Hitch up the camper!

I found this postcard in an old trunk belonging to my Dad's mother, who died almost 20 years ago. It was blank and contained an uncanceled 1-cent stamp. Seemed like an appropriate image to usher in the Labor Day weekend.

Change the margins

On her environmental blog ChangeTheMargins.com, writer/actress Tamara Krinsky says, "I've always tried to save paper. Not because I was an environmental revolutionary. But because I was poor. When I found myself going through reams of paper on a regular basis as I was printing out drafts of articles and audition scripts, one of the ways I realized I could save some cash was by making my margins as narrow as possible. Narrower margin settings = more text/page = less paper used = fewer $$ on my credit card at Office Depot."

Since then, however, Krinsky actually has turned into an environmental activist, spreading her message to help people save money and natural resources. She has even started a petition to encourage Microsoft to change the default margins in Word from 1.25" on each side to .75".

According to a study done by the Penn State Green Destiny Council, reducing margins to .75” on all sides uses 4.75 percent less paper.

I have to buy a lot of paper for my job, and I need all the help I can get! I already use both sides of printer paper before it goes into the recycling bin, which helps my pocketbook and the environment. But I had totally forgotten about Change the Margins, which I read about quite a while ago. It popped into my head today out of the blue (or perhaps out of the green). I've decided to go one better and shrink my margins to .5". My new mantra before I press "Command P" will be Change the margins. Change the margins. Change the margins.

Margin-changing is only a smidgen of the great content on Krinsky's blog.

Click here to hear Krinsky interviewed on NPR.

Possum shrimp

I stumbled across this image on wikipedia. This mysid is described as a shrimp-like creature in the critter tribe Mysidacea (I'm using my own little descriptor, as the taxonomy confused me). They are colloquially known as opossum shrimp because females have a brood pouch. Anyway, I wish I could say I had taken this photo.

27 meteors

That's how many we counted last night (or rather early this morning) during the Perseid meteor shower, in spite of the light pollution. We started watching at 2 a.m. and came indoors about 4. That was the peak viewing time. It was so nice outside. Sweater weather. Brownies. No mosquitoes.

A Perseid meteor over Joshua Tree National Park in California, August 11, 2007. Credit: Joe Westerberg. NASA Web site. More Perseid photos here.

'Tis the season for tagging

A couple of years ago, we made a very crude (as in unsophisticated) video of me tagging and releasing a monarch butterfly. I was surprised to discover that it has been viewed 1,500 times on YouTube. Good grief! I'm including it here for your amusement. The audio is particularly bad, but you get the gist of the procedure. By the way, Monarch Watch is now filling orders for 2008 tags.

Clouds have a fan club

I noticed some cool cloud formations when I went out to water the beans this evening. Unfortunately, this is the best image I could get. In the process of googling to learn what type of clouds these are, I got pleasantly distracted by a Web site for the Cloud Appreciation Society. Their photo gallery is amazing. There are 4,000 photos and dozens of categories, such as Optical Effects, Lightning, Fallstreak Holes, Kelvin-Helmholtz Wave Clouds, and Clouds That Look Like Things. Being a rodent lover, I particularly enjoyed this one.

Porch

Mom and Dad's, this weekend. A smilax vine has trespassed through the screen (left of the petunias). They said they've been reluctant to bother it because it gives the lizards a place to hide from the cats.

Virtual Belize

The N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences is off again with their Educators of Excellence and the Tropical Ecology Institute. Last week, the group began its exploration of Belize. You can read a journal of their daily activities and see photos online. The teachers and crew will return home July 30.

Here are a few questions they've received via Internet during their trip:

July 24, 2008
What kind of traditional foods have you eaten? Madeline, 7th grade, Wake County

The traditional foods we have enjoyed reflect the distinct cultural groups here in Belize: Creole (rice, beans, chicken), Mestizo (corn, roasted peppers, hot chiles) and Garufino (fish, yucca-based foods like bread). We have eaten two very unique fruits that we cannot find in North Carolina: the waya or genip, a small green fruit with white flesh; and the pitahaya or dragonfruit [pictured*], a baseball-sized, purple-pink fruit that looks like a small artichoke.

Is it hard to sleep with all the jungle noise? Brenna, 5th grade, and Dax, Kindergarten, Wake County

The jungle is a noisy place. We can hear cicadas (which change pitch according to time of day and species), owls, crickets, frogs and toads. The jungle is an active place at night...scorpions, Fer-de-lances** and leaf cutter ants (known as wee wee). Most of us are so tired from the day that we have no problems falling asleep, but few of us have had nocturnal encounters in our cabanas — boreal rice rat, cockroaches, a very large spider (4" diameter) and a 5" scorpion scampering across one of the teacher's beds! Tonight we found a 5" long-horned beetle that was so strong that it moved a plate and held a pen!

* Pitaya aka pitahaya, is the fruit of an epiphytic cactus, Hylocereus undatus.

** The Fer-de-lance is the most dangerous snake in Belize. Gulp! The teachers encountered a 3-foot-long specimen along a path Monday evening and took its photo.

How do I love this tractor?

Let me count the ways:

1. I love that it looks like a hot rod.
2. I love the blue logo. Just like the one on my Dad's old tractor.
3. I love that it looks like a hot rod. Oops. Already said that.

My parents took this photo at a vintage tractor sale. Hate I missed it. I would love to have bought this baby as a centerpiece for our urban garden.

Species canna

These guys are my favorite cannas. They multiply like rabbits.

Pokeberries in waterlogged deer scat

I was looking back through some photos I took last fall and came across this shot of fresh deer scat filled with pokeberries. What I didn't notice until now is that a pokeberry seedling had already sprouted right in the mud-soaked poo (zoom in if you dare). I love that!

Raindrops on lady's mantle

I was awake into the wee hours, finishing a riveting mystery novel. The rain began about 4 a.m. What a surprise. The forecast was for scattered showers during the day. I had assumed it would be afternoon. It was one of those soporific, gentle-but-insistent rains. No thunder. No lightning. The kind of lullaby you need after you've turned the last page of a heart-pounding whodunnit.

I ventured out a little bit ago to check the rain gauge. 1 1/4 inches! Also snapped this photo of the raindrops remaining on the leaves of this lady's mantle. When you touch the wet leaves of this plant, the drops roll around like little balls of mercury.

Storm

Purple Hull Peas are in!

The purple hull peas have arrived. I bought a few the weekend before last at the North Carolina State Farmer's Market (a large 7-day-a-week market that draws vendors from across the state). I got the peas pictured here this morning at a downtown open-air farmer's market, an urban experiment. I think this is the second year of it, and it's only open on Wednesdays for 3 1/2 hours. It's just over 1 mile away. The hours have never been convenient for me before, but today I had time to check it out.

There weren't as many vendors as I'd hoped. I bought the peas, along with some yellow-hued fingerling potatoes, from a local grower who both supplies and owns a tapas restaurant in town. The restaurant returns its scraps to the farm for composting. I bought a handful of beautiful shitake mushrooms from another local grower. They were delicious in a shallot and mushroom breakfast omelette. We had the potatoes on the side. I wasn't too crazy about the flavor—a bit strong and bitter. My husband thought they tasted fine. Just goes to show how palates vary. I did some googling to investigate what variety they might be, and my best guess is Russian Banana.

Lichens on angel

I popped over to Oakwood Cemetery Monday afternoon to see how the digging of Jesse Helms' grave was coming along (it's a half mile from our house). I took this photo of a charming, lichen-encrusted statuary.

Built in 1869, this 102-acre Raleigh cemetery is open to the public, and there are paths for strolling and biking. It has grand old trees and beautiful stone architecture. I'm more of a cremation/compost advocate myself, but if it weren't for this historic graveyard, there'd be no green space of much consequence in the heart of our city. Oakwood Cemetery is a downtown oasis, and I'm happy it's in "my back yard"—even if I don't care for some of its occupants.