Our Missouri Yard – June 2026

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There are a lot of things looking good in our yard right now…the time of year and the rains in late May resulted in a lot of growth since last month. The Missouri Evening Primrose near the mailbox is blooming profusely – will probably crowd out the non-native plant in the small bed with it.

Two of the three rattlesnake master plants in the native plant garden started this year have stalks getting ready to bloom!

Daylilies are blooming in the corner garden (along with some natives that will bloom in the fall) and in the native plant garden (they came up through the mulch and I am leaving them for now until the natives cover the area completely).

There is an oak seedling that sprouted in the native plant bed that I will simply leave where it is for now while the little blue stem and elderberries are still very small. The elderberries might crowd it out eventually…or is could become the big tree of the front yard.

On the east side of the driveway the white heath aster has come up again. I am leaving the plants since the area has a lot of mole activity and I want something there to hold the soil. They are prolific late summer/fall bloomers.

There is a small oak in the bed near the gate to the back yard. I will cut it soon since it is not in a good place for a big tree.

On the east side of the house there are at least 7 young pawpaw plants: 2 from seeds I planted after eating a pawpaw from the butterfly house last fall, 1 purchased from Ozark Soul, and 4 from MDC (there could be one more from MDC but I didn’t see that it had leafed out…maybe it didn’t survive).

In the garden where we had a pine taken out, there are lambs ear (blooming…not abundant because the bed is crowded with irises and goldenrod), two elderberries (from MDC), beautyberry (the garden is exposed so the plants appear to be dying back each winter and then coming up from the roots…there might be 2 of them), and a healthy looking oak seedling which I am leaving.

Some of the plants I have been mowing around are blooming!  I think most of them are annual fleabane.

There is common evening primrose in the garden by the patio…it seems to be everywhere…this is its year to bloom!

I have lots of maple seedlings…successfully pulled several of them after a recent rain and enough roots came out that they should survive in water for tree tabling later this month.

The Rudbekia laciniata (sochan) is thriving. I haven’t tried eating any of it yet…want to make sure it is well established before I do.

The shortleaf pine is full of new cones.

The Ozark Witch Hazel is becoming more established. Its new leaves have a reddish tinge.

There is a hackberry that is growing in the yew which I will be cutting down…it’s not in a good place for a tree. It is already colonized by gall-producing insects genus Pachypsylla (note the two whitish circles on one of the lower leaves…the galls are underneath the leaf).

Overall, I am pleased with the way the yard is shaping up for this season….but there is a lot of work to do too.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 06, 2026

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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.

05/18/2026 The Scientist How Extreme Heat May Be Raising the Risk of Gestational Diabetes - A growing body of research shows that climate change-driven extreme heat may be increasing the risk of GDM. Studies from around the world are also pointing to critical windows of vulnerability, suggesting that rising temperatures may be shaping maternal health in overlooked ways.

05/19/2026 BBC Japan is gripped by mass allergies. A 1950s project is to blame - Large-scale afforestation after World War II was carried out by public works, funded by tax revenues, to prevent soil erosion. Aiming for rapid reforestation, the government chose to plant reams of only two different native, fast-growing evergreen species that could quickly reforest landscapes and provide wood for future use in construction: the Japanese cedar, sugi, and the Japanese cypress, hinoki.

05/26/2026 Planetizen Two years after California reintroduced beavers, they are transforming the landscape into a 'climate-resilient powerhouse' – Collaboration between California Native American tribes and California Department of Fish and Wildlife….a  beaver created wetland complex created since 2023.

5/26/2026 Yale Environment 360 Warming Is Raising the Risk of Encounters with Venomous Snakes – When I went through Master Naturalist training in Maryland more than a decade ago – we were told that cottonmouth moccasins were not found in Maryland….that they were found as far north as Viriginia. I wondered at the time how long it would take for temperatures to warm enough for them to move northward. The post says that “Cottonmouth moccasins in the US are forecast to head as far north as New York” although it does not say how soon.

05/14/2026 The Scientist Bioelectric Contact Lenses Alleviate Depression in Mice - This wearable, drug-free approach holds promise for transforming how depression and other brain conditions are treated, including anxiety, drug addiction, and cognitive decline. The problem is, sugi and hinoki trees also produce large amounts of lightweight pollen which can easily drift into cities. It's this pollen, often released all at once from the monoculture plantations, that is responsible for most seasonal allergies in Japan.

05/26/2026 Science Daily Scientists say they’ve reversed brain aging with a simple nasal spray - The therapy relies on microscopic biological particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs). These tiny structures naturally transport genetic material between cells. In this case, they were loaded with microRNAs, molecules that help regulate important biological processes in the brain. Once inside the brain, the treatment targeted immune cells involved in chronic inflammation. Scientists also found that it restored activity in mitochondria, the tiny structures inside cells responsible for producing energy. Aging and inflammation can damage mitochondria, leaving brain cells less efficient and more vulnerable to decline. (More work required before the treatment can be testing in humans).

5/26/2026 BBC The hidden dead zones spreading across the Baltic Sea floor - Cod fishing has collapsed. It may take more than 400 years for the maritime environment to recover from factors such as overfishing, oxygen depletion and rising sea temperatures. Some believe it may not happen at all.Areas of the sea floor with little or no oxygen, known as "dead zones", appear to be creeping closer to Bornholm's beaches. This is due to human pollution from fertilizers and sewage creating huge algal blooms, which, when they die, sink to the sea floor and cover it. Their decomposition uses up the available oxygen, kills the living organisms that depend on it, and – as a result – creates dead zones.

5/25/2026 Our World in Data Five million children die every year — what do they die from? – Worldwide 44% die from infectious diseases and 42% die from birth disorders….but there is a huge difference between low and high income countries.

5/21/2026 My Modern Met Amazing Winners of This Scientific Microscopic Imaging Contest Capture the Unseen Beauty of Life – I always enjoy magnified photography of life…the world we cannot see without our technology that often is quite beautiful.

5/22/2026 Artnet A 4,500-Year-Old Building Near Stonehenge Has Been Brought Back to Life - More than 100 volunteers have built a 20-foot high structure using the tools and techniques of Neolithic England - ecreating stone tools, using a woodland management technique known as coppicing, and creating a cement-like mixture of chalk, water, and straw called chalk daub.

eBotanical Prints – May 2026

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in May – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive.   19 of the books are a continuation of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletters; there are 4 volumes per year so this month includes 2008 to 2012; I’ll continue browsing this periodical in June.

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,363 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.

Click on any sample image from May’s 20 books to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the May 2026 eBotanical Prints!

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.2 (2008)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.3 (2008)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.37:no.4 (2008)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2008

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.1 (2009)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.2 (2009)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.3 (2009)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.38:no.4 (2009)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2009

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.1 (2010)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.2 (2010)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.3 (2010)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.39:no.4 (2010)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2010

COLLECTIO PLANTARUM QUAE IN DIVERSIS EUROPAE, ASIAE, AFRICAE, ET AMERICAE * Morandi, Giambattistia * sample image * 1737

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.1 (2011)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.2 (2011)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.3 (2011)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.40:no.4 (2011)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2011

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.1 (2012)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.2 (2012)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.3 (2012)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.41:no.4 (2012)  * California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum * sample image * 2012

Office Views

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My computer is on a corner table with two monitors and my keyboard….windows on both sides of the corner. The views while I am working make the place my favorite in this house.

From the east window, the view is full of violets and an American Spikenard…in the background are the neighbor’s River Birch and Red Oak. On breezy days, the large leaves of the spikenard make graceful arcs through the air.

From the south window, the view includes a hummingbird feeder with an eastern white pine in the background…violets and hostas growing through the pine needles. In the early spring there are crocus in the area.

The near views are all in the shade in the summer…which is very appealing during hot weather. In the winter there is morning sun into the eastern window when the river birch has no leaves. The only negative to the situation is that the shade makes the hummingbirds look drab – no iridescence! I still enjoy their acrobatics on their frequent visits to the feeder.

And a few days later…..

I am dry…and comfortable

Contemplating the joy of a rainy day in the late spring….between showers

The most horizontal leaves of the spikenard and irises have large blobs of water that glisten in the increasing light

The pine needles have water drops at their tips

The hummingbird just made a stop at the feeder on my window…the moat overflowing from rain

Children have come out in the lull between rain showers to play in the puddles - it is warm enough to go without shoes

A little breeze moving the big spikenard leaves

The violets are dark green…and too low to the ground to be moving

I hear water in the gutters

There are so many shades of green

The birds are quiet

Sophie M. Sachs Butterfly House

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The Sophie M. Sachs Butterfly House is a division of Missouri Botanical Garden located in Chesterfield MO. Our membership in the Springfield Botanical Gardens Friends group got us free admission to the Missouri Botanical Garden on our first day in St. Louis and then, the next morning, to the butterfly house! There is a large butterfly sculpture near the entrance. We arrived shortly after they opened because we were concerned that it might be a day when school groups would be there for a field trip later in the morning.

The conservatory was less crowded that my first visit over a year ago. It was warm enough that the butterflies were very active. Most of them are exotics (i.e. not native to North America) and I remembered most of them from visits to previous butterfly houses. Owls have one spot on their wing…blue morphs have lots of spots. The malachite is my favorite! I also liked seeing pitcher plants in the lush vegetation….and the insect themed benches.

The enclosed garden just outside the butterfly house, features a statue of a young girl with butterflies and lots of native plants…including some larger pitcher plants….more insect themed benches.

I recognized a plant in the garden that I have at home…and it had a sign: Virginia Sweetspire. My phone had identified it as Virginia Willow and I had thought it was wrong since it didn’t seem to be willow-like….but that is another common name for Virigina Sweetspire. I am thrilled that it is native to North American since I have two of them that came with my house! I also noticed stands of Missouri Evening Primrose – another great native in my gardens too.

On the way back to the car, I took pictures of the giant caterpillar and butterfly sculptures…along with milkweed in various stages of blooming.

Since my husband was driving, I took a few roadcut pictures on the way home.

At my daughter’s house, I noticed that her miniature roses were blooming next to her driveway….an opportunity for some last photos…savoring the day.  

Zentangle® – May 2026

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31 days in May….31 Zentangle tiles featured in this post. The tile colors in May were dominated by light blue, pink, and dark green…just cleaning out some older card stock. The one turquoise blue tile stands out!

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Plastics Crisis – Forever Plastics (poem)

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Ronald Carson’s Forever Plastics poem is worth a look…I keep coming back to read it again to help shift my perspective…to enable better communication about the looming ramifications of our current (and projected) plastics usage.

 He says: “In this poem, I wanted plastics to speak in the first-person plural, tracing the path from postwar convenience to biological saturation, where the environment is no longer outside us but lodged within us.”

 The last stanza sums is up:

We are the heirloom you did not ask for, 
the inheritance that cannot be refused, 
the future fossil of your present, 
already here.

 See the whole poem here.

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2026

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It seemed like a lot of my activities ramped up in May.

Volunteering

Roston Native Butterfly House. The butterfly house season started and I had 4 shifts….the first one on Mother’s Day. I celebrated that there were lots of butterflies….and people coming to see them!

Getting speakers for fall Missouri Master Naturalist core training. It was wonderful that virtually everyone I asked to speak or host a field trip said ‘yes.’ By the end of the month, I was celebrating that the plan for the training was looking more achievable.

Reconnoiter of a new field trip location. I celebrated a first visit to a new field trip location - rejoicing that is it such a rich place for Master Naturalist activities.

Soil field trip. The field trip to soil pits was one that I had arranged months ago. I celebrated that it finally happened….and how good it was.

My Yard

New native plant garden. Only one of the 30+ plants that I planted in my new bed looks like it won’t make it. I am celebrating that the rest are thriving and excited about how great the garden will begin to look as the warm weather continues. Next year it should look even better!

American Spikenard. Every time I look out my office window, I celebrate that one of the first native plants I bought and planted in my Missouri yard was an American Spikenard. The violets growing under it look great too!

Food

Salmon. I have discovered frozen salmon fillets and have been thrilled at how easy it is to thaw and then bake them at 325 degrees while I prepare the sides…..celebrating salmon at home rather than just in restaurants!

Chocolate cake. I stopped at a diner on the way back from my trip to Lewisville this month….and celebrated their version of chocolate cake!

Travel

Missouri Botanical Garden. It’s my favorite place in the St. Louis area. I like their art in the garden exhibits that have special lighting at night. This time I celebrated the garden with my husband and daughter.

Another butterfly house. We visited the Sophie M. Sachs Butterfly House on the morning after the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was only my second time to see it, and I celebrated being a visitor rather than a docent…and seeing some familiar exotic butterflies again.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 30, 2026

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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.

05/18/2026 Washington Post EPA wants to repeal limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water - The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed repealing limits on four types of “forever chemicals” in drinking water, while delaying regulations on two others. Beyond the six compounds in question, there are hundreds of PFAS being used in manufacturing today that are also toxic and demand to be regulated together as a chemical class, an idea the EPA has so far resisted.

5/16/2026 Science Daily Scientists warn that the world’s rivers are running out of oxygen - Rivers around the world are quietly running out of oxygen — and climate change is emerging as the main culprit. A sweeping global analysis of more than 21,000 river systems found that nearly 80% have been steadily losing dissolved oxygen over the past four decades, threatening fish, biodiversity, and the overall health of freshwater ecosystems. Surprisingly, tropical rivers are being hit the hardest, even more than rivers in rapidly warming polar regions.

5/11/2026 Planetizen New Orleans sea level rise is at 'point of no return' - Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost 2,000 sq miles of land to coastal erosion, equivalent to the size of Delaware, with a further 3,000 sq miles set to vanish over the next 50 years. The rate of land loss is so rapid that a football pitch-sized area is wiped out every 100 minutes.

5/4/2026 BBC Food labels have far-reaching effects on our health - Many leading experts say the food environment – such as the way food is produced, marketed and sold – itself is "obesogenic" (creating the conditions for weight gain) and this influences consumers to make unhealthy choices. To combat the growing levels of obesity, we need to change what we eat – and emerging research shows that behavioural interventions as well as policy change could make a meaningful difference.

5/14/2026 NPR The MAHA movement is coming to school cafeterias. Here's what that means for kids - Exactly how the government's new dietary guidelines will impact schools is unclear. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it is still working to update the nutrition standards it requires of institutions taking part in the National School Lunch Program, which fed 30 million children last year, and the School Breakfast Program.

5/13/2026 Modern Met Haunting and Hopeful Images Win the 2026 Environmental Photography Award - Selected from roughly 10,000 submissions, this year’s winning images span five categories—Changemakers, Forests, Humanity vs Nature, Ocean, and Polar Regions. Together, they document everything from wildlife trafficking and climate disasters to moments of breathtaking beauty in the natural world.

5/15/2026 Archaeology Magazine Mysterious Ancient Tunnel Discovered Beneath Jerusalem Streets – “Usually we have explanations for the discoveries we uncover, but sometimes, as in this case, we stand astonished and amazed.”

5/14/2026 Yale Environment 360 Restoring the Flow: A Milestone in the Revival of the Everglades - In Picayune Strand State Forest, the state and federal governments have been working for more than two decades to undo the damage wrought by that failed development. It’s been a huge undertaking across 55,000 acres. Recently, though, the state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put the finishing touches on the most critical part of the work: restoring the natural flow of water across the land. How well this hydrological restoration leads to wider ecological recovery remains to be seen. But the transformation is already underway.

5/11/2026 NASA Color Off the Mid-Atlantic Coast - Starting in early April, NASA satellites began to detect a patch of brownish, blue-green water lingering off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The colors and patterns were most intense in the shallow coastal zone where the waters of Raritan Bay, Delaware Bay, and Chesapeake Bay merged with the Atlantic Ocean—an area known as the Mid-Atlantic Bight. 

5/14/2026 National Parks Traveler What to Expect on The Grand Canyon's North Rim This Summer -Visitors need to be self-sufficient as they encounter burned landscapes, limited services, no potable water, portable toilets and ongoing construction tied to rebuilding facilities, utilities and infrastructure destroyed by the wildfire that started last July 4 and exploded out of control under strong fanning winds. 

Photography from 1901

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The Corcoran Gallery of Art hosted an exhibit of photography from the local camera club in April 1901…and the exhibition book is my pick for Book of the Week. The book is available on Internet Archive.

The year caught my attention since one of my grandfathers was born in 1901; he would have been 3 months old when this exhibition happened!

My favorite of the sample images is the icy fountain…with the US Capitol in the background.  

 Tenth annual exhibition of the Capital Camera Club: April 22d to 30th, 1901

Missouri Botanical Garden – Part 2

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We checked into the hotel and had a light dinner before returning to the garden. We arrived while it was still light and was easy to get a parking spot close to the Visitor Center. My daughter had bought our tickets and had had them on her phone for the garden staff to scan for our entry. We visited some close gardens and smaller conservatories that we hadn’t seen earlier in the day.

And then it got dark enough for the lights to give the geometric sculptures a different look…with light coming from within.

I experimented with different angles and zoomed images…also noticing the patterns of light and shadow (or reflection) at the base of the sculptures. These were my favorite images:

Missouri Botanical Garden – Part 1

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We made a road trip to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis to see the Patterns of Nature: Lightform exhibit….during an afternoon and then returned to see the forms at night. This post is about the daytime portion of our visit. The day was cloudy and stayed in the 60s. It was still bright enough for good photography. The first area we saw included a colorful sculpture and some native plants. We made our way around to see as many of the geometric shapes of the special exhibit as we could….even though I frequently was sidetracked by plants! I used my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) for the landscape pictures.

My phone (iPHone 15 Pro Max) does better with the close-up shots! I realized by the time we left to check into hotel that I would lighten my load for the evening and just bring my phone. It was good in the close confines of the conservatory for sure!

I took a picture of the wall in the visitor center that is a key for the leaf patterns in the flower of building. Most of them are natives!

Plastics Crisis – 10 Visions

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A lot of work now to reduce plastics is ‘baby steps’ because we must start somewhere. We need some successes to encourage more people to care about the impact of plastics on ourselves and all living things on our planet – to get the ball rolling to push back on the laissez-faire approach toward the plastic producers that seems to be the status quo around the world. We know that it is an uphill effort and will take a lot more people becoming alarmed/getting involved.

I’ve been thinking recently about what I would like to see beyond ‘baby steps’…and have picked 10 ‘visions’ to share in this week’s Plastic Crisis post.

  1. Plastic-Free labeling on food/cosmetic packaging is common – and plastic-free products are widely available. Remaining plastic packaging is required to be free of toxic chemicals particularly endocrine disrupting chemicals.

  2. Tea bags, cans, and snack wrappers don’t contain plastic and there are no single-use plastic shopping bags.

  3. Plastic bottles for food and cosmetics are phased out…replaced with glass or distributed in dry form and packaged in paper/cardboard.

  4. Biodegradable tires have been developed – created without toxic biproducts and recycled at the end of life into new tires. Fragments from tire wear biodegrade in the environment.

  5. Plastic producers are paying for plastic waste disposal (using less toxic methods than available in 2025…i.e. not releasing toxic chemicals into the air, water, soil…so no landfill or burning, etc.)

  6. Mining of landfill material from high plastic times is beginning to reduce the ‘time bomb’ toxicity of the plastic era.

  7. Synthetic carpets and plastic/vinyl flooring are replaced with biodegradable materials.

  8. Water treatment plants filter out most microplastics …and technology is being developed to reduce nano-plastic particles as well.   

  9. The perception of plastic is ‘toxic’ rather than ‘clean/sterile’ as it was historically.

  10. Chemicals are considered toxic to humans until proven safe. There will be no more ‘forever’ chemicals that are new and heavily used….and then discovered to be toxic.

Field Trip Reconnoiter

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I’ve been busy working on the curriculum of the core training to be offered next fall by my local Missouri Master Naturalist chapter. One of the field trips we had added to the curriculum was unfamiliar to everyone….but had been one the places featured in a 2025 Ozark Public Television production called Wild Ozarks. Four of us participated in a reconnoiter trip to the place last week.

Wow! It is a great place for a field trip.

Easy to get to from Springfield

Springs and sinkholes

Remediated riverbank…and ash trees (dead or dying) replaced with other tree species

Tree cavities

Some invasives but not overwhelming

Road or mowed trail for hiking

Pawpaw patch

And much more!

I loved the handmade tree signs!

We modified the plan to divide the students into 4 groups rather than 3 (so 6-7 students/group) and the topics will be: forest ecology, geology (karst), tree identification (using dichotomous key), and nature journaling/nature observation.

I am looking forward to seeing the place in the fall….and observing the students discovering this special place.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 23, 2026

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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.

05/10/26 Poets.org Forever Plastics – A poem by Ronald Carson. He says “In this poem, I wanted plastics to speak in the first-person plural, tracing the path from postwar convenience to biological saturation, where the environment is no longer outside us but lodged within us.”

04/22/2026 The New York Times You Paid to Have Old Clothes Recycled. Here’s What That Really Means. - Collection services offer convenience, but most garments are shredded into low-grade stuffing or sent abroad to an uncertain fate. The most important thing, experts and environmental activists say, is to buy less in the first place. It’s easier to deal with clothes responsibly if there are fewer of them to begin with.

05/7/2026 Super Age Life Expectancy Gains Are Slowing. Your Choices Are More Important Than Ever - The future of longevity will most likely be shaped less by sweeping public health revolutions and more by targeted, personalized strategies: slowing biological aging, optimizing midlife health, and extending the years we remain active, engaged, and independent.

05/12/2026 Planetizen 16% of roads that received federal funds remain in poor condition - State DOTs are spending most of that money on highway expansions instead of repair and maintenance work. And "Because increasingly lax reporting standards conceal broken roads from public view, and DOTs routinely mis-categorize expensive expansion projects as simple 'maintenance' or lump them into a mysterious 'other' category, Transportation for America suspects the national highway network is actually even more drastically overbuilt than it appears on paper."

05/11/2026 I’m Plastic Free How to Reduce Microplastics Exposure: The Ultimate Guide & Checklist - This guide breaks down exactly how microplastics enter your system, and provides a practical, but very thorough, science-backed checklist to reduce your exposure across your home, diet, and daily habits.

05/12/2026 BBC 'Fatbergs' are taking over city sewers - scientists are fighting back - Reeking coagulations of grease and debris are clotting sewers around the world on a colossal scale. Cities are deploying new technologies to control this modern menace. New York City – where 40% of sewer backups are due to grease – spends around $18.8m annually degreasing and removing blockages from the sewers beneath its streets. 

5/12/2026 National Parks Traveler Musings About the Parks | Things I Worry About – A list from Kurt Rapanshek. He ends the post this way: “Without question, there are many, many things that are uplifting about exploring the National Park System. But if the Park Service truly is going to preserve these places and their natural resources for future generations, it really needs a lot more help from Congress and presidential administrations.”

5/11/2026 Smithsonian Magazine See 15 Stunning Images That Won the German Society for Nature Photography’s Annual Contest – Beautiful and thought-provoking images.

05/06/2026 YaleEnvironment360 Airborne Microplastics May Be Warming the Planet - Tiny particles of plastic amassing in the atmosphere may be intensifying warming. Darker bits of plastic are absorbing heat. And even though lighter particles are reflecting sunlight, with a cooling influence, in the aggregate microplastics are having a warming effect. The warming impact is tiny, far less than the impact of carbon dioxide emissions, and only a fraction of the impact of soot. The microplastic emissions produced globally each year have roughly the same warming effect as running 200 coal power plants for that year….but more study is needed

05/04/2026 CNN The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a plastic trash nightmare. It could also be part of a much bigger, hidden problem - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a significant source of airborne microplastics and nanoplastics, but there are many other places where tiny plastic particles can be whipped up into the skies, including from landfills, roadside litter and car tires. Colored plastics, especially red, yellow, blue and black, absorbed around 75 times more light than pristine, non-pigmented plastics.

05/10/2026 Science Daily Antarctica is melting from below and scientists say it’s worse than expected - Deep beneath floating ice shelves, long channels carved into the ice appear to trap warmer ocean water, dramatically speeding up melting from below. Even regions of East Antarctica once considered relatively stable may be far more vulnerable than scientists realized. Researchers warn that current climate models may be missing this dangerous process entirely, meaning future sea level rise could be underestimated.

Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms

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In 2016, “Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World” was an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The art book from the exhibition is available on Internet Archive. Browsing the pictures is a good way to get the gist of exhibition!

 Art Of the Hellenistic Kingdoms. From Pergamon to Rome

Suburban Savanna – 2

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Last month was my first post about my goal to turn my yard into a suburban savanna. The series continues this month.

I’ve done the planting for the year already.

The last new plant was a free smooth sumac from the Earth Day Music Festival that I planted in the corner of the yard where oak leaves (neighbor’s tree) accumulate, and the dandelions have very large leaves. I hope it will eventually fill that corner of the yard.

I have discovered a sturdy red oak seeding (squirrel planted) in the bed that I made after a pine fell. I am letting it grow. There will be elderberry and beautyberry along with iris and naked lady lilies around its base. It will be a long time before the oak will be big enough to make shade an issue. I anticipate that the progression of this garden will be the most interesting of the yard.

The panicled aster Symphyotrichum lanceolatum that came up next to my driveway last summer is there again – and is larger. I am letting it grow since it is a fall bloomer and was full of pollinating insects last fall.

Goldenrods, rudbekias, and other asters are coming up in the yard too. I mow them in the front yard – keeping up the ‘look’ that the HOA wants for now – but I mow around them in the back and will let them bloom.

Our sprinkler system is over 25 years old and is fixed to begin the season…but might need to be replaced as more of the underground components fail (or leak). The further I get in the transition to native plants, the less watering the yard will require. I am going to water the native plant garden in the front yard this season to help the plants get established, but it might not need it in 2027! The decision to keep a sprinkler system might be driven more by our perception of how variable the rains will be as the climate continues to change than what the native plants require.

Next month I will write about the shade garden which is the most developed part of my suburban savanna.

Previous Suburban Savanna Posts:

April 2026

Our Missouri Yard – May 2026

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May was full of new growth in our yard.

In the front yard…the Kousa Dogwood bloomed…and began to fade. The Missouri Evening Primrose near the mailbox began to bloom. In the new native plant garden, the new plants (like the Ratttlesnake Master and Elderberry) began to thrive; there was a robin’s egg in the mulch under the maple there. The Virginia creeper was lush and green filling the spaces in the flower bed near the house and climbing over everything. There were some asters that came up in one bed on their own in spaces near some daylilies. In the side yard a clump of lambs ear and poke weed were in the same place as last year – not specifically planted but seemed to thrive in that spot.

The shade garden at the side of the house includes young pawpaws (one purchased from Ozark Soul last year, 2 from seeds of a pawpaw from the Roston Native Butterfly House, and 3 from seedling I bought from MDC). The American Spikenard presides over an expanse of violets (I’ve been harvesting the violet leaves to eat as leafy greens). The allium bulbs I planted the first fall we lived in the house bloomed in April and are forming seeds now. The hostas (not native) sometimes provide a contrast with nearby violets. The Eastern White Pine that makes the lower part of the shade garden may produce cones this year – if it does it will be the first time.

In the back yard….The Witch Hazel will probably grow rapidly this year; it did have a few blooms last winter but has no seed pods. The hollies are blooming (delighting bees). The garden where a pine once stood has lambs ear…some elderberries…and an oak seedling (squirrel planted); it will be interesting to see how it develops. The columbines along the fence have a few blooms but are fading….and the irises are done for the year. Some of dandelions seem huge and I wonder if they are a variety grown for greens; I will start to harvest them! The Fragrant Sumac that was the first native plant that I purchased is taking over a space near the patio; I need to keep the Japanese honey suckle away from it….otherwise let it do its thing!

May growth points to 2026 being a great year for my developing yard!

Soil Field Trip

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Last weekend, I participated in a Missouri Master Naturalist Field Trip to soil pits in a forested area maintained by a Springfield High School. A member of our chapter that is a soil scientist led the field trip.

We were concerned about ticks, so everyone was in protective clothing…and sprayed! The initial walk into the forest was full of low growing jumpseed.

At the first soil pit (surrounded by a wire fence), we got a tutorial on soil analysis – textures, structure and color. We passed around lumps of damp soil, so everyone learned to judge soil texture. This was not a ‘clean hands’ field trip!

Our group was subdivided into groups of 3-4 and we went through the process on our own for another pit. Ours had 4 horizons.

After that adventure, we hiked to other pits to see differences in pits that were dug to show soil differences based on terrain and orientation. One had bedrock and another had a lot of sediment (it was in the floodplain of a stream).

As we hiked, we crossed the dry stream; there was a lot of bedrock to see!

I was tired by the end of the field trip, but the adventure was worth it!