Greg Fenn's Page

Browsing nursery catalogs has long been a favorite pastime for me. Musing the colorful photos and descriptions will often bring up childhood memories of our backyard orchard, or recalling the excitement of opening a delivery of long cardboard boxes labeled “Live Plants” – bareroot tree seedlings packed in moist straw. And I imagine a few additions to my small backyard nursery. After making a wish list I come out of my dream-state to the reality: There’s no yard space available for new trees!…

If you’ve explored the Khan Academy online, you may have discovered some entertaining videos with Vi Hart. With colorful “doodling” she illustrates patterns in nature, with questions and discoveries from several fields of science – all while she is supposedly bored in her math class. It’s a lot of fun.

Her videos are at http://www.khanacademy.org/math/vi-hart

I met with a bird-watching group this morning in Piedmont Park for one of their monthly walks in the park – something I’ve wanted to do for several years. With binoculars, field guides, and birding apps on iPhones, we began a long loop in the Park, which included the Northwoods and a short stretch on the Atlanta Beltline. Some of the highlights on this outing: a male wood duck perched above the water near the gazebo, a red-shouldered hawk, a female orchard oriole feeding her young, a…