Earth Day Puppet Show

Earth Day came early at the Massabesic Audobon Center, Auburn, NH. It was a raw, windy day but that didn't stop the brave folk who came out for music, campfire, workshops and puppet show. I have been working on a puppet show concept about compost and this was my debut. The show is about my puppet friend "B" who wants to make a compost pile. His first attempt is not so successful: old boots and plastic and meat and garbage don't compost well, so B tries again. Then, all pooped out from making me do all the work, B goes and takes a nap and misses all the micro and macroorganism shennanagins that make a compost pile turn into dirt. It was fun and fast paced and the kids got involved by holding puppets.
I will be working this show this summer at farmer's markets and such, so there will be plenty of opportunities to see it if you are in the NH area.

talking about bacteria, fungus and molds

nematodes!

centipedes and red wigglers

after the puppet compost has turned to puppet dirt, kids get to check out a live vermiculture compost

Hello friends and family. It has been a long 4 weeks since the last dispatch. Our house was visited by chicken pox which lasted TWO AND A HALF WEEKS. I tried to make things "fun" for the kids while they were sick but  was a bit too enthusiastic about it. Emma corrected me though. I was getting some tea party together or something, babbling about what fun we could have at home when she cut in with a wail: "Why are you trying to have fun when I am sick! It's not FAIR!"  So we spent the rest of the day like this:

After a few days we got ourselves together and did some fun stuff.

We actually spent almost a whole morning doing colour expirements with salt and food colouring then pouring it into layers in jars,  making bean flour cookies (ran out of regular stuff) and geting crafty.

Meanwhile, we had been chasing a leak around the house. There has been an occasional stream of water appearing in the basement and we couldn't figure it out. Was it the thick dam of ice on the roof melting and geting in the house somehow? There was no choice but to open up the walls and check it out. Hello Saws all!

found the leak!

 After cutting various holes in the wall upstairs and down, we found it. Turned out to be a punctured a water pipe. Happened when Daddy and cousin Ben put in wood floors upstairs. Could happen to anyone (heh heh). The leak had been intermitten because we heat with a wood stove mostly. There you go. But wielding a saws all can be dangerously addictive. Once you start you just want to keep going. I needed to talk myself down. Then we got a plumber and now we have no leak, but we do have a great assortment of holes.