I was just fixing the cheese melts for the library snack when Brianna, Jayda, and Jayda’s five-year-old sister, Caroline wandered in, so we started a little early. Why not?
Then came Vivienne, Klark, and a very tired Olivia–she’d been helping with the coffee making at her family’s new coffee house all day.
In our read-aloud we moved from John James Audubon to Roger Tory Peterson, who was also a boy who watched birds, an oddball kid who preferred birds to sports, or just about anything else–he actually got a waiver from the mayor to be allowed to study the moths that mobbed the streetlights after the town’s 8:30 child curfew.
We then looked at his field guide. The library kids are interested in wild animals–especially Brianna. I got to show them the little arrows that pointed out the field markings on the birds, the things you would look for if you were bird watching.
Then we began a shambling, project with beads, hangers, feathers, wire and a variety of weird found objects. The results could kindly be called mobiles, or unkindly be called sinister threatening things you wouldn’t want to hang up.
We then played bocce on the lawn (short one ball, but we coped). It is finally almost cool enough to gather outside and not faint.
We finished with pound cake and sliced strawberries, and not too many beads on the rug.
Another fine gathering at the FPL.
