50 Million Cowbirds

Okay, well maybe five dozen is more like it, but that is still a lot of cowbirds in our backyard. Over the last month their numbers have been climbing at our morning junk bird convention. I took these pictures this morning.

Elly thinks it must have been a good year for them. I guess they leave their eggs in the nests of other birds. Ornery critters. I wonder what factors make them more or less successful in any given year? Or why they are congregating around here this year? We've noticed that the numbers of particular birds rise and fall. A few years ago we had about 6 dozen house finches with us throughout the winter. The last couple of winters, though, there have been only half a dozen or so.

They certainly have the mourning doves outnumbered these days.

Astronomy Down Under

Here is a story Rob Esson, one of my astronomy buddies, sent via email. Rob travels quite a bit for his job, and visits Australia regularly. He is also from the "otherside of the pond" and indulges in occasional bits of "we don't speak the same language" humor. All very amusing, naturally. You should imagine this story told in a sort of nasally British accent...

Gentlemen: sorry I couldn't join y'all, but let me share a story-ette with you. A week ago last Saturday night I was a couple of hundred miles west of Sydney in the Outback observing through an 18in Obsession (see image -- chap is Lachlan MacDonald of the Astronomy Society of New South Wales). There are, as you know, three fantabulous Globulars in the sky - Omega Centauri, M13, and 47 Tucanae. We were looking at 47 Tuc with a 26mm Nagler when t'other guy there Tony says "Some people see colours in 47 Tuc at high magnification - lets find out what you see" (of course, had he been American, he would have said 'colors'), So we switched eyepieces to one of the old 12mm Naglers (remember the double barrelled ones that you can use as 1.25in or 2in?). I look through and say "Well, I can't see any obvious color, and it doesn't seem to have as good definition at the higher magnification". Lachlan then takes a look and concurs, saying "It's actually a pretty shitty view", and shines his red light onto the objective to check for dew - but no go. Tony also looks and agrees that the definition is poorer ... until it dawns on him that ... yes, we'd left the translucent plastic lens cap on the other end, and we were STILL able to see the globular, AND some degree of definition. After taking the cap off, well, words fail me (gold and blue were my colors, Lachlan agreed, and Tony saw salmon pink - but maybe it was the wine) - but that should give you just some sort of clue as to how amazing 47 Tuc is that it can even penetrate a lens cap and look reasonable!

Rob

(c) 2007 Rob Esson Productions. All rights reserved.

Wild Bunch

On a walk with Samba Saturday, I found some wild flowers in a field near our house. I didn't have my camera, so I picked a few sprigs to carry home with the purpose of identifying them. I felt a little guilty about picking them, but the field is not in a nature preserve or park and is mowed regularly. I rationalized they would probably be mowed down in a week or two anyway. I made a bouquet from them when we got home and have been surprised by how well they have fared. I didn't expect them to last more than a day, but they have gone for nearly a week. The center flower in this image is chicory.

I turned to my copy of Edgar Denison's Missouri Wildflowers, which sufficed to identify the brown-eyed susans and chicory, but wasn't much help with the other two. Naturally, I consulted the fount of all knowledge (Google) and found MissouriPlants.com, a terrific website. This enabled me to identify the remaining flowers: yellow ironweed and wild blue sage, which I particularly like.

Crescent Moon

I stepped out in our backyard yesterday evening to check the sky, considering a possible urban astronomy session, and was surprised to find a beautiful waxing crescent moon visible through the western trees. The new moon was only a few days ago.

I took a snapshot and am pleased with the result. Mare Crisium and the prominent crater, Cleomedes, can be seen in the image.

I did break out one of my scopes later in the evening and observed from 10 until about 1:30 in the morning, logging some challenging planetary nebulae in Aquila and Cygnus. I'm pondering whether to start a blog devoted to astronomy observations.

David Smith's Zinnias

We have lived at our home in midtown Kansas City for 19 years, which is a long time compared with the average time people often stay in one house before moving. I have heard the average is 7 years. Our next door neighbors, the Smiths, however, moved into their house during the flood of 1951. Mr. Smith once told me they had to sneak in to see the house when they bought it because the neighborhood was under curfew. They lived there for 56 years.

They have been the best neighbors. It was a sad day when they moved out, though I don't think either Mr. or Mrs. Smith will miss all of the up keep these big old houses require, or walking up a long flight of stairs from the street. (The Smith's did not put in a driveway -- the neighborhood was built when most people rode the trolley.) Anyway, the neighborhood will never be the same.

Their son David, who for years did charitible work in South America, lived at home when he was in America and had a fondness for gardening. He did not always choose low maintenance plants, however, and Mr. Smith had a fondness for mowing them down, or having them mowed down, when David was out of the country.

David has planted zinnias for years and has often offered to give us cuttings so we could plant some in our yard too. They are certainly beautiful. I think we will find a place in our yard for some zinnias to honor the Smiths.

Caprese Salad

I had to go talk with one of our managers, Shawn, at work. He had this enormous basket of tomatoes on his desk and told me he was trying to give them away. "Really?" Organic, too. I helped myself to a pound or two with Shawn encouraging me to take more. I didn't want to take more than we could eat, though. Shawn said his family planted 70 tomato vines this year. Wow!

We used some of the tomatoes to make these lovely caprese salads. They are simple to prepare and wonderful to eat. You need the freshest and very best ingredients. This includes vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese (the kind that comes packed in water), and fresh basil. We got the cheese from Costco and the basil from a pot on our back porch. A good quality olive oil and freshly ground pepper are the remaining ingredients.

To make the salad, simply slice the tomatoes and cheese, arrange them on the plates, drizzle olive oil over them, tear the basil leaves and sprinkle them on top, and finish it off with a few twists from the pepper mill.

Elly and I first had caprese salad in Fiesole near Florence, Italy.

What Vegetarians Eat

I am not a full-time vegetarian, but my wife Elly is, which makes me a vegetarian about 75% of the time. Vegetarians are not rare in the midwest, though you wouldn't know that by the question people almost universally ask when they learn someone is vegetarian. It's so predictable, it's funny: "What do you eat?" Elly's usual response is something along the lines of "Everything except dead flesh."

We rarely eat at restaurants anymore, apart from occasional carryout from Minsky's Pizza (5-Star Cheese or Gourmet Vegetarian) or Taj Mahal (Vegetarian dinner for two). The reason for this, apart from saving money, is that restaurant food doesn't compare with what we (especially Elly) cook at home.

Tonight we had spaghetti squash cooked with butter, garlic, gruyere cheese, and parsley, a salad with dark red kidney beans, ground walnuts and I don't know what else (unbelievably delicious), and asparagus crepes (Elly made the crepes with whole wheat flour). For dessert we had an apple crumble. Elly used various recipes, but modified them all to suit the SouthBeach diet, which I have followed off and on for a few years. It didn't taste like diet food.

And, in case you are wondering, Elly's days off from work are Sunday and Monday. A meal like this would be difficult to prepare on a workday. Even on workdays, though, we spend more time preparing and enjoying our dinner than most people do, I suspect. We typically eat later, as well, usually between 8 and 9 in the evening.

I got the squash from the Brookside Organic Farmer's Market, which I discovered a few months ago. All of the produce is raised within 100 miles of the market (most within 20, I think), is certified 100% organic, and is raised by the vendors. Saturday morning visits to the market are a fun treat.