Buckyball and Compton Gardens

We visited the Buckyball at The Momentary on our only evening in Bentonville. There were not many people around; we enjoyed reclining on the wooden seats and taking pictures/videos….until we realized how many mosquitoes there were!

It was a Sunday evening, so the eating places were closed…we walked around the nearby garden area. The lights were still on the sculptures. If I return the area, I’ll plan to be there on an evening when businesses are open!

The next morning we walked in Compton Gardens. A few weeks previously when my daughter was there, she had seen lots of butterflies and goldfinches. We didn’t see any goldfinches but there were a few skippers (one was a tawny edged skipper) and a great spangled fritillary butterfly around.

The gardens had been damaged by a tornado recently and some trails were still closed. Some critical cleanups had been done. I took a picture of a recently cut stump and counted the rings in the image. The tree was more than 70 years old!

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (2)

There is also a lot to see in the outdoor area of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.  There were some parts that were closed because of recent storm damage (downed trees…at least one piece of art: R. Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome).

The first sculpture we saw was near the entrance – a silver tree.

Some areas are relatively wild: horse nettles, thistles, shelf-fungus, mallows and grasses.

I was thrilled to photograph a butterfly since I’ve seen so few larger ones this year.

The design on the upper level of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bachman-Wilson House was attractive. We got tickets (free) when we first got to the museum, and entered the house less than 2 hours after our arrival (enough time to do a broad look at the art on display inside the museum). Pictures are not allowed on the inside of the house. I liked the main living room but felt the rest of the house was claustrophobic (low ceilings and narrow hallways).

There were two installations of Chihuly glass.

There was a giant spider sculpture. It was a good place to take a little rest.

There were several animal sculptures along the trails. I photographed a bear with a fish, a smiling pig, and arabbit with an itching ear.

Water features are near most of the trails. I appreciated the structures in one of the streams to ‘slow the flow.’

There was a turn out from one trail to view quartz crystals in boulders that often contain imprints organisms from long ago in parts that are not crystals.

We probably spent at least as much time outdoors at Crystal Bridges as we did inside! It would be interesting to go again in a different season…maybe next spring.

Lake Springfield Boathouse – May 2024

My husband and I enjoy the area near the Lake Springfield Boathouse for its meadow and birds. I forgot about our late May visit until I rediscovered the pictures I took!

The gardens around the boathouse were beginning to bloom and there were gardeners at work while we were there. There is a good stand of milkweed and butterfly weed but I didn’t see any Monarch butterflies.

The Purple Martin houses were full of birds!

Bluebirds were around as well. They are probably utilizing houses in the area, but I saw them near the feeders and nearby trees.

There were a pair of tree swallows on a sign as well. They use the same size house as bluebirds.

The meadow is beginning to bloom but the morning was still cool enough that I didn’t see many insects – a few butterflies and bubble bees.

My husband commented that he missed the meadow we frequented in Maryland that had a path mowed through it – the plants on both sides making it easier to get close to insects for photography. The meadow near the boathouse is one large area: no easy access to the interior.

Eureka Springs & Northern Arkansas Railway

My husband, daughter, and I took a two-day trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas just before Memorial Day. It’s less than a 2-hour drive from our home in Missouri. The nav system took us on a scenic route…curvy 2 lane highway all the way, with frequent road cuts that were generally well back from the shoulder (I wondered if students on geology field trips use them to see the underlying rock of the area), and over a narrow part of Table Rock Lake.

We arrived a little early and drove through the town. I remembered the main street from more than 50 years ago; the streets that turn off are very steep and narrow up the side of the valley. The place is a driving adventure! We parked in the Eureka Springs & Northern Arkansas Railway just after the terminal opened; we had reservations for the morning excursion train. It was a cloudy morning and had rained recently; the first photographic opportunity of the morning turned out to be butterflies in the gravel parking lot! The mourning cloak on the curb was not moving but all the others took some patience to photograph.

There was collection of old rail cars and engines. I was interested in a tractor that must have been quite a change on farms where horses or oxen had previously done the heavy pulling.

The car and engine that took us on our excursion was waiting for us. They had a ramp mechanism that enabled wheelchair access to the car, but we could also get into the car using stairs.

The train follows a stream, and I managed a few pictures while we were in motion. I saw a pawpaw tree with fruit beginning to grow (but didn’t get a picture); pawpaw is the food plant of the zebra swallowtail butterfly (like I photographed in the parking lot for the train).

The route is only 4.5 miles up and back (and takes about an hour). At the halfway point, we got out and I took some track and vegetation pictures.

The conductor gave us a tutorial about putting pennies on the track as an optional activity for this excursion. My daughter had told us ahead of time (she had done the excursion last fall) so we came prepared. I gave a penny to a man that didn’t have any change with him. We all stood away from the tracks and the train rolled over our pennies – waiting to retrieve our pennies from the track until the conductor got the word from the engineer that it was safe to do so.

Below is a picture of a penny and a train-flattened penny. I am thinking about putting some earring posts on two of the flattened pennies….wearing them as earrings!

It sprinkled a little while we were on the train but had cleared by the time we returned to the station. The train was an excellent start to our Eureka Springs adventure.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 27, 2024

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.

Meet the World’s Largest Freshwater Crayfish – The Tasmanian giant crayfish. Their numbers are declining due to fishing and disturbance.

FDA urges Congress to pass bill mandating food manufacturers test for lead – I am surprised Congress did not pass this already. According to the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention, there have been at least 519 confirmed, probable and suspect cases of lead and chromium poisoning traced to imported applesauce pouches produced by brands WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. Lead exposure in children is associated with learning and behavior problems, as well as hearing and speech issues and slowed growth and development.

Retention ponds can deliver a substantial reduction in tire particle pollution - The presence of wetlands and retention ponds alongside major highways led to an average reduction of almost 75% in the mass of tire wear particles being discharged to aquatic waters. Tire wear particles significantly outweighed other forms of microplastics, such as plastic fibers and fragments.

Climate change is fueling the US insurance problem – I’ve seen more articles about this recently….there is no good news re insurance…nothing that can overcome what climate change is doing. One state-level action that could help mitigate the impacts of climate change is the implementation of flood disclosures. Organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council have urged states to require flood disclosure polices during property sales to help buyers decide whether buying is worth the risk. Research has shown disclosure can devalue flood-prone properties and discourage development in risky areas. Even though the number of states requiring flood disclosure policies is slowly increasing, Florida remains noticeably absent, and one-third of states still have no requirement that sellers must disclose a property's flood risk to potential buyers.

Does the time of day you move your body make a difference to your health? – Maybe – for people living with obesity.

How the iron lung paved the way for the modern-day intensive care unit – The iron lung was first used to save the life of a child in 1928. It swiftly became a fixture in polio wards during the polio outbreaks of the subsequent decades, particularly from 1948 until the vaccine was developed in 1955. And its creation paved the way for many subsequent medical innovations. Some patients spent just a short time in the iron lung, perhaps weeks or months until they were able to regain chest strength and breath independently again. But for patients whose chest muscles were permanently paralyzed, the iron lung remained the key to survival.

Food security in developed countries shows resilience to climate change - Data on American wheat production, inventories, crop area, prices and wider market conditions from 1950 to 2018, together with records of annual fluctuations in the weather for the same period reveals strong evidence of an increase in weather and harvest variability from 1974 onwards. However, Wheat prices remain relatively stable, along with the price of associated goods mainly due to farmers and agricultural industries providing a buffer, smoothing out any bumps in the supply of grain to retailers and consumers.

Where the Xerces Blue Butterfly Was Lost, Its Closest Relative Is Now Filling In - Silvery Blues collected 100 miles south of San Francisco were released at a restored a swath of dunes in the Presidio, a former military base, trying to bring back native wildlife. They will pollinate native flowers and form a critical link in the food chain there.

Colorless, odorless gas likely linked to alarming rise in non-smoking lung cancer - 5-20% of newly diagnosed lung cancers occur in people who have never smoked, many of whom are in their 40s or 50s.  Non-smoking lung cancer cases is likely linked to long-term, high exposures of radon gas. This colorless, odorless gas is emitted from the breakdown of radioactive material naturally occurring underground that then seeps through building foundations. The gas can linger and accumulate in people's homes and lungs silently unless they know to test for it. We had our Missouri house tested and radon remediation installed before we moved it!

Contents of Roman Lead Coffin Examined in England - The examination of the contents of a Roman lead coffin discovered in 2022 in the city of Leeds has identified the partial remains of a child (about 10 years old). The initial evaluation of the coffin’s poorly preserved contents found the remains of a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of her death some 1,600 years ago, a bracelet, a glass bead necklace, and a finger ring or an earring.

Zooming – October 2023

The optics of my camera allow me to capture images that are better than I can see with my eyes – flowers, insects, birds, cave formations and seed pods that fill the frame…driftwood isolated from the noise of other things around it….sculpture, glass, and fall gourds specially arranged….sunrises and a sunset….the beauty of a fall morning. Every picture is a memory moment – a visual that also serves as a reminder of a place and mood and relationship with the people that experienced it with me. The places were mostly close to home in southwest Missouri (art museum, meadow, caverns) but also St. Louis and along the route between home and Carrollton TX.

Missouri Botanical Garden – September 2023

I visited the Missouri Botanical Garden for the second time – this time with my husband rather than my daughter. Both of us enjoy garden photography! We timed our visit to see the Chihuly glass exhibition before it ended…more on that in tomorrow’s post. Today I am focused on the garden itself. The month since my previous visit had brought some seasonal changes: Fall leaves were thick near the entrance and scattered elsewhere in the garden.

Fall crocus were blooming.

I like to experiment with light – the center of a flower very bright…the background black.

Sometimes there are plants that catch my attention and I take a single picture to capture what I saw.

Waterlilies are always worth close looks.

The Climatron houses plants that would not survive in Missouri weather. It even includes a walkway behind a waterfall!

There were bees and butterflies that were busy – but still enough for portraits.

The Japanese Garden is one of my favorites: the foliage changing color, very large koi, lanterns…zigzag walkway over the water.

It was a good day in the garden – not as hot as a month earlier!

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge – July 2023 (2)

The butterfly garden at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge had butterflies in July. There were Queen butterflies feeding in a group – the longer one looked, the more butterflies there seemed to be! This butterfly is seen more frequently further south than north Texas (almost into Oklahoma); maybe the extremely hot summer is pushing them further north.

The other butterfly I photographed was a male black swallowtail – a large butterfly that flutters as it collects nectar (as seen in the video below).

There were grasshoppers too! I photographed two after I startled them on the path and saw where they landed on a plant (and managed to zoom in with my camera to photograph them without being close enough to force them to move again).

It didn’t take long in the butterfly garden before I needed water…and air conditioning! I continued my road trip to Carrollton.

Zooming – June 2023

So many photographic opportunities in June…close to home and in Texas. There were more biting insects around so staying on paths was all-the-more important; almost every image I took used the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). Enjoy the slide show!

The pictures include:

  • A sunny day visit to the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Gardens,

  • An afternoon and then (a week later) morning visit to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman, TX), and

  • A morning at Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie (in Carrollton, TX).

Springfield Art Museum

I’ve been to the Springfield Art Museum several times. There are new exhibits often enough to make it a great activity anytime but particularly on a hot afternoon or a rainy day. I always enjoy seeing the Chihuly piece (glass) in the foyer and Anne Lindberg’s tilted sky (Egyptian cotton thread stretched over a hallway) again.

The first gallery we walked through had appealing vessels – my two favorites are the ones with wavy decorations that reminded me of prairie grasses/flowers.

I experimented with different perspectives of the fountain in the courtyard. My favorite is probably the most magnified…the way the water flattens and swirls once it makes the leap from above.

In another gallery, ceramic swirls caught my attention. Some were 3-D spirals…others more complex interlocked curves.

As we walked outside, we noticed the plantings done to control erosion now that the renovation along Fassnight Creek has been completed.

A butterfly and ladybug were enjoying them too!

Every visit to the museum includes something new – new exhibits or just noticing something that I didn’t during the previous visit.

Big Lagoon State Park and a Beach Sunset

Big Lagoon State Park entailed the longest hike of our Pensacola trip. There are still some parts of the park closed for repair from damage caused by Hurricane Sally in 2020 but plenty of area open to explore. While my husband was getting his camera out of the bag and into a harness, I concentrated on a life oak tree at the edge of the parking lot. There was a downy woodpecker working its way around the branches and a butterfly resting in a sunny spot underneath!

The trail was sandy or boardwalk. There was curly lichen and

One of my favorites – powderpuff lichen. There was a healthy community of ground-based lichen among dried live oak leaves within easy zoom distance of my camera from the boardwalk.  

The same was true of some shelf fungus on a stump.

We reached the lagoons. A brown headed cowbird pair was perusing the area.

There were turtles in the water…enjoying the warming morning. There were signs warning of alligators, but we didn’t see any.

There were different kinds of ferns….providing the floor of the live oak and pine forest.

The pines tower over everything else in the park!

Later in the day we went to the Pensacola Beach Pier. There were too many people and loud music to make it a place for bird watching.

We stopped on the way back to the hotel at the Quietwater Beech area. The sun was setting and a laughing gull’s breast reflected the color!

3 mallard ducks (2 males, 1 female) made their way across the sand…kicking up sand with their webbed feet.

It was a good finale to our day in Pensacola.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 7, 2023

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.

Macro Photos Highlight the Diverse Beauty of Butterfly Pupae – The pupae are Asian species….so no Monarch chrysalis (which is my favorite).

Good hydration linked to healthy aging – The findings don’t prove a causal effect…but hydration is linked to serum sodium…and chronic high serum sodium (i.e. when a person is dehydrated frequently) increases risk of developing chronic diseases like heart failure, stroke, atrial fibrillation and peripheral artery disease, etc.

The Infrastructure Sector Is Bleeding Workers – The workforce is aging…more are nearing retirement…and younger people are not coming into the jobs fast enough.

This new year – decarbonize your life – The beginning of a series about a family of 4…taking steps to dramatically reduce emissions and sequester carbon.

Gradient Arrangements of Food Highlights Biodiversity Not Often Seen in Supermarkets – Wow – what a range of colors and shapes in common fruits and veggies like: tomatoes, corn, potatoes, pears, peppers, squash, cucumber, kale, and beans.

Heat and cold as health hazards – Controlled experiments on how the body reacts to hot and cold…and the health consequences.

Water Worries: Threatened and Endangered Cultural Sites – Climate change has caused increasing severe rainstorms in the Southwest impacting the adobe walls  in Tumacácori National Historical Park in Arizona and Pecos National Historical Park in New Mexico. Storms, flooding and sea level rise are impacting other parks including Statue of Liberty National Monument, Colonial National Historical Park and the Jamestown Settlement, and Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. The tidal basin in Washington DC is crumbling as flooding increases as the Potomac River rises.

Researchers identify bird species depicted in ancient, finely detailed Egyptian painting – Click on the images to get a larger view of the birds. Key to the second image: a–f rock pigeons (Columba livia); g red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio); h white wagtail (Motacilla alba); i pied kingfisher (Ceryle rudis); j–l unidentified.

How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat – Right now microplastics are viewed as a contaminant but research is revealing they may have harmful impacts….and should be studied and regulated as a pollutant. Will systems that use sludge as fertilizer need to change dramatically? It appears likely.

2022 Year in Review: Top Stories from Around the National Park System – Flooding at Yellowstone, Mauna Loa eruption, drought at Glen Canyon, maintenance challenges, invasive species …crowds…a lot of big stories.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 27, 2022

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.

We asked children how they experienced poverty. Here are 6 changed needed now – This was a study done in Australia. I wonder how applicable these findings are around the world.

The identical twins who discovered their secret sibling – An adoption agency that separated twins for adoption in the 1960s…and the researchers that were part of that process. Fast forward to 2022.

Heat wave reveals 17th-century English gardens – Longleat Gardens….a whisper of the past…from before the transition to natural parkland in the 18th century.

Is this the end of DC’s most-beloved hidden landmark? – I’ve never seen (or known about) the Capitol stones in Rock Creek Park but I’ve noticed the old columns dating from the same period that are in the National Arboretum. They are certainly a landmark!

Painted Bunting: The Fun of Local Bird Quests – I remember seeing some painted buntings at a Florida National Wildlife refuge and an indigo bunting under my bird feeder in Maryland. They are special birds!

Colorful solar panels could make the technology more attractive – Color is a lower priority than efficiency for me, but it could be very important in some applications.

A Beginner’s Guide to Butterfly Watching – I wish there were more butterflies to watch! It seems like every year there are fewer of them around.

Taming Tomorrow’s Wildfires – There is a wildfire burning somewhere in the US all the time recently. It’s important that we make changes to reduce their devastation.

New drug candidate fights off more than 300 drug-resistant bacteria – Antibiotics have been around for my whole life…but there is always the discomfort that more bacteria are becoming resistant…and there could come a time that the pre-antibiotic killers will beginning killing people again. I’m glad there are new drugs in development to take up the fight.

Olmec contortionist Reliefs Uncovered in Mexico – Artifacts from a civilization known for colossal head sculptures….hints of their culture.

Through my Office Window – August 2022

I am enjoying the office windows not having screens. It’s much easier to take pictures! The view from the sitting area in my office includes hollies, a bird bath, a rhododendron, and, if I look a little more to the left, a bird feeder.

After a rain I photographed some drops of water on one of the plants right outside the window…and the drops have reflections of the leaves!

More birds have discovered the bird bath recently. The most numerous birds I see there are the female and juvenile finches.

The doves and squirrel often share the shady place under the hollies in the hot afternoons.

I noticed a scruffy looking male cardinal that seemed to be displaying with his tail spread out and feathers fluffed…or maybe the behavior was just part of molting. The bird was under the bird feeder enjoying the seeds dropped by finches.

Another odd-looking bird was on the feeder this past week. I think it was a juvenile male grackle since I saw it with adult grackles….and the plumage does look like it is coming in black (the male color).

Finally, the one window that still has a screen on it looks out mostly to grass….and there was a butterfly hiding in the now lush green blades! I’ll take off the screen next time I do some yard work!

A Carrollton, Texas Yard

There is still looks a lot of green in Carrollton, Texas….maybe looking better than summer since it is not so hot that everything looks parched. The cosmos are at their tallest…a mini-jungle of green and orange – still blooming and attracting insects.

The vegetation in the garden areas is intermixed with leaves that have fallen and are beginning to decay; the leaves are not deep enough to smother the plants that are still growing. The old toys and watering cans are almost covered with summer growth. An old bird house is rotting among the thick growth of the garden.

How long with the summer garden linger this year? There have been some cooler days…but not a frost….yet. Many will have a sudden demise at the first hard freeze.

Springfield Botanical Garden – Part 2

The day lily garden at the Springfield Botanical Garden offered many colors and sizes of day lilies…many with water droplets from the early morning rain. I enjoyed photographing them…trying different types of compositions.

There was a butterfly on some zinnias planted in a bed neat the lilies. This has not been a good year for butterflies in Springfield or at my home in Maryland.

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A dragonfly perched on a dried stalk…kept coming back to the same one. I was thrilled to get a zoomed picture. It looks a like a female Widow Skimmer….but not a perfect match - the dark patches on the tips of the wings does not fit although this is the underside of the wing and the pictures I was using for ID all are from the other side.

It was getting hotter, and we closed the loop back to the car. There was a line of cars coming into the garden as we were driving out. Our visit was well timed!

Zooming – September 2020

Less that 1000 photos this month…but still enough zoomed images for this post: 16 images. 4 of the images were inside (the stained glass butterfly and the super zoomed flowers). There are 4 butterflies (Common Buckeye, Red Admiral, Palamedes Swallowtail, and Spread-winged Skipper) and a Monarch caterpillar. All 3 birds are somewhat unusual: the Northern Cardinal is a juvenile still begging to be fed by its parents but learning quickly to find seed on our deck, the Blue Jay is contorting itself to get seed from the feeder (the roosts are too close together for him), and the Caroline Wren is tailless. Other animals in our yard or deck are also included: a chipmunk with very fat cheeks and a deer. And lastly are our trees: the sycamore leaves beginning to change against a blue sky after the smoke from the west coast that past over Maryland at 30,000 feet cleared out and an oak leaf that might be an indication that our oak tree has the infection common in our state (and not something we can treat…may eventually kill the tree).

All the pictures were taken at our house or the CSA.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Green tomatoes. I got 2 green tomatoes in the CSA share last week; they have been near the kitchen window since then. One began to turn red almost immediately and the other has stayed green. I’ll make green salsa with the one that is still green (or something else that cooks the green tomato so that it is edible) and let the other one finish turned red to eat like a regular tomato.

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Butterflies in the Cutting Garden

I took a few minutes when I was in the CSA’s cutting garden this week to photograph some butterflies. The first one is a battered Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark morph) on a sunflower. I always try to check to make sure it’s not a Spicebush or Black Swallowtail. This one has dashes on the edge of the forewing (instead of spots)….which distinguished it as the dark morph of the Tiger Swallowtail.

There were skippers all over the cone flowers.

I took a series that shows the proboscis in different positions…and why they stay for such a long time on one cone flower (there are a lot of places to find nectar)!

Aside from cutting some flowers, I also cut stevia. I chop it up to steep in tea….a nice light sweetness for the whole pot. I don’t think very many others know where it is because the plants don’t look like they’ve been snipped much. Their loss…my gain!

By the time I finished the bit of cutting and photography in the mid-afternoon sun, my mask was becoming decidedly uncomfortable. I appreciated the air conditioner in my car for the short trip home.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Grocery day. Every time I shop, I realize I am becoming more accustomed to shopping every other week rather than weekly as I have for my whole life until this pandemic. I’m now beginning to think that I’ll stick with the less frequent shopping from now on. It takes a little more planning, but the benefits are reduced time for shopping and I seem to be spending a bit less (maybe because I am planning better). My grocery store is not that far from where I live – so halving the gas/electricity for the commute is not saving much – although it could add up over time. Overall – this may be a pandemic habit worth keeping!

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/17/2020

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

  • Picking earrings to wear that I haven’t worn in a long time. Yesterday I wore some from Orlando FL and today they are from Watkins Glen NY. Earrings are my favorite item to purchase when I travel…small keepsakes that I can wear! Both are over 10 years old, but I still remember where I got them.

  • Maintaining the compost pile and walking around the yard. I’m trying to get out of the house at least once a day….enjoy that it is springtime here!

  • Watching the second installment of the Cincinnati Zoo’s Home Safari (about Rico the Porcupine). They have established a website where all the videos will be available after they air live. I am watching the recorded version, so I don’t have to pay attention to the time to be online at 3 PM EDT!

  • Calling family far away, I had planned to be in Texas this past week…but I was already ‘staying at home as much as possible’ a few days before I was going to get on the airplane. Talking on the telephone is the next best thing for keeping in touch until it is not as risky to be out and about in larger groups of people.

  • Making a Zentangle® butterfly. I was straightening up my office and found a few extra butterfly tiles left from last summer’s experience with summer campers. I couldn’t resist using the tile…thinking that this would be a good activity for anyone needing a quiet calm time. If you want to learn a new pattern, checkout out https://tanglepatterns.com/ . Later in the afternoon. it was warm enough that I saw a real butterfly - a cabbage white.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16

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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.