July 20, 2010

Moon Day and Moon Trees

photo by US Rte 40 , flickr

I’ve just been alerted to the fact that today, July 20, is Moon Day, the anniversary of the first lunar landing in 1969. I was too young to have any memory of it, but can only imagine how exciting it must have been, with the whole world joined together watching. I wonder if we’ll see the equal of that moment in our lifetimes? I think it’s hard for kids today to imagine what a big deal that was.

While researching 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You’re 12, I somehow discovered moon trees, an often forgotten part of space history. Astronauts were allowed to take a few personal items with them on their flights, and Stuart Roosa, a former forest service employee, took seeds: redwood, sycamore, Douglas fir, loblolly, and sweet gum. When he came back, he donated them to the forest service. Scientists wondered if the seeds would be viable or if, as a result of having been in outer space, there would be any strange mutations in the trees that grew from them. They grew normally, and in honor of the bicenntenial, they were distributed around the US to be planted.

Moon tree in Society Hill, Philadelphia, Photo by Wally Gobetz , flickr

Unfortunately, no one kept good records, so it’s not clear where all the trees went. NASA has a list of the trees they know about, some of which are in public places and can be visited, like the cone at Goodard Air Force Base in Maryland and one at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. Finding a moon tree can be a great challenge for kids. Here’s some more information about the trees. I had no idea we had a moon tree right down the street from us at the Asheville Botanical Garden. We’re going to go check it out today!

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July 18, 2010

All The World’s A Stage

A performance at the Kitsap Forest Theater in Washington State, photo by tomsimages, flickr

There’s something about watching a play or movie outdoors. It’s like a layer of distance between the players and the audience has been removed. And there’s a sense of being part of an ancient tradition: I’ll never forget watching a movie in the Roman Ampitheater in Fiesole, sitting on the same worn stone seats where audiences had watched Euripides 1000 years before. Or taking a punt on a summer evening to watch The Tempest performed by Oxford students on an island the middle of the Thames. But I digress: that was before kids.

In a way, outdoor theater is a perfect solution for kids. If they’re bored or noisy, getting up and leaving isn’t too disruptve, and you may be able to them run around while still being able to see or at least hear the performance. And in many cases, admission is free, which means if you do have to remove a screaming, overtired kid from the premises, at least you haven’t lost out on your investment.

Every summer we try to see at least one performance of the Montford Park Players, who do Shakespeare on weekends for free from early summer to early fall. It’s kind of the opposite of the high-end gourmet atmosphere I was used to going to see concerts at Chastain Park in Atlanta. We usually bring a pizza, still in the box.

While researching 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You’re 12! I discovered a lot of great little outdoor theaters. I’ve always wanted to get to the Wolftrap Children’s Theater outside of DC and the Forest Theater in Carmel-By-The Sea. But the there are so many more great little places: the Kitsap Forest Theater on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington (wow, the whole area just looks breathtaking!), Shakespeare by the Sea in various locations in Orange County, CA, and the Muny in St. Louis. These are a little bigger and probably harder to get away from if things go south with the kids, but the novelty of seeing something outdoors might last until intermission. I’m not sure if my kids would stand for it, but one day, I must get to the Pageant of the Masters, held every summer in Laguna Beach.

If plays won’t do, most big cities (and some small towns) offer some sort of open-air cinema in the summer. The screenings aren’t always kid-friendly, but sometimes there will be one per season that is. A quick check around found outdoor film series in: New York, Chicago, Nashville, Little Rock, San Diego, and Minneapolis. Like Silents Under The Stars (held in LA for decades), we used to have open air silent films with musical accompaniment in our downtown park until funding dried up.

And if all else fails, I found a great set of directions for a DIY backyard movie screen.

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July 14, 2010

Vive la France!

The Bastille Day Waiter's Race in Washington, DC

Over in la belle France, it’s already Bastille Day, the day when the French celebrate le Republique. Being in Paris for Bastille Day has always been on my life list and I got within a few days of it once. Celebrating in any small way can be a good opportunity for kids to learn about French culture, language or history.

Bastille Day Waiter’s Races have become widespread even outside of France, so much so that there’s even an international web site called Waitersraces.com. One of the biggest ones in the US is held in Washington, DC tomorrow, with champagne-carrying waiters storming Pennyslvania Ave. New Orleans is holding its First Annual French Market Waiter’s Race this coming weekend, plus a Bastille Day parade tomorrow.

Alors, the only Bastille Day event we have going on here in Asheville is one we won’t be able to attend, We’ll just have to make croque madams at home!

On the subject of the French Revolution, The Golden Hour is a great kids’ book that introduces kids to some of the real life participants in a very fictional and time travel kind of way. I’m also looking forward to Jennifer Donnelly’s new YA novel Revolution, which won’t be out till October.

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July 12, 2010

Professor Sprout’s Gardens

Harry Potter’s Wizarding World opened to the public last month, complete with faux castle, a hippogriff roller coaster ride, and plenty of opportunities to purchase wands, butterbeer, and chocolate frogs.

I had a proud parenting moment when discussing the Sunday New York Times Travel section report on the new theme park with Miss M. Not only did she not beg to go there, she effectively turned up her nose at the whole idea of it because it’s fake and the way Hogwarts really looks is the way she sees it in her imagination. I love that her own vision is still stronger than the ideas imposed on her, and that she still believes that there are plenty of places in the world that are actually magical, so why settle?

For a girl who is forever making potions out of plants she finds in the yard, there are a few public gardens with especially magical appeal. They may be a bit more Madam Pomfrey than Professor Sprout–herbs good for “calming the spirit” rather than changing rats into teapots, but no matter. It’s the idea that the right combination of plants and properties will make something happen.

The emblem of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, at Chelsea Physic Garden

Chelsea Physic Garden, London

The Chelsea Physic Garden in London was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and we all some of them were alchemists. The screaming mandrake that Harry and company had to harvest in Sorecer’s Stone actually grows here in its real-life form, mandrake, sans screaming. No mimbulus mimbletonia or devil’s snare, but there are loads of other strange plants from around the world, and it has the feel of this tucked-away little magical place in London.

UBC Botanical Gardens, Physic Garden, Vancouver

There are some interesting physic gardens on this side of the pond, too. The UBC gardens in Vancouver have recreated a medieval physic garden, and the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens has a Chinese medicinal garden which includes plants for balancing qi and other such magical properties.

The Florence Bakken Medicincial Gardens at the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis is based on a Renassiance-style physic garden design, and in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Hospital Physic Garden sits adjacent to the 200-plus year old hospital (the garden was proposed in the mid 18th century, but not actually completed until 1976).

Near us in North Carolina, Bethabara Park in Winston Salem is home to what’s thought to be the oldest colonial medicinal garden in the US.

Leave it to Australia to come up with something even cooler, the Witch’s Garden a private garden of witchy herbs sometimes open to the public.

The Witch's Garden, Mitta Mitta, Australia

On Midsummer’s Eve, we talked about how certain plants were said to take on temporary magical powers: St. John’s wort, verbena, and roses among them. We planned to pick some and find out what it would do, but a particularly powerful thunderstorm kept us indoors. If we only had one of Snape’s potion books so we could do some experimenting.

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June 16, 2010

Bloomsday


Being Irish and a writer, I can’t help but acknowledge today as one of my favorite literary holidays (are there any others, actually?). On June 16, 1904 Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus wandered the streets of Dublin in the pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the first modern novel. I can’t claim to have ever finished the book (maybe when the kids grow up and my attention span expands again?), but love the tradition that’s grown up around it. Dubliners and Joyceans everywhere dress up in Edwardian clothes and read passages of the book, eat gorgonzola sandwiches and drink burgundy, and celebrate the written word.

We had the opportunity to be in Dublin a few years ago for Bloomsday and it was memorable. Kid-friendly? Not especially, but I think any kid can appreciate grown-ups standing in the street in costumes and making a scene. If you are in one of these areas where events are taking place, it is sure to be worth checking out.

I recently found out that Joyce did write a children’s book The Cat and The Devil. It looks hard-to-find, but maybe in a library. In the meantime, raise a glass for Joyce and the fact that books are still worth celebrating!

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June 9, 2010

Mermaids on Parade

Having lived in New Orleans and experiencing Mardi Gras for the full season has kind of ruined me for other parades?how can anything else really compare? But I?m not anywhere near ready to take my kids to Mardi Gras. While researching 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You?re 12! I discovered some epic parades that seemed equally out there, but possibly more kid-friendly, tops among them the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade, which will be held this year on Saturday, June 19.

I?m not sure everyone would consider this a kid-friendly happening. The event is billed as an art parade, and reflects all the attendant outrageousness that comes with a lot of creative people trying to out-do each other. That takes the form of a lot of body paint (and sometimes little else) and other bacchanalian attire and behavior. However, lots of kids do come to the parade, many dressed up as well: it?s up to parents to decide what they?re comfortable with. This year, über-cool couple Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed are the Queen Mermaid and King Neptune. Man, I would love to see that.

Meanwhile, a smaller scale yet no less creative Mermaid Parade will happen this weekend in Marshall, North Carolina. Marshall is one of those artists? enclaves that?s still ?undiscovered? enough to retain its quirky feed-stores-next-to-artist-studios edge. The 3rd Annual Mermaids in Marshall parade will include rides in an art-car type mermaid carriage, music, and a parade to Blannahasset Island (an island in the middle of the French Broad River that?s home to a high school turned art studio complex).

The only other mermaid parade I could find in the US has taken place in North Webster, Indiana for 65 years. Looks like it?s a complete 360 from the one in Coney Island, with a real small mid-western town feel.

Meanwhile, next month, we?re planning to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine: going to see the Mermaid Show at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park in Florida. I love its 1950s old Florida roots and I?m glad it hasn?t been Disney-fied yet.

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June 9, 2010

Mermaids on Parade

photo by heartonastick

Having lived in New Orleans and having experienced Mardi Gras for the full season has kind of ruined me for other parades–how can anything else really compare? But I’m not anywhere near ready to take my kids to Mardi Gras. While researching 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You’re 12! I discovered some epic parades that seemed equally ‘out there,’ but possibly more kid-friendly. Tops among them is the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade, which will be held this year on Saturday, June 19.

photo by See Ming Lee

I’m not sure everyone would consider this a kid-friendly happening. The event is billed as an art parade, and reflects all the attendant outrageousness that comes with a lot of creative people really letting loose. That takes the form of a lot of body paint (and sometimes little else) and other bacchanalian attire and behavior. However, lots of kids do come to the parade, many dressed up as well: it’s up to parents to decide what they’re comfortable with. This year, über-cool couple Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed are the Queen Mermaid and King Neptune. Man, I would love to see that.

photo by heartonastick

Meanwhile, on a smaller scale, yet no less creative, there’s a mermaid parade that takes place this Friday night, June 11 in Marshall, North Carolina. Marshall is one of those tiny artists’ enclaves that’s still “undiscovered” enough to retain its quirky feed-stores-next-to-artist-studios edge. The 3rd Annual Mermaids in Marshall parade includes rides in an art-car type mermaid carriage, bluegrass music, and a parade to Blannahasset Island (an island in the middle of the French Broad River that’s home to a high-school-turned art-studio-complex).

The only other mermaid parade I could find in the US has taken place in North Webster, Indiana for 65 years. Looks like it’s a complete 360 from the one in Coney Island, with a real small mid-western town feel.

Next month, we’re planning to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine: going to see the Mermaid Show at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park in Florida. I love its 1950s Old Florida roots and I’m glad it hasn’t been Disney-fied yet. Any other mermaid places to know about?

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June 6, 2010

The Desert Libraries

We just got back from seeing The Secret of Kells, a beautiful animated Irish film about medieval manuscript illuminators. It reminded me of a story I read about last year while researching a project about West Africa.

As far back as the 13th century, when those Medieval scribes in Ireland, France and England were illuminating manuscripts, there were scribes in North Africa doing the same thing. Books were one of the hottest commodities traded by the desert caravans traveling the Sahara between the Mali, Songhai, Ghana, and Arab empires. And their content was amazing: poetry written by women (800 years ago! In Africa!), medical texts, geometry books. The empires crumbled, but out in of some of the most remote place in Mauritania and Mali there are desert libraries with hundreds of thousands of these books, some nearly 1000 years old ,and many mouse-eaten and turning to dust.

I love that the government of Mauritania is now working with Italian restorers to save the books, and that there’s a new high-tech library in Timbuku to help preservation efforts. The Library of Congress has an online exhibit of some of the manuscripts for those of us who probably won’t get over there to see the real things.

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June 4, 2010

Firefly Season


The season’s first firefly just blinked through our backyard last night, announcing the start of that brief, magical time of the year when the kids race around the yard in the twilight each night in pursuit of those little blinks of light.

We’ve always been content to watch them in our own yard, or maybe at the park, but I just found out that there are actually a few firefly destinations, one quite close to home.

In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a (group? swarm?) of synchronous fireflies appears in the area of the park near Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Each night for about a week, their rare talent is on display: they blink in unison, creating perfectly choreographed patterns of light.

One of the only other known places where this phenomenon occurs is in the mangrove swamps of Kuala Selangor, just outside of Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. There, the fireflies flick more in a rhythm, and stay congregated in “firefly trees.” You can take firefly boat tours to see them.

The Park Service closes off the Elkmont entrance to traffic, and visitors can take a shuttle to see the fireflies each evening. This year, peak firefly viewing is June 5 to 13. That’s two days from now: how can we not go?

Another cool firefly-related activity: the Museum of Science, Boston has a firefly watch program that allows you/your kids to contribute to their research. Just go to their web site for details on how you can register your backyard as a firefly habitat.

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June 1, 2010

Opportunities for (Old) Growth

One thing can be said for all those early American loggers: they were thorough. From 950 million acres of virgin forests that stretched from the east coast to the Mississippi when the first Europeans arrived, they managed to do away with almost all of it. Almost.

While they’re not as quite as impressive as those otherworldly giant cedars and redwoods out west, there are stands of old growth from Maine, Ontario, the Adiondack wilderness, Virginia and Texas to here in North Carolina at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest: all accessible to the public.

Old growth white pine at Douglas Woods in Wisconsin

Kids love superlatives. Visiting an old growth forest has lots of them: biggest, oldest, tallest, last. It’s a small-scale adventure: a little hiking, a little science and history, built-in bragging rights: “we saw the oldest, tallest, coolest trees in (insert name of your state/region).”

We took Ms. M to Joyce Kilmer for a New Year’s hike a few years back and the trail was easy enough even for her (four at the time, I’d say).

American Forests has a registry of the “biggest in species” trees all over the US with an online database you can search by zipcode to find the biggest trees near you (note that these are single trees, not forests). So you can do a quick after-school drive to see a “champion” tree or a weekend drive/hike to a see whole forest of them.

The 'treehouse tree' in Bradford County, PA

One more superlative: these  unassuming bristlecone pines in Utah and California are the longest-growing organisms on earth (one was just discovered that was over 4,600 years old!).

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