Our Missouri Yard – December 2025

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December had started off with some very cold days with low temperatures in the 20s or teens at night and barely getting above 50 on 3 days (other days the high was in the 40s). Almost all the trees had lost their leaves abruptly in November when we had some very cold days. As I walked around the yard taking pictures for this post, I found myself searching for color and interesting textures.

The Virginia Creeper that had been so beautiful in previous falls (red leaves) had either died back or retained the color for only a few days. Some of the vines retained their leaves – but they are brown rather than bright red.

The crape myrtles have interesting seed pods. I am going to cut them all back when there is a day above 50….they will look better next year if I do. One of them is tall enough to brush against the eve of the house so that one is the priority to get cut. The other one to tackle is the one that has a Callery Pear (wild form of the Bradford Pear) growing with it. The red leaves are the pear so I can (hopefully) cut it very close to the ground.

The bed near our front door has some color – bushes that are bright yellow (that need to be trimmed) and some plants that haven’t succumbed to cold temperatures yet because they are protected. The Japanese Maple in the corner has lost its leaves and may be dying; that corner has not worked well for that small tree.

The places where I put the bark mulch from our last tree trimming are holding up well. I will pull weeds from them and plant new plants into some of them next spring. The one under the Kousa dogwood mulch needs some native ground cover planted there…and maybe some of the lower branches cut.

There are seed heads on the lambs ear and goldenrod and chives…hopefully I will have more of those plants next year.

Our backyard is fenced and I am planting to not mow until early summer - leave the leaves. A lot of the leaves are from our neighbor’s oak and probably contain overwintering insects. The birds will appreciate the bounty – food for their chicks next spring. I am noticing that the circle where the pine needles are falling is enlarged than last year. I will be mowing less of the side yard next year! My long-term plan for the side yard a mowed path….not much grass at all…native plants filling in on both sides of the path (and maybe the path itself which might change from year to year.  

The bed where we removed a pine tree that fell over is more exposed that most of our beds. The plants there had frost. The small cluster of American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) fruit is a pop of color. Hopefully next year the beautyberry will begin to grow more rapidly and become the dominate plant in the bed at some point. I will probably allow a native tree that comes up (bird or squirrel planted)…whichever one shows up first: oak, redbud, or hackberry.

On the west side of the house there is a clover pillow that seems greener than the area around it. Maybe the grass growing there is greener with the extra nitrogen the clover provides in the soil! The witch hazel is still small but I am hopeful I might see a few blooms next year. It is a Missouri native – Ozark Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) which blooms in January/February.

I am watching the forecast for warmer day to get some cleanup done….and to put down a thick layer of mulch for my new bed that will be planting into next spring. My daughter will be getting more mulch when she has her oak trimmed.

Project FeederWatch – Another Season

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We started our second season recording observations of birds at our home feeders with Project FeederWatch. Our set up is the same as last year. We have two old rocker recliners in our basement that have a clear view of our feeders on the other side of the patio from our window that is under the deck.

The Project FeederWatch season started on November 1 and there was still a lot of greenery. I cut back the Japanese Barberry (really want to take it out completely) but otherwise there is more vegetation than last year with the cedars, holly, and violets growing over the past year. The feeder nestled in the holly and cedars is a bit harder to reach. There is a brush pile in another part of the patio (in the lower left of the picture) that is my holding area for twigs I will burn in the chimenea eventually. The birds like that area too.

New this year is clump of vegetation at the edge of the patio between the two feeders: Pokeweed that seems to come up everywhere in our yard and grasses that had sprouted from birdseed from the feeders above. In general, the birds seem to like the extra vegetation and they eat the seeds from both plants occasionally.

The window and the low light make photography more for id than art. Even at the being of the season we had dark-eyed junco (a winter bird for us), downy woodpeckers, and northern cardinals, tufted titmice, and at least 3 kinds of sparrows…to name few.

Of course we have squirrels that come through too. They sit on the deck railing and gaze longingly at the feeders – which have proved to be mostly squirrel-proof!

Zooming – November 2025

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The week at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was a big one for photography. It was hard to choose from almost 5000 images for the month. I finally managed to select 26 favorites…birds dominate but there are a couple of dragonflies and three reptiles (a lizard, a snake, and tortoise). I’ve included a picture of Reunion Tower in Dallas as my husband drove us through the city (I opened my window) and a tiled bench at one of the rest stops. We had our first frost at home.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 29, 2025

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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.

Everyday microplastics could be fueling heart disease - Microplastics—tiny particles now found in food, water, air, and even human tissues—may directly accelerate artery-clogging disease, and new research shows the danger may be far greater for males.

The Mystery of the Mast Year - Every few years, certain species of trees seem to go buck wild, dropping an extraordinary quantity of nuts, seeds, or fruits all at once. What’s more, this bumper crop tends to extend across vast geographical ranges, so that a white oak in Central Park is shedding buckets of acorns at the same time as a white oak in the Shenandoah Valley. Not all trees mast, but many species dominant in American forests do, such as oak, hickory, beech, and dogwood.

Ultra-processed foods quietly push young adults toward prediabetes - More than half of the calories people consume in the United States come from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which include items such as fast food and packaged snacks that tend to contain large amounts of sodium, added sugars and unhealthy fats.

Why Should We Avoid Heating Plastic? - When plastic is heated, its molecules will move around more freely and the whole structure will become less rigid. This makes it easier for those additives to detach and migrate into nearby foods or liquids. To reduce your exposure, heat food in containers made of inert materials like ceramic or glass, avoid storing hot, fatty, or acidic food in plastic, and try to shorten the storage time of all food and beverages in plastic containers.

'They're just so much further ahead': How China won the world's EV battery race - In 2005, China only had two EV battery manufacturers. Twenty years later, it produces more than three-quarters of the world's lithium-ion cells. Today, China dominates the production at every stage of the battery supply chain, apart from the mining and processing of some raw minerals.

Obesity-Related Cancers Are Rising in Young and Old - Six of cancers—leukemia, thyroid, breast, colorectal, kidney, and endometrial—increased in prevalence in young adults in at least 75 percent of the examined countries. However, five of these six cancers also showed increased prevalence in older adults. Colorectal cancer was the exception. The cancer types with increased incidence in both younger and older adults were all linked to obesity.

Growth of Wind and Solar Keeping Fossil Power in Check - This year it is projected that new wind and solar power will more than meet growing demand for electricity globally, keeping fossil fuel consumption flat. However, while the world is beginning to keep emissions from power plants in check, overall emissions continue to tick up, rising by 1.1 percent this year.

Researchers Discover ‘Death Ball’ Sponge and Dozens of Other Bizarre Deep-Sea Creatures in the Southern Ocean - Researchers have discovered 30 previously unknown deep-sea species in the remote ocean surrounding Antarctica - an achievement highlighting just how little humanity knows about some of the deepest regions of the planet. Fewer than 30 percent of the expedition’s samples have been assessed thus far so there could be more discoveries to report soon.

Short-Chain PFAS Eclipse Their Longer Counterparts in Blood Serum - The conventional wisdom is that short-chain PFAS are of lesser concern because they don’t bioaccumulate, but what we’re seeing is that they can occur at high levels in people. A new study shows that young adults who ate more UPFs also showed signs of insulin resistance, a condition in which the body becomes less efficient at using insulin to manage blood sugar.

Get Up Close with Alabama’s Rivers – Mac Stone photographing Alabama’s waterways…places full of biodiversity. The post includes pictures: southern dusky salamander, pitcher plant blooms, alligator snapping turtles, swamp lily, brown pelican.

Rio Grande Pontoon

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The first morning of the festival was an early one; we were at the Harlingen Convention Center by 6 AM to board the bus that would take us through the border fencing to the dock where we would board a pontoon boat. I took a few pictures of the plants growing at the edge of the parking lot as the guides talked about the trip and what we would likely see.

The boat was large enough to provide space for everyone plus our gear. There was a lot to see during the whole trip. The birds that I managed to photograph and that are in the slideshow below are:

  • American Coot

  • Caspian tern

  • Ducks (hybrids)

  • Egrets: Snowy, Reddish, Great

  • Golden-Fronted Woodpecker

  • Great Kiskadee

  • Herons: Great Blue, Tricolored, Yellow-crowned Night

  • Kingfishers: Green, Ringed

  • Osprey

  • Pied-billed grebe

  • Roseate Spoonbill

The river was clean – almost no trash. There were some houses on both sides and parks. A small group of people were picking up trash along the river in a park on the Mexican side; they must do it frequently enough that there isn’t a lot of trash to pick up. Border control was evident on the US side. It was a quite weekday morning on the river…great for birding.

Life Magazine in 1942

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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 1942, I saw the impact of Pearl Harbor on the nation and the magazine. There every week there were articles about the war and even the ads contained references to the war. It was a voice that both reported on and promoted the active support of the war effort by everyone.

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

 Life Magazine 1942-01-05

Life Magazine 1942-01-12

Life Magazine 1942-01-19

Life Magazine 1942-01-26

Life Magazine 1942-02-02

Life Magazine 1942-02-09

Life Magazine 1942-02-16

Life Magazine 1942-02-23

My Missouri Neighborhood – October 2025

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The mornings are cool…a sign of fall. I headed out for a short walk around the neighborhood pond. There is always something to photograph.

There are two good sized willows at opposite ends of the pond. I photographed the one that seem healthier…no dead branches; its branches move gracefully in dapples of sunlight.

Some of the native plants added last spring near one of the bridges have survived. They will probably do even better next year. There was a skipper sitting on one that seemed to be holding still just for me!

In the water, a few of the pickerel weeds are thriving. There were quite a few that didn’t. Hopefully the plants growing now will propagate…begin to take some of the extra nutrients out of the water. There is a lot of algae in the water this fall.

The maples are beginning to show fall color. We’ve not had much rain the past few months so it might not be as brilliant this year although these maples are near the pond so perhaps they got enough water.

I only saw one turtle, and it was gone before I could get closer. There was a lot of mud on that side of the pond and I wondered if it was from the weed eating too close to the edge.

A river birch has leaves dipping into the water.

The stump from a tree one of neighbors cut down before we moved to area has almost completely decayed. There is some fungus still working on the last of it…and another of the same kind in the nearby grass that might have been working on a root from the old tree.

When I got back to my driveway I noticed a mushroom near the streetlight in a corner of my front yard. It may be that mulching of grass as I mow has increased the plant debris in the soil enough to support more kinds of mushroom – I hope that is what’s happening!

Life Magazine in 1941

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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 1941, I thought about the buildup of war activities in the US and then Pearl Harbor occurring in December. The US did not formally enter the war until December 11th but it is obvious from the pictures Life published that people were very aware of what was happening and the US involvement too. And there were still other aspects of life that continued on – iceboats, Coca-Cola, glass food packaging, the New York skyline. (Click on any of the sample images below to see a larger version and the links to see the whole magazine online.)

 Life Magazine 1941-01-06 – Ernest Hemingway

Life Magazine 1941-01-13 – Hitler with big guns

Life Magazine 1941-01-20 – Florida sand and mud creating Camp Blanding for 70,000 soldiers

Life Magazine 1941-01-27 – London on fire from war

Life Magazine 1941-02-03  - Wright Field wind tunnel

Life Magazine 1941-02-10 – American bombers poised to take off from Newfoundland

Life Magazine 1941-02-17 - Iceboats

Life Magazine 1941-02-24 – Railway gun built by US Industry

Life Magazine 1941-03-03 – Greek Peasant troops into Albania in winter

Life Magazine 1941-03-10 – Mayor LaGuardia explaining the food stamp plan

Life Magazine 1941-03-17 – English children

Life Magazine 1941-03-24 – Tornado shelters

Life Magazine 1941-03-31 – Bombing rehearsal off Diamond Head, Hawaii from aircraft carrier

Life Magazine 1941-04-07 – Coca-Cola six-bottle carton (cardboard and glass)

Life Magazine 1941-04-14 – British war prisoners (sketches from a German prison camp)

Life Magazine 1941-04-21 – Damaged British battleship seeking repairs in New York’s upper bay

Life Magazine 1941-04-28 – Glass for food packaging

Life Magazine 1941-05-05 – Big classes at Harvard

Life Magazine 1941-05-12 – Gandhi is the voice of Hindu masses

Life Magazine 1941-05-19 – Nazi blitzkrieg reaches London’s oldest cardroom

Life Magazine 1941-05-26 – Balkan war

Life Magazine 1941-06-02 – Nazis wreck great monuments of English culture

Life Magazine 1941-06-09 – Crete invasion

Life Magazine 1941-06-16 – Women bringing pans to provide metals of the war

Life Magazine 1941-06-23 – Chinese children (orphans)

Life Magazine 1941-06-30 – Wrecked Axis ships

Life Magazine 1941-07-07 – The arming of America - tanks

Life Magazine 1941-07-14 – Beer and ale

Life Magazine 1941-07-21 – Tin makes Singapore rich

Life Magazine 1941-07-28 – War in Russia

Life Magazine 1941-08-04 – Germans execute Russian sniper caught in wheat field

Life Magazine 1941-08-11 – Life photographer in Moscow a week before Nazi invasion

Life Magazine 1941-08-18 – Line of tanks

Life Magazine 1941-08-25 – Naval gun construction at Bethlehem

Life Magazine 1941-09-01 – Moscow camouflages itself by day and black out by night

Life Magazine 1941-09-08 – Hard times of Alden family

Life Magazine 1941-09-15 – Battleship tests its guns at sea

Life Magazine 1941-09-22 – Roosevelt mourning his mother

Life Magazine 1941-09-29 – Spitsbergen – British blow up coal mines

Life Magazine 1941-10-06 – Rain, mud, dust….the Army goes through

Life Magazine 1941-10-13 – Appalachian trail

Life Magazine 1941-10-20 – Pan American Airways Clipper

Life Magazine 1941-10-27 – Crowd in Moscow park listening to war speakers

Life Magazine 1941-11-03 – Army builds its Iceland base

Life Magazine 1941-11-10 – New York skyline behind New Jersey suburbs

Life Magazine 1941-11-17 – Russian mud and blood stall German army

Life Magazine 1941-11-24 – B-19, world’s largest warplane (at the time)

Life Magazine 1941-12-01 – Balloon houses for defense workers under Virginia trees

Life Magazine 1941-12-08 – American flag goes down in the south Atlantic

Life Magazine 1941-12-15 – Jap bombers aim first blow at Oahu base

Life Magazine 1941-12-22 – US planes fight to command the air

Life Magazine 1941-12-29 – Knox Report – deeds of heroism at Pearl Harbor

Chicago – big city views

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We stayed at The Drake Hotel while we were at the Urban Birding Festival in Chicago. We had a view of a beach and the lake from our window. There was a lot of light on the beach at night – probably confusing to the birds. My husband commented about how much city noise could be heard through the night from our 5th floor room in the historic hotel! Perhaps traffic made a lot less noise when it was built!

Since my husband was driving while we were at the festival, I took pictures as we drove around the city. There are some very tall buildings. Most of the time we were near the lakeshore…so not driving down a ‘canyon’ of tall buildings!

I was impressed that the parts of the city where we were had so little (almost no) trash – very different from other big cities I’ve visited.

Out on Lake Michigan

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We had signed up for birding out on Lake Michigan on the last day of the Urban Birding Festival in Chicago. We had to be at the dock by 5 AM so we were leaving our hotel about 4:30…checking out and loading everything into our car. Both of us were feeling a bit sleep deprived.

Everyone that had signed up for the trip appeared and we were heading out of the harbor by 5:30 AM. The boat was a fishing boat. It wasn’t a windy morning, but I appreciated the extra handholds that the rod holders provided when I tried to move around. I sat most of the time!

Everyone that had signed up for the trip appeared and we were heading out of the harbor by 5:30 AM. The boat was a fishing boat. It wasn’t a windy morning, but I appreciated the extra handholds that the rod holders provided when I tried to move around. I sat most of the time!

We saw the sunrise on the lake. We passed several of the water intakes for the city that are a ways out into the lake and often host colonies of cormorants.

The guides were throwing chum (fish, bread, popcorn) to the birds from the back of the boat. There were more Herring Gulls than Ring-billed Gulls already. We saw a few terns. The hope was for some rarer birds – like a Parasitic Jaeger. That didn’t show up so I focused on observing gulls at various stages of development and how they used their tail feathers to control their flight/landing behind the boat.

The rocking of the boat was calming…at least while I was sitting…not so much when I was moving around.

The skyline of Chicago was always present…although we were at least 15 miles out on the lake. The air around the city was hazy. The air in the city and on the lake was humid and the air quality was yellow (small particulates). It is a big city and there are a lot of cars.

The surprise of the trip was seeing a Monarch butterfly – flying south – when we were between 10 and 15 miles from shore. I had assumed that they took the land route south from Canada…but some of them obviously don’t.

Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and Lincoln Park Zoo

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The headquarters and registration for the Urban Birding Festival in Chicago was at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. We were in and out of the building during all three days of the festival. They have a small butterfly house with some exotics…some natives.

I managed to make a short video of a butterfly feeding.

There were lots of activities for young children. It was fun watching them explore. A fiber mural appealed to me too.

We signed up for a walk at Lincoln Park Zoo – birds and botany – skewed toward botany.

The two birds that I photographed were in a wilder area of the zoo…where wild birds sometimes drop in…sometimes decide to stay. The wood duck was relatively close and preening. The green heron was further way and harder to see through the vegetation. On the underside of a bridge were some barn swallow nests; the birds had already left for the season.

There were turtles out and about – including a soft shelled one.

The plantings in the main part of the zoo are a mix of formal landscaping plants (non-natives) with some natives like coneflowers and turtlehead and sunflowers mixed in.

The zoo has a very old elm that is treated to keep it from succumbing to Dutch Elm Disease. They have started planting elms resistant to the disease.

The walk around South Pond is landscaped with all natives….as close as the horticulturalist can to get prairie…with a few woody plants mixed in on the outer edges. I was surprised at how many plants I recognized! There were lots of yellows and seed pods this time of year!

We made the mistake of using Google Maps to show us the shortest route back to our car; it had exits from the zoo that didn’t exist! We circled back to find an exit….had a much longer walk than we would have had without technology!

Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary

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Our first field trip at the Urban Birding Festival in Chicago was at the Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary. We sought out the rest room facilities in the clock tower beforehand. The doorway there was half covered in ivy. There was an unopened protein bar that someone had dropped on the walk nearby…and cicadas and leaves/small branches. Not trash. There were trash/recycle bins…and evidently, they are used. I noticed a young catalpa with seed pods as we walked back toward the sanctuary.

The core of the sanctuary is protected by a fence; visitors have a good view from a platform that is high enough to look over the fence and vegetation….the platform is where our group spent a couple of hours. There was plenty to see!

There were plenty of birds – including flickers, red-headed woodpeckers, Copper’s hawks (which scattered all the other birds when they were about), downy woodpecker, hummingbirds, and goldfinches.

There were monarch butterflies feeding and resting…before they continued their migration south.

A racoon made an appearance…climbing a tree then coming back down and disappearing into what must have been a hole on the other side of the trunk!

Of course, there was a lot of vegetation to look at when the birds were not active enough. The humidity was high so there was moisture on a lot of the leaves. The usual fall color was there – golden rod and pokeweed included!

To and From Chicago

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My husband and I signed up for an Urban Birding Festival in Chicago earlier this month. I’ll be doing a series of posts about it over the next week. This post is about our drive to and from the city; as usual my husband did all the driving.

We made frequent rest stops along the way. At our first one I realized that the route from Springfield MO to Chicago via Route 66 was depicted on floor! The Interstate route of today is likely a bit straighter that the old route…and the speed we traveled was probably higher too.

I took pictures as we drove – road cuts in Missouri, the arch in St. Louis just before we crossed the Mississippi River, and sunflowers in Illinois.

At the end of our trip, I took a few pictures as we left the city…and of sunflowers along the roadside. I like that Illinois encourages sunflowers in the medians by only mowing the edges (and not mowing too frequently even at the edge). The farmland appeared to be mostly planted in soybeans and corn.

At the last rest stop in Illinois, I recognized a hackberry – it was full of galls produced by insects as most hackberries are.

And then I photographed the arch and bridges as we crossed the Mississippi River into St. Louis.

There was a little fall color in the forests west of St. Louis…and the bluffs always make for added interest.

We got home easily; our three cats were a great welcoming committee.

Our Missouri Yard – September 2025

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There are parts of my yard that I am enjoying even with the prospect of the big landscaping change that is coming (which hopefully will not impact any of the plants in this post):

The Missouri Evening Primrose is thriving by my mailbox (there is a tiny remnant of a prickly pear cactus underneath it that I discovered when I cleaned out the weeds earlier this summer…its growing too!) and a crape myrtle that seems healthier than in previous years.

The Virginia Creeper is crowing on the front steps and onto the bricks. I’ll enjoy it a bit longer than pull it down – relegate it to the horizontal surface of the front flower bed.

The chives are thriving in several places in the back yard. They were started from seeds harvested from my mother’s garden. They don’t seem to care if they are in the sun or shade!

The American spikenard – one of my first native plant purchases – is larger each year. There are violets under it (and a small pokeweed in the foreground). The fruit is beginning to turn purple. I’ll harvest some and try to sprout them indoors to plant outdoors next year.

There are a variety of things in the garden where a pine tree once grew. The iris leaves look a little burnt on the ends, but the pokeweed is full of berries that the birds will eat as they ripen. I am still watching developments…not sure of everything there although I like the surprises discovering the naked lady lilies blooming in August and the beautyberry that I planted…glad that has survived.

The area under the short leaf pine is full of pokeweed – mostly. As the season changes, I will enjoy its red foliage…then cut it down and clear out anything else growing under the tree….except the redbud (perhaps).

Josey Ranch – August 2025

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While I was in Dallas in August, I made an early trip to the pocket prairie and lake at Josey Ranch in Carrollton – a place I visited frequently before we moved my parents to assisted living in January 2024.

There didn’t seem to be very many birds around, so I started my visit at the pocket prairie. The trash cans looked freshly painted, and the gardens looked like they had been recently weeded (piles of vegetation waiting to be picked up). Some of the flowers had gone to seed but that is normal for August. There were marshmallows that were surviving in the rain garden area. The sunflowers dominate but I was glad to see Texas rock rose among the plantings.

I went back to look at the lake and realized that there were not many grackles (I heard several…only saw one)…pigeons were about as numerous as always…only two ducks and one was a white domestic duck. The only birds I saw in the pond were one great egret and one snowy egret. The two swans were still there. Evidently there were a lot of geese there recently judging from the goose poop on the sidewalks. It was depressing that there weren’t more birds around and I wondered what happened.

I noticed more trash in the water – a foam cup, plastic bags, and sheen on the water near the shore. Is there more pollution in the pond now? I saw one turtle snout from a distance. Overall, the pond does not look as healthy as it was a few years ago. I took a few pictures of feathers in the grass.

As I walked to the plantings between the library and senior center, I noticed a tree that was planted in memory of someone. It was about 6 feet from the sidewalk….a Bur Oak! I was surprised that it was planted so close to the sidewalk…maybe the climate in Texas will cause it to not get as big as Bur Oaks usually grow.

I looked for the beautyberry that seemed to thrive previously in that area, but they were gone. One of the new plants was a rock rose. The morning was warming up but I didn’t see many insects.

It was a little depressing that the wildlife that used to be around the area seems to be reduced. Maybe I was there at an odd time….I’ll try to look again later this year when the birds that typically winter in Texas might be around.

Life Magazine in 1940

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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 1940, I thought about my parents in elementary school then and becoming more aware of the war as they got older. Their families were probably listening to the radio but many of the reports must have seemed very far away, and it is unlikely that saw the pictures in Life Magazine. (Click on any of the sample images below to see a larger version.)

 Life Magazine 1940-01-01 – War’s impact on the London Zoo

Life Magazine 1940-01-08 – Trucks from the US going to France for troops

Life Magazine 1940-01-15 – Torpedoed British freighter goes down in the Atlantic

Life Magazine 1940-01-22 – Finnish people fleeing the war

Life Magazine 1940-01-29 – War in Turkey

Life Magazine 1940-02-05 – Swedish aviators

Life Magazine 1940-02-12 – Hardship in Spain

Life Magazine 1940-02-19 – In Russia

Life Magazine 1940-02-26 – Germans in Poland

 

Life Magazine 1940-03-04 – Life in Miami

Life Magazine 1940-03-11 – Maginot Line

Life Magazine 1940-03-18 – Coco Cola ad

Life Magazine 1940-03-35 - Plastics

Life Magazine 1940-04-01 – Niblets corn ad

Life Magazine 1940-04-08 – Stratoliner plane

Life Magazine 1940-04-15 - Fashion

Life Magazine 1940-04-15 – A German-transport armada crosses to Norway

Life Magazine 1940-04-29 – Europe’s sea power

 

Life Magazine 1940-05-06 – Shirley Temple

Life Magazine 1940-05-13  - British destroyer crew rides waves of North Sea after Germans sink ship

Life Magazine 1940-05-20 – German Blitzkrieg

Life Magazine 1940-05-27 – British in Belgium

Life Magazine 1940-06-03 – Germany’s fighting forces

Life Magazine 1940-06-10 – German private with a French flag captured in battle

Life Magazine 1940-06-17 – British wounded

Life Magazine 1940-06-24 – Mussolini struts his stuff as prelude to war

 

Life Magazine 1940-07-01 – Britons aim at the sky, send children to the US

Life Magazine 1940-07-08 – Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the Arctic

Life Magazine 1940-07-15 – Imaginary invasion of Britain

Life Magazine 1940-07-22 – British children housed in an American Castle by the Sea

Life Magazine 1940-07-29 – Easter in Paris

Life Magazine 1940-08-05 – Vacation at the Grand Canyon

Life Magazine 1940-08-12 – Japanese bomb Chungking

Life Magazine 1940-08-19 – Parachute practice

Life Magazine 1940-08-26 – War in English Channel and over London

 

Life Magazine 1940-09-02 – The Oval Office

Life Magazine 1940-09-09 – German bombers try to break civilian morale

Life Magazine 1940-09-16 – Heart diseases a major factor in US death rate

Life Magazine 1940-09-23 – Hitler tries to destroy London

Life Magazine 1940-09-30 – The bombing of London

Life Magazine 1940-10-07 – Bombing of London (damage)

Life Magazine 1940-10-14 – Praying for Great Britain in Washington’s National Cathedral

Life Magazine 1940-10-21 – US Industry

Life Magazine 1940-10-28 – The US Navy

 

Life Magazine 1940-11-04 – International Trucks

Life Magazine 1940-11-11 – Hitler’s Reich Chancellery

Life Magazine 1940-11-18 – Times Square on Election Night

Life Magazine 1940-11-25 – The world’s biggest ship leaves New York to join the war at sea

Life Magazine 1940-12-02 – Mussolini tries to break Greece

Life Magazine 1940-12-09 - Gibraltar

Life Magazine 1940-12-16 – German plane crash

Life Magazine 1940-12-23 – Ruins of Coventry

Life Magazine 1940-12-30 – Germans in Paris

What is eating the pokeweed?

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I have learned to tolerate pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) in many places in my Missouri yard…where it provides lush greenery…eye-catching magenta stems…flowers for small pollinators…food for birds.

This is the first year I have noticed that something is eating the leaves.

I thought perhaps it could be Giant Leopard Moth (Hypercompe Scribonia) caterpillars that are reported to eat the plant….but I have never seen them on the plants.

I did see some frass one morning (the fly is for size comparison) but the caterpillars are apparently stealthy.  The mystery is not a bad thing necessarily; it motivates me to check the plants more frequently…and I’m pleased that the pokeweed leaves are food for something rather than remaining pristine!

Butterfly House – August 2025

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So many things to see in the Botanical Garden and the Roston Native Butterfly House this month. There are plenty of native plants in bloom in the rain garden on the walk between the Botanical Center and the house….but I just take a quick look since I want a few minutes to get things cleaned up before turning the sign to ‘open.’

Sometimes we find butterflies that have died overnight. I took a picture of one before we put it in the small bin we keep for butterflies that have succumbed. Another morning I found the 4 parts of a cecropia moth’s wings scattered on the floor; maybe a mouse ate the body during the night?

I like to see butterflies getting nectar from flowers…but sometimes it is enough to see them ‘resting.’ There are often fresh zinnias for the butterflies – freshly cut from the Master Gardener area of the Botanical Gardens. And there is always something blooming in the house itself. I like the Zen of the place when there aren’t many people but there is always the magic of a child’s wonder seeing a butterfly in a way they haven’t before.

The caterpillar that was ‘new to me’ this month was a Zebra Swallowtail…large enough to make its chrysalis – picked up off the floor when it was trying to leave the plant!

The moths are easily photographed because they are not very active during the day. The Luna moth is my favorite….but the Polyphemus is beautiful too. They, along with the Cecropia, have large caterpillars that are always interesting to visitors.

Our Missouri Yard in August 2025

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July was very dry here, but our sprinkler system has kept up. Our shade garden looks lush with violets and a few hostas and lambs ear going to seed. The dried remains of alliums and some grass seed heads offer some highlights in the sea of violets.

The American Spikenard is blooming with violets under it a little further up the hill – and where I can see it from my office window.

Even further up the hill with violets around it, is the spicebush I planted last fall. I have been checking it for eggs or caterpillars --- and it finally has caterpillars. I counted 4 – all Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars. I am leaving them alone right now but will go out and check on them. They are easy to spot even when they are small because they pull the leaf around themselves (like a leaf taco) when they resting.

One morning last week when I was out weed eating, I noticed that one of my mother’s naked lady lily bulbs that I planted in my yard in January 2023 has survived! The pokeweed shades it from the heat. There was a second plant that was mostly still buds. I was happy to see it --- glad it was there to spark memories of Mom. I took some macro images of the flowers. They start out a darker pink then fade as they mature.

The pokeweed seems to have more evidence that insects are eating its foliage…but has plenty of energy to make seeds. None of reached maturity yet (i.e. no purple fruits). I am going to let the ones in the bed with the lilies make seeds and hope the birds will enjoy the this fall/winter.

There are birds around: a female hummingbird that comes to my feeder frequently and sometimes flies to the nearby pine or visits the plants in the shade garden, a family of finches,

A young wren,

And a juvenile robin in the pine tree (the third brood for the summer). I am glad that the shade garden seems to be attractive to so many birds.

In the front yard, the crape myrtles are doing better than I expected. They tend to die back in winter but this year they seem to be more robust.

The Virginia creeper is a thick ground cover in the front bed around two of the crape myrtles. I periodically pull it off the bricks although the way it adheres is not damaging like English Ivy can be.

Our yard is looking good in August…and I am looking forward to the work to do the landscaping this fall in the front of the house.

Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge

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The next morning was bright and sunny. I appreciated the golf course scenes from the front of our hotel room. The sidewalk was wide enough to accommodate tables and chairs; quite a few people were outdoors enjoying the morning sunshine. The bird houses seemed to be populated with sparrows.

Our destination for the morning was Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. It was our second visit (our first was in June of 2024) to see the big cats (and a few bears) that had been rescued from around the country and then provided for in this sprawling facility near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Many of the cats have health challenges either from prior abuse and/or genetic disorders caused by inbreeding. We arrived just in time for the first tram tour at 9 AM. One high point of the tour for me was a juvenile racoon that was perched on the top of one of the enclosures. Hopefully it got itself back to the forest rather than wiggling through to where it would be no match for the big cat.

The other high point was sound. Two lions were communicating! We couldn’t see either one, but it was interesting to hear their back and forth conversation across the facility.

After the tram, we walked through the area closer to the entrance. I remembered some of the cats from our last visit – a serval found by a farmer in Missouri and brought to the refuge…some bobcats found as cubs. There are also some habitats for large cats. I remembered the black leopard; she was in the same place I saw her on my previous visit; She either is turned away from people or follows them as the move about on the other side of the double fence.

One tiger was new to her area and not settled in yet. She was near the back of the enclosure and trying to ignore people and the cats in the enclosure next door. A staff member was encouraging people to be quieter near her enclosure.

There were butterflies active on a patch of zinnias: several Spicebush Swallowtails, a dark morph of the Tiger Swallowtail (I am assuming….there was one that was a lot larger than the Spicebush Swallowtails), and a Common Buckeye butterfly.   

We headed toward home, stopping at a restaurant that floated on Table Rock Lake. I took a picture of the view from our table…the bluff across a narrow arm of the lake.

On the way back to the car – turtles were visible in the water along the pontoon walkway! The red-eared slider’s markings make identification easy.

We stopped at our house on the way to my daughters…and were greeted at the door by our 3 housecats…wanting cuddles and more food!