The Seek app, my new obsession

My friend Melinda and I were walking the other day when she introduced me to this app called Seek, by a company called iNaturalist. You get to track your sightings of nature.

You know me, on my walks I love to observe strange creatures, plants, and trees.

So I immediately installed the Seek app and pointed it at a tree. It identified the tree however now I have forgotten what the tree was. I did not know you had to take a picture for the tree actually to be entered on your list of observations. That is one thing I love about the Seek app, that it keeps track of your observations.

Since then I have taken the Seek app on several walks. I have taken it to Forest Lawn Cemetery and to Tifft Nature Preserve. And around the Delaware Park Ring Road, where I observed the bunny up above. The app identified the rabbit an Eastern Cottontail.

This is just so much fun! 

The one drawback is, I have to say, when I first pointed the app at that one tree, I must have had beginner's luck. I am finding it is a challenge to get the app to identify things. Occasionally it identifies a species right away, however that is the exception rather than the rule. As a rule it is finicky. It tells you to adjust the angle, which I do, and take more photos, which I do. Even then I often end up having to give up on some element of nature and move on to something else. 

So that is frustrating. At first I embraced it as part of the game. However I watched a YouTube video of a guy using the app and he kept saying, "And it quickly identified this as..." He kept using that word "quickly." So now this gets on my nerves. I cleaned my camera lens, just in case that was the problem, however it is still finicky.

Here is a thought on that. I have learned that the app identifies things based on photos people have taken and posted to its sister app, iNaturalist. Many of the things I have been unable to identify are not the sexy plants, the plants everyone would be photographing and posting. They are these common grasses and weeds. Perhaps there are not enough photos of them. Maybe no one has bothered to take pictures of this grass I was trying to ID.

Another app issue: I am not sure how I am to take pictures of fish -- especially pictures that are up to the app's exacting standards. I am working on in the Lakes and Ponds Challenge but I do not think I will be able to include fish.

I have one sighting so far in that Lakes and Ponds Challenge. That is the Broadleaf Cattail!

 

I observed that fine specimen at Forest Lawn, in their wetlands area.

I still need 9 more items for this challenge. You need 10 items from: dragonflies, amphibians, fish, ducks, mosses, ferns, water lilies, bulrushes, and cattails. At Tifft on Sunday I tried to identify some cattails there however the app drew a blank on them. They were probably the same species anyhow.

However I did rack up three species observations at Tifft. I identified Colt's-Foo and the Common Motherwort/

And -- ta da -- the Great Stinging Nettle.

The plants at Tifft were not as diverse as I was hoping, my time was limited because the rain was moving in, and I was not able to get a good picture of any of the little birds swooping around. However I was proud of the observations I did chalk up.

Three more good things about Seek: 

1. It is free!

2. It does not engage in annoying behaviors like showing you ads or nagging you to upgrade to a paid plan. 

3. I am actually learning things! This was funny, I looked at a tree and was disappointed because I recognized it as a Saucer Magnolia. And I had already sighted a Saucer Magnolia.

Then I realized: Hey, I can recognize a Saucer Magnolia!

Imagine how smart I will become!

The Rosary App

With my new iPhone I have been able to acquire the Rosary App pictured above. It is free and I chose it over other Rosary apps because supposedly it has Latin prayers on it. I have not yet explored the Latin prayers, though. I am taking it on faith they are there.

For now I have been using the app to pray the rosary in plain old English, mostly at the gym. It has these two women reciting the Rosary. There are no men on the Rosary App! These women, you have to love the sound of their voices. They appear to be English or Irish or Scottish, it is hard to tell. One answers the other. They sound like sleepwalkers.

I keep picturing "The Somnambulist," by John Everett Millais.

Or two Celtic women sitting in a castle somewhere.

Because of this atmosphere, this app gives you a neat experience in the middle of the day, in the middle of the noisy gym or the hectic kitchen or whatever. You suddenly feel like this.

Why didn't they use this picture, you know, instead of the kitschy picture they put on the app, the one at the top of the post?

Oh well. The app is not perfect but it is a kick and it gets the job done. I am required to get in a rosary daily due to a strange and medieval set of circumstances I will have to explain another day. These two sleepwalking women really help with that.

Could I please have apps to help me get done other things I have to do every day?

An app mayhap to help me clean the kitchen? iClean.

Or an app to help me edit chapters of my book? iPennario.

I will say my prayers!

The mystery of the 10,000 steps

I am making my Monday extra onerous by attempting to log 10,000 steps.

Has anyone else heard about this, that if you take 10,000 steps a day you can waive your aerobics? That is what my Pilates teacher told me on Saturday.

I love my Zumba classes but sometimes I cannot fit them in. So I thought about this, about this 10,000 steps business.

Yesterday I went walking in the park with this pedometer app I have. This app needed constant supervision, was the trouble, so, no listening to Leonard Pennario or to the radio or anything.

And here is the worst part: Even with all the supervision I gave it it clocked me at only 1,200 steps for one round around the Delaware Park Ring Road. And 50 calories. What in the world? I had just drunk a glass of milk and it would take me two times around to work off that innocent treat. No only that, but it was hopeless, the idea of racking up 10,000 steps over the course of a day. I would have to walk the Ring what, eight times?

When I got home I wised up and sought a second opinion. I found this geek site that says a mile is about 2,000 steps.

One round around the Ring Road is 1.7 miles.


My app was ripping me off!

While I was walking my app was napping!

This is the Footsteps App and it gets good reviews online. I paid a couple of bucks for it, too, which I never do. I guess I just do not get the hang of it.

I will have to get another one! I will have to go to Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree is the answer to everything in my life. Look! They have them! A Dollar Tree pedometer is on today's shopping list.

Meanwhile, I am afraid I am off to a slow start. I am afraid that is my life, you know?

10,000 steps forward, 9,999 steps back!