Croak! Says the Sea Robin
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Searobin

     by Johann Heupel

A view over the valleys to Pico and Killington from near the top of Okemo.

One of the smaller falls that make up Buttermilk Falls.

This male white admiral was determined to get all the minerals he could from a boulder just below one of the falls.

A beautiful set of falls not too far into the trail.

Petite in white.

Thanks to the generosity of Aunt Sharlene and Jane, our friend at the bookstore, we just came back from our first family vacation to Ludlow, Vermont! Jane has a place in Ludlow that she let us use and Aunt Sharlene gave Eric a graduation gift that helped us pay for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness we didn’t have to cancel it.

The day before we planned to leave we had a terrible storm. Four inches of rain fell in two hours. I was out driving in it. I was on my way to pick up Eric from work and then continue on to meet our friends at the bowling alley, so that the kids could still have their play date. The car got hit by a river of water coming down the hill, which washed away the patches on the side of the road. They had to repave that section of road afterward. Somehow the torrent of water caused the serpentine fan belt to slip off without breaking.

I managed to get to Avery Point with failing steering and fewer and fewer things on the car functioning. The car died right in front of Eric’s building. Once they found the problem, Eric and a friend at Avery Point muscled the fan belt back on. We left the car running to re-charge the battery, so the car would start the next day. Then the battery on Eric’s iphone died and he had to reinstall everything on it. That delayed our departure by 3 hours, but finally we made it up there.

I didn’t realize how much we needed a family vacation until we had one. It’s taken us a week to readjust to life back in Connecticut. It was so wonderful for the three of us to get away, even if it was only for a week. We had such a good time we wish we were still there!

We toodled around Ludlow, went to the Farmer’s Market and the Fletcher Farm School for the Arts and Crafts craft show, found the Green Mountain Sugar House with their maple creemees and other goodies, swam in the pool, and just generally relaxed. Someone asked us what we planned to do on our vacation and we all answered in unison, “Relax!”

We went window shopping in an antique store, found a great book, The Earth is My Mother by Bev Doolittle and Elise Maclay, at the independent bookstore Misty Valley Books, and saw the Hugging Bear Inn and Shoppe in Chester. Every room in the inn has teddy bears in it. I think we spent an hour in the teddy bear shop playing with all the stuffed animals and hand puppets. We got Johann the Folkmanis Shark puppet.

We went hiking on the trails near and on Okemo Mountain. The car brakes were smoking on the descent from Okemo Mountain, so we went to a less steep parking lot to access the hiking trails on our second trip to the mountain! Johann and Eric took some wonderful photographs during our treks. We all refueled our spirits in the beauty of the forest.

Before we left Vermont we made one last stop at Green Mountain Sugar House so Eric and Johann could get one more maple creeme ice cream cone and then we drove up to the Montshire Museum of Science. We spent two hours playing with all the wonderful hands-on exhibits and we still didn’t see everything. The please touch displays covered liquid viscosity, air pressure, zoetropes, cams, gears, pulleys, and circuits found in toys, changing ecology, water current patterns, and more. We want to go back to do the outdoor activities and walk the paths they have mapped out around the museum building. Rain kept us inside the day that we went.

We found a wonderful yarn shop called Six Loose Ladies. They are a non-profit organization that is the retail arm of Fiber Arts in Vermont, Inc. They have classes on all different fiber arts and promote the products of local artists, including pottery, jewelry, needle felting, and hand-knitted items. All the ladies we met were so welcoming and accepting, which is in stark contrast to our daily existence in Mystic. One woman is an Air Force brat like me and Eric. We instantly connected with her and we all shared where we’d been. We talked about the itchy-feet syndrome.

She said renting was better because it was easy to move if you didn’t like the people you are living near. I look at her and wish we had a house where we could to put down roots. She takes trips to get rid of her itch. I dream about where we’ll be next. We mentioned how we’d love Vermont, even if it wasn’t by the ocean. She said we’d get tired of Vermont too. Maybe she’s right. Eventually we always want to move on. But I got tired of Connecticut in less than two years. People in Vermont care so much more about the environment, the mountains are so beautiful, the people are generally friendlier, and they are much better and more polite about hiding their surprise that Eric is my husband and not my father. Even if we did tire of Vermont, I think it would take much longer for that to happen!

Then 500 feet before the exit for the museum our right rear tire blew out. Isn’t that funny? Twenty minutes later, Eric was able to get the spare tire off from the underside of the car. The mechanism that held the tire in place froze up and Eric couldn’t get the tire off. I didn’t expect anyone to stop and help us, but I did find it highly annoying that people kept honking at us and making wow–it–stinks–to–be–you faces as they drove by.

Eric got the old tire off by jumping on top of the lug wrench for each lug nut and got the spare on. The spare tire looked a little flat, but we thought we might at least make it to the museum on it. Wrong! The spare tire completely separated from the rim when we tried to drive away. Eric announced that we are getting cell phones as soon as we get home.

By this time we had been stranded on the side of the road at least 40 minutes. The only police car we saw on the road in that time passed us by. Wasn’t that nice? So we decided to hoof it. We walked down the slope of the exit behind us and found a tile company showroom. The ladies in there were extremely nice in letting us use the phone and the bathroom. They even offered us drinks and we took them up on a bottle of water. We called USAA roadside assistance. Thank goodness we had them to call!

We’ve never had to use the roadside assistance before. USAA is the best! They helped us find the nearest towing and tire places, called the towing company and told them where we were, and called a taxi for us. Eric went to the nearest ATM so we’d have cash for the taxi. Johann and I went to the museum. Eric waited with the car and met up with us at the museum later.

I’m so proud of Eric. The tow truck driver was smoking on the ride to the tire place. Pairing that with the stressful events of the day, Eric was the most tempted to bum a cigarette then than in any other moment since he quit smoking two and a half years ago and he didn’t. He waited nearly an hour for the tow truck and made the 15 minute ride to the tire place in heavy traffic. Once Eric paid for new tires and learned it would be a three hour wait, he got the mechanics to look up a taxi service, which they grudgingly did, and came to the museum.

Johann and I had already gone over everything we wanted to see and had done some shopping in the museum store. The third floor had a section on minerals and gems, an Egyptian exhibit with two mummies, dioramas with taxidermy animals native to Connecticut, and the Earth and Space section. We went back into the Darwin exhibit to make a few sketches of some of the skeletons there and watched the short film on Darwin, Dana, and Marsh again at the entrance of the exhibit. By 3:30 P.M., we were getting tired and hungry, so we decided to go sit in the Great Hall and wait for Eric. A few minutes later we saw him on the second floor looking down on us from the Discovery Room!

Johann and I pulled Eric in different directions to show and share with him everything he had missed while we were at the museum. Eric was a good sport, took some pictures, and walked around with us. Johann wasn’t truly excited or happy about our trip to the museum until Daddy was there. Except for the few times we got lost in what we saw and read about in the sections of the museum that were new to us, I was distracted with worry too.

Once we had made the rounds the second time with Eric, we walked to the nearest restaurant and got sandwiches and ice cream. The waitress kindly dialed the number of the cab service we’d used before. I was a little concerned when I noticed smoke from the engine coming out of the air vents. Somehow the taxi got us there. We got back to the tire place 10 minutes before they closed. The car was already repaired and waiting. The mechanic saw us come up and he met us at the door with Eric’s car keys. A day that could have been a total disaster turned out pretty well. So we took the scenic route to get to the museum. Thankfully, the rain stopped BEFORE the car broke down!

Torosaurus latus bronze in front of the Yale Peabody Museum

Johann studying and sketching part of the Darwin Exhibit on evolution while Tammy studies the exhibit on Dana.

Johann and Tammy discussing Hesperonis crassipes

Johann was fascinated by the Hesperonis crassipes skeleton.

Another favorite, Moeritherium, a prehistoric mammal that Johann identifies almost as a friend.

Alas Poor Erectus…

Normally cold, rainy days are so dreary, but not when you get to go to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History! We desperately needed a family science immersion day to rejuvenate! Eric took the day off. I had hoped to get some yard work done, but that wasn’t going to happen with the rain. So we decided to buy membership to the Yale Peabody Museum and go. They have a reciprocity agreement with a lot of other science museums and centers. We have plans to go to all the ones we are interested in while we are still on the East Coast, especially the Museum of Science in Boston, so we now have two years to take advantage of the membership benefits.

At the Yale Peabody Museum there are three floors, but we only managed to cover the first floor, the Discovery Room for children on the second floor, and the gift shop in the four hours we were there. We will go back to see the third floor and view the Darwin exhibit again before it comes down August 23. Johann didn’t want to validate the parking ticket so that we couldn’t get the car out of the parking lot. He figured if that happened, we would have to stay at the museum overnight, maybe even indefinitely!

The exhibit “Darwin: 150 Years of Evolutionary Thinking” was very well done. There was information on Dana and Marsh as well, and it was very interesting to see the similarities between Darwin and Dana, who has been referred to as the American Darwin. Some of the correspondence between the two scientists was on display, as well as a map of the sea voyages each man went on as part of their path of scientific discovery.

The Hall of Dinosaurs and the Hall of Mammalian Evolution were amazing. Eric and I enjoyed seeing the wonder in Johann’s eyes and watching him soak it all in. We all kept thinking about the movie Night at the Museum while we were looking at the dinosaurs. Johann loved to see real examples of the animals he’s studied in his books.

Johann was also very excited to see everything in the “Fossil Fragments: The Riddle of Human Origins” exhibit. He recognized the discoveries that were written about and the specimens on display from the documentary shows he’s seen on the Leaky family’s work. He took time to draw sketches and make notes. The Age of Reptiles mural and the Age of Mammals mural were incredible. Since Eric was permitted to take pictures without a flash, we are going over the pictures of the fossils and can even read some of the information about them again.

The Yale Peabody Museum has a good interactive exhibit about energy conservation right now. We also enjoyed the smaller sections where the Hall of Pacific Cultures, Hall of Native American Cultures, and the scale model of Machu Picchu are. The Discovery Room has a leaf cutter ant colony, a black rat snake, and poison dart frogs. There were drawers full of fossils, rocks and minerals, and various preserved spiders and insects that each had a magnifying glass and a please touch policy. They had a variety of stuffed birds and preserved butterflies for kids to see. There were lots of books out for kids to read and a display comparing eggs from different birds. Johann particularly liked holding the cast of the T.rex tooth and the coprolite.

There was so much to see and learn in every room we went into, that even though we spent four hours there, we still feel like we missed some of it. Where some of the homeschooling families use their vacation time to go to the Creationist Museum, we prefer to revel in places like the Yale Peabody Museum. Now that we’ve gone, we might just have to make a weekly pilgrimage there!

Admittedly, life would be far less stressful if we had more things planned ahead and we were better organized, which are the two top items of our New Year’s resolutions list. Different choices might have led us down another path where we could be experiencing a lesser shade of difficult circumstances. Who knows? Sometimes bad things happen to good people and you just have to keep plugging along. The truth about our lives lately is that a great deal of it has been beyond our control. Or maybe we are just realizing that is how it really is, like Prof. B. said, and we’ve given up trying to control it or hide behind philosophies in order to deal with it and the fear of uncertainty that it brings.

My mother blames Eric for everything, which makes him a pretty powerful man. I didn’t know he was in control of the entire world economy! If we’re going to go that far, then we could also blame it on the fact that I prayed for wisdom, patience, and peace about a decade ago.

I saw a picture of an old woman in a magazine. She was dressed in colorful, but worn, clothes. Her skin was tanned and wrinkled from age and the sun. Her hands showed many years of hard labor. But there was a special glow in her that made her beautiful. All her wrinkles were smile lines that led the eye to the sparkle in hers. Something deep inside me said, “That’s what I want. I want to see the world with that kind of sparkle in my eyes.” She looked wise and happy. Be careful what you wish for.

In my naivete, I didn’t realize that in order to be wise, you have to endure a lot of hardship. In order to be patient, you have to wait a painfully long time for things and be tested without losing hope. In order to have peace, you have to face your deepest fears, the worst parts of yourself, and surrender. Now I know better, I just ask for help. Except, Eric thinks that’s risky too. You never know. At any rate, since I intend to live to be over 100, I think I’m well on my way to looking like that old woman in the photograph.

zooplankton = wonder
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Making plankton.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Let ‘em float!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A menagerie in Marzipan.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

13 choices for Which Critter is Best.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A beach combing scavenger hunt.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Taking inventory of the scavenger hunt.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Dolphin Batik Tote Bag
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Party Favors for all!!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

What a great day! Everything went well, we had beautiful weather, and everyone had fun. What more could we ask for? Johann wanted to have an ocean–themed party, but when I started planning activities, I quickly realized there was no way we could do it at our house with our space limitations.

We looked at a number of places around town and finally decided on Project Oceanology at Avery Point. They have fantastic oceanography education programs for kids and I thought that maybe they did parties too, so I checked their website. Since their programs are for 4th grade and up, having a party there was a great opportunity to do something for younger kids.

Johann chose the party option entitled “Plankton Pandemonium”. Emily was the young lady who did the activities with the kids and she was great! She got a sample of plankton and put out petri dishes at a number of microscopes so everyone had a chance to see the plankton. There was also a video of plankton the kids could watch. Then the kids made their own “plankton” out of mesh fabric, coffee filters, yarn scraps, feathers, pom-poms, etc.

Since Project O is in a two–story building with an open staircase, once the crafting was done, we held plankton races. All the kids went upstairs and when Emily gave the signal, they dropped their plankton creations. There had to be two heats, because of the number of kids there, and then a tie breaker race. Because plankton have to float to stay alive, the winner of the race was the one who’s plankton stayed afloat the longest.

While Emily prepared the second activity for the kids, we had cupcakes and ice cream. Johann loved having Happy Birthday sung to him. Once he blew out his number 9 candle on one of the cupcakes, I put the platter with all the marzipan cupcakes on the table. All the kids had the roundest, big saucer eyes I’d ever seen! Some of the moms asked me if I was in business making cake decorations and that I should be if I wasn’t. One said the marzipan was too beautiful to eat. Eric explained what each creature was and then everyone chose what they wanted. We chose invertebrates that the kids might not have seen before, to show them there is much more in the ocean besides the high profile fish and cetaceans everyone is familiar with.

Since the weather held, we were able to do the scavenger hunt at the small beach near the Project O building. The kids divided up into teams, got their plastic bins, checklists, and beachcombing guides, and jumped right in! Once the teams had everything on the list that they could find, Emily discussed each item with the kids, explaining more about the animals and answering any questions. Eric said it was a good thing that we had the outdoor activity right after the sugar rush of the cupcakes and ice cream! All the kids had loads of fun exploring on the beach.

Then it was time to open presents. Johann liked everything he got. They were surprised when we gave out our party favor gifts. Eric, Johann, and I dyed the blank tote bags using Eric’s copper dolphin chop and soy wax. We got each child their own copy of The Ocean Book, Aquarium and Seaside Activities and Ideas for All Ages, a small all–weather notebook for writing down observations, an ocean creatures pencil, and an orca eraser.

In answering questions and compliments, I explained to the moms why we chose Project O and why we did everything we did for the party. Johann said he loves the ocean so much that he wanted to share that with all of his friends. And since this is the first birthday party he’s ever had for friends, we wanted to make it extra special. Johann thanked us for the party on the way home in the car. He said it was the best day of his life.

The adults learned just as much from the party as the kids did. An audible “wow” came from the group when Emily told them that phytoplankton is responsible for most of the oxygen we breathe. We helped instill a new appreciation for the ocean and the organisms that live there. Hopefully from now on when the kids are at the beach or they think about the ocean, they will look at everything in a whole new way.

Making of an Ocean Birthday creature gluing the gill rosette on a white spotted sea goddess rendered in marzipan.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Johann decided on Project Oceanology and an ocean theme. Since Project O is all about hands-on ocean education, it’s perfect for us! I thought cupcakes would be easier to serve than worrying about a cake and inevitably forgetting to bring a knife to cut it. While surfing the web looking for ideas, we found a business that uses fondant to decorate cakes and cupcakes. The owner did some cupcakes for a party with sea creatures on it that looked wonderful. I didn’t feel I knew enough about fondant to make decorations for this party using it, but I could do something similar in marzipan.

When I was 10, my family was stationed in Germany and I was taking art lessons from Heidi Herzfeld. She was a kind, gentle person. She only taught children how to draw and paint in watercolors, I think because she knew children wouldn’t get hung up on her handicap or have a problem with her being in a wheel chair. A childhood case of polio had left her paralyzed. She was one of the very few people in my life who saw my talent and nurtured it. In fact, I loved her so much that when the time came for us to move, I asked to stay in Germany with Heidi so that I could continue to study with her.

Tammy hard at work on a marzipan rendition of the Giant Pacific Octopus
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

One day, when I was the only child that had come for lessons, she took me into her back room and showed me the new project she had been working on. She smiled and her eyes shone when she saw my amazed reaction. She had a 4–foot–long table covered in marzipan creations, all various fruits and vegetables. They were so perfect, I had to keep reminding myself that these didn’t come from miniature trees and plants, but they were marzipan that she had molded and painted with food coloring. She explained to me how she did it and then demonstrated how she made a green apple, even how she painted on the blush highlights so it looked like it had been kissed by the sun.

Although my tutorial had been excellent, I had never done it before, so I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. Now was my time to try. If it didn’t work, I would just serve plain cupcakes. We went out to buy new paint brushes yesterday, since I couldn’t find any in the house that hadn’t already touched paint. When we got home, I got to work. Eric and Johann helped me choose creatures and provided pictures and toy animals as models. It took me all day, but it was worth it! I had so much fun making the critters and they will add a special touch to Johann’s party.

One of Grandpa’s pictures of zebras sold and will be on its way to Germany once the show is over! If you’re in the vicinity, please go and take a look. This set of photographs is amazing (no bias there at all!) and you’ll be glad you went! If you can’t make it, we’ll be posting another entry when his new website goes live, and watch here for a few more samples of his work from Antarctica.