A Walk with Pat at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary, May 7, 2018...A Great Walk...Part One

Pat and I met for lunch at Cracker Barrel and then drove to Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary to look at the wildflowers.  I picked the day, a beautiful one.  The Temperature was in the sixties.  

This is why we went...Large-flowered Trillium throughout the entire park with Wild Blue Phlox mingled in.

The Drooping Trillium were blooming, too.

And so were the Sessile Trillium.  

Pat and I spent three hours walking the boardwalk loop.  There was so much to see.  (This loop can be walked at a steady pass in about twenty minutes.)  We stopped and sat at the convenient benches to savor the day...the soft breeze, the comfortable temperatures, the beautiful sights (and to rest our knees and legs.)

Here are some of the flowers we saw.  (More than just these were blooming.) 

The Spring Beauties were scattered throughout the entire woods but because they are tiny, they are not as showy as the trillium.

Blue violets...(and yellow ones, too.)

Goldenseal

Jack-in-the-Pulpit...

The last of the Large-flowered Bellwort for the season

Rue Anemone....

Solomon's Seal...

Buds on the Solomon's Plume (also called False Solomon's Seal)...

Sweet Cicely...Most of the flowers were not quite open but we especially liked this one which was growing up between the boards of the boardwalk.

A few Blue Cohosh flowers remained...

Though many Wild Ginger buds were not open yet, we found this flower.

The Wild Geraniums were scattered here and there.  We had to keep our eyes open. 

Pat even found a Dandelion.  Fortunately the area is too wet for dandelions to thrive.

I've decided to leave our other discoveries for the next post.  This post is getting too long.  Hope you have time to check out Part 2 which I am starting to write as soon as I post this one.

2014 Hug the Earth Festival with the The Banana Slug String Band and the Students of Miami County, Ohio

This is the sixteenth year that I have helped in some way with the Hug the Earth Festival.  It has grown from a one day event with about seven hundred students participating to a four day event with over three thousand students participating.  In addition, there is now a Saturday Festival open to the public.

Because Stillwater Prairie Reserve was waterlogged from the rains of the previous week, the students' festivals were held at the Miami County Fairgrounds.

There were limp antennae on the Banana Slug mascot who met the children as they began their day on Tuesday but by Thursday his antennae were stiff and perky.  He must have found some starch somewhere.

The band members from Santa Cruz, California, "Solar" Steve Van Zandt,

 "Marine" Mark Nolan,

 Doug "Dirt" Greenfield,

 and "Airy" Larry Graff

have been together  for nearly thirty years.  They entertain children and adults with songs about our wonderful earth and encourage everyone to care for it.  For quite a few years "Gaea" Gary has come with them to play drums.  I don't have a recent photo of him.

During the school year the students learn a special earth song, make costumes related to the song and come out to a Miami County Park for a day of exploring and learning more about their special earth song.  The festival is the culminating  event. This year, some of the students were superheros with superhero capes they decorated themselves.

Here is a superhero of Ohio's prairies.

Here is another Habitat Superhero.  Looks like the habitat is a river.  Beside him is the bucket with the rocks he dug out of the sand and gravel pile deposited in one of the Miami County Fair grounds open sided buildings.  All of the rocks in the pile are mined in Ohio.

The older students panned for their rocks.  The rocks they found were from many areas of the world.

In the trough are the pans the the students will use.  Standing around it, getting last minute instructions are the staff who will help them if they need it.  Notice that most of the staff are wearing slug antennae.

Here the students are comparing the rocks they found with samples enclosed in this box.

The Columbus, Ohio Zoo brought unusual animals like this two-toed sloth and talked to the younger students about the animals'  habits.

The older children were treated to a High Ropes Adventure which included a fast ride down a zipline.  There was also a climbing tower.  These were set up behind the stadium.  I took this before the event was completely set up.

On Saturday, tree climbing using ropes was also set up at Stillwater Reserve.

Rain, Sun, Sleet or Snow, the Hug the Earth Festival goes on and brings smiles to hundreds of people.

2013 Hug the Earth Festival with the Banana Slug String Band

The Banana Slug String Band from Santa Cruz, California was back in Miami County, Ohio last week for the sixteenth annual Hug the Earth Festival.  This is the second year that the five-day long celebration has been held at the Stillwater Prairie Reserve.  The Festival outgrew its old site, the Garby Big Woods Reserve.

Besides the hour-long concerts in which the students performed with the slugs, they enjoyed ...

Earthball activities...

Digging for special rocks like limestone and fossils and shark teeth...

Screening for gemstones...

Petting animals...

Learning about exotic animals...

Climbing trees...

And speeding through the air on Zip lines.

Hug the Earth Festival, 2012, Songs and Activities, Part 2

 
Here is Marine Mark leading children in dance to the tune of "I'm a Tree". "I'm a tree, I'm a tree, and I'm growing very tall".




Doug the Drop leads the Water Cycle Boogie Dancers. "The watercycle boogie goes round and round. The watercycle boogie goes up and down".




The Everything Needs a Home singers..."Everything needs a home, a habitat, a place to roam".






Airy Larry, The Plant Man, leading the Roots, Stems, Leaves, Flowers, Fruits, and Seeds singers. "Roots, Stems, Leaves, Flowers, Fruits, and Seeds, Six plant parts that every plant and animal needs".

There were lots of other activities besides the big concert.





Mike Manning, The Rock Man, showed these children fascinating rocks and talked about how people used them.


 

The children panned for treasure and found some of the rocks Mike talked about. Here is what one child found.





On the other side of the park, workers from Ohio mining put on a skit which emphasized that everything is mined or grown.





One child was dressed up as a miner.




These children mined for Ohio ores in especially prepared sand hills.





Then they took their pail of rocks to a table where they could compare what they found with named samples.




All of the children played with , a huge inflated "Earth" ball, and all ate a picnic lunch with their classmates.


  On Friday, the younger students were treated to a visit from the Kentucky Reptile Zoo. They saw a variety of reptiles.

 


The older students had a special treat, a Ropes Campus where they could climb a "Cliff", walk high above the ground on ropes and zip down a Zip Line. Tom pulled this photo from a video.





Here are students climbing the rock wall.
.