Nature Journal - Junco

 Since posting the other day about my nature journal, I added a page for some dark-eyed junco observations that I made last summer while leading June and July Road Scholar hikes.  Juncos live year round in Shenandoah, but are only found here in the winter.  I like these cheerful little "snowbirds," and am always happy to encounter them.  Finding the nest while leading the hike was a big thrill - everyone enjoyed getting a look at a bird nest with eggs.  Here is what I wrote yesterday and today in my journal about the Shenandoah juncos.

Updating my Nature Journal

 Nearly four years ago, a friend of mine with Virginia Master Naturalists gave a short "class" on keeping a nature journal.  The class gave us a journal with about 60 or so pages, and a set of 12 watercolor pencils.  I started writing in it, and although I'd not drawn anything since elementary school art class (just after the Civil War), I tried a few sketches of birds and plants.  These were mediocre at best, dreadful at worst, and I kind of put the journal aside, more or less for three years.  I did, however, make written observations from time to time.

With the pandemic and my forced quarantine for health reasons, my friend said "why don't you try again?"  She brought me some more stuff, and I finally got to the point in July where I wasn't feeling sick and in pain pretty much constantly, so I opened up the journal and started adding drawings.  My first sketch was a blackberry plant in my backyard that the catbirds and robins loved to eat from, and it turned out pretty good (well, my opinion.)  It's the first thing I tried to draw in three years, plus I did it on my birthday!

I went back to my Shenandoah experiences and did a few sketches of things I encountered while hiking.  And I also added many entries and sketches of things I see in my backyard.  Bottom line - in just about a month, I had filled the final 1/3 of the journal (it had taken me 3.5 years to do the first two thirds), and I've started a second nature journal, one that is not only larger with 100 pages to fill, but each page is nearly twice the size as those in my first one.

So I thought I'd share a few of the sketches I made of things I saw while hiking, mostly in Shenandoah National Park.

Here is a fungus (Heartrot fungus) that I saw on a rotten log in the park while leading Road Scholar hikes last July.

While leading Road Scholar hikes in July and October, I saw various insects on milkweed plants, and sketched them in late July.

I also had enjoyed finding a monarch caterpillar in October on one of the hikes, and had seen a monarch on a milkweed flower in the July hikes, so I decided to sketch the life cycle of the monarch butterfly.

During the October hikes, I was delighted to find not only some small American chestnut trees, but also some chestnuts.  This tree was once the most common tree in the southern Appalachians until the Chinese blight wiped them out.  One in three trees was once a chestnut.  I also saw a bumblebee getting a late nectar snack from a thistle.  So I added these to my nature journal.

Finally, for now from Shenandoah, a couple of springs ago, I was hiking in the park with very few signs of spring at higher elevations, but at the lower elevations, I saw a dwarf iris in bloom with a wintergreen just next to it.  So I added these to the journal where I had written about that hike.

Several years ago, I took my granddaughter backpacking in Michigan.  I'd made a few sketches of the forest and lake in the field, but decided to add this sketch last month of some painted turtles on a log near our campsite.

Why the Heck am I Not Hiking????

 Back in March, I mentioned that I had a coronary artery blockage and needed three stents to be placed.  I was sure that I would be hiking in early May.  But in mid-April, I had agonizing abdominal pain and vomiting, which I initially thought was due to giving birth to an alien!  After a couple of ER visits and hospital stays a week apart, they finally figured out the problem - gallstones!  Since I'd only had the stents placed a month ago, stopping the blood thinners for the removal of the gallbladder was too risky.  They told me that I had to wait a minimum of five more months.  So they put in a gall bladder drain - don't ask - which has been a pain to deal with but allows me to eat without getting the pain because it essentially negates having a gall bladder.  Along the way, I had more problems - pain, nausea, and liver damage - that appears to be related to flushing the drain line three times a day.  In late June - after losing a total of 25 pounds since March - my doctor said that I should stop flushing the drain, and the problems for the last three months have been minimal.  And my liver values, while still high in a couple of cases, are moving in the right direction, and a couple of them are finally normal again.  Plus, I've gained back about five pounds.

If all goes well, my surgery is about a month away.  I'll be laid up for 2-4 weeks after that, and then hopefully can start getting back in shape, and maybe starting some easy hikes in mid to late October.

Fingers crossed, but boots not laced - yet!