Shallow Thoughts : : Jan

Sewing Project: A Helmet Cover with Ear Flaps

With the weather getting cold, I need a way to keep my ears warm while biking.

Many years ago, I had some fleece earwarmers that velcroed around a helmet strap. I bought them in a bike store and they worked wonderfully, but I've been unable to find anything quite like them online. I've knitted triangular cozies to go over a helmet strap, but they don't stay up, so they sag and don't cover my ears.

I tried making something like that, but they didn't come out well,

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Visiting the Santa Fe Moon Tree

The Radiolab podcast (or actually, their "Terrestrials" spinoff for kids) recently had an episode about Moon Trees.

Stuart ‘Smokey’ Roosa went to the moon (well, at least to lunar orbit) in 1971 as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14. He was an ex-firefighter, ex-smoke jumper, and he loved trees. So for the small personal item that astronauts are allowed to carry on missions, he brought along a canister of 500 tree seeds of various types. After almost getting destroyed (listen to the episode for more detail on Stu and his seeds), the seeds ended up back on earth, where they were planted in a variety of locations, from the White House lawn to private yards.

And then ... everyone forgot about them for a while, until their rediscovery by a third grader (again, listen to the episode, it's a great story). More recently, Natalie Middleton wrote an article about Moon Trees, including a map of the currently known moon trees.

I checked the map to see if there were any in New Mexico. There's one in Silver City, a sycamore, and some day I'll get down there to visit — but wonder of wonders, there's also a Douglas fir Moon Tree in Santa Fe! It's at the Roundhouse (the state capitol). I had to go see it.

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Best Books I Read in 2025

Happy New Year!

Time for an annual "Best Books of the Year" list. As always, these aren't all new books this year; they're just new to me. (Or even a beloved re-read, but this year I'm not listing any of those.)

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