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Category: Fitness, Health, Happiness

Local Family Fun This Weekend: 5/6- 5/8
The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
— John Muir

There’s TONS of good stuff happening this weekend, on top of the obvious Mother’s Day festivities. My top picks:

National Public Gardens Day

TODAY, May 6th FREE admission to participating area gardens, but to be honest, I suspect they will be quite crowded as a result. By all means print out the coupon and get a free preview (allows for up to 10 in your party), but go back and dilly-dally to your heart’s content some other day! Public gardens are good for the soul and need your (monetary) support!
- Morris Arboretum at UPenn
- Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore
- Shofuso Japanese House & Garden (Philly)
- Bartram’s Garden (Philly)
- Tyler Arbortetum (Media) Wilmington Flower Market at Rockford Park
Wilmington Flower Market

Today and Saturday May 7th 10:00am- 7:00pm each day The Flower Market is in its 91st year! In addition to the carnival rides and food, there are crafts, vendor booths, entertainment, and plants & flowers for last-minutes Mother’s Day gifts. On Saturday the Wilmington School of Hard Rock performs at 10am, and undersung Eagles kicker David Akers will be signing autographs from 11:30-12:30. If Facebook is to be believed, this year you can climb the Rockford Tower steps as well (I’ve always wanted to do this). The Flower Market benefits over 50 children’s charities in DE.

Dover Days 78th Anniversary

May 6, 7 & 8 on The Green & Legislative Mall “Get a glimpse of Delaware’s enriching history, through huge parades, traditional Maypole dancing with children in Colonial attire, walking tours, major Civil War Encampment, free admission to numerous museums, and more. Immerse yourself in the ages through costumed reenactments of the Renaissance, the Civil War and WWII. You can see the Governor’s mansion first-hand. And enjoy all the excitement of the festival, with more than 200 arts and crafts vendors, delicious foods, live entertainment, children’s activities, a hot classic car show, and more.” There’s a whole mess of stuff going on- you’ll want to check out the full schedule here. Admission is FREE.

Free Museum Admission for Bank of America cardholders

First Saturday & Sunday of every month The way this works is that the B of A cardholder gets free admission. If you and your spouse both have your own cards (I believe debit counts too) you both get in free, but you still gotta pony up for the kids. Got it? Area participating museums:
- Delaware Art Museum (site says No Sundays, but as far as I know Sundays are ALWAYS free!)
- Delaware Museum of Natural History
- Winterthur
- Phila Museum of Art
- National Constitution Center
- PA Academy of the Fine Arts
- Please Touch Museum
- Phila African American Museum
- Garden State Discovery Museum (Cherry Hill NJ)
National Train Day at 30th Street Station in Philly

Saturday May 7th 11:00am- 4:00pm Railroad exhibits, high-speed rail display, model train displays, exhibitor booths, train equipment tours, culinary demos, K-9 safety unit performances, entertainment by Radio Disney and more. You can reserve times to tour the Amtrak equipment, freight and commuter trains, and “notable private railroad cars” online; I would probably suggest you do so. I’ve never made it to this event but I bet it gets busy. Did I mention it’s FREE?

Spring Greening at the Phila Zoo: $7 admission

Saturday May 7th 1:00- 5:00pm Cradles to Crayons’ 1st Annual Spring Greening Fundraiser for local kids & the planet. Bring new and/or gently used kids’ items to sort & pack for distribution to needy kids in the area. Zoo admission with donation is $7, includes snacks, beverages, & entry to energy fair. Entry fee is donated to “Return the Call of the Wild” program: the Phila Zoo Docent Council’s effort to raise awareness of the environmental effects of cell phone & to offer a solution. If you’ve got old cell phones lying around bring those to recycle too!

See full event flyer and reserve tickets here.

NBC 10 Day at the Adventure Aquarium

Sunday May 8th 9:30am- 5:00pm $10 admission all day at the aquarium! This is a good deal, admission generally runs $22.95 for adults and $17.95 for kids. All moms receive a complimentary flower courtesy of Blossoms of Cherry Hill (while supplies last), and the NBC 10 news team will be greeting visitors & signing autographs from 10-2. The first 500 to say “I tune to 10” will receive a free family photo.

Ride the Ducks: Moms ride free on Mother’s Day (with coupon).

First tour leaves at 10:00am, last one at 6:00pm. Explore Philly’s historic streets and splashdown into the Delaware River for a great view of the city, the Battleship New Jersey and more. Mom rides for free with the purchase of one child or adult regular priced ticket ($27 savings), but you need to print out this coupon first.

This isn’t actually until next week, but:

Kristin van Ogtrop at the Delaware Children’s Museum

Wednesday May 11th 6:00-8:00pm The editor of Real Simple magazine and author of Just Let Me Lie Down: Necessary Terms for the Half-Insane Working Mom gives a talk and reading as part of the DCM’s Mom’s Night Out Speaker Series. I love Real Simple and I rather enjoyed the book; I may try to make it out to hear the secrets to “keeping my cool & sense of humor” as a working parent. But mostly just to get out for a night 🙂

Tickets are $15 for members and $20 for non-members and can be purchased online.

And what’s happening in your neck of the woods? Let me know!

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May 6, 2011
Backyard Wildlife: Pileated Woodpecker

Use the talents you possess—

for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best.

-Henry Van Dyke

When I was a kid my dad would take us hiking. (Since we had no car, this first involved walking 6 miles to the park in question. And then 6 miles back home. Yes, I’m still bitter.)

Every so often, he’d motion for us to stop and be quiet. “Do you hear that?”

And we’d listen for the far-off drumming of a woodpecker.

I never saw a woodpecker until we moved here. But now? I see them every day. Every morning at 10am I take part in a conference call and just outside my bedroom window, two pileated woodpeckers are having a grand ol’ time, chattering and laughing away as they look for a mid-morning snack. I can’t even begin to imagine what my co-workers must think is going on over here.

Daily Woody Woodpecker marathons?

In any case, apparently these woodpeckers weren’t commonly seen around here when I was young, but their numbers have filled out nicely and most alert birdwatchers have a good chance of spying one while strolling through the woods.

A 100% chance if you happen to be strolling by my bedroom window at 10am on a weekday.

Quick Pileated Woodpecker facts:

Crow sized: 16-19″ long

This photo is a female; her “mustache” is black. On a male it would be red.

Woodpeckers have stiff tail feathers to counter-balance their drumming. The tips can puncture paper.

The bones of woodpecker skulls are super-thick and surrounded by super-strong muscles. This is how they avoid massive migraines. (You know you were wondering.)

Their tongues are twice as long as the beak and coated with sticky saliva, as well as equipped with barbs and bristles. Think of it as a bottlebrush scrubbing your trees of insects.

Pileated woodpeckers are long-term monogamous and share egg incubation duties.

If you want to entice visiting woodpeckers to set up shop in your yard, I’ve seen them enjoying dried corn cobs, sunflower seeds, peanuts and those caged suet blocks.

These birds eat the insects from and nest in dead wood, primarily. The worst threat to them as a species is the continued practice of clearing away dead trees.

In spite of the slam I took with my quote there at the open, their call, while not lovely, makes me smile inside every time I hear it.

This is footage of a woodpecker laugh I got from YouTube. I should say that I have got to the point where I can distinguish between our two by their call, so when I listen to this I think, “That’s not quite right.” Much like human voices, I guess. I’ll have to get them on video. They banter back and forth and I always imagine they’re telling jokes and then throwing their head back with laughter.

It’s saying things like that, I suppose, that make me seem endearing to those who know me well. And crazy to those that don’t.

What’s made you smile today?

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May 5, 2011
Get Outside! 14 Citizen Scientist Projects for Kid Backyard Naturalists
If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered,
then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it.

-David Sobel

Back in June of 2008 I read Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, and I pledged that my kids and I would become backyard naturalists: learning what we could about the life that graces this plot of land we call ours. Their names, their habits, their needs.

In a blog post discussing the book, I pointed out:

Louv worries about the abilities of future generations to see problems in the environment as they occur; if no children are skimming ponds for tadpoles, how will they know when those numbers begin dropping? If they are not learning to identify and name insects and wildflowers, will they notice when they are gone? If they are not outside at night to hear the spring peepers, who will sound the alarm when the night air is silent?

“[What is the] extinction of a condor
to a child who has never seen a wren?”
-Robert Michael Pyle

(Yeah, I totally just quoted MYSELF quoting someone else there. Did the ego involved cause your head to explode?)

If you’d also like your children to become familiar with the life all around them, to help scientists track population data so that we are better able to help sustain that wildlife for generations to come, AND to get active and outside, here are some “citizen scientist” projects to consider:

Birds
- Celebrate Urban Birds
  Choose an area approximately the size of half a basketball court & watch for 10 minutes. Report which birds you see to the database, along with info describing your birdwatch area. That’s it! Receive a Celebrate Urban Birds kit– poster, info on urban greening, bird ID guide, sticker and sunflower seed packet– upon sign-up.
- Project PigeonWatch
  Much like Celebrate Urban Birds, but focusing on pigeon numbers, color morphs, and courting behaviors. Pigeon kit is download only.
- NestWatch
  Collect and submit information about nest site location, habitat, species, and number of eggs, young, and fledglings.
- Operation RubyThroat
  Hang out your hummingbird feeder and submit data about migration dates and nesting.
- Christmas Bird Count
  Join tens of thousands of volunteers nationwide as they count birds from mid-December through early January.
Bugs
- The Lost Ladybug Project
  Submit photographs of ladybugs along with info about the discovery site.
- The Great Sunflower Project
  Sign up to receive Lemon Queen sunflower seeds. Plant these easy-to-grow seeds and once your sunflowers have bloomed, watch to see how many bees come to visit in a 15-minute period.
- Butterflies and Moths of North America
  Share “clear, high quality close-up photographs” of butterflies, moths, caterpillars, eggs, or pupas.
- Firefly Watch
  Observe your backyard or any other site and report the prevalence of fireflies. Great way to spend a summer evening!
Everything else!
- Wildlife Watch
  Let the National Wildlife Federation know about the wildlife & plants where you live. Optional: share your nature stories and your photos in their Flickr group.
- Project BudBurst
  “Adopt” one or more local plants and report different stages of its life cycle (budding, blooming, fruiting etc) to help collect data about changing environments and climate change. There is a scaled-down version for little ones called BudBurst Buddies; those who participate receive a certificate signed by Project BudBurst scientists.
- Project Squirrel
  Log your squirrel sightings to help scientists better understand the ecology of neighborhoods.
- JellyWatch
  Tell marine biologists about any jellyfish, red tide, a squid, or other unusual marine life you spy in the ocean.
- Project Roadkill
  Boys of a certain age will gravitate towards this one. Including the deceased members of our wildlife family paints a more accurate picture of population numbers.
It’s fun! It’s easy! It’s free!

Most projects require no more than an internet connection, a few minutes of your time and the willingness to learn about your local wildlife. All those listed can be carried out no matter where you live (well, you need to be near an ocean to report jellyfish.). Keep in mind that ZERO is a number that needs counting too!

Empower your kids to make a real contribution by helping researchers determine those areas and species most in need of support. (During the summer months, this can easily be extended into a science project or a math graphing exercise. Fights off the inevitable “I’m bored”s, as well.)

Turn those backyard naturalists into junior citizen scientists!

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All the citizen science projects I’ve listed here are nationwide. If you know of any projects local to your area, please share them in the comments.

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May 4, 2011