Children's Musical Theater at the Troy Civic Theater, A Plant's Life, June 27

Every summer the Troy Recreation Department sponsors several Children's Musical Theater plays.  This year the first play was "A Plant's Life."  The actors ranged in age from just having finished kindergarten to just having finished fifth grade.

The play moved fast and even though I was continually snapping photos I missed getting a photo of one of the highlights because I didn't expect it.  The play reminded me of the Fractured Fairy Tales that were on the Bullwinkle and Rocky cartoon show when my children were young.

The production opened with a rousing version of Rockin' Robin.  You can see the beaks and feathers on the performers.

Here is a closer look at two of the birds.

The play combined three folk tales...Stone Soup, Jack and the Bean Stalk, and The Princess and the Pea.
Ash and Birch trees talking together tied the three sections  together.

The trees were sad because they didn't think people appreciated them, their beauty or the fact that they breathed out oxygen for people to breathe in.  The trees made a long list of what plants give people that people don't thank them for.

The tale of Stone Soup began with four friends complaining because they were hungry and they had no money for food.   They sang, "We All Stand Together."

But then one of them had an idea.  They put a stone in their pot and started stewing it.  They told the food vendors, the Villagers, they could have some of the stew if they added something from their baskets of food.  The stew was wonderful.

The Ash and Birch trees were still not happy.  Their fruits and vegetables were being eaten and the people didn't say thank you to the plants who had provided their food.

The scene switched to Jack's mother telling him to sell their cow because they needed money for food.

Here's Jack with the cow who was very good at saying Moo whenever people were having conversations.

Jack sold his cow for a handful of beans but before the buyer could take the cow a prince came along and claimed the cow for himself.  What could poor Jack and the Bean Seller do except obey?  That's Merlin with the prince.  He's the one with the fancy hat and the wand.

Before long a Princess in disguise and her friend joined the group.  The Princess wanted to have an adventure.  She was tired of living in the palace and wearing fancy dresses.  She was with Jack and the Bean Seller when they told Jack's mother the sad story about the cow.

And you remember how Jack's mother threw away the beans and the enormous bean stalk grew.

Oops! Here, Merlin is setting out the Giant's treasure.  The stage crew who are the actors and actresses as well almost forgot to set it out.

The giant awoke and caught three of the fortune seekers but Jack got away.

Help was on the way.

Jack cut the bean stalk

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..and the COW knocked it down, killing the Giant in the process.  

I didn't foresee the Cow having such an important part and didn't get that photo.  I don't remember any other version of the story  mentioning how important the Cow was to the successful ending of the adventure. 

Of course, the Cow said, "Moo."

Afterward the Ash and Birch trees were a bit annoyed, too, that a COW had knocked down that bean stalk.

But, on to the final act of "A Plant's Life".

The king and queen wanted their son, the prince in the blue crown,  to have a wife, a real princess.

There were three possibilities.

The princesses spent several days as guests of the royal family and slept in a  high bed piled with mattresses at night, a special bed the prince's mother had chosen for them.

Only one princess passed the test.  She complained there was something hard under all the mattresses.
The Pea complained, too.  The Pea had been really uncomfortable with that heavy princess sleeping on it.

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The ash and birch trees decided that people did know  plants were important, especially, when there were difficult decisions to be made like who a prince should marry.

Everyone was happy again and gathered on stage in their bird costumes to sing "High Hopes".

Flower Bracelet, Lilian Nichols's Polymer Clay Class

For the past few months Lilian has been showing us a variety of ways of making flower canes.  I have been scurrying the whole class just to keep up, scurrying so fast I haven't had time to take photos of the steps and of my classmates' work. 

We made several different styles of flowers from bull'seye canes. 

We started with the bull's eye cane similar to the ones at the top of the picture, shaping them as we worked toward a finished flower.  The final product at the bottom was filled in with translucent clay between the petals and then around the entire cane.

Below is the set of flowers I made. Three of the flowers were made with  bull'seyes, the two already shown in the first photo and the five petal veined pink flower.  The three roses are variations of a rose cane technique Lilian showed us.  The yellow and green flower is an experiment and so is the viertically striped leaf.  Lilian showed us how to make the leaf with the center vein and side veins. 

Members of the class shared their canes.  Here are the ones others shared with me.

I rolled out a background of turquoise.  The turquoise was deeper than I wanted so I added white to it.

I decided to experiment with the extruder.

I extruded a thin rope, then flattened it into the background.

Gradually, I flattened thin slices of cane into the background.  The design is still in process in this picture.

These are the flowers that I used.  The purple tipped flower with the   multiple veins was one of those given to me.  It gave a little punch to the similar colors of the other canes.

                 

Lilian gave us cuff bracelet forms that she are scrubbed and covered with a light layer of Elmer's glue.  The glue was dry when we pressed on our clay sheet.

I cut a seven inch by 1 and1/2 inch slice across the bottom of my polymer sheet and attached it to the form.  A strip of clay close to the original background color covered the inside of the bracelet.

I baked it in my kitchen oven and here is the result.  It still needs to be sanded so it is smoother to the touch.

Garst Museum in Greenville, Ohio

This is the parlor of the Garst House, now part of the Garst Museum.  Twenty years ago, Pat took Ceceila and me to this museum which is noted for its display of memorabilia of  Annie Oakley.  What I remembered most were Annie's beautiful clothes, the costumes she wore in the Wild West Shows and the evening gowns she wore when she was presented to presidents, kings, and queens.  I asked Tom to take me to the musum as part of my birthday celebration.  Here are photos of some of what we saw.

The museum doesn't look like it did twenty years ago.  There have at least two large additions built.

 Because Tom uses a scooter, we entered through the handicap entrance which is at the end of the usual tour.  The people in the office were pleasant, gave us maps and explained a bit about what we would see.

In the same area which was a large meeting room, we saw the first mention of Annie Oakley, little Miss Sharpshooter.

Greenville was originally a fort in the Northwest Territory, number 5 on the map.  It was here that a treaty was signed by "Mad" Anthony Wayne and native chiefs which opened Ohio to settlements by the new country of  the United States.    One section of the museum is devoted to the treaty and the events about it.  A nearby room gives information about native American cultures.

But back to our tour path.  Since we were walking the tour backward, we came first to the large display about transportation.

Twenty years ago, I don't believe this section of the museum existed.  Some of the vehicles were shown but not in an organized way as they are now.

The Iddings Special, a racing sprint car made in 1947 by Henry Meyer and originally powered by a 4-cylinder Offenhauser engine.

1947 model "Servi-Car" , a three-wheeled motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson for use by the Greenville Police Department.

The next large wing was called The Village Wing .  There were many shops whose windows we could look through to see an earlier way of life.

                                          The dentist's office

                                         The post office

Beyond this area were two rooms and a hall devoted to Annie Oakley.  (The musical, "Annie, Get Your Gun", is a fanciful version of her life.)  Her riding habit worn in later years was there and so was a robe that Frank Butler, her husband, gave her after they retired.  Here is her traveling trunk with show business memorabilia  displayed on it.

One room was centered around her personal life and the other room, around her professional life. 

A hall was filled with commercial products featuring Annie.  Here is one display.

BUT, all the beautiful gowns she wore when she was presented to the great people of her day were missing.  I was told they were..." being preserved in storage so they will not deteriorate."  I have seen much older clothing on display in other museums.  I am sorry to say I let not seeing the clothing affect my mood. I actually felt like crying.  I told both women I talked to I felt a portion of Annie's life was missing.  I had no idea she wore such beautiful stylish gowns until Pat brought me to the museum years ago. 

Butterfly Transit, June 15, 2013

We saw a Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on the sidewalk before we started our official walk.  It was in  the transit section Ruth has designated as the last one so she didn't list it on the official transit list for the day.  But I think everyone else listed it in their mind.  Tom took these photos a few years ago.  The milkweed are not blooming yet this year.  I wanted to get a photo of the one on the sidewalk with its wings open but it flew when I moved.  Fortunately, I didn't move until others did get photos.

Its wingspan is 2.9-3.8 inches (7.1-9.7 cm)

We were standing talking in the first section when someone said, "There's a butterfly on Pauline's shirt.  Oops, it flew."

Butterfly enthusiasts expect a butterfly which lands on people to be a Hackberry  ( Asterocampa Celtis) or a Tawny Emperor (Asterocampa clyton).

I found its landing spot.  It was a Hackberry, (Wingspan: 2.0-2.6 inches or 5.1-6.6 cm).

We saw other butterflies but none that were different from what we have seen in previous weeks.  And we still had to really search for those we did find.

But the larger dragonflies are fun to find.  Here are two we saw.  I haven't searched the dragonfly field guides for their names yet.  When I do, I will come back to this post and update it.  There are two photos of the second dragonfly.  One shows the insect in general.  The other gives a better view of the face.

Ruth found this caterpillar on a False Indigo.  I don't remember if she said it was False Blue or simply False.  These are two different plants.  A spot of light washed the color from the head end so I colored it with the clone tool.  The caterpillar was so small I didn't see the bit of pattern toward the rear until I enlarged it on the computer so I don't know if the pattern continued up the back.  I expect that it did.  The skin was smooth, not hairy which is typical of many moth caterpillars so I think this is a butterfly caterpillar.

July2 Update.  The green caterpillar is that of the Wild Indigo Duskywing.   Thank you, Ruth Bowell.

Sometimes, a person just has to be looking at the right spot.  As we were returning to the Interpretative
Center, I saw motion on the center flower.  A half -inch long caterpillar was humping along in inchworm fashion.  Then it seemed to be trying to find a way to move to another stem.

Not finding what it was looking for, it settled back on the flower it was on.

As always, click on the photos to get a better view.