Life Magazine in 1946

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Internet Archive has digitized versions of many Life Magazines. I have been browsing through them – slowly since there was an issue for each week. As I looked at the issues from 1946, I noticed a lot about veterans returning, application of technology from the war applied to civilian purposes, and tragedies of famine in places that World War II ravaged. There were hotel fires and flash floods…slums in cities – photography depicting the peace time news.

 (Click on any of the sample images below to see a larger version and the links to see the whole magazine online.)

 Life Magazine 1946-01-07 - Veterans at College

Life Magazine 1946-01-14 - La Guardia waves farewell to New York’s City Hall

Life Magazine 1946-01-21 - Polio

Life Magazine 1946-01-28 - First family portrait (the Trumans)

Life Magazine 1946-02-04 - Marion Anderson records

Life Magazine 1946-02-11 - Coca Cola and returning veterans

Life Magazine 1946-02-18 - Candy is Dandy – Keep it Handy (Valentines)

Life Magazine 1946-02-25 - Pearl Harbor Committee Report

 Life Magazine 1946-03-04 - Modern kitchen

Life Magazine 1946-03-11 - Ritz crackers

Life Magazine 1946-03-18 - Eiffel tower

Life Magazine 1946-03-25 - Industrial destruction left my Russians in Manchuria

Life Magazine 1946-04-01 - Fuller House

Life Magazine 1946-04-08 - Slums of New York

Life Magazine 1946-04-15 - Hyde Park opened to public

Life Magazine 1946-04-22 - Planes in Arizona dessert

Life Magazine 1946-04-29 - Packed with good taste (ad for gum)

 Life Magazine 1946-05-06 - Ice cream dixie (cups of ice cream)

Life Magazine 1946-05-13 - China famine

Life Magazine 1946-05-20 - Robin nest at the White House

Life Magazine 1946-05-27 - Test rockets in New Mexico

Life Magazine 1946-06-03 - Mr. and Mrs. Ford in 1898 Ford….the first Ford

Life Magazine 1946-06-10 - Flash floods on Susquehanna and Texas

Life Magazine 1946-06-17 - Chicago hotel fire kills 60 people

Life Magazine 1946-06-24 - Electricity (in kitchen) works for peanuts!

 Life Magazine 1946-07-01 - Atomic bomb test in the Marshalls

Life Magazine 1946-07-08 - US shows off flying wing

Life Magazine 1946-07-15 - Farm machines

Life Magazine 1946-07-22 - Empire State Building suicide

Life Magazine 1946-07-29 - US produces second biggest wheat crop in history

Life Magazine 1946-08-05 - New York at night

Life Magazine 1946-08-12 - British uncover hidden weapon in Jewish farm community

Life Magazine 1946-08-19 - Yellowstone

Life Magazine 1946-08-26 - France rebuilds her railroads

 Life Magazine 1946-09-02 - Glaciers in Alaska

Life Magazine 1946-09-09 - Archaeology in Arizona 

Life Magazine 1946-09-16 - Model airplanes

Life Magazine 1946-09-23 - Coca Cola after school

Life Magazine 1946-09-30 - Graphic depiction of LA traffic

Life Magazine 1946-10-07 - Crowded schools

Life Magazine 1946-10-14 - Nurnberg trial ends

Life Magazine 1946-10-21 - Houston

Life Magazine 1946-10-28 - Shell Agricultural Laboratory

 Life Magazine 1946-11-04 - Stranded whale (Long Island)

Life Magazine 1946-11-11 - The road back to Berlin

Life Magazine 1946-11-18 - Land of Yemen

Life Magazine 1946-11-25 - Synthetic rubber plant

Life Magazine 1946-12-02 - Margaret Wise Brown

Life Magazine 1946-12-09 - Nazi brains help US

Life Magazine 1946-12-16 - Worst hotel fire in US (Atlanta GA)

Life Magazine 1946-12-23 - Christmas Rush

Life Magazine 1946-12-30 - Europe’s children

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2026

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I celebrated getting outdoors in February and a flurry of education related activities!

Melting snow. We had snow on the ground for the last week of January and into February. We all celebrated when it finally melted although it was pretty as long as one didn’t have to get out and about.

Cranberry orange relish. I used my last frozen cranberries to make cranberry orange relish – savored the flavor….and will miss it until the cranberries are in the stores again in the fall.

Ozark Witch Hazel blooming. My small Ozark Witch Hazel I planted last spring is blooming. It retained its leaves so the blooms were a little difficult to see.

Missouri fish and amphibian webinars. There were two webinars that were a pleasant surprise in February – they were very well done.

Salmon salad. I celebrated the flavors of salmon, pear, and cabbage with a lemon honey olive oil dressing – with a feisty lime blend of seasonings.

Training for master naturalists. I celebrated that the training plan for the new cohort of Missouri Master Naturalists in our area seems to be coming together. It looked daunting at first.

Macro and high key flower photography. I celebrated a winter photography project – a purchased bouquet on the windowsill in my office.

Ecoregion maps of Missouri. Looking at maps from an out-of-print Atlas was interesting and I celebrated how great they will fit into a presentation for the master naturalist training next fall – the module I will be presenting.

Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. I celebrated the longest hike of the month – interesting place for birds and habitats…and also thinking about history and the way it looked during the Civil War.

Plastics and human health webinar.  I heard a webinar on the same topic with the same speaker from a year ago – and realized that this topic is progressing rapidly. I celebrated that she’ll likely continue to present webinars and include new information.

Zooming – February 2026

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The images from this month were all close to home: my yard, my neighborhood, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, and Lake Springfield Greater Ozarks Audubon Trail. There was a mix of snow and winter images….the beginnings of spring. There would have been more places if the big snow had not cancelled two hikes that had originally been planned for February! Enjoy the zoomed images of my times outdoors during this month!

Stockton State Park

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I enjoyed a hike at Stockton State Park with another Master Naturalist on a cold Saturday! We made a 1.7 mile loop on the Umber Ridge Trail. It was a good choice for winter with lake views through the winter trees.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

There was a vine on a trunk (maybe poison ivy?)…and I noticed quite a few trees in the immediate vicinity with the same type vine.

We took the downhill ramp to the beach area and I experimented photographing the pebbles and sand. I was relieved that were no colorful plastic bits there (although they could have been too small for my camera to capture). The beach could be used for a geology tutorial (although some of the rocks higher on the beach were clearly brought into the area).

At several points along the trail, we noticed long curly pods of honey locust on the ground and looked around to find the trees with big thorns nearby). There didn’t appear be too many thorns on the ground – even though our hiking boots would have probably protected our feet. Later we saw some black locust pods…so both species are found in the park.

There were many logs that looked burnt – mostly from controlled burns probably. In some areas the fire had been long enough ago that moss was already green on the log again.

We could have changed the hike to be partly on the road but opted to stick to the trail with rocks and roots! I used my hiking poles and my back didn’t hurt….maybe I can get the same effect with only one pole. It would make it easier to take pictures. I’ve learned to use the loops on the poles but having two to keep attached to me while I am trying to use my camera is awkward.

The trek to get to the park from my house is about 1.5 hours each way…and takes about ¼ a tank of gas. I still might do it again in the spring when the trees will be leafing out….maybe take my daughter and have lunch afterward. The park is evidently very popular in the summer with lots of activity on the lake; I think I will stick with non-summer visits to this park!

Lake Springfield Greater Ozarks Audubon Trail

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I had a form to drop off at the Lake Springfield Boathouse on a sunny day when the temperature was in the upper 50s. I opted to take the Greater Ozarks Audubon Trail to the overlook  (the trail head is just past the boathouse).

I took a picture of sycamore near the edge of the water. It still had a lot of seeds from last season.

The trail is up ledges of rock….gentle steps most of the time.

Most of the trees are deciduous but there are quite a few eastern redcedars there too. I zoomed in to take a collection moss and redcedar on fallen log – an intimate landscape.

At the top there is an overlook of Lake Springfield. I didn’t stay long because there were other people waiting to enjoy the scene too.

I walked down the hill and saw some honey locust pods on the ground…looked up to see the thorns in the tree! Nearer my car, I noted goose (?) prints in the area at the edge of the parking lot. There were a lot of Canada geese around!

I remembered that there were mallows down near the water’s edge…their seed pods were open and empty.

The last time I was on this trail was in Fall 2024 when I took the Identifying Woody Plants class; it was hot that day and my back was hurting for the entire hike. This time I did it with my hiking poles and didn’t have any problem at all!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 21, 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.

2/2/2026 York Daily Record Mountains of plastic turf in limbo after Pa. recycling project falters - A Danish company's plan to build an artificial turf recycling plant in Pennsylvania has failed due to bankruptcy. The state is now responsible for cleaning up thousands of tons of abandoned turf stockpiled across three counties. The abandoned turf, which may contain "forever chemicals," will now be sent to a landfill instead of being recycled.

2/8/2026 Clean Technica Why China’s Aluminum Industry May Have Reached Peak CO2 - Relocation to hydro regions is largely complete. Secondary aluminum is rising into double digit millions of tons. Coal heavy output has already peaked and begun to edge down. Renewable penetration in coal regions continues to rise. Reversing this trend would require renewed growth in coal-based smelting or a collapse in recycling, neither of which fits China’s industrial or energy trajectory.

2/9/2026 BBC Fungi mining and giant waste piles: How to get rare earths without mining rock -Gigantic heaps of coal ash, mine tailings and red mud are traditionally expensive and difficult to deal with. But if new processes allow rare earth harvesters to engage in remediation while hoovering up rare earths, then industry and environmentalists might no longer be at odds over what to do about all that waste.

2/8/2026 Science Daily Scientists finally solve a 100-year-old mystery in the air we breathe - The new model offers a stronger foundation for understanding how airborne irregularly shaped nanoparticles (like soot, microplastics, viruses) move across a wide range of scientific fields. These include air quality monitoring, climate modeling, nanotechnology, and medicine. The approach could improve predictions of how pollution spreads through cities, how wildfire smoke or volcanic ash travels through the atmosphere, and how engineered nanoparticles behave in industrial and medical applications.

2/6/2026 Archaeology Magazine Aqueduct at Early Italian Villa Explored - Based on the construction method of this hydraulic system, it might have been originally created to serve a rural village predating the construction of the villa, during a period before the Romans had fully solidified their control over this region of Italy.

2/4/2026 Yale Environment 360 Seas to Rise Around the World — but Not in Greenland - The reasons are twofold. 1)  the massive Greenland ice sheet, which at its center is roughly a mile thick, compresses the land underneath. As the ice melts, the land rebounds, rising above the sea. 2) the Greenland ice sheet is so large that it exerts a gravitational pull on surrounding waters, drawing them higher. But in a warming Arctic, Greenland is shedding some 200 billion tons of ice a year. As its gravitational pull wanes, waters recede.

2/5/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Air Pollution Can Cause Some Ants to Turn on One Another—and Neglect Their Young - As insect populations decline around the world, the findings further point to air pollutants as a possible cause, in addition to pesticides, light pollution and other factors. The work is especially important given the crucial role ants play in maintaining healthy habitats, such as dispersing seeds, controlling pests and aerating soil.

2/4/2025 Cool Green Science Reading the Tree Rings – Great photographs by Greg Kahn for this article. One of the labs visited for the article was the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona that I visited when my daughter was a graduate student in Tucson in 2015 (my blog post about it here).

2/4/2026 Compound Interest World Cancer Day: How antibody–drug conjugates for cancer work - Our ability to use medicines to target more effectively is improving, and antibody–drug conjugates are an increasingly effective tool in combating cancers. This graphic explains what they are, how they work, and how they might improve in the future.

2/4/2026 National Parks Traveler Florida’s Ailing Reef - The reef is fighting for its very survival, beset by the trauma of climate change and warming water, commercial and recreational fishing, and drainage pollution coming from Florida’s canal system.

High Key Flowers

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The day after the rainy-day macro flowers….the sun was out and I enjoyed creating another round of photos of my store-bought flowers – this time High Key images. These are made with bright light behind the flowers and using the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) to compose the image. It’s a very different perspective on the flowers.

The yellow rose bud floating in water in a blue tulip glass cup was my first subject. Sometimes I like the softer focus images! I was sad when I got the bouquet home and discovered the stem on one of the rose buds was broken – but it still looks lovely floating in water and has unfurled a bit.

I took 6 other images of the flowers in the bouquet. I simply left them all in the vase on the windowsill and isolated flowers by zooming in close. I was sitting halfway across the room with the camera stabilized on my knee! Sometimes a bit of the window screen behind the flowers is visible but I decided it was not distracting enough to bother me.  

Macro Flowers

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I bought a bouquet of mixed flowers at the grocery store the day before Valentines. There was more selection than I expected and the mixed flowers looked better that the roses – which somehow looked wilted. Still – my favorite macro image turned out to be a yellow rose that was in the mix of flowers I bought.

I used my phone (iPhone 15 Pro Max which is about 2 years old) for the macro photos. It does a reasonable job. I had the bouquet in a vase sitting on my windowsill so used natural light.

I thought about making a second round of photographs – some high key images – but I left that for another day!

Our Neighborhood – February 2026

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It was a sunny day in the mid-60s in our neighborhood. As I started my walk around our storm water ponds, I saw two robins – the first ones I’ve seen since last fall!

There seemed to be quite a few eastern white pine cones on the ground and in the trees. The tree in my yard is not old enough to produce cones yet.

There were turtles on the bank and in the water at the place I seem them most frequently.

There was ice on the second (smaller) pond. There were leaves stuck in the ice. One area has a circular center and then branches off that center. The ice would likely be gone by the end of the day.

Further around I noticed ice along the edge of the larger pond. The patterns there were changing…visible melting.

A recently ripped branch of a river birch was in the water, and some curly bark from the same kind of tree was on the shore nearby….both detached from the tree during the recent storm probably. One of the trees has exposed roots damaged by mowers.

A male and female mallard swam out into the pond. The female was eating and posed for a better picture that the male. I wondered if they were the same pair that has been at our pond for the last couple of years…hatching ducklings…and then losing them to the turtles.

Our area has been very dry since a very wet spring in 2025…and the snow earlier last month must have soaked in very close to where it melted. My yard is a little wet (would be muddy if there was vegetation everywhere). The intake channels for our stormwater ponds were dry and the water level in both ponds was low as well. Maybe we’ll have spring rains again soon.

Plastics Crisis - Textiles

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There seem to be plastics everywhere. I’ve come to realize that in my home, the largest source is probably textiles! The carpets that were in the house when we purchased it a few years ago are likely all synthetic fibers (although about 1/3 of the house is tile or vinyl (plastic)). When we vacuum the particles are gray and powdery…the plastic there is already very small.

And then there are clothes. We have some clothes that are cotton or cotton/polyester (plastic)…but some items are 100% synthetic (polyester, acrylic, nylon, spandex). I don’t dry more than half my clothes that are synthetic fibers, but there are enough that the lint from the dryer should probably be considered toxic (probably should put it in a covered trash can so microplastics will not waft from it); I hope washing machine technology will eventually filter their waste water but I’m not sure how to handle what a filter would collect safely).

Back in March 2019 I posted some macro photography of textiles; I’ve copied it below with some commentary afterward.

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I am finally experimenting with my 60x macro lens that I got for my phone. Textiles around the house were an easy project. The lens has a light and I found it handy. With this lens, I use the zoom on the phone to avoid clipping the image to take out the vignetting around the edges. I’d rather compose the image in the camera.

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I liked the simple weave and colors of the worn dishcloth.

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A crocheted hat had brilliant color but was not flat enough to focus well.

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The washcloth had more fuzzy fibers than I expected but

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Not nearly as many as the wool sock.

I got stuck on a tapestry jacket…had a challenge to choose just 3 to include in this post. The last one was from the inside of the jacket.

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The machine embroidery of a silk jacket looked very different than I anticipated.

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The weave of a light-weight jacket was more complex.

I realized that the patterns on t-shirts were painted – but hadn’t thought about what they would look like with the macro lens. The blobs of color stand out on the surface of the cotton knit.

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The most non-fuzzy fabric was microfiber underwear!

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The yarn in the bulky cardigan was almost too big to look interesting at this magnification.

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Machine-made borders look more orderly than the fabric sometimes (the black is thread).

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The eye detects tiny holes in the fabric of the bag for delicate fabrics to go in the washer; with macro lens, it looks like a Zentangle.

After I got back to my office, I looked at two mouse pads with the macro lens. One is a woven surface…the other looks like a paint.

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The macro photographs make it easy to see how easily fibers escape from our clothes and carpets.

Right now I am thinking that at home the 1st priority is to not have any plastic around heat (mostly in the kitchen) and the 2nd is reducing synthetic textiles!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 14, 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.

12/18/2025 Ozark Public Television Wild Ozarks: A Legacy of Conservation – Very well done. I am recommending it to be part of the core training for the next group of Springfield Plateau Missouri Master Naturalists!

2026 Million Marker Test Kit – I’m going to do as much as I can to reduce microplastics…then do this test….probably next summer. It is advertised as the only mail-in test for BPA, BPS, BPF, phthalates, parabens, and oxybenzone.

2/3/2026 Yale 360 China to See Solar Capacity Outstrip Coal Capacity This Year - By the end of 2026, wind and solar will account for nearly half of China’s power capacity. Including hydro and nuclear power, clean energy will amount to nearly two-thirds of total power capacity, while coal will amount to a third. Competing with cheap solar and wind, a large share of coal plants are now operating at a loss.

2/1/2026 Cool Green Science Catching Sharks for Science - On Long Beach Island, volunteer anglers help researchers uncover the hidden journeys of sharks in threatened salt marsh ecosystems.

2/3/2026 Science Daily Even remote Pacific fish are full of microplastics - Even in some of the most isolated corners of the Pacific, plastic pollution has quietly worked its way into the food web. A large analysis of fish caught around Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu found that roughly one in three contained microplastics, with Fiji standing out for especially high contamination. Reef and bottom-dwelling fish were most affected, linking exposure to where fish live and how they feed.

2/1/2026 National Parks Traveler New York Art Teacher Earns 30 National Park Resident Artist Spots In 10 Years – Artist-in-residence at National Park Service sites. Many of the programs are funded by nonprofits, grants, or donations made directly to the Park Service. Categories are broad and include writers, painters, photographers, musicians, dancers, sculptors, and animators. 

1/30/2026 My Modern Met Society of Photographers 2025 Contest Announces Its Astounding Winners – Chosen from over 6,000 photographs submitted!

1/29/2026 BBC From bad omen to national treasure: The rare bone-swallower stork saved by a female army - Known locally as the hargila (or "bone-swallower") for its scavenging ways, greater adjutant storks are unique birds. Roughly 5ft (1.5m) tall, they aren't only imposing but also play a vital role in maintaining the health of a wetland ecosystem. As scavengers that consume and clean up carcasses, they prevent the spread of disease and break down decaying organic matter, recycling essential nutrients back into the soil. They were feared, reviled and in some communities, hunted for their meat which was once widely used in folk medicine as a cure for leprosy or antidote to poison.

1/28/2026 Archaeology Magazine Study tracks wild potato across the Southwest - People carried a small, wild potato known as the Four Corners potato (Solanum jamesii), across the southwestern United States some 10,000 years ago.

1/27/2026 Super Age Wellness Is Finally Admitting It Got the Last Decade Wrong – The article lists 10 trends from the 2026 Global Wellness Report. One of the 10 is “Microplastics are at threat to healthspan.”

Form Givers

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Mid-Century Architecture was the subject of the Form Givers exhibit of 1959. The exhibit book is the week’s Book of the Week and is available from Internet Archive. The exhibit was organized and sponsored by Time Magazine for The American Federation of Arts. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was one of the museums to host the exhibit. I was a little surprised that there was no west coast museum (the furthest west was The Minneapolis Institute of Arts) on the list of museums even though there were examples of some west coast structures featured in the photographs.

The quote from Henry R. Luce on the title page (“…and we will succeed in creating the first modern, technological, humane, prosperous, and reverent civilization. This creative response to challenge will be most vividly expressed in and by architecture.”) reflects the optimism about the future in the late 1950s….a time just before I started school.  

Form givers

Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield

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I left the house a little before 8 AM. One of my fellow Missouri Master Naturalist’s was leading a birding hike at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield to begin at 8:30. This was my first visit to Wilson’s Creek. It was a sunny winter morning – much warmer than the previous 2 Saturdays and without snow on the ground. It was cold enough that the mud was frozen. We met at the parking lot of the Visitor Center and then drove into the park.

We hiked for about 3 hours! I took some landscape pictures…some very white fungus on a log…a sycamore almost undermined along the edge of the creek (perhaps it will fall during the next big storm)…leave wads at the edge of the creek…the riparian zone…lichen on the bridge.

The bird highlight of the early part of the hike was a winter wren on the opposite side of Wilson’s Creek in the debris around a fallen tree. They are small and blend in very well…it took be a bit to see it move – find it. There was more bird activity as it got warmer toward the end of the hike.

We hiked up a rocky stream bed of a losing stream. There was a frozen pool where it usually goes dry.

We stopped by two small glades – lots of green moss and some brownish fungus. There was also some prickly pear.

The highlight at the end of the hike was seeing an armadillo in a field of corn stubble! This species has been moving northward in recent decades!

It was too early for wildflowers…so I am already thinking about going back…

Our Missouri Yard – February 2026

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I put on my river boots to walk around the yard as the snow melted last week. I was glad to see the recently cut stump of the Callery Pear looked like it was rotting; I’ll be continuing to cut it until it is dead; the stems have thorns! The horse nettle fruits from last fall are a bit of color in the flower bed. An oat leaf blown from our neighbor’s tree was a point of interest in a snowbank on the far side of our yard. The forsythia in the northwest corner of our yard is another project where the pruning chainsaw will be used.

The high point of my walk was seeing that my small Ozark Witch Hazel is blooming! This is the time of year for it to bloom, but I hadn’t noticed the blooms before since the young tree kept most of its leaves. I am hopeful that it will take over the southwest corner of my back yard but that might take a few years.

Bulbs are up on the east side of my house, and the metal sculpture is marking something I planted last year (and adding some color). The Hens and Chicks are still doing well in our rock garden. The snow formed hieroglyph type shapes as it melted.

The forecast is for temperatures warm enough this weekend that I might get out to do some winter yard work!

eBotanical Prints – January 2026

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in January – all are available for browsing on Internet Archive.   I started working my way through the Carnivorous Plant Newsletters in December; there are 4 volumes per year so I only browsed late 1980s and into the 1990s in January; I’ll continue browsing this periodical in February.

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,283 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here.

Click on any sample image from January’s 20 books below 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 January 2026 eBotanical Prints!

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.14:no.4 (1985) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1985

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.15:no.1 (1986) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1986

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.15:no.2 (1986) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1986

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.1 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.2 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.3 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.16:no.4 (1987) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1987

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.1 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.2 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.3 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.17:no.4 (1988) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1988

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.1 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.2 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.3 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.18:no.4 (1989) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1989

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.20:no.3 (1991) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1991

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.20:no.4 (1991) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1991

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.21:no.3 (1992) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1992

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.22:no.3 (1993) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1993

Carnivorous plant newsletter v.23:no.2 (1994) *California State University, Fullerton. Arboretum*sample image*1994

Cooper’s Hawk

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A Cooper’s Hawk caught a European Starling during our recent big snow. When I first saw it, the capture/kill had already happened, and the Cooper’s Hawk was standing over its prey on our patio table very near our feeders. It was easy to see that the prey was a starling.

The hawk carried its prey to the ground behind a clump of grass and almost directly below one of our feeders. It began to pluck the feathers. There was enough breeze that the feathers quickly blew away over the snow. As the hawk started the meal, the other birds began to return to the feeders – secure in the knowledge that the hawk was fully occupied.

The carcass was mostly behind the clump of grass but it was still disconcerting to watch the movements of the hawk with all the other little birds flitting around on the feeders and not that far away on the ground. Knowing that it is part of the ‘circle of life’ did not translate into wanting to watch it all the way through; my husband and I returned to our other afternoon activities within a few minutes.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 31, 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.

12/5/2025 The Scientist The Ice is Alive: Uncovering the Vanishing World of Glacial Microbes - The ice teems with an invisible and thriving biosphere, lush with bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Scientists have estimated that the glaciers and ice sheets around the globe could contain as many as 1029 cells. The most dynamic … is the surface, where windblown dust mixes with microorganisms to form a dark, granular sediment known as cryoconite. Because this aggregate is darker than the surrounding white ice, it absorbs more solar radiation, melting the ice beneath it. This melting creates water-filled depressions called cryoconite holes that pockmark vast areas of the ice sheet. Cryoconite holes are far from simple puddles; they are oases of life in a polar desert.

2023 NASA History Office NACA to NASA to Now – A book about the history of NASA available free online from the NASA website.

1/14/2026 The Conversation Native pollinators need more support than honeybees in Australia – here’s why - Since the 1990s, the global decline of pollinators due to human activities, climate change and diseases has been a serious concern, especially in Europe and North America. The honeybee is so good at invading and proliferating in Australian landscapes, we now have some of the highest reported densities of feral honeybees in the world. Despite the global pollinator decline, honeybees haven’t disappeared anywhere in the world, even in countries with far fewer resources than Australia. Nor has any plant species gone extinct from a lack of honeybees. In contrast, there is overseas evidence of plant population declines due to the presence of honeybees and lack of native pollinators.

1/13/2026 Yale Environment 360 Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout - Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second.

1/12/2026 Compound Interest What are rubber ducks made from? - Scientists discovered polyvinyl chloride, or PVC for short, accidentally in the 1800s on more than one occasion. A hard and brittle plastic, PVC had little commercial use until it was mixed with softening plasticizers to make a much more moldable material. The modern rubber duck is not made from rubber, but from plasticized PVC colored with a bright yellow pigment.

1/13/2026 Clean Technica EPA Cooks the Books on Industrial Pollution Costs – They (EPA) will henceforth consider only the economic cost of the regulations to corporations, and if they are deemed to be too burdensome, those regulations will be softened in order to avoid undue economic harm to the polluters. This includes fine particulates (2.5 microns or less) that include microplastics and fossil fuel combustion products….contributing to many negative health outcomes.

1/13/2026 UPI U.S. greenhouse gas emissions growing faster than economy - For the first time in three years annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased, climbing by 2.4% in 2025 as federal policy shifted back to fossil fuels. For the first time in three years annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased, climbing by 2.4% in 2025 as federal policy shifted back to fossil fuels.

1/11/2026 Science Daily A room full of flu patients and no one got sick - n a striking real-world experiment, flu patients spent days indoors with healthy volunteers, but the virus never spread. Researchers found that limited coughing and well-mixed indoor air kept virus levels low, even with close contact. Age may have helped too, since middle-aged adults are less likely to catch the flu than younger people. The results highlight ventilation, air movement, and masks as key defenses against infection.

1/15/2026 BBC Rare images of Europe's 'ghost cat' - After several decades, this mysterious little beast is returning to our forests.

1/14/2026 NASA Earth Observatory Fires on the Rise in the Far North - In the far north, wildfires are breaking old patterns. Satellite data show that wildland fires once scattered across the Arctic are now surging in numbers—particularly in northern Eurasia—and many are burning more intensely than before. n the 2000s, fires north of 60 degrees latitude appeared across both North America and Eurasia, but starting in the early 2010s, their numbers skyrocketed, most dramatically in Eurasia. Even the icy island of Greenland entered a new fire regime during this period, experiencing more large fires, though still too few to be visible on these maps. Researchers attribute these trends to rising temperatures, which have made northern landscapes more flammable, along with a poleward expansion of lightning—the primary ignition source for these fires.

Zooming - January 2026

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The zoomed imaging from this month were taking in my daughter’s yard in Springfield MO, my yard in Nixa MO, Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge, the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield MO, the Lake Springfield Boathouse and the Texas Welcome Center on US 75. It was not a big photography month. I expect February will have more if the weather does not cause cancellations of winter hikes I have planned.

Life Magazine in 1945

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Internet Archive has digitized versions of many Life Magazines. I have been browsing through them – slowly since there was an issue for each week. As I looked at the issues from 1945, it seemed that the was pivotal: the atrocities in Europe were in the news more and trials were starting for German leader that had not killed themselves….the US succeeded in ending the war with Japan by using atomic bombs.  The industry that supplied the war was being scrapped or turned to civilian uses. (Click on any of the sample images below to see a larger version and the links to see the whole magazine online.)

Life Magazine 1945-01-01 - 5,000 tires wear out on the western front every 24 hours

Life Magazine 1945-01-08 - Evening of July 25 in Normandy (painting)

Life Magazine 1945-01-15 - Granite stones for Hitler’s victory monument

Life Magazine 1945-01-22 - Western Electric ad

Life Magazine 1945-01-29 - Vegetable of War in the Southwest

Life Magazine 1945-02-05 - Murder in the Snow (where Germans shot US prisoners

Life Magazine 1945-02-12 - Trench foot

Life Magazine 1945-02-19 - Dalai Lama

Life Magazine 1945-02-26 - Soldiers in Germany (winter)

 Life Magazine 1945-03-05 - Iwo Jima

Life Magazine 1945-03-12 - Glass manufacturing

Life Magazine 1945-03-19 - Germans crumble in the west

Life Magazine 1945-03-26 - German girl in ruins of Cologne

Life Magazine 1945-04-02 - Coca Cola ad

Life Magazine 1945-04-09 - American paratrooper….east of the Rhine

Life Magazine 1945-04-16 - Ford ad

Life Magazine 1945-04-23 - Roosevelt's death

Life Magazine 1945-04-30 - Hitler's hideout

 Life Magazine 1945-05-07 - Belsen

Life Magazine 1945-05-14 - Nazi suicides

Life Magazine 1945-05-21 - London goes wild on VE day

Life Magazine 1945-05-28 - Okinawa

Life Magazine 1945-06-04 - Battered face of Germany

Life Magazine 1945-06-11 - Middle East oil

Life Magazine 1945-06-18 - Americans battle for Okinawa

Life Magazine 1945-06-25 - Harry Truman's Missouri

 Life Magazine 1945-07-02 - Hitler's eyrie

Life Magazine 1945-07-09 - Japanese surrenders are increasing

Life Magazine 1945-07-16 - Caricatures of correspondents

Life Magazine 1945-07-23 - Berlin

Life Magazine 1945-07-30 - Postwar Jeep

Life Magazine 1945-08-06 - Empire State Building fire

Life Magazine 1945-08-13 - General Motors: refrigerators and airplane propeller blades

Life Magazine 1945-08-20 - Atomic bomb

Life Magazine 1945-08-27 - Victorious China

 Life Magazine 1945-09-03 - Planes scrapped

Life Magazine 1945-09-10 - Battered Tokyo

Life Magazine 1945-09-17 - Hiroshima

Life Magazine 1945-09-24 - Coca Cola ad

Life Magazine 1945-10-01 - International Harvester ad

Life Magazine 1945-10-08 - Masks worn in Hiroshima

Life Magazine 1945-10-15 - Nagasaki

Life Magazine 1945-10-22 - USS Battan in Panama Canal

Life Magazine 1945-10-29 - USS Enterprise I New York Harbor

 Life Magazine 1945-11-05 - Solar eclipse

Life Magazine 1945-11-12 - Waterfront fire - Chicago

Life Magazine 1945-11-19 - British brides

Life Magazine 1945-11-26 - Graveyard of US Liberty ships

Life Magazine 1945-12-03 - Berlin children

Life Magazine 1945-12-10 - International Harvester ad

Life Magazine 1945-12-17 - Housing shortage

Life Magazine 1945-12-24 - Tom Wolf and Asheville NC

Life Magazine 1945-12-31 - Big snow in Buffalo

Lake Springfield – January 2026

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There was an ‘eagle’ event at the Lake Springfield Boathouse last weekend. The temperature was in the 20s and a little breezy…but I bundled up and headed out. The parking lot still had plenty of spaces when I got there. The spotting scopes were set up on the lakeside deck of the boathouse…but they were on ducks rather than bald eagles! Evidently there had been a couple of eagles sighted before the event started – from a nearby lookout, not visible from the boathouse. After watching the ducks for a little while, I opted to switch my photography to plants.

The sycamore at the edge of the lake was catching the light.

I walked around to look for seed pods…and anything else interesting in the plantings around the boathouse. The beautyberries were shriveled but still retained some color. A bush trimmed to keep it within the bed displayed a cracked stump. The browns and off-white colors dominate in winter but there were some green leaves of some bulbs coming up in one bed.

It was a short foray into the cold – testing out my gear from some winter wellness hiking over the next few weeks.