Monarch Time #WordlessWednesday

One of our local libraries has an aquarium set up with monarch butterfly larvae developing. They’ve had several become butterflies.

Here are some pictures of their set up. The larvae are the striped caterpillars, and I hope you can make them out in these pictures.

If you are interested, here is more on the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. 

You can see one towards the right middle of the picture.  I apologize for the glare. 

These are milkweed plants, which the caterpillars feast on until their next stage of development.  I see at least three in this picture.

The enclosure itself. 

This is the Vestal Library's certificate of recognition from the Monarch Waystation program.  The program states, in part:

"Monarch Waystations are intentionally managed gardens that provide critical breeding resources and food sources to support monarch butterflies throughout their multi-generational, 3,000-mile migration.....As of 11 August 2026, there have been 57,969 Monarch Waystation habitats registered with Monarch Watch."

The very first monarch waystation was established in 2004 at the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, Kansas. 

 

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.
 

Tea Time #WordlessWednesday

 It's time for tea at Your Home Library in Johnson City, New York.

For the second straight year, it's time for tea at Your Home Library in Johnson City, New York.  The drawers that once stored catalogs now store giveaway seeds in the spring and tea and cocoa in the fall.

Once again, the teas mainly come from Harney and Sons, a New York State tea company headquartered in a small town of about 1000 people.

Time for tea, and time to support your local library by enjoying one of their programs.

 

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Page the Cat #WordlessWednesday

For some reason, cats and libraries seem to go together.   None of our local libraries where I live have a library cat, but I saw my first one the other week in Cazenovia, New York.

The tradition of a library cat goes back centuries, in part because of their mousing abilities.  Or maybe it's because people who love libraries also love cats?

May I introduce you to Page the cat.  Signs at the entrance warn people not to let her out after 7pm.

Page has been with the Cazenovia, New York library since 2009. She is their fourth library cat.

She jumped on a chair and let me pet her for a few seconds.

Here's an article about library cats, if it interests you.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Library Valentines #Wordless Wednesday

Once again, it's time to give Your Home Library, my home's public library, a Valentine.  It's only fair - they give one to me.

It's time to unveil my Valentine's Day gift from the local library.

Since at least 2017, our local library wraps up various books and displays them.  Each patron can pick one.  

The book we pick is ours to keep.  We make our selection based on a short description.

Here's this year's Valentine book, all wrapped up.  I picked mine because I had a feeling who had written it.

I was right.  Thank you, Your Home Library.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for #WordlessWednesday.

The 2024 Seed Library #WordlessWednesday

It's time to think of planting seeds.  Fortunately, there are seed options in this area for those of limited income.  One of them is our local library, called (yes) Your Home Library.

The Your Home Library seed catalog is located in an old card catalog.  The seeds?  About 60 varieties total were donated by a combination of Seed Savers Exchange and also the Hudson Valley Seed Co. Thanks go to both of these companies.

How it works:  "Please take only what you will use". I'm a little surprised they didn't limit the number of seed packets one patron could take, as they've done in previous years.

Brassicas.

 

Lettuce

The packets are small, and I thank the librarians for their efforts packaging and arranging these packets.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday

Library Shadows #ShadowshotSunday

From the Four County Library Road Trip, July 2023.

Shadows at the Moore Memorial Library in Greene, New York.

Shadows (a little hard to see) on a birding poster at the Vestal Public Library, Vestal, New York.

Joining Lisa at Lisa's Garden Adventure for #ShadowshotSunday.

CommuniTEA Time

In talking to the friendly librarians last month at Your Home Library in Johnson City library, one of them told me they would be setting up a community tea "lending library" during the early part of January.  This used card catalog uses their seed lending catalog, so the tea library will only be operating until the seeds come in sometime in February.

It started to operate a few days ago and is called the CommuniTEA library. 

Unlike the other tea library in our area, this tea isn't obtained from contributions from library patrons.  These were purchased from a New York State tea company called Harney & Sons Fine Teas, located in the Hudson Valley in Millerton New York.

There's a limit of two bags per patron.  These are the two I chose.

It's certainly an interesting concept.

Book Trees #WordlessWednesday

Seen at the George F. Johnson Memorial Library in Endicott, New York.

A book tree in a display case in the lobby.
 

Book tree in the New Books section.

There are also outdoor displays (not of booktrees) but they involved inflatables and they had the air removed at the time.

Merry Early Christmas to my Wordless Wednesday readers who celebrate.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for #WordlessWednesday.

My Current Booklist

I have an Echo Dot and it has the most annoying habit of trying to recommend books to me.  I can't figure out how to turn it off.

In all my life, I have rarely needed book recommendations, especially once the Internet came into existence.  When I was younger, I would read the New York Times Book Review back when I used to buy the Sunday New York Times.  In the past few years, there is a free publication called Book Page I can get at some local libraries.

In the old days, I would have to either use the library reserve list, or buy, books I wanted that the library did not have readily available but I could still find reading material by physical browsing of the shelves.  I've spent many happy work lunch break hours in libraries. 

Then, e books came along.  While many have embraced them, I never had.  I just don't get the same experience with an ebook.  True, you can change the font size and true, you (with many ebooks) can press on words you don't know the meanings of, and get a definition.

But I can't fall into an ebook the way I can a physical book.  It's just not the same experience.

For a while, the pandemic cured me (or so I thought) of needing a physical book.  In the couple of months libraries closed here in New York State in the early days of Covid, I found refuge in ebooks. 

It helped tremendously when the New York (City) Public Library opened its ebook collection to residents of New York State (I believe the Brookyn Public Library also did this) and my iPad became my library.  The beauty of this system was that when the book was due, it disappeared.  No fines.

But now, I've gone full circle.  I want physical books again.  I still use the New York (City) Public Library but if my local library gets a book in when I am reading the ebook, I return the ebook.

Right now, I have these titles out as ebooks:  I have anywhere from 16 to 19 days left before they vanish.

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.  This is a debut novel that takes place in a near future dystopia.  The author is from downstate New York and I'm OK with it as an ebook but I really wish I could have the physical book. I'm perhaps a quarter of the way through.

Prequel:  An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow.  This is non fiction I was looking foward to reading, but I'm already struggling with reading it as an ebook.

The Cost of Free Land:  Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance by Rebecca Clarren.  This is a stunning book by a Jewish woman who grew up in rural South Dakota and what happened when she started to dig into her family's history of having fled pogroms in Eastern Europe only to collide with the Indige­nous peoples who had once lived on that same land.   I have a long way to go but I think I can manage with this as an ebook.

And, on the reserve list of ebooks:

Julia: A retelling of 1984 by Sandra Newman.  This is a retelling of this classic story from the point of view of a character who was never fully developed in the original.  This was authorized by the estate of 1984's author George Orwell.  I have some trepidation because I tried reading another book by Sandra Newman, The Country of Ice Cream Star and it was a Did Not Finish for me.

So, what happened today?  I found a physical copy of Julia at my local library.

I took it out.  I have three weeks and I know it probably won't be able to be renewed.  So I might stay on the ebook reserve list.

I can't read four books like this in the next 20 or so days, though.  So some decisions need to be made.

But Alexa isn't going to help me with those decisions. I don't want her blurting out unsolicited book recommendations when I ask her to set a timer or ask her when a certain football game will be on.  I really wish I could shut her up sometimes.

What do you do when books suddenly pile up on you?

The Tea Library

I've drank tea all of my life.  In my childhood, I drank black tea, brewed from tea bags.  In the summer I drank ice tea, unsweetened, as is the tradition where I grew up in New York City.

Now, I can no longer tolerate more than a tiny bit of caffeine, and I've switched to either herbal tea or decaf black tea.  I have always been sensitive to cinnamon and that leaves out some herbal and flavored black teas, but I find the herbal tea world is large.  The two herbals I really don't like are roobios (which, unfortunately, is in a lot of blends) and chamomile.  On the other hand, I like hibiscus and mint.

The one thing I regret about my tea habit is the fact that, except for a couple of gift shops that will sell you one herbal tea bag, I can't buy just one tea bag (or enough tea for one ball's worth of loose tea, which I also indulge in sometimes) to try out.  If I don't like the tea, or if my digestion doesn't, I'm stuck with a box of 19 or 23 tea bags.

I'm not a tea connoisseur.  I think I can tell if a tea is really bad (and I know that most tea connoisseurs don't use tea bags - I can understand why, but I tend to be lazy) but I'm willing to try different brands out.

Enter....The Tea Library.  

Yes, one of our local libraries has set up a Tea Library for this winter.  They need contributions of tea bags.  They must be individually wrapped, list ingredients on the wrapper (thank you!) and not be past their expiration date.

If you take tea, the limit is three tea bags.  You also have to sign a register (first name) if you are either taking or donating.

Today, I stopped into this library (I usually don't go to this one) and there was the tea library.  I didn't have any teas but I decided to try three of them.   I figured I couldn't go wrong with Earl Grey, and none of these have roobios or chamomile.
 

Now I'll have to find the time to donate some teas.

Would you take out a tea from a tea library?

Let Freedom Read

It's become a sad tradition on my blog.  I so wish it was an unnecessary tradition.

October 1-7 is Banned Book Week. 

It seems that every year, observing this week (which actually is needed each and every week of the year) becomes more and more important.  Our freedoms are slipping away.  We will lose them if we don't value them. 

This year, the theme is "Let Freedom Read".  I wish I could copy an email I received yesterday from the New York Public Library, written by author Judy Blume.  She said it so much more elegantly than I can.

Here is an explanation of some of the terms being used below.

Here is an infographic.  One of these sobering statistics is how much censorship has been on the rise.  Incidents have almost doubled between 2021 and 2022. (I apologize for the size of this infographic; I can't make it any bigger.  However, you can find the original of this and the one below at the American Library Association website. ) Or, one can only hope, at your own public library, where you may also find a display of banned books. 

At our local library, my spouse picked up one of the books from a display of books that have been banned:  The Call of the Wild, by Jack London.  He loved that book as a child (as did I).

I've read at least two other books that have been banned from time to time as part of my schooling:  Animal Farm by George Orwell, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.  My son read another banned book as part of his schooling: The Giver, by Lois Lowry.

If you look at reasons books are challenged or banned, they will range widely, from the author's political beliefs, to violence, to descriptions of witchcraft, to profanity, to depictions of drug use.  

In 2022, Dr. Seuss Enterprises decided to no longer offer for publication six Dr. Seuss books.

Sometimes, all it takes is someone wondering if a library even has a book.

Take, for example, the example of the library in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

I was so fortunate to have parents who did not control my reading.  They would take me to the library, or to a bookstore, and just stand by while I made my selections.  Never once did they try to change my mind.  They might discuss a book with me, but I was free to read it.

These are the top "most challenged" books, noting there is a big difference between challenged and banned (as explained in a link at the beginning of this post). 

People can challenge books in an effort to protect children (the largest group challenging are parents) from difficult ideas or situations but too many times it comes down to a desire to censor beliefs that run counter to certain groups' or powerful interests' beliefs.  But don't take it from me.

Quoting from the ALA's website:

"As Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson , said most eloquently:

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

If we are to continue to protect our First Amendment, we would do well to keep in mind these words of Noam Chomsky:

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

Or these words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (" The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports , vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20):

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

Freedom of reading.  Freedom of thought.

Let Freedom Read.

The Library Where They Know Your Name #4CLSRoadtrip

Today, on our roadtrip to explore some of the 43 libraries of the Four County Library System (Broome, Chenango, Delaware and Otsego counties), we return to the Binghamton, New York area, which has the highest concentration of population of the four counties.

I had never been to all the libraries of my home county, so this road trip was a great opportunity to learn about all of them.

The town of Fenton, New York (population around 6,600) was established in 1867 and prospered during the years of the Chenango Canal, a feeder canal of the larger Erie Canal system.  It was located on the west side of the town and linked the Susquehanna River with the Erie Canal.  When the railroads became the dominant form of commercial traffic in the 1870's, the Chenango Canal was closed (in 1878) and only small remnants of the canal are visible today.  

It was only open for 44 years.

Fenton, today, is one of 22 towns and cities in Broome County, and I had never been to its library.

Let's visit The Fenton Free Library, which calls itself "The Heart of the Community".

It has an interesting history.

Friends gather here.

The librarian obviously didn't know me or my spouse, but she greeted everyone else who came by during our visit by name. She asked after their family, their pets.  She knew what was happening in their lives. 

We were welcome to make ourselves at home.

Maybe we could stay and play a game.

The entire library had a friendly, country decorated vibe.

Still more libraries to go (I visited 33 total), and I'll blog about several more in the coming months.

Thank you for joining me.

The Skene Memorial Library #4CLSroadtrip

The four county library system (Broome, Delaware, Otsego and Chenango counties in New York) roadtrip ended September 2, but the memories remain.

Today, we visit the only Carnegie library in the system.

Fleischmanns, New York, in rural Delaware Count, has an interesting history.  It was once a popular summer vacationing destination easily reached by railroad from New York City, and was the home of many grand hotels.  It was also the summer home of the Fleischmanns family (of yeast and gin fame), which had a large family compound built on land acquired in 1883.  Of the five mansions in the compound, I believe only one remains.

One of these resorts was owned by the father of a girl, Tillie Edelstein, who is much better known to older generations as the actress Gertrude Berg, who starred in the radio (and later, television) series The Goldbergs.  But that is a story for another day if any of my readers is interested.

Dr. Alexander Skene, who was born in Scotland and lived in New York City, used to vacation in Fleischmanns.  He was a childhood friend of industrialist Andrew Carnegie, and was one of the foremost gynecologists of the 19th century. 

Dr. Skene's wife Annette worked with others to raise funds to get Fleischmanns a library.   Andrew Carnegie contributed $5,000 with the sole stipulation that the library be named after his childhood friend Dr. Skene, who died before the library was built.  

In 1930, the building was turned over to the Village of Fleischmanns.

Unlike many memorial libraries we visited on the roadtrip, this building (which dates from 1901) has always been a library.  Let's go in.

I'm assuming this is a portrait of Dr. Skene.

I found the wood paneling gave the interior a warm feel.  You'll see the lion statuette, too.  Lions are considered by some as powerhouses of wisdom and a fitting library mascot.

The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Fleischmanns family left in 1913 and only a handful of hotels remain in the area out of the more than 50 that were there in the early 20th century.  At one time, the population during the summer swelled to some 10,000.  But when cars became something any household could afford, those days ended.  

The year round population of the village has dropped to around 210 people (2020 census) from a high of some 500,  but it is still popular as a destination for those wanting (and able to afford) a second home.

This roadtrip was so much fun, and I learned so much.

Do you want to see more posts like this?

The Bathroom Mural For the Birds #WordlessWednesday #4CLSRoadtrip

Yesterday, we visited the Andes Public Library in Andes, New York as part of the Four County Library System road trip.  I mentioned a bathroom mural and today I want to show it to you.

This is a brand new mural, created by artist Diane Lockspeiser of Long Island.  She worked on the mural in May and early June of this year.

Here is their mural in its entirety.  This picture doesn't do it justice so here are some closeups of all the detail.

A barred rock rooster and a mourning dove look at a peaceful (or is it?) cattle scene from the Anti-Rent War (I'm guessing) of 1839-1845 which I discussed briefly yesterday.

Various wildlife, including many birds, adorn this mural.

Don't disturb the snoozing raccoon.

More birds.

The - upright deer blowing a horn? - is a mystery to me. It must refer to a local legend (my guess).

One more to go.

Finally, lazy Rip Van Winkle waking up from his 20 year sleep.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday

The Nostalgic Trip #4CLSRoadTrip

Years back, the grandfather and uncle of my then best friend lived in the Catskills mountains outside of a hamlet in Delaware County, New York.  My friend and her siblings and mother would spend summers up there, escaping New York City for the rural life. Her father would join them on weekends.

 In the early 70's, I was invited twice to visit the family for a week up in Delaware County.  I was back a handful of times to that house since (after her parents moved up there), but never to other nearby villages I had remembered from those visits when I was younger.

As the Four County Library Roadtrip drew to a close (it ends on September 2), my spouse and I decided to visit several of these villages/hamlets I visited during my stays with my friend's family and view their libraries.

One of these hamlets (it was a village when I visited, but they dissolved the village in 2002) is Andes, population approximately 1,000.  Andes is located in a setting of  hills, winding roads, and farmland and was the center of the Anti-Rent War of 1839-1845.  Some called that uprising the Second American Revolution. 

I grew up in New York State and don't remember learning about it.

Much of Andes' downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places.  I don't know if the library building is that old but the library itself celebrated its 100th birthday last year. Some renovation work was done in 2020 during its pandemic closure.

As for its setting....

This is the rear of the library.

There is a gazebo for raised beds, which are used for gardening programs.  The library, over the summer, started to install an edible landscape. 

The front of the library.

The inside.

There was a question I had to ask the librarian.  I remembered being taken to a municipal pool during my visits. It's actually one of the few things I remembered of Andes.  Did the pool still exist?  The answer was yes, and, in fact, it was only a couple of blocks away from the library.  

No, we didn't visit it, but it would have made a good stop in this nostalgic trip.

But one thing we did visit was the library's pride and joy-a mural in the bathroom.   I'll show it to you tomorrow, as it deserves its own post.

Although we had other libraries to visit, I want to return to Andes one day and visit the town further.  The place where we wanted to have lunch was closed on Wednesdays, so we picnicked on the library grounds.

Tomorrow, we'll travel back to Andes for a treat (alas, not Andes chocolate mints, which are made in Wisconsin).

Japanese Pagoda Library Tree #ThursdayTreeLove #4CLSRoadTrip

Time for another road trip, this time to a library I've used hundreds of times over the past 35 plus years.

On the grounds of the George F. Johnson Memorial Library in Endicott, New York stands a Japanese Pagoda Tree.  These trees bloom in late August, unlike most trees in our area, which bloom in the spring.

The tree.

This may help give you a little scale.

Close ups of the flowers. These were taken August 18.

Entrance to the George F. Johnson Memorial Library.

Inside, a clock.  It keeps time nicely.

I believe this is the house that used to sit on this property, owned by George F. Johnson

Here's a little history:  this library has existed since March of 1915, known originally as the Endicott Free Library.  It was located several blocks from the current library.  It moved several times before finding its permanent home in the current building in 1967.

The Endicott Free Library (later renamed the Ideal Home Library) operated one of the first bookmobiles (horse drawn) in the Northeast United States starting in 1916. It was a Ford flatbed truck used by someone else during the day.  It became a bookmobile in the early evening using removable book shelves. If your community has a bookmobile today, it may well have been inspired by the Endicott bookmobile.

Eventually, the library was named for industrialist George F. Johnson, who died in 1948 but is still beloved in this area for his philanthropy. If you are old enough, you may remember Endicott-Johnson or Father and Son shoes.  Here is a short history of the library and the population of immigrants and others it served.

After Mr. Johnson died, his homestead was purchased by the Village of Endicott.  The current library sits on its grounds. 

Mosaic, George F. Johnson Memorial Library

Also joining Parul of Happiness and Food for her #ThursdayTreeLove.