Apple Cider

I went to the supermarket yesterday and there was local apple cider for sale. It was a bit pricey, so I bought a small bottle.
I am not sure what kinds of apples are used for cider. It depends where the cider is made.
Sweet cider is what I bought. Hard cider isn’t easy to find around here. I’m sure it exists, but I haven’t seen it.
I read that cider was first made in the US. I would bow to the expertise of the UK in cider making. Hard cider is well known there and can be bought easily.
In the olden days in the US, apple trees grown from seed produces sour, almost bitter tasting apples. not let them go to waste, people made Apple Jack and other varieties of alcohol. It was not unknown for this drink to be sold privately and behind closed doors.
To make cider, you need an apple orchard with the right kind of apples.
You need to take care of the apple trees which is a lot of work. I’ll talk about that in another post.
When the apples are ready to pick, they are plucked off the trees and put into boxes.
The apples are cut up and mashed. They are put into an apple press and the cider flows out.
Apple cider is only available around here for a short period of time. You can’t store it, you have to drink it fairly soon after you buy it. It will get fizzy if kept too long and it gets funky tasting. It need to be refrigerated right after you come home.

I found all of the wonderful pictures at Wikipedia Commons.

Cider apple harvest in Herefordshire  by, Peter Styles

Crates ready for picking cider apples, UK by, David Mould

The next two pictures are of cider apples  by, Jonathon Billinger.

Next are pictures of apple presses.

Apple cider process  by, Ekardif

Cider press in Hollis, New Hampshire, USA  by, Captain-tucker

From the National Trust for Jersey

Juicing  by, Red58bill

The next two pictures are by Mike Faherty.

New Forest older apple pressing

Cider apple pressing at New Forest

The next picture is a close up of of a cider press. the next picture after that is a look at the same press from a bit of a distance. Both were taken by, Red58bill.

The last picture is of apple cider in the left glass and apple juice in the right one. The picture was taken by, en-user Tmherman.

Streams, Water, Not Data

There was a real sense of autumn approaching this morning. It was cool, not cold and the air was fresh.
At this time of year, it is wondrous to walk by streams. The light reflects off the water and there’s a feeling of life moving along.
I found some lovely pictures of streams. The pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

This stream converges at Westbury Water Garden  by, Pauline Eccles

Streams by Yourou Waterfall  by, aokomorikta

The next two pictures are by, Scott Rimmer.

Two pictures of streams in Wolpyeong Park, by Ryuch.

Two pictures from the Isle of Wight  by, Editor5807

Parkhurst from Cowes cycle path

The last picture is in Toronto  by, paul from Toronto.

On My Walk

I took quite a long walk today.  On the way back I wished I hadn’t gone so far. The sky is a brilliant blue and the sun is shining. There’s a light breeze.

There is a Lace Leaf Japanese Dwarf Weeping Maple that stands by a couple of Day Lilies.I see when I walk by it and it is an expensive tree. It is in a little public park. It was never very red.

This is a Maple tree that has some leaves turning red. It is very early for it to do this.

There were some Gerbera Daisies that made it through the hot weather this summer.

There is a Montauk Daisy that someone had cut level late last autumn. It will bloom soon and is right on schedule.

This last picture was taken on Sunday, and it is a small island at the side of a parking lot.

Kansas State Flower, Sunflower

Kansas is known for being flat. It is also known for its soil, Harney Silt Loam. This soil is magic for growing crops like wheat.
The Oregon Trail goes through the north-east part of Kansas.

I’ve done a small sample of the beauty of Kansas.

I’ll start with the map.

US Map of the states  by, EPA. I circled Kansas in red.

Next is a satellite image of Kansas  by NASA.

This picture overlooks the Missouri River and is a remnant of the Tall Grasses of the Prairie.

By, Patricia D. Duncan, NARA

The Missouri River  by, Toxicotravail, Library of Congress

The other well known river is the Kansas River. This is by, USGS.

The state tree is the Cottonwood Tree. By, Edward Tremel, English Wikipedia.

The State bird is the Western Meadow Lark. By, John and Karen Hollingsworth, US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The state flower is the Sunflower.  A field of sunflowers  by, BenAveling, Wikipedia Commons.

The Harney Silt Soil,  by, USDA.

A wheat field  by, John Shea, FEMA.

The state mammal is the Bison or Buffalo. There was a time when so many Boson roamed the Great Plains that you could see them as far as the eye could see. Now there aren’t many.
This last picture is by, Guimin, Wikipedia Commons.

 

Office Building Landscaping, They Did This One Right

There is an office building not too far away that has lovely landscaping. There was a lot of thought put into it. They bough high quality plants and they have done well for a number of years.
I don’t know if people take the time to look at landscaping in places. I have always stopped a few minutes to look at this office building and have appreciated it.

I took the pictures. When I took them, I was looking at individual bushes and that sort of thing. I don’t have a panorama picture, but will try to do one soon. I am not adept with the camera yet and so I imagine there will be a lot of mumbling under my breath when I do.

There are too many pictures to do in one post. It would make your eyes cross. These are some of what adorns the building.

It was very sunny when I took these pictures. It was early afternoon.I don’t know what the round mint green bushes are. The tree is a Sand Cherry. I also don’t know what the topiary tree is, either.

Another picture of the topiary.

This is Liatris in bloom. I see a lot of it in a lot of places. It comes back every spring and is a plant and forget plant.

This is Zebra Grass. It is on the side of the building.

This is a Laurel bush.

These are Golden Euronomous bushes.

Another one. i don’t usually see these bushes used around office buildings.

What is That? New Little Digital Camera

I now have a little digital camera. It’s nothing fancy, but I like it.
I took a few pictures and they came out okay.
This morning I bought apples from a local orchard. I got Cortland, Empire and Yellow Delicious.
I will probably make an apple crisp with the Cortland apples. At the rate I’m going, I will probably take a picture of that too.

I am to blame for all of the pictures today.

This is the first picture I took with the camera. I was trying to figure out how to use it and I snapped the shutter. It is a blurry picture of my place mat.

I took another picture this morning. There was no wind and so the balloons were out early. I got a picture of one, but it is too small to see.

Next are the apple pictures.

Cortland

Yellow Delicious

The final picture is of Empire apples.

Westward Ho! Oregon Trail

This is the picture called Westward Ho!  by, Emanuel Leutz, 1826-1868.

I had a hard time finding images of the beginning on the trail. I have cobbled together some pictures that somewhat give an idea of what it must have been like to start this 2,170 journey.
They had to ford rivers and the difficulty of that depended on how much rain there had been. They did climb mountains. The end of the trail had mountains and they had a hard time.
The pictures are mainly from Wikipedia Commons. The pictures from the National Archives and Record Administration is shortened to NARA.
I’ll start with the maps.

Oregon Trail Map  by, National Park Service

NASA Topographical Map with the Oregon Trail drawn by Matthew Trump.

The next map is of the Missouri River. They did cross it. It is the longest river in North America. The drawing of the river is done by Matthew Trump.

Another map. This one is covers the area covered by the Missouri River. It is by, the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Pictures of the Missouri River in Missouri and Kansas.

At St. Joseph, Missouri  by, Tim Kiser

At Great Bend, Kansas City, Boston Public Library

Also from the Boston Public Library, a picture of the Kansas Plains.

The covered wagons usually were four feet wide and twelve feet long. They were narrow because of the trail they had to travel. a wide wagon wouldn’t have been able to get through some spots.
The wagons weighed about 1,000 pounds.
Wagon trains had from 50 to 100 wagons in them.
The canvas covers were tightened down on rainy days to keep the supplies dry.

By, Verne Equinox

By, John B. Homer, Wikipedia

By, Eleanor Stackhouse from the How and Why Library

From the US Bureau of Land Management

Oregon Trail Reenactment  from, NARA

Wagon Train  by, unknown photographer

Wagon Train  by, National Park Service

The next picture is of Breaking up Camp at Sunrise  by, Albert Jacob Miller.

The last picture is of making camp at the end of day  by, Albert Bierstadt 1830-1902.

 

 

 

Update: Curiosity, Playing with Martian Dirt

Curiosity is busy again. She has been getting tested for getting dirt samples and testing rocks on Mars.
They are using basalt from New Mexico. It is from the Box Canyon and is from a volcanic lava flow. They are using it for calibration for the Martian rocks.

The first picture is from USGS and the rest are from NASA.

Basalt  by, USGS

Basalt for calibration on Curiosity

This is a diagram of the equipment and tools on board Curiosity for working with samples.

Curiosity has an arm that is used to reach down to the ground and pick up sample. This is a diagram of the arm.

The elbow of the arm.

Next is the arm that has a drill bit on it.

When Curiosity went for the drive, she stopped before the final destination. This is a picture showing the first leg of the journey.

A picture showing the final destination by Mount Sharp.

Curiosity looks back at where she;s been.

A look at her wheels.Here is another picture of the working arm. The picture below that is the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer.

Once Curiosity gets a soil sample, she puts it in here.

The last picture is of where she puts powdered rock samples. The cover is on.

Devil’s Golf Course, Death Valley National Park, California

The Devil’s Golf Course is on of the oddest places on Earth. It looks like is from somewhere else and somehow landed here on Earth.

The maps. All the pictures are from Wikipedia Commons.

US Map of the states  by, EPA California is the lime green state on the far left.

Map showing the location of Death Valley National Park in California  by National Park Service.

Satellite image  by, NASA

By, US Geological Service

Here are pictures of the different parts of Devil’s Golf Course.

By, Brocken Inaglory

By, Roger469

By, Wolfgangbeyer from German Wikipedia

Salt crystallization between saucers  by, Daniel Meyer, English Wikipedia

Salt River  by, Daniel Meyer, English Wikipedia

This last picture is of one of strangest pieces of land I have ever see, It is by, Brocken Inaglory.

Cotton on the Oregon Trail

If I want a tee shirt, I just hop in a vehicle, go to a store and buy one.
Not so on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s when the largest number of people went west on it.
Cotton is a natural fiber and it is grown in fields. I mention this because now there are synthetic fabrics word and they don’t grow in a field.

I’ll start with the maps. All of the images are from Wikipedia Commons.

Oregon Trail Map  by, National Park Service

NASA topographical map with the trail drawn by Matthew Trump.

Picture of a covered wagon by Larry D. Parks.

These are two pictures of cotton in fields. From the USDA.

Here is a picture of cotton for sale as a fiber, not thread or clothing. By, Flora de algodonFrobles.

This is a cotton mill. Raw cotton goes here to be processed. From the New York Public Library.

These are bobbins of cotton by, Talent.

Spinning with the bobbins. From the Library of Congress.

Cotton jins. By, e NOSH from USA.

A spool of spun cotton by, Streckband.

The last two pictures show different thread weights. By, Durova. In the second picture, there is an US quarter to show the sizes.