Tag: Fairfield County

Audubon Greenwich celebrates spring

If you are looking for signs of spring, don’t miss the April events at Audubon Greenwich, http://greenwich.audubon.org located on 613 Riversville Rd. in Greenwich.

Go on a bird walk this spring
Go on a bird walk this spring

On Wednesday, April 17 from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. visitors are invited on a morning bird walk at the Fairchild Wildflower Garden area on North Porchuck Rd.

Benjamin T. Fairchild developed the Fairchild Garden as a wildflower sanctuary on abandoned farmland he purchased in 1890. After his death in 1939, Mrs. Elon Huntington Hooker, with the help of local garden clubs, raised the money to purchase the sanctuary. It was donated to the National Audubon Society in 1945. It is not a formal garden, but a natural area, with introduced wildflower species and some interesting rocks into the landscape. The unique feature of this 135-acre sanctuary is its variety of wetland habitats. These include a stream, pond, wetland meadow, red maple swamp, hillside wetland, emergent freshwater marsh and a wetland scrub thicket. The sanctuary also boasts eight miles of trails winding through deep shady gorges under cover of mature deciduous forest, and a grove of white pines. The Fairchild Wildflower Garden becomes a birding hot spot in the late spring and early summer seasons.

To continue the spring birding tradition, the Audubon is offering a Bird Walk on the trails at their main sanctuary located on Riversville Road from 7 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Later in the day, the Audubon will host a spring flower walk lead by a naturalist that will explain the histories, ecological niches and insect pollination partners
Of the various spring flowers found here. This walk is good for ages 5 and up.

Rounding out a month of walks, on April 24 the Audubon will host a springtime sunset and moonlight walk from 7:45 p.m. – 9:15 p.m. Participants will seek out the sights, sounds, and smells of a spring evening visiting field, pond, forest, and lake in search of wildlife. Hikers will also listen overhead and look up at the moon in search of silhouettes of night-flying springtime bird migrants. This event is good for ages 7 & up. Please note that space limited & RSVP required.

For questions and reservations to the events sponsored by the Audubon Greenwich call Ted Gilman at 203-869-5272 x230. For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

JanetLeave a comment

Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum Announces New Season’s Events

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum will reopen its doors in April for an eventful Spring season. This season, the Mansion will highlight Victorian era technology, a cutting-edge art movement called Steampunk, and a nod to the Mansion’s beginnings with its annual Victorian Tea.

Lookwood Mathews Mansion
Lookwood Mathews Mansion

The Mansion will kick off the season with an Opening Night Gala & Exhibitions Preview on April 13, 2013 at 7:00pm. This black tie dinner will allow guests a sneak peak of the Mansion’s two new exhibits, What Is It? Technologies and Discoveries of the Victorian Era and Steampunk: Nature & Machine. The Gala includes a special presentation by history of technology luminary Steven Lubar, Professor of the Departments of American Studies, History, and History of Art and Architecture at Brown University.

What Is It? Technologies and Discoveries of the Victorian Era features 19th century technological and scientific marvels of the Mansion’s heyday that revolutionized the way people lived. The exhibit is made possible thanks to a grant from the Connecticut Humanities (CTH), a non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities that funds, creates and collaborates on hundreds of cultural programs across Connecticut each year. CTH brings together people of all ages and backgrounds to express, share and explore ideas in thoughtful and productive ways. From local discussion groups to major exhibitions on important historical events, CTH programs engage, enlighten and educate. Learn more by visiting http://www.cthumanities.org. The exhibit opens to the public on April 17th and runs through October 6, 2013.

Herter Brothers Furniture LMM

Also in April, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum presents an exciting short-term exhibit, Steampunk: Nature & Machine. At this, the first Steampunk exhibit in Fairfield County, visitors will catch a view of this bold new style, a neo-retro aesthetic that borrows imagery from the Industrial Revolution and Victorian eras and has influenced everything from literature and product design to fashion and fine art. The exhibit will feature the art of renowned Steampunk artists Bruce Rosenbaum, Katie Shima and Leslie Mueller. There will be an opening reception on April 25, from 6:00 – 8:00pm. The exhibit runs until June 15.

Rounding out the 2013 spring season is the Mansion’s Victorian Tea on Sunday, May 5 at 2:00pm. The family-friendly event features a formal English tea in the Mansion’s Rotunda, including a wide selection of desserts, sandwiches, the traditional scones and cream, as well as music and other entertainment. The Tea is sponsored by Cottages & Gardens Publications and King Industries.

LockwoodMansionEexteriorretouched

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a National Historic Landmark located at 295 West Avenue in Norwalk. Tours will begin in April and are offered Wednesdays through Sundays, at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m.

For more information on tours and programs, visit www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, e-mail info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, or call 203-838-9799. For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com.

JanetLeave a comment

Concerts at Keeler Tavern

The Louise McKeon Chamber Music Concerts will return to the Keeler Tavern Museum, (http://keelertavernmuseum.org) located at 132 Main Street in Ridgefield on Sunday April, 14th at 3 PM . The first concert of the season will feature Threeds, an oboe trio based in New York City. The trio includes oboists Kathy Halvorson, Katie Schele and Mark Snyder. Formed in 2008, the trio enjoys creating new paths for the oboe and English horn.

keeler tavern

The ensemble plays their own arrangements of pop, rock, jazz, folk and world music while using improvisational techniques. A special guest of Threeds at this concert will be Christof Knoche who plays the bass clarinet. Threeds has also arranged music to accompany local singer-song writers and has recorded at Avatar Studios and Daytone Records.

One of the founding principles of Threeds is to make the oboe an instrument more accessible to the general public by bringing their music out of the concert hall to bars, galleries and other public places that include sites from Joe’s Pub to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Recently, the trio was invited (by audition) to participate in MTA’s Music under NY where they will play in the New York subway.

Over the last few years Threeds have performed in Los Angeles, Providence, Philadelphia, Cape May as well as at the New York and Arizona Summer Music Festivals. The trio is composed of accomplished musicians that have performed with many prestigious orchestras, including Broadway Shows and Emmy nominated independent film tracks. In addition to the trio, the artists of the trio have taught at WestConn University, C. W. Post, Rudolph Steiner School, and the Brooklyn Conservatory among others.

Tickets at the door are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and students, and $10 children under 12 years. Members of the audience are invited to enjoy conversation with the musicians following the concert. Light refreshments will be provided

The final performance of the 2012-2013 season on Sunday May 19th at 3 PM will feature the Devonshire Players, a string quarter.

For area information www.visitwesternct.com or www.litchfieldhills.com

JanetLeave a comment

African Penguins Return to Maritime Aquarium At Norwalk through April 22

The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is bringing back one of the most popular species it’s ever displayed: African penguins, who will waddle in for a celebratory encore exhibit through April 22, 2013.

Aquar.AfricanPenguin

African Penguins” will be open through April 22 in an outdoor exhibit on the Aquarium’s riverfront courtyard. It’s free with admission. The small colony of penguins will be on loan from the Leo Zoological Conservation Center in Greenwich (www.LEOzoo.org).

Educating visitors on where penguins live may be one of the first basic goals of the exhibit. None of them live at the North Pole, or with Eskimos or polar bears. Some species do live in Antarctica. But many penguins can be found in warmer climates of the southern hemisphere, like African penguins in South Africa and several species that live up the western coast of South America, all the way to the equator and the Galapagos Islands. The African penguins – whose conservation status is listed as endangered – will help call attention to Africa’s troubled coastal environments, which receive far less conservation protection than the continent’s inland savannahs, plains and jungles.

African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) stand about two feet tall and weigh 8 pounds. They’re recognizable by the black stripe that loops up across their chest and their pink “eyebrows.” The pink “eyebrows” actually are an adaptation that helps them to survive in a warmer habitat like South Africa – or Norwalk. The “eyebrows” are featherless patches with lots of blood vessels underneath. When a penguin gets too hot, these patches get brighter as the penguin circulates more blood there to dissipate body heat.

African penguins also have evolved shorter feathers because, unlike Antarctic species, they do not face extreme cold.

The previous penguins exhibit at the Aquarium was open from February 2009-December 2010. For more details about The Maritime Aquarium’s exhibits, programs and IMAX movies, go to http://www.maritimeaquarium.org or call (203) 852-0700.

JanetLeave a comment

Step Into Art™ at Stepping Stones Museum for Children

Have your kids ever wanted to curate their own gallery, create a self portrait at a designated computer station, take part in an art hunt through an exhibit and let their imaginations run wild by creating as many different images as possible at the three-dimensional Pattern Puzzle? Now through May 12 kids can do all this and more by literally stepping inside the framework of famous paintings and experience art in Framed: Step into Art™, at Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk located on 303 West Ave. For information www.steppingstonesmuseum.org or 203-899-0606. For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Step Into Art™ photo credit: Minnesota Children’s Museum
Step Into Art™
photo credit: Minnesota Children’s Museum

Kids enter the special exhibit by stepping through an over-sized frame and instantly become immersed in the worlds created by well-known artists. Each work is re-created as a three-dimensional, sensory, walk-in environment that includes a print of the artist’s original work, as well as important facts about the artist’s life and painting style.

There are four featured paintings in this bi-lingual exhibit that provides a different cultural experience for participants. Dinner for Threshers by Grant Wood for example teaches children about rural life at the turn of the century. Kids can tend to a chicken and eggs, prepare a meal in the kitchen, set the dining table, enjoy a noontime dinner, and mix and match the farmers’ patterned shirts. The detail the featured painting provides includes theme of patterns, the farmers’ tan lines and the hour of the meal.

John Singer Sargent’s Camp at Lake O’Hara Minnesota Children’s Museum
John Singer Sargent’s Camp at Lake O’Hara Minnesota Children’s Museum

At the popular Camp at Lake O’Hara visitors are transported to the Canadian Rockies circa 1916 to the John Singer Sargent’s Camp at Lake O’Hara. Children can climb inside a tent and explore camping gear like Sargent would have used. After cooking a pretend meal over the campfire, kids can tell stories around the fire and arrange items in a magnetic frame to show what a painting of today’s campsite may look like.

The Big Chicken by Clementine Hunter is a salute to Louisiana’s most famous female artist and folk art icon that creates imaginary animals like Hunter’s “goosters” by mixing body parts. Children and adults can load the cart in this exhibit with cotton, climb behind the reins of the giant rooster and take their load to town.

Big Chicken by Clementine Hunter Minnesota Children’s Museum
Big Chicken by Clementine Hunter Minnesota Children’s Museum

Travel south of the border when visiting Corn Festival by Diego Rivera through this work from the Court of Fiestas in the Ministry of Education Building in Mexico City. Kids will have fun exploring a rendition of one of Rivera’s frescos while adding their own whimsical flourishes such as flowers and ribbons of “corn husks” to the flower tower and on a miniature building’s mural.

About Framed: Step Into Art™
Framed: Step Into Art™ was created by the Minnesota Children’s Museum for the members of the Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative (YMEC): Bay Area Discovery Museum, Boston Children’s Museum, Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, Children’s Museum of Memphis, Long Island Children’s Museum, Minnesota Children’s Museum and Stepping Stones Museum for Children. The exhibit is sponsored locally by Xerox Foundation.

About Stepping Stones Museum for Children
Stepping Stones Museum for Children is an award winning, private, non-profit 501 (c)(3) children’s museum committed to broadening and enriching the lives of children and families. For more information about Stepping Stones, to book a field trip or schedule a class, workshop or facility rental call 203-899-0606 or visit www.steppingstonesmuseum.org. The museum is open daily 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

JanetLeave a comment

Maple Syrup in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County

If it seems as though this winter will never end, take heart, The sweet scents of maple syrup in the making clearly announce that spring is coming—and they are a good reason to plan a visit to Litchfield and Fairfield counties in Western Connecticut.

Trees are being tapped...
Trees are being tapped…

Sugar maples are plentiful in these scenic areas and more than a dozen sugarhouses from private farms to nature centers welcome visitors during peak syrup season in March. Guests will view the process from tap to tastes, see how the big bubbling kettles of thin sap boil down to thick fragrant syrup and get to sample the delicious results. Some operations are open every weekend, some have special maple celebration days and some smaller farms request a call to be sure they are ready for company.

For the sap to run, nights below freezing and warm days are required, so dates can vary. A call always is a good idea before visiting.

The Maple Calendar

Lamothe’s Sugar House on 89 Stone Rd. in Burlington starts the season early with the chance to see how syrup is made every weekend from February 9 to March 24 from 1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.. This family owned operation began as a hobby with seven taps and has grown to over 4500 taps and a year-round showroom. Coffee and cider are complimentary to visitors. The shop has a multitude of interesting maple sugar products that includes: maple sugar spice rubs, maple candy, kettlecorn and nuts, and even maple barbeque sauce. Check their website for a special discount on Lamothe’s spices. Along with the maple syrup business the family also raise pigs, and mini-lop bunnies. For more information www.lamothesugarhouse.com

Lamothe's Sugar House
Lamothe’s Sugar House

One of the busiest sugaring spots is the Flanders Sugar House at Van Vleck Farm Sanctuary in Woodbury. Staff and volunteers conduct maple syrup demonstrations on on March 2, & 3 and 9 &10. On March 3 the day begins with a pancake breakfast, topped with Flanders own maple syrup, a treat not to be missed. The maple sugar season ends with the annual grand finale Maple Celebration on March 16. The final festival on March 16 features music, vendors, walks, cooking and maple candy making demonstrations, maple food sampling and special kids’ crafts and activities.

Sugaring Off at Stamford Museum and Nature Center
Sugaring Off at Stamford Museum and Nature Center

Audubon Sharon will be holding its annual MapleFest on Saturday, March 16 between 10 am and 4 pm at the Sharon Audubon Center, Route 4, Sharon, CT. On-going guided 40-minute tours will lead visitors through the Center’s sugaring operation, including a working sugarhouse and a re-creation of Native American and early colonial sugaring methods. Participants can watch as pure sugar maple sap is collected from the trees and turned into delicious maple syrup. Admission for the event is $5.00 adults and $3.00 children. This hands-on, sensory-based experience focuses on trees as living organisms and the concept of sustainable agriculture in a forest ecosystem. Our teaching method incorporates forest ecology and cultural history into the joy and excitement of maple syrup production. Fresh syrup will be available for purchase in the Sharon Audubon Center Nature Store while supplies last. For more information on MapleFest or the Audubon Sharon sugaring operation, contact the Audubon Center at (860) 364-0520 or visit www.sharon.audubon.org. Depending on sap flow, the sugarhouse will also be open each weekend in March for visitors. Call ahead to see if Audubon staff will be boiling sap.

At Warrups Farm on 11 John Read Rd. in Redding, visitors are welcome the first three weekends in March to watch the whole process, sap to syrup in the log cabin sugar house, to take a taste of the sap direct from the trees and as well as the almost-ready syrup. Guests can savor all of the harbingers of spring on a farm. The sugaring demonstrations take place from noon to 5 p.m. For more information www.warrupsfarm.com.

Special Maple Days

March 2
The Institute for American Indian Studies will have a different take on sugaring at its annual festival on the March 2. Demonstrations in the outdoor Algonkian Village
will show how local Native Americans traditionally made maple syrup and its importance to their culture. Pancakes made by IAIS staff will be served with local maple syrup. The festival will take place from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Fee: $10 Adults; $8 Children. www.iaismuseum.org.

MapleSugaringFestival

The Indian Rock Nature Preserve located on 501 Wolcott Rd. in Bristol is hosting a maple sugaring and pancake breakfast on March 2 from 8 a.m. – noon. Along with breakfast, visit with the farm animals and learn how maple syrup is produced from sap to syrup. Sample New England syrup, which will also be available for purchase. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children under 10 years old, and free for children under 2 years old. For more information call (860) 589-8200 or visit www.ELCCT.org.

Maple Sugar Saturday and Sunday at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, the museum’s traditional family festival, will offer the chance to learn how sap from their own trees is made into syrup, to sample the syrup and to enjoy lots of fun for children including a scavenger hunt, maple-themed crafts, games, storytelling, and music. On Staurday, watch local chefs create delicious dishes using local maple syrup and vote for your favorite. On Sunday, enjoy the populat pancake brunch from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Admission fees: Members $5, non-members $10, kids 3 and under free. www.stamfordmuseum.org.

Sweet Delight!
Sweet Delight!

March 9
The Annual Maple Festival at Sweet Wind Farm in East Hartland will be a busy day with a tree tapping demonstration, maple syrup and sugar making with free syrup samples at the sugar house, a narrated slide show and video, a cooking and recipe class story time for kids, and –almost everyone’s favorite activity– a sugar-on-snow candy making demonstration. The event takes place rain or shine from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. http://www.sweetwindfarm.net

March 2 – 3 and 9-10
At the Open House Maple Festival at the Great Brook Sugar House on Sullivan Farm, located on Rte. 202 in New Milford is a maple sugaring program for families on Saturdays and Sundays March 2,3,9 and 10 from 10 a.m. – 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Participants will learn the natural and cultural history of maple sugar as well as try the bit brace drill, see sap flowing as well as cook and taste the syrup. For more information http://sullivanfarmnm.org.

sullivan farm maple sugar

March 16

This busiest March weekend is when the New Canaan Nature Center from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. will hold tree-tapping demos, and a real maple sap boil down at their Sugar Shack, as well as give a look at historic methods of making maple syrup. Families can also enjoy a delicious Pancake Brunch with maple syrup, join naturalists for a hike along “Maple Lane” to learn tree identification tips, warm up around the campfire to share tall tales, make a Maple craft and take home souvenir treats from a Maple Bake Sale. Members $8 and non-Members $12, kids 2 and under free.

flandsere maple

Audubon Sharon will be holding its annual MapleFest on Saturday, March 16 between 10 am and 4 pm at the Sharon Audubon Center, Route 4, Sharon, CT. On-going guided 40-minute tours will lead visitors through the Center’s sugaring operation, including a working sugarhouse and a re-creation of Native American and early colonial sugaring methods. Participants can watch as pure sugar maple sap is collected from the trees and turned into delicious maple syrup. Admission for the event is $5.00 adults and $3.00 children. This hands-on, sensory-based experience focuses on trees as living organisms and the concept of sustainable agriculture in a forest ecosystem. Our teaching method incorporates forest ecology and cultural history into the joy and excitement of maple syrup production. Fresh syrup will be available for purchase in the Sharon Audubon Center Nature Store while supplies last. For more information on MapleFest or the Audubon Sharon sugaring operation, contact the Audubon Center at (860) 364-0520 or visit www.sharon.audubon.org. Depending on sap flow, the sugarhouse will also be open each weekend in March for visitors. Call ahead to see if Audubon staff will be boiling sap.

JanetLeave a comment