how many people will travel to see the April eclipse. This model predicts that between 1 and 4 million people will travel to the path of totality. Texas is expected to receive the majority of visitors, followed by Indiana, Ohio, New York, Arkansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Oklahoma, Maine, and New Hampshire.

U.S. Dietary Committee considers if the potato is a vegetable or a grain - Agriculture officials say the average American consumes about 50 pounds of potatoes each year.

Daisy Dells

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A book for children published in 1927…

Daisy Dells

Rhymes and verses by Clara J. Denton and illustrations by Garnett Cheney, published by Albert Whitman & Co. in Chicago.

I enjoyed the illustrations…thinking about how books for children have changed over the years. The different clothes in the depictions of the children are a sign that these are from an old book, but they still are charming hints at a commonality among childish interests that continue.

Available from Internet Archive.

Glad to be Home

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As I write this, I have been home again for a week after being away almost 7 weeks. It had taken this long to get settle back into an at-home routine….to relax enough to feel truly rested! At first, I felt so exhausted that I took naps – which didn’t seem to help. It took me 5 days to fully empty my car. I needed the alone time after being so engaged with people all the time; I didn’t want to talk on the phone at all…had to force myself to check my text message. My emotions were still volatile, and I consciously started trying to unwind. Cutting back on caffeine, getting more exercise and quick neighborhood hikes (even though it was cold outside) finally worked.

It’s such a joy to just be home. I’ve enjoyed returning to spending more time just being in my house…cooking, reading, writing, making Zentangle tiles, and planning one or two vacation travels for the next 6 months. I pampered myself included burning a scented candle I’ve had for years, a facial (using supplies from a Christmas gift), hot apple cider rooibos tea, big red peppermint stick, and pumpkin oatmeal cookie bars.

As the days passed, I fell myself recovering…although there are some aspects of the past 7 weeks that might be a permanent change. I’ve learned more about how I deal with stress --- holding off its effects until the crisis is ‘over’ --- and then requiring time to recover. It is a strategy and provided enough resilience, but I might need to bolster by stress reduction techniques in preparation for the next crisis; more self-care during a crisis might make recovery easier (or unneeded).

I’ll be taking off for another trip to Carrollton TX soon, but the trip will be only 6 days this time! Much easier!

My Parents’ House

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Once the decision was made in mid-December with my parents to move to an assisted living group home, I found myself examining the house that that had called home for more than 30 years – the last home they would own…the only one that didn’t still have a mortgage when they moved. The contents documented the whole of their lives.

The creation of the garden room not long after they moved into the house was a project that added more than space to the house.

The space was lined with house plants (some that had grown quite large) and had great light. The jigsaw puzzle table was there…a rocker and glide…and a transport chair that was easily maneuvered into a sunny spot to observe birds outside at the feeder or read the paper. The glide, puzzle table, and transport chair were moved to the assisted living group home.

The large plant in the foreground of the picture with the transport chair is one that grew up into the skylight of the garden room over the decades. My sister had brought it home from her work when an office closed. It bloomed in December (something it had done rarely over the years)…to the joy of my parents and the whole family. My sister has now managed to move it (in a U-Haul truck) to her house about an hour away; we were all relieved that it survived the trek intact.

A clay pot that another sister made was in the corner of my parents bedroom holding a collection of peacock feathers and dried seed pod/flowers….a suncatcher. My mother selected it as something to move with her – perhaps because of the memories of each item and the vase itself. Peacock feathers are special in my family because my maternal grandparents kept peacocks in their later years.

Back in the garden room a small poinsettia purchased recently sat on the windowsill. The second image is my favorite artsy image of December 2023! The pot was small enough for the windowsill at the assisted living group home so it moved with my parents.

We are now in the phase of sifted though everything in the house….taking a little more to my parents, distributing items to family members and my parents’ friends, donating some items….recycling and trash are the last resort. There are ups and downs to the work. It is giving us time to internalize the pivot point in my parents’ lives (and our own).

Anticipated Changes in 2024

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I don’t make resolutions anymore – but I do think about what I anticipate being different in the coming year.

Some changes are anticipated by situations I already recognize:

My parents are now in an assisted living group home rather than their own home. I will still travel to the Dallas are visit them at least monthly as I have for the past few years, but the trips will take 2 days rather than 8.

There will be a flurry of activity to see the total eclipse on April 8th. It could be a day trip if the weather is good or a three-day trip to someplace where the skies are clear.

My husband and I are ready to start attending birding festivals again…secure enough in the mostly outdoor venues and able to mask for the short times in crowded/enclosed spaces. We’ve registered for one in February already (the one we registered for last December was overcome by my need to stay in Carrollton).

A flurry of appointments with various doctors since I put off appointments for the last months of 2023.

Memberships to the zoo and a big cat sanctuary we got as gifts….motivating us to visit those places more frequently.

Other changes are about intention…and have the closest relationship to annual ‘resolutions:’

I intend to get intensity minutes (as measured by my Garmin watch) from ‘power walking’ in my neighborhood during the times I am not mowing the yard (and getting intensity minutes that way).

My husband suggested some core strengthening exercises to help my back (which aches too often). Maybe it will help me ‘shape up’ in other ways too.

I will donate, recycle, or trash items that I don’t need. Moving my parents to assisted living has prompted me to downsize stuff more than ever before! I am thinking more about what I truly need and/or value rather than just letting items accumulate over time.

First Frost in Carrollton

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December was warmer than usual in Carrollton. There wasn’t a frost until the next to the last day of the month! I went out early to capture the sunrise…not particularly interesting but worth the effort since I realized there would be frost to photograph when there was enough light.

I went out about an hour and half later and found frost coating the ground cover in the garden. Some of the plants seem more frosted than others – the differences in textures and microclimates probably.

The 30+ year old rose bush had a bud that was not yet open. I realized that I should have cut it before the frost to bring inside. I cut it with the frost on it and took it to the assisted living group home for my parents later in the day….perhaps the last flower from the rose bush a cousin purchased for my grandmother’s 80th birthday so many years ago.

The sweet gum in a side yard (a hybrid that does not produce spiky seeds) is finally red. My parents planted the tree several years ago when it became apparent that the mulberry trees that were almost the vintage of the house were not going to survive much longer. I’m glad they enjoyed the young tree for several years before they moved.

Ramping up Elder Care – January 2024

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A lot has happened since I wrote the December chapter of ‘Ramping up Elder Care.’ The assisted living group home we initially found ended up not having space…so we looked at several others and settled on one that was probably better than the one we found in their neighborhood in every way but the location. When we took our parents to see their new home the day before the move, one was optimistic…the other one was silent but attentive.

The focused activity was intense to get them moved just before the end of 2023. Our strategy to have a night time caregiver in their home during December and then move them to assisted living worked….but it was more challenging that we anticipated.

  • The nightly caregivers were not consistent; we had over 5 people that handled the overnight shift during the month. Almost all of them slept for part of the night. One was very talkative. One was not very helpful. One got sick and had to leave early.

  • We opted to have two rooms for them in the assisted living group home – one for sleeping and the other for a private living room. It seems to be working well – better than having one larger room. There are 6 other people living in the assisted living group home.

  • Our parents had a lot of clothes that had accumulated over the years. Some no longer fit but one of them insisted that most were moved to assisted living.

  • There were a lot of toiletries. We opted to not take any that had dust on them! It was a harder than expected job to pack up what they would need.

  • My dad had to transition from a safety razor to an electric….which he hated.

  • My mother only began to stabilize on her meds toward the end of the month. For a few days we thought we might have to continue to give her two of her medications rather than transitioning those medications to the assisted living facility staff but it stabilized just before the big move. Physically, she made progress with the help of an excellent occupational therapist and the suggestion from a physical therapist to try massage boots for the edema in her feet and lower legs (OK’d by her vascular surgeon)

  • We celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary with special visits from family members and great food for the whole week before the move. It was joyous…but also stressful to get the visits scheduled at good times for everyone and to eat all the excellent leftovers!

  • One sister handled financies, another handled medical transition, another focused on evaluating what would need to be done with the contents of the house and sheds; I focused on my parents’ needs since I was in the house with them those last few weeks. Everyone helped pack up what needed to go on moving day….and it was still chaotic and stressful.

  • In retrospect…moving on the Friday before a holiday weekend was not the best decision because the staffing at the assisted living was reduced over the weekend and they had no time to learn to supply thickened liquids required by one of our parents (so we ended up supplying them for the weekend).

And now, as I write this, I am home in Missouri….monitoring via the cameras we’ve installed in their rooms at the assisted living but otherwise trying not to interfere as they get acclimated to their new surroundings.

The next stage is getting their house ready to sell. I’ll be back in Carrollton in mid-January for that project; hopefully I’ll be rested and ready to work by then! And my parents will be adjusted to the big move from their home to the assisted living group home.

Previous posts: November 2023, November 2023 update, December 2023

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 6, 2024

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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 Britain's taste for tea may have been a life saver - The explosion of tea as an everyman's drink in late 1700s England saved many lives - the simple practice of boiling water for tea, in an era before people understood that illness could be caused by water-borne pathogens, may have been enough to keep many from an early grave. Sometimes people's existing behaviors can make more of a difference to their health than an explicit intervention might.

Carbon-Based Paleolithic Paintings Found in France - The carbon-based drawings were detected with visible light and infrared photography, X-ray fluorescence, and spectroscopy underneath previously known images. The discovery could allow for precise radiocarbon dating of the artwork. Most of the Paleolithic paintings in the more than 200 caves in the region were made with iron and manganese oxides, which cannot be directly dated with radiocarbon dating technologies.

Winners of the 2023 International Landscape Photographer of the Year Contest – Wonderful views. I wish more of them were annotated (where they were taken…comments from the photographer, etc.). One of my favorites was the Winner for Snow and Ice by Thomas Vijayan of Canada.

Which zoo animals are most active in winter and what times are best to see them? – Author commenting about zoos in the UK…but most of the comments are relevant to zoos in the US too. I particularly enjoyed the last recommendation – going to the Reptile House to warm up! My daughter gave us a membership to the local zoo for Christmas…and we’ll probably bundle up and go soon (but not while the weather is in the 20s)!

Photos of the Week – December 24, 2023 from the Prairie Ecologist – Great reminders that there are interesting subjects for nature photography in winter.

103-Year-Old Artificial Christmas Tree Sells for Over $4,000 – A sliver of history: The tree originally belonged to Dorothy Grant, whose family purchased it for their Leicestershire, England, home in 1920. When she first saw it, the 8-year-old girl was “wildly excited.” She decorated its branches with cotton wool that resembled snow, as baubles were an “extravagance” at the time. Grant cherished the tree for the rest of her life. When she died at the age of 101 in 2014, her 84-year-old daughter, Shirley Hall, inherited it. She decided to part with it to honor her mother’s memory and to ensure it survives as a humble reminder of 1920s life—a boom-to-bust decade.

Photography In the National Parks: 2023 In Review – Rebecca Lawson’s favorite shots from 2023 from Yellowstone, Glacier, Mount Rainer, Lake Chelan, Yosemite, Death Valley, and Banff National Parks.

Honeycrisp, Cosmic Crisp usher in banner year for U.S. apples - Growers report that apple production in the United States hit levels in 2023 that had not been seen since the 2014-15 season. Washington State was the largest grower, producing some 90% of the nation's crop. Of all the varieties, Honeycrisp, Gala, Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Fuji make up 76% of the total apple holdings. The big winner this year was the Cosmic Crisp apple, which experienced a 41% year-over-year growth, with 9.5 million bushels harvested.

Millions of mysterious pits in the ocean decoded - Most of the depressions in the seafloor in the German Bight are created by porpoises and other animals in search of food, and then scoured out by bottom currents. The researchers showed that the marine mammals leave pits in the seafloor when they hunt for buried sand eels.

2023 was a year of big anniversaries – 20 years ago the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas…the Concorde made its final flight, 30 years ago the World Wide Web launched into the public domain, 50 years ago hip-hop began, 60 years ago March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (“I have a dream” speech)…JFK assassinated, 75 years ago Israel declared independence, 80 years ago Casablanca opened, 150 years ago blue jeans patented.

eBotanical Prints – December 2023

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Twenty more books were added to the botanical print collection in December– available for browsing on Internet Archive. They were almost the only books I read/browsed in December; I was overwhelmingly busy caring for my parents.

The publication range for this group is 1629-1959 – a lot has changed in those 300 years!

The whole list of 2,781 botanical eBooks can be accessed here. The list for the December 2023 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 December 2023 eBotanical Prints!

Niger flora; or an enumeration of the plants of Western tropical Africa * Hooker, William Jackson (editor) * sample image * 1849

Bouquet de Melastomataceae Bresilieannes * Cogniaux, Alfred; Saldanha del Gama, Jose * sample image * 1887

Bryologia javanica V1 * Dozy, Francois; Molkenboer, Julian Hendrik; Bosch, Roelof Benjamin Van Den; Sande Lacoste, Cornelius Marinus van der * sample image * 1855

Bryologia javanica V2 * Dozy, Francois; Molkenboer, Julian Hendrik; Bosch, Roelof Benjamin Van Den; Sande Lacoste, Cornelius Marinus van der * sample image * 1855

Chung-kuo chu yao chih wu tʻu shuo.ho bien Nan-ching ta hsüeh, Shêng wu hsüeh hsi [ho] Chung-kuo kʻo hsüeh yüan, Chih wu yen chiu so.  * Keng, I-li * sample image * 1959

Collection d'orchide - esaquarelles originales. * Missouri Botanical Garden * sample image * 1900

Contribuciones al conocimiento de la flora ecuatoriana * Sodiro, L. * sample image * 1905

Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen * Sprengel, Christian Konrad * sample image * 1793

De plantis exoticis libri duo * Alpini, Alpino; Alpini, Prosperi * sample image * 1629

Descriptio?n de l'Egypte recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont ete faites en Egypte pendant l'expedition de l'armee francaise * Raffeneau-Delile, Alire * sample image * 1824

Description des plantes de l'Amerique * Plumier, Charles * sample image * 1693

Descriptionum et iconum rariores et pro maxima parte novas plantas illustrantium * Rottboll * sample image * 1773

Die Coniferen * Antoine, Franz * sample image * 1840

Phyto-iconographie der Bromeliaceen des kaiserlichen königlichen Hofburg-Gartens in Wien * Antoine, Franz * sample image * 1884

Die Flora der deutschen Schutzgebiete in der Sudsee * Lauterbach, Karl; Schumann, Karl Moritz * sample image * 1900

Nachtrage zur Flora der deutschen Schutzgebiete in der Sudsee * Lauterbach, Karl; Schumann, Karl Moritz * sample image * 1905

Die pflanzenwelt Ost-Afrikas und der nachbargebiete * Engler, Adolf * sample image * 1895

Flora Brasiliae meridionalis * Saint-Hilaire, Auguste de * sample image * 1825

Flora Java - Volume 2 * Blume, Carolo Ludovico * sample image * 1828

Flora Peruviana, et Chilensis Plates 1-152 * Ruiz, Hippolito; Pavon, Jose * sample image * 1798

Last Sunrise of 2023

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I was in my parents’ house alone on the last day of 2023. They had already moved to assisted living (more on that in the monthly ‘ramping up elder care’ post coming soon) and the first round of distribution of the furniture had occurred: to their new home, to the rest of the family. It felt odd to be there without them and without the jumble of possessions that had been there for over 30 years. The beauty of the sunrise changed the trajectory of my mood for the better!

I loved the color caught in the line of trees visible from the backyard. I took several zoomed images. I think the last one is my favorite.

It occurred to me that the prettiest sunrises are not the ones the occur on a clear morning…it takes some clouds to catch/reflect the light. Maybe that is a good analogy for life too – that complexity and challenge make life better!

123 Years Ago

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One of my grandfathers was born 123 years ago today. He died in the mid-70s…the first of my grandparents to be born…and the first to die. I find myself thinking about him and my other grandparents every year on his birthday; somehow it was the easiest of my grandparents’ birthdays to remember. The last one died in 2010.

As I’ve been thinking a lot about elder care recently, I’m realizing that only one of my grandparents died at home; two of them died in a hospital and the other one died in a rest home. Two of them lived with my mom and dad as they got older (my siblings and I were in the same house during the early years); the other two benefited from adult children that lived nearby. They were all the first generation to benefit from Social Security.

As I think of myself growing older, I realize that what happened with my grandparents…and now my parents…is a model of possibilities for my own future as an elderly person.

Another thread thinking about my grandparents…recognizing a different perspective of history and how it impacted them – or not. None of them got the 1918 flu….none fought in World War II. They lived in small towns or farms; the Great Depression did not cause them food shortages. The big elements of history impacted them but not as significantly as many other people.

Only one graduated from high school. The others barely got an elementary education. They could all read…newspapers and magazines, some books. They successfully managed their own financies. Both grandfathers ‘retired’ early but continued to be very active either with part time jobs or building up the family home place.

Overall – the family history is full of memories to savor…realizing that they light my path into the future too.  

My Favorite Photographs from 2023

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Photography is something I enjoy frequently (one of those hobbies that pop up almost daily!). I’ve picked 2 photos from each month of 2023 for this post. Picking favorites is always a bit of a challenge; looking at the collection as I write this post I realize some were chosen for the light

  • A heron in morning light

  • A backlit dandelion

  • High key image of iris…and then a turkey using the same technique

…some for the subject

  • The busy fox squirrel

  • Two insects in one flower

  • The egret struggling to control a fish

  • The feet of the American Coot

…some because they prompted a strong memory of the place.

  • Driftwood at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge

  • Sculpture in the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House Garden in St. Louis

  • Metal iris and sunrise at my parents’ house

  • Geese on the snow and ice in my neighborhood in Missouri

  • Cairn as the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield, MO

  • A flower blooming in December at Josey Ranch Park in Carrollton, TX

Enjoy the mosaic of images (click to see a larger version).

Zentangle® – December 2023

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Happy New Year 2024!

31 days in December –31 Zentangle tiles selected from the 75 created during the month. I was in Carrollton for the whole month so these were made in the quiet times during, sometimes intense, elder care; their create were welcomed islands of calm. I found myself reverting to ‘thickets’ again and again!

I left my scanner at home so the images were created with photos made with my phone…not as tidy as the scanned images of prior months but it was the best I could do when it came time to do this post!

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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.

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2023

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December has been one of the most unusual (and stressful) of my life. Along with all the upheaval – there were still little celebrations to notice and savor.

Completion of a construction project. Big machinery digging in the street/sidewalk, the alleyway, and backyard of my parents house. The city was replacing an old sewer pipe. It was interesting to watch…although there were a few anxious moments too. We all celebrated when they finished within the 3 days they’d estimated for the project!

A warm day to mow the leaves. The leaves didn’t really begin to fall in Carrollton TX until December. We celebrated a warm day to mow them into the yard.

Crystalized ginger, big peppermint sticks. I savored special foods from the past that I haven’t eaten as much in recent years. I bought the crystalized ginger and a sister provided 6 of the big barber pole peppermint sticks. I started the celebration of my birthday early!

Red velvet cake. When I was growing up, my usual birthday cake was red velvet cake – made by my mother. This year one of sisters and her husband discovered a diner that had an excellent version of the cake – and bought me two pieces – which I enjoyed 2 days in a row prior to the actual birthday!

A break. My other sister came to make lunch for my parents and I took a break away from my parents’ house. I went to a small café for brunch and they had a special: birthday pancakes! I opted to get that special (another early birthday celebration) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I walked (and took pictures of birds) around Josey Ranch.

December celebrations. My birthday is just one of the normal December celebrations in my family. There is also my parents’ anniversary (their 71st) and Christmas! It’s always a hectic month…full of family visits.

Good sleep. I usually sleep well but it has not been as consistent this month….so I celebrated a particularly good night!

Fall foliage of crape myrtles. I’d never noticed crape mytles in the fall before. At my parents the conditions must have been just right for them to turn from green and hold their leaves this year. I celebrated how great they looked with the leaves and seed pods.  

Finding assisted living. Change is hard. We had moments of discovery and panic…celebrated finding an assisted living group home for my parents and then realizing that the details required another burst of energy. As I write this we are all celebrating how much we have accomplished with our combined efforts.

Daughter arriving. My daughter came for my birthday and the anniversary. She took me out for Ethiopian food to celebrate my birthday!

December 2023….what a cresendo for the year!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 30, 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.

Fevered Planet: How a shifting climate is catalyzing infectious disease – The geography of disease is also changing as novel pathogens affecting plants, animals and humans increase their range. New beetles are heading north and devastating Siberian forests, Alaskan mammals are struggling as new ticks arrive and human habitations in northern Norway are infested by new insects.

‘Green Roads’ Are Plowing Ahead, Buffering Drought and Floods - Designing roads to capture water through strategic channels, culverts, and ponds and divert it for agricultural use. Nearly 20 countries have either implemented Green Roads for Water or plan to begin soon, and thousands of kilometers of roads, worldwide, have already received Green Roads interventions.

Photos of the year (2023) from the Prairie Ecologist (part 1 and part 2) – Lots of great nature photos.

How Fire-Prone Communities Can Reduce Their Risk - Playbook for the Pyrocene, which offers 20 community planning and design strategies that can be applied by landscape architects, planners, homeowners, and developers. “The questions we are trying to answer here are not so much where to build, but rather how to build better within the context of wildfire broadly.”

Giant Goldfish Are Bad News for the Great Lakes - In the Great Lakes, abandoned goldfish and their kin are known to root up plants, contribute to harmful algal blooms and consume native vegetation.

Nine breakthroughs for climate and nature in 2023 you may have missed – Yes – I missed some of these!

Parts of China’s Great Wall Are Protected by a ‘Living Cover’ of Biocrusts – Lichen, moss, and cyanobacteria!

Fresh water from thin air - Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH). The need for more affordable options has spurred interest in ‘passive’ AWH systems that use moisture-hungry sorbent compounds to collect water. The small amounts of power that such systems require could, ideally, be supplied by the Sun. Typically, these sorbents are exposed to the air overnight, when temperatures are cooler and moisture is more abundant. They collect the airborne moisture as liquid in a process known as adsorption. When day breaks, the sorbents are transferred to a device that uses solar energy to drive the release of water. This water is then condensed and collected. And there are abundant opportunities beyond simply producing drinking water. For example, a harvesting system that piggybacks on existing photovoltaic solar panels, using the waste heat and energy from these panels to power water production9; the resulting water helps to cool the panels and therefore improves their efficiency

Archaeologists Discover Brutal ‘Bakery-Prison’ at Pompeii - The cramped space provided minimal light, as windows to the outside were small, high and barred.

The Great Wall of China (eBook)

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William Edgar Geil is believed to be the first American to have traveled the entire length of the 2,500-kilometer-long Ming section of the Great Wall of China. The book he published about that adventure was published shortly afterward in 1909 and is available on Internet Archive. It is illustrated with photographs taken by the author…documenting the wall as it existed at the time.

The Great Wall of China

So much has happened in China  over the intervening years…and the Great Wall seems to be something that is simply ‘always there.’ I remember two stories about it recently that reminded me that the wall is changing too: it was breached with construction equipment and a study that showed that the encrustations (lichen, moss, cyanobacteria) actually slow down erosion of the wall.

Zooming (and Macro) – December 2023

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There was not as much time for photography this past month; I am combining macro (getting close) and zoomed (optical magnification) images in this post.

The macro images go first. The yellow cosmos were part of a small bouquet I cut and put in mini-vase for the middle of my parents’ breakfast table. They enjoyed the enlarged view that I showed them just after I photographed them. The leaves are probably the last new ones of the season on a rose bush that has been blooming next to their garage for over 30 years!

The leaves on a millet plant (came up under the bird feeder!) are interesting as they begin their end-of-season decline.

The zoomed images for December included some birds and plants at Josey Ranch, fall foliage, and zoomed images of glass orbs in yard art…the last flowers in the garden.

In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!

In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!

Fox Squirrels

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The fox squirrels are very active in my parents’ backyard this time of year – chittering in the high branches, chasing each other around the treetops and along the fence tops (spiraling up and down the trunks)…dashing through the thick vegetation in the garden and a row of low bushes that separates the yard from the driveway.  This is the time of year the squirrels are enjoying the bounty of fall food….and increasing their interaction to produce the next generation of fox squirrels!

The squirrels ate the best parts of a bowl of scorched popcorn I threw into the garden within 24 hours!

They are more fun to watch than the birds!

Josey Ranch – December 2023

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I took a walk around the larger pond and small garden at Josey Ranch a week ago.

The first birds I noticed were cormorants – very active on the water (finding fish) and in the air.

Most of the ruddy ducks were snoozing…bobbing in the water.

A group of buffleheads were fishing….then spent a lot of time preening.

There were several coots

And I was thrilled when one of them came up onto the bank and I was close enough get good images of their feet! They are so unusual.

The scaups are around but not in as large numbers as last year.

The resident swans were asleep on the back as they have been every time I have visited recently. Are they elderly swans?

There were a few late flowers in the small garden; there has not been a hard frost in Carrollton yet.

Where are the northern shovelers? Maybe they are still further north? Usually they are present at Josey Ranch by November…but not this year.

Savoring a Holiday

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December has always been full of celebrations in my family – a birthday, an anniversary, the holidays. We are thinking back at all those celebrations this year as we savor the last one with my parents in their own home. To avoid exhausting/overwhelming my parents, we have extended the celebrations with family members coming to visit over the entire month rather than what had been our tradition in years past (large gatherings with huge amounts of food). They eat small meals now…but we’ve tried to include special foods from years past – eggnog, roast, turkey, Waldorf salad, cherry pie….maybe some mincemeat with  ice cream rather than a pie.

When my sisters and I were young, my parents allowed us to open a Christmas present each day between the birthday and Christmas. The new things on Christmas morning were from Santa. My maternal grandmother was the one that did the desserts and breads that I remember most from my childhood…raisin buns, kolaches…too a lesser extent cobblers and pies.

In the late 1980s, me and my sister shared the news that we were both pregnant with the first grandchildren in December. The babies were born a week apart the next year and I travelled to Maryland that December with my daughter (her first time on a plane). My grandmother was still making the holiday desserts!

My grandmother died in December 2010…but had given up cooking a few years before when her eyesight began to fade. Our holiday food has never been the same since; we don’t eat special breads anymore. I’ve tried kolaches from several bakeries, but they are never as good as the ones she made; compared to her soft bread around a large fruit center (apricot and cherry were my favorites), the bakery ones always seem more like hockey pucks.

As children grew up, the types of gifts changed too. In my family, gifts are now trending toward ‘experiences’ rather than ‘stuff.’

One of my sisters and I have given up putting up a tree in the past few years – opting for other decorations like wreaths and ornaments/cards from years past displayed in creative ways. None of us send cards anymore. One sister is having the big gathering her family on New Years this year because of work schedules!

But – we are all enjoying the daily small joys with my parents this December. We are all where we want and need to be.

Merry Christmas to all!