Baby It’s Cold Outside
It is a winter ritual in our house (as soon as the holidays pass) to swing by Whole Foods and purchase 20 Paperwhite Narcissus bulbs. I put them in a Ziploc bag (that I perforate with a hole punch) and toss them into my refrigerator’s crisper drawer. Every few weeks, I take 3 bulbs out of the crisper and force them into bloom. The bright green foliage and heavenly scent keep me going as temperatures dip and daylight disappears. Most spring-blooming bulbs can be forced into bloom. The most common choices are hyacinths, tulips, narcissus, grape hyacinths and crocuses. The most common hardy bulbs for forcing are crocuses (Crocus species), daffodils (Narcissus species), hyacinths (Hyacinthus species) and tulips (Tulipa species). Others that can easily be forced include Dutch iris (I. x hollandica) and netted iris (Iris reticulata), snowdrop (Galanthus species), grape hyacinth (Muscari species), winter aconite (Eranthis species), star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum species), and Brodiaea species. Almost any container can be used for forcing bulbs but I prefer to use a glass vase. I fill it about 1/3 of the way with polished stones. I set the bulbs on the stones, nestle them in a bit (but you don’t need to cover them.) I find a warm sunny spot for the vase, and fill the vase with tap water about 1/2 inch above the rocks, I check the water daily. Then I sit back and watch, within a few days you will have bright green shoots, white roots that wrap around the stones, and then white fragrant flowers. They get a bit tall, so the vase helps support the plants. Because of the warmer indoor temperatures, the flowers do not last as long as outdoor flowers. But as soon as they begin to yellow, I pull them up from the stones and toss them in the compost bucket. I rinse the vase and stones with warm water (and a mild detergent) and then pull another three bulbs out of the crisper. P.S. If you wish to recycle bulbs for the garden, after-bloom care is critical. The key to success is keeping the foliage actively growing as long as possible. After the foliage has died back naturally, the bulbs can be planted directly in the garden or stored for later planting. If they do not perform well in the garden, do not be disappointed forced bulbs tend to peter out young.
Read MoreMagic Lantern Slides
I am always looking for new uses for the antiques and things I happen upon in junk stores and barns. I recently discovered a beautiful wooden box full of old glass slides. I took them home and after some research discovered they were Magic Lantern Slides. The Magic Lantern was the forerunner of the modern slide projector. In the 1840s, Philadelphia daguerreotypists, William and Frederick Langenheim, began experimenting with The Magic Lantern as an apparatus for displaying their photographic images. The brothers discovered a way to adhere a light sensitive solution onto glass for the creation of a negative. By using that negative to print onto another sheet of glass rather than onto paper, they were able to create a transparent positive image. With an oil lamp and a lens, the images painted on glass could be projected to a screen. The Langenheim’s envisioned their slides as forms of entertainment, charging a fee to watch their picture shows. However, within a few years, lantern slides began to fulfill a variety of purposes. While entertainment remained an important function well into the twentieth century, lantern slides had the greatest impact on educational lectures, especially in visual disciplines. They played a vital role in the development of disciplines such as art and architectural history, making possible the detailed study of objects and sites from around the world. These slides were produced with black and white photography and then hand colored, since color photography was not yet available. Due to the high demand at the time, the magic lantern industry was almost the equivalent of today’s computer industry. The slides were produced in the hundreds of thousands, and covered just about every imaginable subject. Use of lantern slides lasted throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and until the 1950s when their popularity began to decline with the introduction of the smaller 2×2 transparencies. Finally, the discovery of the Kodachrome three-color process made 35mm slides less expensive to produce than lantern slides. I am fondest of the colored slides of landscapes and children’s stories. They can be easily found and purchased on ebay. I have added to my collection through the years. Because New England winters can cause the landscape to be a bit bleak, I set my slides on the windowsills of my apartment. They are at eye level, backlit by the window, I love peering into the little scenes.
Read MoreSpore Printing
There are lots of ways to enjoy mushrooms. You can put them on your pizza, hunt for them in the woods, study them under a microscope, or make art with them. Mushrooms are fungi. Fungi make their food by eating dead leaves and wood (organic matter). They can not make their food from the sun like plants because they do not have any chlorophyll. In order to make more mushrooms, a mushroom will make tiny spores. These are produced on the undersides of the cap. When the conditions are right, a mushroom will release the spores from the gills. The spores will fall down and be carried away by a breeze. When the spores land, if the conditions are right, each spore will make another mushroom. Identification of mushrooms can be very difficult. Mushrooms are not like birds or wildflowers, where everything you see was described and named some time ago. Beyond the basic features of mushroom structure, size and habitat, the most important characteristic of a mushroom to know for its identification is its spore color. Moreover, making a “spore print” for determining spore color is something fun and interesting to do. To make a spore print, select your mushroom, preferably one that is fresh and undamaged. Decide whether the spore color is light or dark. The color of the gills may give you some clues. Select a piece of card, white or black depending on the selection as outlined above. Aluminum foil works well to. Remove the stalk from the mushroom and place it gill side down on the piece of card or foil. Place a jar over the top. This helps to keep it moist as well stopping any air movement dispersing the spores. While some spore prints can appear within a few hours, it’s often best to wait overnight, just to be sure. When you remove the cup and lift the mushroom cap, you should find a “print.” If you have been careful not to move the mushroom you will find that the spore print reflects the pattern of the mushroom’s gills or pores.
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