Loree Burns – Page 52

September 18, 2008April 25, 2015

Are You Ready to Celebrate the Arts?

(Posted with permission)

It’s a derivative of Murphy’s Law that if two very important events are scheduled for the same month, they will fall on the same day. For example, this Saturday is both International Coastal Cleanup day (see this earlier post for details) and West Boylston Arts Festival Day.

Ack!

What’s a girl to do?

My only choice is to make the best of it.

So, after a morning of collecting and counting trash at Salisbury Beach State Reservation, I’ll be heading to West Boylston for an afternoon of celebrating the arts. The Arts Festival will be jam-packed with artsy fun for the entire family, and entrance is only five bucks. The forecast looks stupendous and this event is Truly. Going. To. Rock.

Oh, and did I mention that all proceeds will benefit music and art programs in West Boylston public schools? Here’s a link to an article about the festival and its mission from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Here’s the full festival schedule. (Can you say WOW?!)

And here’s the lineup for the Children’s Story Tent, where I’ll be later in the day:

10am Katie Green
11am Jennifer Morris
12pm Sarah Lamstein
1pm Dot Johnson
2pm Ellen Dolan
3pm Loree Burns

Come celebrate with us!

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September 17, 2008April 25, 2015

Are You Ready to Track Trash?

I don’t know where Leo will be cleaning beaches this Saturday, but I’ll be at Salisbury Beach State Reservation. And I’ll be sporting this cool T-shirt:

In case you can’t read it, the fine print says:

Since 1987, COASTSWEEP volunteers have been helping to clean the beaches in Massachusetts. Barcaloungers, rubber boots, pieces of fishing net, truck tires, industrial tubing, milk crates, vinyl siding, garden hoses, food wrappers, rusty bottle tops, garbage bags, plastic grocery bags, sandwich bags, soft drink bottles, water bottles, beer bottles, beer cans, soda cans, ice tea cans, odd bits of rope (that were probably not odd to the person using them at one time), straws, tampon applicators, syrofoam cups, nurdles (a real word!), plastic knives, forks, spoons, and sporks, syringes, toilet bowls, unidentifiable bits of rubber, plastic coffee stirrers, and ciragette butts—are some of the things the collect. In past years, more than 80% of the debris collected came from land-based sources—where litter blown and washed from the streets, parking lots, and ball fields ends up in the water. In addition to the litter that’s just plain ugly to look at, every year, these bits of marine debris and stray trash kill thousands of marine animals that swallow or become entangled in them. And that’s why I’m a COASTSWEEP volunteer.

Festivities begin at 10am. Do join us if you can. If you need tips on getting involved in coastal cleanups at other locales, check out this earlier post.

September 15, 2008April 25, 2015

Joy

That’s photographer Ellen Harasimowicz at work in a milkweed meadow. Ellen joined me at two monarch butterfly tagging events this past week to record on film the wonder of citizen scientists at work.

Unlike my last tagging event, this weekend I was strictly an observer. I watched kids and adults—hip deep in goldenrod and with butterfly nets poised overhead—tiptoe toward nectaring butterflies. There were gasps of amazement (“Look at it eating!”), delight (“I got one!”), and awe (“Safe travels, butterfly!”). What a joy to sit back and watch these moments unfurl, to witness people connecting with nature in such a respectful way. These are the moments that excite me about citizen science and that inspired me to write this new book.

Oh, and then there are moments like this:

That’s me, feeling pretty joyful.

September 10, 2008April 25, 2015

Birthday Garden Creature

Last month I went to a birthday party for the greatest nephews on the planet. Liam and Aidan’s mom gave me the job of photographer, and while I was chasing around after perfect birthday images, I came across a … a … thing. It was a flying thing, an insect of some sort, and it was flitting around the flower garden. The way it moved reminded me of a hummingbird, but it was much, much too small. For a time I completely lost my head and traipsed around the flowers with it, trying to take a picture. Eventually the Scooby Doo pinata was strung up, though, and I had to give up the chase.

When I got home, I did a little poking around. I scoured my butterfly guides for one that looked like what I had seen. Nothing.

I looked in my bird guide, thinking perhaps there was a teeny, tiny North American hummingbird species that I didn’t know about. Nope.

Then I got busy and forgot about the mystery entirely. Until this weekend, when I was loafing around the butterfly bushes looking for, well, you know, butterflies … and found this:

It is a hummingbird moth (I finally thought to check the insect guide), and it is gorgeous. How I managed forty years without ever seeing one before, I don’t know. But now that I am acquainted, it is hard to resist loafing at the butterfly bush full-time. How is a girl supposed to focus on her work with creatures like this flitting around the back yard? I ask you.

September 8, 2008April 25, 2015

Another Working Weekend

Hey! Guess what I did this weekend? Would you like a clue? It happened in this meadow …

Another clue? My assistant and I were armed …

Have you guessed? We were tagging monarch butterflies!

My daughter and I netted this lovely male monarch and affixed a small, round sticker to the “mitten cell” of his hind wing. The tag weighs next to nothing and is printed with a serial number. If our guy survives his upcoming migration, he and his tag may be recognized by tag-watchers at the monarch roosting sites in Mexico. The tagging program has been underway for sixteen years and is helping scientists understand monarch behavior and migration. You can learn more about the program at the MonarchWatch website.

As for me, I will be learning lots more at the three additional tagging adventures I have lined up this fall. Why so much tagging? Because I’m writing about monarchs and the citizen scientists who study them in a new book. Details soon!

September 6, 2008April 25, 2015

Quaking

QUAKING
By Kathryn Erskine
Philomel, 2007

Category: Young adult fiction

I met Kathryn Erskine this summer at a retreat, and we traded copies of our respective books. I finally found time to read hers, and the experience was so powerful and so timely that I want to tell the world about it. Or, at least tell the part of the world that happens across my blog now and again.

QUAKING is the story of fourteen-year old Matt (not Mattie, and definitely not Matilda), who has lost both parents to domestic violence and who seems, when we first meet her, as if she might never recover. She is a bitter and closed off young woman, she is mean to the people around her—especially the Quaker parents who take her in—and for a few chapters I didn’t like her at all. But Erskine pulled me in slowly, revealing pieces of Matt at just the right moments, and in just the right doses. By the end of the book, when Matt has to choose between remaining invisible (and safe) and standing up for what she truly believes in, I was completely won over.

The timeliness of the book is tied up in its backdrop: the state of our national psyche in the days, weeks, and months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Matt’s story will make you remember those times, and it will make you think hard about war and peace and what being patriotic means to you. These questions are woven into Matt’s story, and the result is the best kind of novel: one that makes you think.

Thank you for writing this book, Kathy, and for sharing it with me.

September 3, 2008April 25, 2015

Flying

My friend Kate Messner recently compared the process of revising a book to the metamorphosis of a monarch caterpillar. Revise, revise, revise. (Chew, chew, chew.) Revise again, again, again. (Chew more, more, more.) Rest. (Pupate.) Presto! What was once a small, new creation is reborn as a brilliant, eye-popping butterfly. Or novel.

Me? I need to hang out with Kate more. Because today, I felt more like this:

Did you ever have a day like that? A day when your work-in-progress is not eye-popping but, well, a bit ragged around the edges? Just a bit?

Yes, well, then you know what I mean. This writing thing is not for the faint of heart. The good news is that this butterfly is a friend of mine. I spent several hours following him around my backyard on Monday, and I can tell you this: he can still fly. He was as spunky and fritillary as his companions, chewed-up wings and all. He was ragged and rugged. Not whole, surely, but unique. And beautiful. Very, very beautiful.

Sigh.

There is not much we writers can do, I suppose, but wake up every day and keep flying …

September 2, 2008April 25, 2015

International Coastal Cleanup

On September 20, volunteers around the world will take to beaches in a massive effort to clean up our oceans and shorelines. I’ll be one of them.

International Coastal Cleanup is a project of The Ocean Conservancy. Each September, volunteers clear their local beaches of whatever garbage has washed ashore or been left behind. The genius of ICC events is in the data cards: volunteers don’t just pick up the trash, they record it. That’s right, each and every ketchup packet, paper napkin, and plastic bottle is actually counted. At the end of the cleanup, data cards are submitted to The Ocean Conservancy, whose staff tabulates the data and compiles it into an annual report. The information in ICC reports can then be used to help draft legislation–like the 2006 Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act–aimed at protecting our world oceans.

Here are some tidbits from the 2007 ICC Report (which you can access here):

378,000 men, women and children in 76 countries took part;

six million pounds of trash were collected;

33,000 miles of shoreline were cleaned;

Getting involved is easy …

If you live outside of Massachusetts, visit The Ocean Conservancy’s ICC website to find a cleanup near you.

If you live in Massachusetts, consider attending the statewide kickoff event at Salisbury Beach State Reservation at 10am on Saturday, September 20. I’ll be there with gloves, trash bag, and data card in hand. You can find other Massachusetts events at the COASTSWEEP website.

One more thing …

Thanks to the generosity of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the efforts of COASTSWEEP officials, each and every Massachusetts cleanup coordinator (there are more than seventy) will be receiving a signed copy of TRACKING TRASH in thanks for their efforts on behalf of our oceans. There is also a statewide raffle going on, with prizes that include a school visit from yours truly and several more signed copies of the book. (Find raffle information here.)

I am so proud to be part of this incredible effort; here’s to trash trackers everywhere!

September 2, 2008April 25, 2015

Fruitless Fall

FRUITLESS FALL
By Rowan Jacobsen
Bloomsbury, 2008

Category: Non-fiction for adult readers

It is probably impossible to have lived through the last two years and not at least heard about Colony Collapse Disorder, the mysterious ailment that has ravaged the world’s population of managed honeybees. CCD has been covered in every major newspaper and in magazines from The New Yorker to Martha Stewart Living. This fall, several adult books on the topic are being released. Here’s a tip: Rowan Jacobsen’s FRUITLESS FALL is the one to read.

Despite the media frenzy, very few people understand what is and isn’t true about CCD, or what the collapse of the honeybee will mean to humankind. Jacobsen’s straightforward, no-punches-pulled style forces readers to see the honeybee collapse for what it is: yet another indication that bigger is not always better.

If you are at all interested in the subject–and Good Lord, who isn’t?–I highly recommend this book. And you can think of it as a primer; once you’ve read FRUITLESS FALL you will be ready for THE HIVE DETECTIVES, written by yours truly and to be published as part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s ‘Scientists in the Field’ series in Spring 2010.

(Yes, I just gave you a homework assignment!)

August 29, 2008April 25, 2015

Goodbye? Goodbye?

I tried to organize my LJ Friends list yesterday and, well, I apparently muffed it. As in I deleted an entire Friends list.

Ack!

So sorry, Friends. I think I’ve got things straightened out now. I hope…