A Second Look--July 13, 2016

There haven't been any huge changes in my outdoor world this past week. Day lilies still dominate the blooms and hot and muggy days out number the cooler ones. To make it really feel like summer, the warm afternoons are now filled with gnats. Really annoying, but beats the black flies my sister deals with in Maine.

Here a few things I saw this week 

during a second look.

Skipper butterfly on a cone flower. If you look closely, you can see its proboscis extended into the flower. No matter how often I see an insect collecting nectar, I am still excited every time I see it. This time was no exception.

Marigold. All of the marigolds we have this year were reseeded from last years flowers.

Some giant mushrooms/fungus showed up in the yard this week. Notice the 12"  (30 cm) ruler for scale.

Close by there was another set of yellow ones. Once again, notice the 12" ruler for scale.

Queen Anne's Lace with black spot. I studied the spot or lack there of a couple of years ago. If you're interested in the results, you can read here.

Day lilies

The wren's nest finally has eggs in it. I suspect that there will be more.

There have been a lot of rabbits around this year.

Zinnias and marigolds. 

Popeye's Spinach

The other day Ward was reading something and called out, "Hey, listen to this. You know how Popeye eats spinach and gets really strong because of the iron in it? Well that portrayal happened because of a simple mistake." He proceeded to tell me that when the nutritional value for spinach was first published in the 1870's, there was a problem with a decimal point. That ended up with the belief that spinach had 10 times more iron in it than it really had. The mistake wasn't figured out until much later.

I thought that was pretty interesting and I would share it with you here on my blog. And that's where the problems began. I did a little googling and found the same story in many places. In fact, it's such a great story that it has been repeated for decades. But no one seems to have ever seen the original paper where this mistake was made. Mike Sutton published extensive research he did on the story in Best Thinking Science. After a lot of investigation, he could find no evidence that the misplaced decimal ever happened.

What about Popeye? Did the misplaced decimal story mislead him into eating spinach for strength? Well, it turns out that when he first ate it, he touted its Vitamin A properties instead of iron content.




Nevertheless, his love of spinach made it the third favorite food among children at one point and consumption of spinach went up in the 1940's when Popeye was in his heyday.

So how much iron does spinach actually have in it and is it any better than other foods as a source of iron? One cup of raw spinach (30 grams) contains 5% of the RDA for iron (which by the way is the same amount of iron in Peppermint Pattie.)  Of course, if you are eating it cooked you are likely to eat more. However, spinach also contains oxalates which bind to the iron and make it hard for the body to absorb. So generally, animal sources of iron are easier for the body to use. However like all leafy greens, spinach good for you for a lot of reasons.

So what conclusion can we draw from all of this? Once again, you can't believe everything you read.

Note: I did reading on this about a week before I wrote it. When I tried to relocate sources for some of the things I had written down, I couldn't find them all again. Therefore, I tried to summarize the topic without too many specifics when I couldn't find the sources. Come to think of it, this might be how some internet rumors get started :)

Thankful Sunday--July 10, 2016

Fireworks from Mayfield Days

I am thankful for community events.

While I live in a town, I really live very much in suburbia. You know how it works--spreading population around cities makes individual towns part of their sprawl. That's how it is here. However, there was a time when this area was out in the country and many remember the trips they took to here to eat at a famous ice cream stand. Luckily, the community tries hard to maintain its identity and small town feel. Some of those efforts include the local FFA farmers market, an old fashioned fair in the fall, and  Mayfield Days in the summer . We celebrated Mayfield Days this past weekend.

They started with a parade and fireworks on Friday evening. Followed by all kinds of events sponsored by various businesses and organizations on Saturday.  Even though it was very hot, a good time was had by all. For these events and the people who organize them I am thankful.
(Because you can take the girl out of the small town, but you can't take the small town out of the girl.)  :)

A few pictures from Mayfield* Days.

The library staff marches in the parade every year. Here we were at our line up spot with some of the signs we later carried in the parade. Even though the parade was in the evening, the temperatures were still above 90.
I got pretty hot.

The next day, among other things, there was a car show. While I'm not much into cars, I did find this exhibit interesting. This is part of a tree that grew up through a truck. After 36 years the tree had totally grown into the truck and they had to cut both the truck and tree to clear the area. This shows some the parts the tree grew around and into. Ward wants you to notice the truck's transmission and truck frame in this picture.

In conjunction with an exhibit at the local museum, the library sponsored a version of the Antique's Road Show. I took these two Civil War cannon balls for appraisal. While the appraiser didn't have any ideas about these, I had a good time seeing the others things people were bringing in. The best was hearing the stories about where they got their items.  

*Not the real name of the town, but keeping in line with Leave it to Beaver aliases.

Simple Kindness

You hear it all the time. Be kind to others. You never know the impact you might have. You might make the day of someone who is having a hard time. I think most of us do try to be kind with a thank you here and smile there. Recently, I've gotten feedback to know that some very simple gestures really did make a difference.

The first was when Ward was in the hospital and I was walking around outside. A crossing guard stopped the traffic and to let me cross a street. I smiled and said thank you as I crossed, and he replied, "Thank you for that and your smile. You have just made my day." I don't know if he usually doesn't get any response or he was having a bad day, but he was genuinely appreciative of that very simple gesture. (BTW, Ward's doing great. He's recovering well.)

Aldi's carts waiting for their quarter.

Next was when I was loading my car after a shopping trip in Aldi. A woman carrying a squirming toddler came up and asked if I had a quarter. (You have to "rent" the carts for a quarter.) I told her that she could have my cart after I emptied it. And then I asked her if she needed some bags. (No bagging in Aldi.) And she said yes. I gave her a couple of bags from my car. She was extremely appreciative and so was the toddler because he now got to ride in a cart. People share their carts at Aldi all the time, but today it especially made this mother's day.

The next example was when I last visited my mother. We were in the dining room waiting for lunch. My sister and I were taking a couple of pictures of my mother when we noticed another resident watching us intently. We asked her and her son, who was with her, if they would like their picture taken. He said it was alright. His mother, who was pretty much nonverbal, just smiled. So we took a few pictures of them because she seemed to be enjoying it. When I got the pictures developed, I mailed them to my mother and included one of the mother and son to be passed on. When the son got the picture, he immediately took it to his truck so he wouldn't lose it. It turns out that it was the only picture he had ever had with him and his mother. He was very touched. You see, this son is there every day to feed his mother all of her meals. He shows such dedication and he's never had a picture with her. He was truly appreciative.

These are all examples of such simple things. I didn't go out of my way to do anything special, just normal things that all of us would do. But being kind really made a difference. So I'm gonna try to be kind all of the time even when I'm in a bad mood. All I have to do is remember the look on the mother and son's face and I think I will have motivation enough.

(Wish I could show you pictures of the other people, but I have to respect their privacy.)

A Second Look--July 6, 2016

Here are somethings I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Day Lilies

Female House Finch

Balloon Flowers, Notice the bud that looks like a balloon.

Mushrooms

Cone Flowers

Day Lilies

Hummingbird

Day Lily

Chipmunk (This one's for you, Anne. :) )