Past Blogs

My local school district is one of the poorest in the state. But we are rich in outstanding educators plus one huge physical asset. We have a school forest.

Given as a gift in 1955 by a wealthy family, the Rahr Memorial School Forest now consists of almost 300 acres along the Lake Michigan shoreline. The land includes mixed forests, pines, sand dunes, fields, a swamp, a pond and a rocky, fossil-strewn beach. In other words, it’s an incredible treasure. All students in our district from kindergarten through senior high visit frequently for environmental education.

That is how I found myself on a school bus last week with 50 first graders, their teachers plus several volunteers like myself. I am happy to report that our kids do not have nature deficit disorder. On the contrary, they were all overjoyed to be going back to “their” forest.

Arriving at the woods, we broke up into three groups and began a round robin of three carefully planned activities. My group started by solving a nature mystery presented by the school forest coordinator. “Who do you think made the strange designs in these pieces of wood I found in our forest?”, she asked while passing out the wood and large magnifying glasses. After observation, the kids presented their hypothesizes. Several students guessed “insects” which turned out to be correct. Our teacher then explained the life cycle of the engraver beetle.

Next, one of our first grade teachers began her presentation by dividing the kids into small groups and giving each group a hula hoop. They were told to put the hoop down on a spot of sandy soil at the forest edge and search for bugs and other creepy crawlies in their circle. The kids loved this arthropod treasure hunt and shrieked with joy whenever they unearthed June bugs or other specimens. They could view and share their finds by putting them in clear plastic jars with magnifying glass lids. At the end of the session, all the creatures were released.

The last adventure was in a pine and hemlock forest where all the fallen trees and leaf litter is left to decompose. The children each got a plastic spoon and were instructed to GENTLY dig in the rotting logs and leaves to discover who lived there. And here is where one student found the best discovery of the day, a beautiful, little, three inch long salamander.

All this focused observation and field work culminated with play time in a gigantic sand dune, literally a bowl of sand near the lake. The exuberant kids would have stayed there happily until nightfall.

At the end of this day, I had only one thought…..if only every child in America could have a school forest or nature center like ours and dynamic teachers to interpret it.

I just found out that my cousin Peter, a photographer, visited The Bread Festival in 2006. Here are four of his photos to go along with Tuesday’s blog.

It’s no secret that I love bread. No day goes by in our house that bread in some form is not consumed. Life without bread would be decidedly crummy.

So it is not surprising that I keep up with bread news, most of which is supplied by France, a nation of bread connoisseurs.

For the last 23 years, the French have staged a Fete du Pain or Bread Festival. This year it was held for ten days, May 5 to May 16, and was in Paris…..directly in front of Notre Dame.

Part of the festivities was a baking contest to determine the Best French Tradition baguette. Contestants had a maximum of six hours to bake 40 French Tradition baguettes in front of an audience. Bread is codified by law in France, and the bakers     had to meet the standards laid out in Article 2 of Decree Number 993-1074. A jury of six professionals graded the loaves on six points: look, crust, flavor, crumb, chewing and taste.

This year’s winner was Mahmoud M’seddi, whose father, also a baker, was an immigrant from Tunisia. Last year’s winner also was the son of a Tunisian immigrant and a baker with Senegalese origins has been a two-time winner.

In this year’s contest, half of all the contestants were from immigrant families. Bakery work is hard labor with long hours, and many native Frenchmen and women no longer want such a demanding job.

Anne Hidalgo, the current Paris mayor who was born in Spain, sums up the situation with these words,” Not only do the immigrants not take bread from our mouths, they put bread in.” Take that, National Front.

Her words ring true in America as well. Our meat, fruit, vegetable and dairy products are all supplied to us via immigrant labor. We need to respectfully say thank you to these people who do the work we shun.

I spent the first half of my day today doing a science and art project about elephants with 42 enthusiastic, happy first and second graders. When we finished, the kids went to lunch and I left to pick up groceries. Checking out at Trader Joe’s, I was asked by the young cashier, “And how are you going to spend the rest of your day?”.

I paused a second and then truthfully answered his question. “I’m going to visit two cemeteries”.

The check out person had been schooled to ask the question, but not on how to handle an accurate answer. Seeing how hard he was struggling to find appropriate words, I filled the gap by saying, “I don’t want to forget my family, they were good people”.

Contact with the living did not occur in the two cemeteries I subsequently visited. Despite the upcoming Memorial Day holiday, I saw no one bringing flowers or trimming headstones. Death is not in style in America.

For many decades, especially on this holiday week, I marvel at a piece of insight from the celebrated American novelist, Reynolds Price. He noted that our elderly and deceased family members allow us to reach back and “touch” history. After reading his words, I paid more attention to the dates on our family tombstones.

My grandfather was born in 1864, and though he died before I was born, he gives me a link back to the Civil War. His wife, my grandmother, was born in 1878 and lived a long life. I was fortunate to spend countless hours with her, a woman who lived through Reconstruction, the end of the frontier, the Industrial Revolution, the First World War, a Great Depression, the Second World War and the beginning of the jet age. Learning about history from someone who has lived it beats any secondhand account from a textbook or computer site.

You might not want to spend next weekend wandering around in a cemetery, but you might try seeing how far back you can personally wander in history. It’s mind altering….no drugs needed.

I am now the co-owner of a chainsaw,  an item I never wanted to own. I’ve always considered these tools to be noisy, dangerous and frequently destructive of habitats. The blame for our saw acquisition lies squarely on Mother Nature.

For 22 years we have maintained our home and property with tools that would feel at home in a Little House on the Prairie. My husband enjoys using hand tools, many of which he inherited from his father and grandfather.

Last May, Mother Nature began her rampage and a massive storm tore a dozen trees from our cliff and deposited them in a tangle on the beach. It looked like a giant had been playing pick up sticks. We cleared the mess using hand saws, muscle power and patience.

This year’s surprise was an April blizzard accompanied by 18 foot waves in the lake. Huge chunks of our cliff were washed out, and two mature trees toppled onto the shore. Furious sawing again allowed us to open up the beach.

But the coup de grace happened last Sunday. The day was calm and sunny and I went down for a beach walk. A gigantic tree was completely blocking my way. For a second I was stunned, but quickly figured it out. The cliff is unstable from all the storms, and this was another of nature’s “gotchas”.

When my husband surveyed the situation, his first words were,”We are going to need a chainsaw.”

He spent the evening checking out rental versus purchase options. “I don’t think she’s through throwing trees around yet,” he concluded. We bought the saw on Monday.