Cat and Bird

There was a commotion in our hearth room…Sooty, our male cat, was at the window working with rapt attention at the glass. When I took a closer look, I realized there was a bird on the brick ledge on the other side of the window.

There was a commotion in our hearth room…Sooty, our male cat, was at the window working with rapt attention at the glass. When I took a closer look, I realized there was a bird on the brick ledge on the other side of the window.

It apparently was not intimidated by the actions of the cat since it stayed where it was for a few minutes to taunt the cat with its back. The bird had an excellent view of our bird feeders below. It might have been finishing up some seed it had retrieved previously.

We have three indoor cats – we don’t inflict non-native predators on our neighborhood. In our previous house, we had a screened in area of the deck that our cats enjoyed (outdoors but separated from the birds and other wildlife) but the windows seem to provide sufficient stimulation to our cats in this house.

Kittens! – Month 8

Our three kittens are growing up! They still sometimes sleep close together on the (sheet covered) futon…but each with their own space rather than in a pile as they did when they were very young (Puma, Pooky, Sooty on the move from top to bottom in this picture).

The male cat, Sooty, is the only one to jump to the top of the kitchen cabinets (where there are indirect lighting fixtures). My husband thought the cat might not get down on his own, but Sooty is quite capable of that (as he demonstrated before my husband could get a step ladder in place to climb up to reach him).

The kitchen is where our biggest remaining challenges are with the kittens. They all like to watch food preparation and they are fascinated by running water in the sink. We had one instance of them chewing through plastic packaging on bread (fortunately that has not been repeated). My husband provides the kittens a snack to draw them away from the kitchen while I prepare a meal …but they are back once they finish eating. I have learned to prep faster!

They have a tent that they’ve all used at various times for some private space although there are occasions that the two females (Puma and Pooky) nap together. Sooty is bigger and demands the whole space.

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The 2 hammocks we have are also popular napping spots. The hammocks were handed down from our previous cats. Sooty was the first to claim the leopard one.

The kittens have learned to use scratching posts rather than the furniture (most of the time). They tore one rope wrapped post apart and they like the new one as a pedestal almost better than for scratching (Pooky, Sooty, Puma).

The cat donut is in the background. They all enjoy it – sometimes as part of an obstacle course and sometimes for napping. Occasionally it has two at one time in it – on opposite sides.

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We have baby latches on several cabinets now….all of the kittens had become adept at opening lower kitchen and bathroom cabinets…getting inside…not always as adept at getting out. Fortunately – we didn’t have an instance when all three of them were stuck; the kitten(s) on the outside would stay close…our clue that a kitten was trapped.

Overall – we are still having fun keeping up with the kittens. We have left them for one overnight with our daughter checking on them and they were unphased. We’re taking a 5-day vacation this month; even though our daughter will be with them one or two times a day, we are anticipating they will be needy kittens when we return…another milestone for them and for us.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2, month 1, month 2, month 3, month 4

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 18, 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.

Farmers Find Wild African Cat Wandering Around Missouri – A serval found when a farming family set a live trap to capture the culprit leaving bones and feathers between their stacks of hay bales! The Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge came to the rescue. This is all close to where I live and I was saddened that evidently the new Big Cat Public Safety Act does not include the smaller non-native wild cats…and that someone was cruel enough to release this cat of the African savanna into the wild in Missouri.

Caribou have been using the same Arctic calving grounds for 3,000 years – Analysis of antlers found on the tundra….discovering some of them are 3,000 years old! But the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the globe. The elders of the village south of the calving grounds comment that they have noticed a lot more trees, less barren tundra. What will happen to the barren ground caribou as this habitat gets converted to forest?

Why fabric fraud is easy to hide – The fashion supply chain is fragmented and very dense….most apparel companies do not track their own supply chain (or don’t go past their immediate suppliers). Organic cotton is one of the prime examples of how end products labelled as organic cotton…might not be. It is hard to determine where the fraud is inserted in the process; the result is that the consumer is paying a premium price…not getting what they are paying for. And to improve the system will require big changes in the fabric/apparel business.

A Field Guide to Unexpected, Out-of-Place Wildlife – Sometimes animals have ranges that are changing or are a lot larger than we anticipate…sometimes birds are in very different places that their usual range!

Dirty Laundry: How much microfiber do we emit with our laundry – A study done in the UK…but probably relevant to the US as well. Microfibers from laundry in the UK weigh 6,850 to 17,847 tons per year. Yes…that’s a lot and pollutes water…however, it is a dwarfed by the 365,000 tons of clothing going into UK landfills per year.

Antibiotic use in farming set to soar despite drug-resistance fears – The increase in bacterial infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics (because of bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics) has been growing in recent years. Overuse of antibiotivs in agriculture is thought to be a major driver of the problem. Governments around the world have attempted to curb the use of antibiotics to promote growth but the use is still expected to grow by 8% between 2020 and 2030. The article includes a chart of agricultural antibiotics by country in 2020…and a projection for 2030.

The Lifelike Glass Models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka – Thousands of realistic models of plants and sea creatures made by a father and son from the 1860s until 1938.

8 everyday foods you might not realize are ultra-processed – and how to spot them – I am cutting back on ultra-processed foods this year. Some of the 8 listed in this article are easy: I don’t eat breakfast cereals, I only eat protein bars as ‘emergency rations’ (i.e. not frequently) and avoid yogurt, meal bases and sauces, processed meats, and margarine. I’m still looking for a soy milk that has fewer ingredients; will give up on soy milk soon if I don’t find one. And I try to buy bakery bread.

Did Philip II bring invasive fish to Spain? – Evidently his efforts to acquire fish and crayfish from afar spanned at least 25 years!

Study reveals that much still not known about cognitive decline - Data came from 7,068 participants in the 1996-2016 Health and Retirement Study. Participants were born between 1931 and 1941. Researchers measured their cognitive functioning at age 54 and how it declined until they were 85. At age 54, socioeconomic status, education and race -- explained only 38% of the variation in functioning. Those same factors explained only 5.6% of the variation in how quickly cognitive functioning declined in people between age 54 and 85. So much we don’t know about cognitive decline although it is pervasive in older adults, even those without dementia.

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2022

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As I look at my list of little celebrations in January 2022, I am realizing that my surgery stands out so significantly that getting through the surgery itself (the 1st surgery, the reopening of the incision to release blood, the 2nd surgery) is the major celebration of the month! There are little celebrations around that big one: a sunrise and good grocery shopping experience before the surgery, an excellent chicken soup I made a few days after coming home, the hematoma beginning to fade (although it is still not completely gone 2+ weeks afterward…I am checking/celebrating progress every morning), and my first grocery shopping after the surgery (with the assistance of my husband).

The other celebration that stands out this month….more than a little one…is the death of our cat, Boromir. I was glad I held him close for over an hour on his last day….that he seemed at peace. We are still missing him but also celebrating that Boromir was with us for so many years and particularly through the pandemic when we were at home most of the time; he contributed to the positive vibe that seemed so natural…so easily sustained.

And then there were some ‘usual’ little celebrations:

A great meatloaf. I discovered that adding a little olive oil if the ground beef is very lean and using spaghetti sauce instead of salsa improves the texture and flavor!

Red velvet cake/carrot cake for our 49th wedding anniversary. We both savored our slice of celebratory cake…not having any leftovers!

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Peppermint snow ice cream. Celebrating a seasonal favorite and plenty of snow to make it!

A new garage door. It was awful to have a damaged door….I celebrated that we could get it replaced quickly.

Snow on the ground. Celebrating the beautiful scene from the windows of our house….and the different perspective as I walked through the neighborhood.

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Unique Aspects of Days – January 2022

This year I am jotting down something unique about each day…encouraging myself to notice those things that are not the same day after day. Sometimes it is related to what I identify as a ‘little celebration’ – but not all the time.

Some of the unique aspects would happen every year – a first snow of the year, a 49th wedding anniversary (Ok – next year will be the 50th),  and a 1st awesome sunrise of the year.

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Others will only happen once – perhaps more truly unique: a pet dying, making a new recipe for the first time (this month is was pumpkin peanut powder curry cream (soup)) and a surgery.

Still others I recorded this first month of listing unique events were simply rare: fog in the afternoon and a new garage door.

Overall – this is a good project for 2022…another dimension of awareness into how I am spending my days…making sure I am not ‘in the rut’ all the time!

In Memory of Our Cat

Our cat since November 200 died this week. He was adult when we got him on November 2003 so was probably 19-20 years old. My husband and I are missing him.

He came to us with a brother. They were named Simba and Puma, but my daughter renamed them Boromir and Faramir after the brothers in Lord of the Rings. Faramir died in April 2017 and Boromir became our ‘only cat.’

His teeth were always problematic and he had tumor that required removal of his jaw almost 10 years ago….one of his ears developed a hematoma then collapsed. But he took those handicaps in stride…continued enjoying his favorite sunny spots and requesting to be let out on the screened deck.

He saw more of us these past few years than any of our other cats did because we have retired from our careers and the pandemic has kept us at home even more the past couple of years. My husband was the primary cat cuddler and provider of an elaborate smorgasbord of small plates with various cat foods across our kitchen floor to tempt the picky eater.  

The cat declined rapidly in the past few weeks with a lot happening during the week of my cancer surgery.  The cat started getting lost in the house…became blind…then seemed to regain some sight. He managed to come upstairs one early morning and meow loudly…clearly wanting something to be different than it was; it was the last time he came upstairs on his own. A few days later, he lost control of his back legs…soon after started refusing to eat or drink and becoming silent.

And now it is a cold, blustery winter day…and our Boromir is not here. The house seems too big and empty right now.  

30 years ago – December 1991

In December 30 years ago – the month was dominated by the joys of Christmas with a two-year-old. There was a party for children hosted by the company I worked for where she got her face painted, a refusal to sit on Santa’s lap at a community ‘Donuts with Santa’, singing Jingle Bells to the new baby at her day care, doing a 6 day count down to Christmas putting plush ornaments from Del Monte on the tree (sweetie pea, reddie tomato, cubbie corn, lushie peach, precious pear, juicy pineapple)…culminating in a an overwhelming Christmas morning which we videoed. Her favorite items at first were a kazoo and watching our cat play with a catnip toy.  It was the most over-the-top amount of gifts in her life!

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Outside of the dominate theme – she was enjoying Peter Rabbit stories at bedtime…and then surrounding herself with her collection of plush toys to completely fill the bed. I sent an application for Montessori school for the next fall.

We didn’t have family visits like we’d had in previous months. One sister was settling into her new house. Another’s family had the flu, but it was over soon enough to allow for a happy Christmas with her 2-year-old and her pregnancy was doing well; she made and sent a pine cone wreath – which I still have. Another sister hosted a successful a party for her colleagues. My mother decided to work one more year as a teacher. I cooked a whole pumpkin for the first time…stuffed it with apples, cinnamon, and butter…yummy for all.

The overarching feeling: life being very good but happening too fast!

Cat Comfort

My daughter’s cat has thoroughly acclimated to the larger house over the past month or so. There were 4 or 5 days where the cat was traumatized by the move –

• First in the old house as things were moved out (favorite cat places went away)

• Then in the new house closed in the sunroom at first while the movers handled the heavier furniture

• Finally the doors opened.

The cat stayed in a small portion of the house for the first 24-48 hours and then started exploring. My daughter put furniture in front of windows for the cat to monitor bunnies and birds and squirrels. They bought a new cat tree and scratching post.

Now the cat is comfortable…enjoying finding new blankets or cushions that he needs claim as his own…new hiding places (seems to like the shoe rack in the cedar closet).

Enjoying grandcat pictures!

Lessons from an Elderly Cat

Our cat is 19 years old. He has been thoroughly pampered during the pandemic since we’re at home rather than traveling…or even venturing out very much. My husband is the ‘primary care person’ – but we both enjoy talking to the cat…observing the cat live well in his aging body. Here’s my list of lessons from our aging cat.

Sleep when you want…and not always in the same place. There are cat naps…and then longer periods of sleep. If he does go to sleep out on the screen deck – he is there for hours. He enjoys a longer sleep in his donut at least once a day – or he did during the winter months; that could change now that it is getting more inviting outside. He has a chair in the basement where he goes when he does not want to be disturbed and some darkness during the day. We humans sometimes put a lot of emphasis on ‘sleeping in our own bed’…but maybe the change of sleeping somewhere else is one of the things that makes travel appealing. For me – I like to vary where I do my mindfulness ‘rest’ which rejuvenates me as much as a ‘cat nap.’

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Seek out sunshine. All cats like to find a spot of sunshine…and our elderly cat is no exception. Being warm probably makes him feel less achy. It works for humans too…but how often do we take advantage of a sunny place….sitting by a window or outdoors.

Drink water more frequently than you eat. We have a water fountain for our cat, and he uses it frequently. As we age, sometimes our thirst indicator is not as accurate, and we get dehydrated. I’m glad our cat seems to not have that problem…or maybe the water fountain is appealing enough to draw him over to it.

Move about even if it sometimes hurts a little. Our cat still goes up and down the stairs although sometimes he looks reluctant. He seems to think about it…..then goes up or down quickly…get it over with. My husband and I are already talking about our next house not having stairs…that we want to age in place but not in our current house.

Occasionally revert to your younger self. The cat enjoys playing with wand toys – puffs and snakes. He would play with little prompting when he was younger. Now he sometimes just follows the toys with his eyes. We still try to entice him. Sometimes he surprises us and ‘catches’ the snake. Another time he followed we around as I dragged the snake behind me! When I think of the ‘lesson’ translated to humans I think about the effect younger children have on older people; it’s so easy to slip into the play mode when interacting with the child; it’s as beneficial to the older person as it is to the child!

Get the news from different perspectives. Our cat has windows that he uses to check out what is happening in the world. One of his favorite places is the windows on either side of the front door. From there he can see the birds and chipmunks on the porch or front yard, the school buses, the people walking their dogs. On the covered deck, he watched the birds building nests through a crack in the decking, birds at the feeder, the trees of the forest. I’m not sure how often he checks the area under the deck from the French door in the basement. It’s deep shade there…some ferns, maybe deer coming through at dawn or dusk. Sometimes I wonder if he knows when the racoons try to raid the bird feeder at night.

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Give and get attention. The cat is vocal about what he wants – and doesn’t. He has become a picky eater…and he wants company (often in the middle of the night)…and does not like to be alone in the house even if he is napping. At the same time, he likes to interact – with different meows and trills (if only we could understand his language better) and often initiates conversation and cuddles and treats and play. Cat and people need interaction!

Keep doing things you’ve always enjoyed. Our cat has always enjoyed being outdoors on the screened deck. Sometimes he naps but he often just appears to be relaxed/attentive. Do cats meditate? They often appear to be awake and alert…but inwardly focused.

Be curious. It’s easy to tell if the cat is just taking a quick look outside….or if there is something drawing his attention. Maybe sometimes it is just a deep territorial response…but it looks a lot like curiosity. With people – there is a browsing mode…and then an increased focus once that survey spots something of higher interest. It’s a good quality to practice….and think again about taking on a child-like approach to the way we perceive the world.

Savor the stretch. Cats have the best stretches! Stretching feels good to humans too!

Vary your gait. Our cat generally moves slower than he did when he was younger….but he has bursts of speed or faster walking frequently. Sometimes it surprises him. As we get older, we may want to increase our consciousness of how we move and hold ourselves (particularly our back and shoulders).

Eat smaller meals. Our cat has always been a grazer rather than gobbling up a lot of food at one time. Now he seems to be eating smaller amounts than before…but more frequently. He doesn’t eat things that don’t taste good to him either. There is more wasted cat food. As we get older – maybe our own food choices need to change…increasing our attention on the nutritional value of what we eat along with savoring foods we like.

Relax. Cats are masters of relaxation…and we humans need to give ourselves opportunities to relax and enjoy our lives every day.

There’s a lot to learn about aging gracefully from our cat!

The Cat in Springfield

My daughter sends us photos of her cat with text messages. She’s had him for a year and we’ve yet to see him any other way since he’s in Missouri and we’re in Maryland….no one has been traveling.

Still – with the photos and texts…we are enjoying the cat vicariously….and I am sharing the bounty from this past month.

3/2 Someone is enjoying the sunshine

3/6 He sleeps in the most ridiculous positions sometimes

3/11 He is so majestic in his tote bags

3/14 Gotta monitor all the birds in the yard. They aren’t on daylight savings

3/15 Dude was snoring on my slippers last night

3/16 Sunset filing cabinet nap

3/21 At his desk, working hard

3/28 He has several desks in his home office

3/31 Part of my office snoozes standing up too

3/31 Normally he does this or splays out

4/1 My breakfast buddy. He got cold last night and slept against us the whole early AM

The Coffee Toed Cat

Descriptive naming is something we all learn. Often those names are temporary nick names. They have value beyond simple description…they are fun too. One example that I heard recently was my daughter saying her cat had coffee toes. Do you see them in the picture? And the coffee toes are symmetrical too!

When I first started working in the computer industry in the 1970s, I realized that creating names was a skill I needed to develop. Naming of variables, lines of control language, and file names required a huge uptick in that kind of thinking for me and many others as well. Some of the abbreviations we use today (like using 4 instead of FOR or 2 for TO/TOO/TWO) was one of the techniques I learned in the 1970s since many of the names then were limited to 8 characters and couldn’t have spaces or special characters. The numbers were a kind of punctuation as well as a ‘word!’

Unfortunately - there is a dark side to the naming skill - when it is derogatory or bullying. It would be great if the public discourse could reverse the uptick in that kind of naming over the past decade….develop a trend toward fun and descriptive names like ‘the coffee toed cat.’

The Grandcat

We haven’t officially met my daughter’s cat yet; he became our ‘grandcat’ during the pandemic (no way for us to make the trek from Maryland to Missouri during this time). Here are some annotated pictures that my daughter has shared with us over the past month – every one of them a little positive tweak to the day. Enjoy the cat pictures!

My morning coffee companion

I am probably supposed to be doing something

Someone pounced on a tote bag

Someone is going to have to explain to his students why their papers got crinkled

Working at his desk

At his standing desk

This dude flying in the sky. Or laying on a yoga mat

Opened my eyes to this dude this morning

He was waiting on the end table on my side of the bed. But he had been curled up against me most of the night. Right now he had made a nest on me in the futon.

Dun dun, dun dun

Cat thermometer says its cold

Lounging on me right now

Cat on his throne

TV cat

He wants me awake so he can snooze on me

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Blackberry Looper Moth. I finally remembered the little moth I captured in my office a few days ago….and used iNaturalist to identify it: a Blackberry Looper Moth. It’s small but a pretty shade of green with whitish markings. It probably came into my office on one of the flowers from the CSA cutting garden. My picture is magnified enough to see the antennae clearly; they are not ‘feathery’ so it is a female.

Black-eyed Susans

The Black-Eyed Susan is the Maryland State Flower. There are a few plants that always grow in the front flower bed – coming up year after year since we had a butterfly garden there more than 10 years ago. The other plants were not as enduring. The day lily bulbs are so dense that the leaves shade out just about everything else.

The Black-eyed Susan leaves come out early and are big enough to hold their place among the day lilies. Sometimes the buds form low enough that they are protected from the deer by the day lily leaves around them.

Other times the buds are on the end of spindly stems and the deer sometimes eat a few of them. The buds must not taste as good as other vegetation because the majority survive.

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I’m always please to see the flowers more easily after I cut back the day lily leaves in later summer. The Black-eyed Susans become the big color in the garden then.

When I was taking pictures of the flowers recently – I managed to get close enough to get a relatively good picture of a bottle fly. The temperature was in the low 60s and the fly was not as active as it would be later in the day.

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Working Cat. My daughter sends us texts with pictures of her cat. He became part of the family during the pandemic, so the pictures provide our first impressions of him. He has favorite lookouts where he can monitor the rabbits in the yard. Her annotation for pictures below were “working at his desk” and “at his standing desk today.”

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6 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

September 12th marked the 6th month since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic. I started a monthly post taking stock of the impact on day to day life back in July (previous posts: July and August). Here’s the one for the 6th month!

There were three activities that were new during this 6th month – things that were critical enough to not put off:

• Our clothes dryer broke. Our first reaction was panic…a bit more than we would have during pre-pandemic times. Fortunately, the problem seemed to be something we had experienced before (the heating element) and the manufacturer had a website to make a repair appointment. It was a little frustrating that the repair person came to diagnose the problem but our dryer was old enough that the part had to be ordered…so it took 2 service calls. On the plus side – masks were worn by all….and we didn’t have to buy a new dryer.

• I got a flu shot at my grocery store pharmacy. It was not crowded but I was very aware that I felt more stressed than in previous years – hyper aware of where people were around me. It feels strange now to be closer than 6 feet to anyone other than my husband. Everyone was wearing masks which made it a little better; I had to go later than my usual shopping time because the pharmacy opens later than the grocery part of the story. When an effective vaccine is available there will be a time of re-socialization – getting acclimated again to having more people around in closer proximity.

• My husband and I both got our cars serviced – something we had been putting off. My husband’s car was the forcing function because a button came off/broke. We didn’t wait at the dealership for the service to complete. That meant that we chose a closer-to-home dealership for his car. For mine – the dealership where we purchased the car 3 years ago was the closest. Overall – it was an OK experience: all the people in the service area were wearing masks and we could (mostly) maintain distance. We brought our own bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes --- drove way after the service with the windows down to fully exchange the air in the car.

We’ve started talking about when we might venture out to get haircuts since are looking a bit scraggly (last haircuts were in January). The place we normally go is accepting appointments so maybe we’ll go in the next month.

Virtual Bird Festivals are dominating our webinar experiences. In the past month we’ve enjoyed Yampa Valley (Colorado), Bosque del Apache (New Mexico), and Puget Sound (Washington) videos and webinars.   There will be others coming up throughout the fall.

I am prioritizing finding activities that give us joy....to combat the aspects of these pandemic times that are depressing.

• Who would have predicted 20 years ago that improving communication (i.e. social media and the internet) would result in such a dramatic increase in anarchy (other names could be conspiracy theories, fictional stories/events presented a fact, encouragement of armed resistance) along with the positives? I would really like it to be easier to find validated/confirmed news stories and a lot less opinion (outright lying).

• Growing up in the 1960s at a time when everyone was following public health guidance re the sugar cube polio vaccines….it surprises me now that there are people opposed to wearing masks. I grew up thinking that it was a social responsibility to behave in a way that cared about others: getting vaccines, stopping at stop signs/red lights, requiring people in the car with me to wear seat belts, wearing shoes in eating establishments, etc.

• In this 6th month the linkage between climate change and the pandemics became more obvious to me with the fires along the west coast (record breaking hot dry conditions, big electrical storms). In the near term –the evacuations make social distancing a challenge and the smoke impacts lung function in ways that probably will increase the deaths from COVID-19 in some areas. It’s a compounding tragedy. In the longer term – perhaps it increases the overall awareness that more climate actions (moves to reach drawdown and change mitigation) are required for our own health (as well as the health of everything on our planet). The life expectancy for humans may have already peaked.

I still think my husband and I are positioned to weather this pandemic by continuing the vigilance of the last 6 months. We are making carefully planned adjustments but continue to spend most of our time at home until there is a safe and effective vaccine.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Gleanings from the Puget Sound Birding Festival. The first day was the most intense with some pre-recorded videos then 4 hours of webinars. I was glad there were 30-minute breaks between the sessions but was exhausted by the end. Here are some links I gleaned from the sessions:

• Edmond Marsh

• The Great Washington State Birding Trail – Cascade Loop

• Yost Park

• Sarvey Wildlife Care Center

• CORVID Research – Kaeli Swift was the keynote speaker….talking about crows – It includes a handy graphic to distinguish crows and ravens.

• Play #CrowOrNo on the CORVID Research Facebook page.

• Seattle Audubon

• Pilchuck Audubon

• Puget Sound Bird Observatory

• The Edmonds Christmas Bird Count

Just as with the Yampa Valley virtual festival…..I want to go to this festival one too!!!! Maybe next September – and plan some visits to some of the parks in the Northwest on the same trip!

Mini-clover update. There’s only been one day that we could skip watering because it rained. Otherwise – I’ve turned on the water 1st thing in the morning and my husband goes out an hour later to move the hose to the second location. Teamwork.

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Cat at the door. Our cat tends to watch us from the window beside the front door when we are working in the front yard. Sometimes we can tell that he is meowing (yelling) at us.

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2020

Celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy….staying vigilant with masks and distancing. And then there are 10 little celebrations for August.

There were three celebrations associated with melons which are always a big part of August – a sweet cantaloupe, a yellow watermelon, and the 6-part symmetry in a red watermelon.

Sunrise at the neighborhood pond. It was a celebration to begin the day.

Photographing a cicada. I always celebrate a cicada that I manage to see…and that remains still long enough for me to photograph!

The (clean) glass birdbath. The glass birdbath is always pretty….but when it’s sparkly clean it’s even better.

Sweet potato sprouts. Finding new life in the pantry….letting the roots start growing…planting them outside. I celebrated that it happened…would have been eve better if it were earlier in the season.

Best picture of our cat. The cat is 18 years old and I finally managed a picture of him in motion that captures his overall personality.

Dryer fix. My husband I celebrated that our dryer is fixed (that we didn’t have to buy a new one).

Kombucha bottles with flowers. I celebrate the flowers on my windowsill every time I look out the window. It’s a mood brightener every time.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Smartphone replacement. I noticed that the side of my phone has spilt….the case was holding it together; otherwise it might split the rest of the way. It’s over 3 years old (I posted about it here back in 2017). My husband ordered a new phone for me and I found a case that I like…ordered a screen protector at the same time. More about the adventure of getting a new phone in a contactless way over the next week….

Planting a Sweet Potato Sprout

The sweet potato sprout that I found on a potato in the bin a few days ago, grew roots very rapidly…about 2 inches in 3 days.

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I took it out to the front flower bed where the day lilies are just beginning to grow fresh leaves again…choosing a place that looked to be between those plants. There were still lumpy roots when I dug the hole (day lily roots) but I tried to push them to the side. The sweet potato sprout has one tiny leaf at this point. I’ll let it grow until the weather starts to get too cool. There probably is not enough time for potatoes to form but maybe there will be enough leaves to make a good salad.

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Rain at sunrise. It was raining for my normal 6-7 AM time out on the covered deck. The rain lasted longer than was forecast and the temperature was a bit lower as well. I stayed out for my usual time – enjoying my morning caffeine…making some Zentangle tiles…doing a little reading…listening to birds. The cat came out but decided it was not a good situation for napping; he went back inside within 10 minutes.

Art of Bridges – August 2020

Bridges in art is the theme for this post. I’ve collected the images over the past month as I browsed through art slideshows on Internet Archive. Sometimes bridges are a location for action – the people or vehicle on the bridge drawing the eye. At other times – the bridge itself is the main feature of the painting…as architecture. Most of the time there is a permanence to the structure – stone and steel. The bridges of wood sometimes leave a different impression.

The artist name/link goes to the slideshow to see more of their work. Enjoy these images…and take a look at the other paintings from these artists.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

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Eugène Atget (1857 - 1927)

Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927)

Kosta Hakman (1899 - 1961)

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Bernard Buffet (1928 - 1999)

Walter Withers (1854 - 1914)

Christian Rohlfs (German, 1849 - 1938)

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

After the rain. We had blustery rain in the late afternoon. The following morning, I discovered one of the tie backs on the deck drapery had come loose and used that as a prompt to unfurl all of the drapes to make sure they could thoroughly dry.

Cat on the Deck. Our cat likes to be outdoors on the covered/screened deck for naps. He generally is outdoors with me in the early morning. Temperatures have been in the mid60s the past few days between 6 and 7 AM…and he curls up for a good snooze.

Later in the day – the naps are shorter…and he is easily disturbed. When I went out to take a picture of the unfurled drapes….I didn’t realize he was there until he started moving. He wasn’t happy with me and headed inside to complain to my husband.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 18, 2020

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.

Listening to Silence: Why We Must Protect the World’s Quiet Places - Yale E360 – I realized after 9/11 that most of the modern world sounds at my house are from transportation: planes/helicopters and cars/trucks with occasional yard equipment. While we had a stay-at-home order with this pandemic, it became noticeable as well. There are still times when those noises are subdued or gone. I notice the bird songs in the early morning…when the other sounds don’t intrude. As we skew more toward electric ground transportation….the noise level will notch downward. I enjoy the natural sounds a lot more than our man-made ones.

Declining eyesight improved by looking at deep red light -- ScienceDaily – I wonder if this is something doctors will start prescribing!

Why your organs might reach 100 even if you don't - BBC Future – A summary of some current research areas re aging. There are a lot of different approaches with the primary goal of most being to extend healthy lifespan.  Even if different organs age at different rates…they are interrelated to the body they comprise.

Maryland offshore wind farm could become stop-over for migrating sturgeon, striped bass -- ScienceDaily – I live in Maryland….so this story grabbed my attention. Will the offshore windfarm become a rest stop for fish? And they will offer a convenient infrastructure for researchers to collect data.

Where Will Climate Migrants Go? – THE DIRT – It’s something to think about now. Some coastal cities are already experiencing more flooding even without unusual storm events…and people that can move will probably do so. Will climate trends weigh in decisions about where they move? The article talks about cities and towns in the Midwest that have experienced declining population becoming ‘receiver’ locations. I wondered if people that have discovered that they can work from home during the pandemic – and can continue to do so – will be freer to move to these new locations and still have the same employer! Otherwise there is the challenge of how to sync moving to a new place with a new job.

The chemistry of cats: Allergies, catnip and urine – Compound Interest – Evidently male cats produce higher levels of allergen and have smellier urine…unless they have been neutered.

Ways to keep buildings cool with improved super white paints -- ScienceDaily – White roofs should probably become the norm….it will be hot enough without the added heat island effect caused by a lot of man-made structures with dark roofs.

How humans are altering the tides of the oceans - BBC Future – It’s happening around the world. Dredging river channels and filling in coastal wetlands cause shifts in how tides interact with the land. And then there is sea level rise too. Some places cited in the article that have experienced dramatic change: Cape Fear River in North Carolina (tidal range at Wilmington has doubled since 1880) and the same is true for St. Johns River/Jacksonville Florida. Sacramento’s tides disappeared in the late 1800s because of silt but dredging brought them back and the Thames tidal range was 2 meters during Roman times and 8 meters by the Victorian age.

Meet the Mountain Chickadee – We have mostly Carolina Chickadees where I live in Maryland…this is their relative in the western US (mountains).

Ancient Maya reservoirs contained toxic pollution: Mercury, algae made water undrinkable in heart of city -- ScienceDaily – Mercury from pigments used on Mayan building. Cyanobacteria blooms that made the water smelly and toxic. Not pleasant for a city center!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Regenerative Landscaping lecture (via zoom). The lecture was about an hour and my big take away was about the huge environment cost of lawns…and the many dimensions of that cost. The one I hadn’t thought much about before was from the California Air Resources Board fact sheet on Small engines in California (small engines being spark-ignition engines in things like lawn mowers). Their fact sheet says: “In the early 2020s, however, total smog-forming emissions from small engines are projected to exceed those from passenger cars in the South Coast Air Basin because passenger car emissions will continue to decrease. By 2031, small engine emissions will be more than twice those from passenger cars.” For comparison – they show 1 hour of lawn mowing emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a Toyota Camry 300 miles! This must be an issue in all areas where there is a lot of mowed turf grass – kike most suburbs. There are multiple ways to address the problem and the one discussed in the meeting was transitioning to less lawn or lawn that does not need to be mowed as frequently (or at all). Another way would be to transition to electric mowers and other yard equipment. Right now – the only gasoline powered equipment I have is the mower. I’d been thinking about an electric mower because I don’t like the noise and smell of our current machine. So - this overall air quality issue is just one more reason to do it.

Enjoyed a slideshow of Armand Guillaumin (1841 – 1927) paintings available on Internet Archive here. He was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.

Zooming – June 2020

Only two pictures in the slide show below were taken away from my house. The other location was a short walk from my house to the neighborhood storm water retention pond.

There are quite a few birds as usual:

• Starling

• Cardinal

• Carolina Wren

• Blue Jay

• Red-winged blackbird (fledgling)

• House finch

• Mourning dove

• Chipping sparrow

• Turkey vulture

It seems like there are more other animals that usual: cat, deer (with faun), turtle, and black squirrel.

Overall it’s a good mix – but I am missing the usual garden and butterfly pictures as I look at these and think about June the past few years (see June 2019 and June 2018). In previous years June was a hyper month at the beginning with two volunteer gigs (Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy and Howard County Conservancy’s hiking with school field trips) overlapping and helping my daughter move (last year). June 2020 has been a quieter month…but still enjoyable.

A Year Ago

What a difference a year makes….

Last June I made the road trip from MD/PA to MO twice (beginning and end of month) to help my daughter move to Springfield MO. On the first trip we were in one car and I was in the passenger seat when we drove into St. Louis…was able to take a picture.

The only sightseeing we did that trip was to the Springfield Art Museum when the key to the house my daughter had rented would not open the door and we had to a few hours waiting for the landlord.

The highlight of the drive leaving Springfield on that first trip was a luna moth at our first rest stop.

On the trip toward the end of the month, we took a break before the movers arrived to visit the Springfield Botanical Gardens….saw zebra swallowtails in their butterfly house and a clever Monarch butterfly life cycle playground.

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This June I am not traveling at all because of the pandemic. I am also not volunteering. Last June – between the two road trips – I was volunteering with two organizations: Howard County Conservancy field trips (there was a particularly memorable session with preschoolers learning about trees) and Brookside Gardens in their Wings of Fancy exhibit.

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I miss the traveling and volunteering but have so many things I enjoy doing at my house that I am not feeling the pinch as much as I thought I would by this point. I credit the forest view from my house and the pleasant company of my husband and cat too.

Unique activities for yesterday:

Browsing National Geographic magazines. I’m slowly working my way through the digitized versions on Internet Archive (issues from 2009 – 2013). They always have wonderful pictures. So far – I’ve been limiting myself to 1 or 2 per day…giving myself time to savor the stories in each one.

Cat on the deck. Our cat is an early riser but not as early as me. He can be loud if he wakes up and no one is about so I listen for meows when I am out on the deck in the early morning….and encourage him to come out with me rather than waking up my husband. The cat usually settles down for a nap even if the birds are active around the deck. He wakes up and does some grooming when I start moving around…ready to go inside. I took a picture of him as he finished. He doesn’t look like he was ready to move but he got up immediately when I headed for the door.

The cat is 19 years old and has a cauliflower ear and is missing part of his jaw….still able to go up and down the stairs in our house although he chooses to not do it as frequently as he did years ago.