Category: Cultures

Newgrange VII

Approaching Newgrange for the first time

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Michael Joseph “Brian” O’Kelly was selected to undertake the direction of the excavation of Newgrange during a 1961 meeting of “those who had a professional interest in the monument” organized by PJ Hartnett, the archaeological officer with Bord Fáilte Eireann (Irish Tourist Board) and a former pupil of Professor O’Kelly’s. Excavation commenced in 1962 and continued every summer for a four-month season up to and including 1975.

The aim of the excavation was to discover as much as possible about the archaeological and historical context of Newgrange and the people who built it and to discover what its original finished appearance was so as to direct a reconstruction, conservation and restoration of the structure to its former condition and appearance.

The last year of excavation was 1975, Michael J. wrote “We determined in 1975 that that should be our last season of excavation at Newgrange. We had investigated approximately one third of the structure and we had discovered much about it that was new, both in its structure and in its ornament, while radiocarbon had pushed its date back by 1,000 years……”

“…We felt that the other two thirds should be left for a future excavator, who, working with new knowledge and perhaps with better methods and new scientific approaches, should have large areas untouched by us in which to test, check and re-evaluate our findings.” From The Restoration of Newgrange by Michael J.O’Kelly. Antiquity LIII, 1979.

“Between the bright sky and the long glittering silver ribbon of the Boyne the land looks black and featureless. Great flocks of starlings are flying across the sky from their nighttime roosts to their daytime feeding places. The effect is very dramatic as the direct light of the sun brightens and casts a glow of light all over the chamber. I can even see parts of the roof and a reflected light shines right back into the back of the end chamber.” The recorded words of Prof O’Kelly spoken in the tomb of Newgrange on the 21st December 1969.

Click Me for the first post of this series.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Our Brilliant Great Granddaughter

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Sunday last we had a morning of it with a family fall apple picking event. Afterwards our granddaughter hosted us for coffee where her daughter finished her latest creation.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Treman Early Autumn Walk XIV

The post discusses the Hepatica acutiloba plant, highlighting its characteristics, growth, historical medicinal use, and its natural habitat in central eastern North America. It also includes an observation made in Robert H. Treman Park.

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These characteristic leaves are Hepatica plants growing on the sun dappled southern rim of Robert H. Treman Park captured on a bright late September morning.

“Hepatica acutiloba, the sharp-lobed hepatica, is a herbaceous flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. It is sometimes considered part of the genus Anemone, as Anemone acutiloba, A. hepatica, or A. nobilis. Also generally known as Liverleaf and Liverwort.”


“The word hepatica derives from the Greek ἡπατικός hēpatikós, from ἧπαρ hêpar ‘liver’, because its three-lobed leaf was thought to resemble the human liver.”


“Each clump-forming plant grows 5 to 19 cm (2.0 to 7.5 in) tall, flowering in the early to mid spring. The flowers are greenish-white, white, purple or pinkish in color, with a rounded shape. After flowering the fruits are produced in small, rounded columned heads, on pedicels 1 to 4 mm long. When the fruits, called achenes, are ripe they are ovoid in shape, 3.5–4.7 mm long and 1.3–1.9 mm wide, slightly winged and tend to lack a beak.”

Hepatica Flowers in early spring on the Rim Trail

“Hepatica acutiloba is native to central eastern North America where it can be found growing in deciduous open woods, most often in calcareous soils. Butterflies, moths, bees, flies and beetles are known pollinators. The leaves are basal, leathery, and usually three-lobed, remaining over winter.”

“Hepatica was once used as a medicinal herb. Owing to the doctrine of signatures, the plant was once thought to be an effective treatment for liver disorders. Although poisonous in large doses, the leaves and flowers may be used as an astringent, as a demulcent for slow-healing injuries, and as a diuretic.”

Ferns and Mosses growing beneath Red Pines

View of the lower falls and swimming hole from the Rim Trail

Click Me another post featuring Hepatica flowers

References
–text in italics and quotes is from Wikipedia, “Hepatica” and “Hepatica acutiloba.”
–“The Botanical Garden Vol II Perennials and Annuals,” Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, Firefly Books, 2002.

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Treman Early Autumn Walk XIII

The Red Pine, Minnesota’s state tree, is a tall, conical, long-lived evergreen with distinctive orange-red bark.

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Returning from a Rim Trail walk one April my boots were yellow from a prolific release of pollen from flowers of these tall trees that develop into the woody cones.

Pinus, the pine, is the largest genus in the family Pinaceae, with around 100 species throughout the northern hemisphere.


Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) is Minnesota’s state tree, known there as the Norway Pine. The use of the name “Norway” may stem from early Scandinavian immigrants who likened the American red pines to the Scots pines back home.


“Red pine is a coniferous evergreen tree characterized by tall, straight growth. It usually ranges from 20–35 meters (66–115 feet) in height and 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in trunk diameter, exceptionally reaching 43.77 m (143+1⁄2 ft) tall. The crown is conical, becoming a narrow, rounded dome with age. The bark is thick and gray brown at the base of the tree, but thin, flaky and bright orange red in the upper crown; the tree’s name derives from this distinctive character. Some red color may be seen in the fissures of the bark. The species is self-pruning; there tend not to be dead branches on the trees, and older trees may have very long lengths of branchless trunk below the canopy.”


“It is a long-lived tree, reaching a maximum age of about 500 years. Another member of Pinus, Pinus longaeva D.K. Bailey, the intermountain bristlecone pine, is the longest-lived tree in the world; one in the White Mountains of Nevada is estimated to be 5,000 years old, and by matching rhe rings with even older dead trees, a sequence going back 8,500 years has been established.”

“Red pine is notable for its very constant morphology and low genetic variation throughout its range, suggesting it has been through a near extinction in its recent evolutionary history. A genetic study of nuclear microsatellite polymorphisms among populations distributed throughout its natural range found that red pine populations from Newfoundland are genetically distinct from most mainland populations, consistent with dispersal from different glacial refugia in this highly self-pollinating species.”

Click Me for the first post in this series.

References
–text in italics and quotes is from Wikipedia, “Pinus resinosa.”
–“The Botanical Garden Vol I Trees and Shrubs,” Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, Firefly Books, 2002.

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Treman Early Autumn Walk XI

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford innovatively used goldenrod to produce rubber, potentially counteracting rubber shortages.

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Where the Rim Trail descends to an ending on the Enfield Gorge floor a perennial patch of sunlight promotes an extravagant woodland growth of Zigzag goldenrod.

Solidago flexicaulis, AKA Broadleaf Goldenrod and Ziazag Goldenrod

“Inventor Thomas Edison experimented with goldenrod to produce rubber, which it contains naturally. Edison created a fertilization and cultivation process to maximize the rubber content in each plant. His experiments produced a 12 ft-tall (3.7 m) plant that yielded as much as 12% rubber. The tires on the Model T given to him by his friend Henry Ford were made from goldenrod. Like George Washington Carver, Henry Ford was deeply interested in the regenerative properties of soil and the potential of alternative crops such as peanuts and soybeans to produce plastics, paint, fuel and other products.  Ford had long believed that the world would eventually need a substitute for gasoline and supported the production of ethanol (or grain alcohol) as an alternative fuel. In 1942, he would showcase a car with a lightweight plastic body made from soybeans. Ford and Carver began corresponding via letter in 1934, and their mutual admiration deepened after George Washington Carver made a visit to Michigan in 1937.”

“By the time World War II began, Ford had made repeated journeys to Tuskegee to convince George Washington Carver to come to Dearborn and help him develop a synthetic rubber to help compensate for wartime rubber shortages. Carver arrived on July 19, 1942, and set up a laboratory in an old water works building in Dearborn. He and Ford experimented with different crops, including sweet potatoes and dandelions, eventually devising a way to make the rubber substitute from goldenrod, a plant weed commercially viable. Carver died in January 1943, Ford in April 1947, but the relationship between their two institutions continued to flourish: As recently as the late 1990s, Ford awarded grants of $4 million over two years to the George Washington Carver School at Tuskegee.”

“Extensive process development was conducted during World War II to commercialize goldenrod as a source of rubber. The rubber is only contained in the leaves, not the stems or blooms. Typical rubber content of the leaves is 7%. The resulting rubber is of low molecular weight, resulting in an excessively tacky compound with poor tensile properties.”

References: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Solidago.”

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Treman Early Autumn Walk X

The zigzag goldenrod is a crucial plant to North American pollinator biodiversity, hosting diverse insects.

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After crossing the bridge at Swan Road I turned back down the gorge on the Rim Trail, climbing above the gorge where these interesting woodland goldenrod thrive.

“Solidago flexicaulis, the broadleaved goldenrod, or zigzag goldenrod,is a North American species of herbaceous perennial plants in the family Asteraceae. It is native to the eastern and central parts of the United States and Canada, from Nova Scotia west to Ontario and the Dakotas, and south as far as Alabama and Louisiana. It grows in a variety of habitats including mesic upland forests, well drained floodplain forests, seepage swamp hummocks, and rocky woodlands.”

“The plant is called the “zigzag goldenrod” because the thin, wiry stem zigs and zags back and forth, changing direction at each node (leaf attachment point). The plant bears sometimes as many as 250 small yellow flower heads, some at the end of the stem, others in the axils of the leaves. The leaves are very broad, almost round, but with an elongated tip at the end and large teeth along the edges.”

“Goldenrod is considered a keystone species and has been called the single most important plant for North American pollinator biodiversity. Goldenrod species are used as a food source by the larvae of many Lepidoptera species. As many as 104 species of butterflies and moths use it as a host plant for their larvae, and 42 species of bees are goldenrod specialists, visiting only goldenrod for food. Some lepidopteran larvae bore into plant tissues and form a bulbous tissue mass called a gall around it, upon which the larva then feeds. Various parasitoid wasps find these galls and lay eggs in the larvae, penetrating the bulb with their ovipositors. Woodpeckers are known to peck open the galls and eat the insects in the center.”

“Solidago flexicaulis is host to the following insect induced galls: Asteromyia modesta, a species of gall midges in the family Cecidomyiidae. Gnorimoschema gallaesolidaginis also called the solidago gall moth, goldenrod gall moth or goldenrod gallmaker, is a moth in the family Gelechiidae.”

References: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Solidago flexicaulis,” “Solidago,” “Asteromyia modesta,” and “Gnorimoschema gallaesolidaginis.”

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

A Day At The Airport

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Airport Day was hosted by the East Hill Flying Club, the pancake breakfast was in the hangar.

We learned why a hot air balloon cannot “pop.”

The propane burner announces the approach of every hot air baloon.

The operator kept careful watch over this landing helicopter, Sam was nervous anyway.

While we were aloft the New York State Police helicopter completed landing next to the U.S. Army Helicopter.

U.S. Army Helicopter — Sam was not a fan of the potential firepower, Rory was all in

New York State Police Helicopter

Dryden Volunteer Fire Department Firetruck

The Friendly Clown was excellent!!

The Airport Terminal was not part of the day’s events, I took Sam and Rory there once, to visit the bathroom, and ever since they insist on visiting the play area

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Solid Doubles

2023, baseball, Cass Park, double, fall, hits, Ithaca, Little League, New York State, RBI, Tompkins County

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Our grandson’s work on baseball skills is paying off. Here he slugs one to right field where it bounces on the fence for a solid double. He had two doubles that game, driving in a couple of runs, scoring off one himself. Good work!!

“Carl Stotz, a resident of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, founded Little League Baseball in 1939. He began experimenting with his idea in the summer of 1938 when he gathered his nephews, Jimmy and Major Gehron, and their neighborhood friends. They tried different field dimensions over the course of the summer and played several informal games. The following summer, they felt that they were ready to establish what later became Little League Baseball. The first league in Williamsport had just three teams, each sponsored by a different business. The first teams, Jumbo Pretzel, Lycoming Dairy, and Lundy Lumber, were managed by Stotz and brothers George and Bert Bebble. The men, joined by their wives and another couple, formed the first-ever Little League board of directors.”

“The first league game took place on June 6, 1939 when Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy, 23–8. Lycoming Dairy became the champions of the first half of the season and then defeated Lundy Lumber, the second-half champions, in a best-of-three championship series. The following year, a second league was formed in Williamsport, and from there Little League Baseball grew to become an international organization of nearly 200,000 teams in every U.S. state and in more than 80 countries.”

“From 1951 through 1973, Little League was restricted to boys only. In 1974, Little League rules were revised to allow participation by girls in the baseball program following the result of a lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Women on behalf of Maria Pepe. According to the Little League Baseball and Softball participation statistics following the 2008 season, there were nearly 2.6 million boys and girls in Little League Baseball worldwide. Of these, approximately 400,000 are registered in softball leagues (including both boys and girls). Starting in 2022, For tournament purposes, Little League Baseball is divided into 20 geographic regions: ten national and ten international. Each summer, Little League operates seven World Series tournaments at various locations throughout the U.S. (Little League softball and Junior, Senior, and Big League baseball and softball).”

Reference: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Little League.”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

A Stunning Find

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After living here since 1986 I discovered this Cayuga Heights park on a warm early September day, 2023.

Looking across Cayuga Lake, not visible in the valley, to West Hill.

Plaque inscription: “Here may you too find the love of beauty, goodness, truth. This was the wish of Jane and Jared Newman when they presented Sunset Park to the village of Cayuga Heights in January of 1938.”

Rest on a limestone bench beneath a mature oak tree.

Limestone benches

View across Ithaca towards West Hill and, in the far distance, Connecticut Hill.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Edible

nonmigratory?

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Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning from a wooden observation platform over this watery swamp. “Look, hot dogs!!”

“Typha is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in Australia as cumbungi or bulrush, in Canada as bulrush or cattail, and in New Zealand as reed, cattail, bulrush or raupo.”

“Many parts of the Typha plant are edible to humans. Before the plant flowers, the tender inside of the shoots can be squeezed out and eaten raw or cooked. The starchy rhizomes are nutritious with a protein content comparable to that of maize or rice. They can be processed into a flour with 266 kcal per 100 grams, and are most often harvested from late autumn to early spring. They are fibrous, and the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. Baby shoots emerging from the rhizomes, which are sometimes subterranean, can be picked and eaten raw. Also underground is a carbohydrate lump which can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked like a potato. The plant is one championed by survival experts because various parts can be eaten throughout the year. Plants growing in polluted water can accumulate lead and pesticide residues in their rhizomes, and these should not be eaten.”

“The rind of young stems can be peeled off, and the tender white heart inside can be eaten raw or boiled and eaten like asparagus. This food has been popular among the Cossacks in Russia, and has been called “Cossack asparagus”. The leaf bases can be eaten raw or cooked, especially in late spring when they are young and tender. In early summer the sheath can be removed from the developing green flower spike, which can then be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. In mid-summer when the male flowers are mature, the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener.”

Click me for another Sapsucker Woods posting.

Reference: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Typha.”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.