Showing posts with label covid diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label covid diary. Show all posts

Monday, February 5, 2024

Recording Memories

Me And First Born Pen and ink by Meera Rao

Sometimes I wonder what’s the point of sketching and then recording it in the blog.  Doing the covid diaries, I have recorded moments that looking back now, I could have easily forgotten and dug up memories that brought me joy. Now publishing in the blog after two and three years later brings some amazement to me!   This was a memory from years ago and yet now fresh - and refreshed again ! 


Week 20 Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic journal 2021 

The photo in the Smithsonian Engagement calendar 2021, upcycled to pandemic diary/journal 2nd year in a row, is by Elinor Cahn: East Baltimore Documentary Survey Project c.1975Gelatin silver print Smithsonian American Art Museum.  Cahn was one of the several photographers involved in the National Endowment for the Arts 1978 East Baltimore Documentary Survey Project, which aimed to capture the realities of life in a multiethnic community. 


Week 20 Smithsonian Engagement Calendar Pandemic journal 2022

 My sketch for this week is of the mural Pool House Blues by Anickan Udofias at the William H  Ramsey Aquatic center by the Eastern Market at DC.  I have learned a lot about various artists and history, science, archeology etc. through the photographs in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar and also by the art I saw in and around various places I visited during those days.  The poster shown in the calendar photograph is for Richard Norman’s 1922 movie.  The movie featured “Bill Pickett(1870-1932), a famous cowboy and a rodeo performer of African and Native American descent.  Pickett created the technique of bulldogging( also known as steer wrestling) featured in the film. The film itself is presumed lost, as only fragments have been found”. 


Sketch of the mural ‘Pool House Blues by Anickan Udofias’
Sketch by Meera Rao 

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Geese and Goslings

Canada Geese color pencils by Meera Rao

A pair of geese have been a presence in our neighborhood over the past few years. They arrive early spring and I am assuming it’s the same pair! They dine all around our and our  neighbor’s yards and leave droppings everywhere :) This year though one day in May, they came as a family with tiny four fur balls of goslings in their midst.  I still don’t know where their nest is.  They always have the goslings in the middle with at least one parent on very high alert!  The goslings are growing up fast and now are rounder and taller even though still have downy feather. They seem to be eating machines. I have watched them for a few weeks now and sadly there are only three goslings - never have found out what happened to the fourth one :( It is a lot of fun to watch them all eat, move and lounge around as a family. We usually postpone yard and garden work when they are out and about as they get very territorial - Besides, we don’t want to be chased by a goose ;) 

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Swallowtail Tales

Black Swallowtail Butterfly colorpencil By Meera Rao

In mid April, one day for garnishing my pasta I brought in a bunch of parsley from the garden. Being a Vegan, I always check to make sure nothing is crawling around among the leaves. This time I found a bunch of tiny black dots and couple of  little larger ovals with a white band in the middle! Looking at them using a magnifying glass confirmed right away my suspicions. Those were the Black Swallowtail caterpillars :) I had to rescue them. So the bunch of parsley went into a vase and I now had new pets to watch over! A new page idea for my 'covid diary' obviously.

It was amazing to watch the tiny little caterpillars with voracious appetite methodically chomping away the parsley leaves! I had not seen any butterflies in the yard yet so I researched and found out that the eggs may have been hibernating during the winter waiting for the right signal from mother nature. We had to constantly restock the parsley leaves to keep up with the chompers and clean all the droppings that seemed to rain down constantly! It took about ten days for the caterpillar to be full grown. 


Then one started getting restless and racing up and down the stems. My husband guessed it was looking for a sturdier twig and brought a couple from the garden. And he was right! Next, one of the caterpillars did a 'purge' and then settled on a twig.  First its hind end was attached to the twig and then it spun one single thread and attached itself like a telephone linesman! (or a coconut tree climber) We kept checking on it for many hours. While we were away for about an hour to go pick up the groceries we had ordered, the caterpillar discarded its outer skin to reveal the chrysalis shell. In the lower left box of the photo montage above, is the discarded skin(top left corner ) and 'the purge'


Unfortunately, one of the caterpillars fell victim to a spider - I guess we were not vigilant enough :(  It happened soon after the caterpillar became immobile after attaching itself to the stick.  The spider must have come in with the twigs and leaves ! I guess the natural cycle has many aspects.

Chrysalis about ten minutes before the butterfly emerged (hindsight!) 

Last night the chrysalis started turning dark in color.  It had been about twelve days and my research informed me that in the morning as the sunlight and warmth come about the butterfly may emerge. We both checked the chrysalis around six in the morning and again around 6:20 when I noticed beautiful dots and design. I took a photo and assumed it was not time yet thinking it had to turn darker. I went to make myself a cup of coffee. Next thing I knew, the butterfly was already out of the chrysalis and hanging next to a leaf. We took it outside and waited.  It took its own time warming up and stretching its wings. About three hours later it hopped to a flower close by and in no time at all flew off!  And I found out more blue in the wings makes it a female butterfly :) 


We have one more chrysalis indoors.  Hoping we will be able to see the butterfly emerge from this cocoon from the start !  Meanwhile we have to make sure there is plenty of parsley and dill growing in the garden. 

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Some See A Weed, Some See A Wish !

Dandilion graphite and color pencil sketches by Meera Rao 

What a wonderfully complex world is in there on our lawn! We have always let the yard stay 'green', not really bothered by the 'weeds' and have admired the tiny colorful flowers that show up voluntarily. They bring with them many birds, butterflies and bees. The lawn does get mowed but we avoid weed killers or insecticides. When our daughter was a little girl, she would ask her Dad not to mow down the pink clover flowers and he always obliged by mowing around them! Blowing the fluffy seed heads of the dandelion was always a favorite pastime for her too ! 

I look up the names of the different plants every so often and admire the flowers but had never really checked each flower and plant carefully until now.  I take my time with these nature journal pages now for what I have dubbed as 'covid diary' .  Each page covers days and months and I sketch and add pieces as time goes on.  It has been about 8 weeks now and I have had about that many pages going in various stages at the same time :) The page above has been assigned #4.  

Dandelion journal page by Meera Rao 

I learnt some interesting things about dandelions in my research:  "Dandelions tend to flower most abundantly in spring, but can re-flower in the fall, too. Flowers open in the morning and tend to close up at night. After a couple of days in flower they close and the seeds develop inside the closed head. The seeds, technically a fruit called a "cypselae" are produced on the flower stalk with each seed representing one of the florets in the flower head. Each has a pappus, a set of feathery bristles that act as a sail or parachute ensuring distribution of the seed by the wind. (What kid doesn't know that?) As the seeds mature the flower stalk elongates greatly, raising the fluffy seed head up into the breeze."

Ken Willis, head of horticulture at the U of Alberta Botanic Garden says "Dandelions were brought to North America from Europe and Asia as a vegetable, so they have many culinary uses. They are high in vitamins and the leaves are good in salads, the taproot can be ground into a coffee substitute and the flowers make wine. Grow it like lettuce and harvest it before the flowers bloom,"  

I am yet to try it in my coffee, wine or salad though!!!

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