Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Rum!

Tag Archives: Mystic Seaport

Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Rum!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

The weekend before Eric went to sea we went to the 29th annual Sea Music Festival at the Mystic Seaport. Thankfully we heard singing across the estuary coming from the Seaport while we were out for our Friday evening walk. We checked the website and found the event was all weekend. Up until now, we never knew about it. I pegged who it must have been that we heard performing. We found Danny O’Flaherty on the schedule for Saturday and planned to just go and see his concert.

Barnacle — Originally uploaded
by eclectic echoes.

Dance a Jig — Johann enjoying an
Irish Jig, Originally uploaded
by eclectic echoes.

We ended up spending the entire day there and it was wonderful. The only bad thing about it was that multiple concerts and activities were happening simultaneously on opposite ends of the Seaport, so you couldn’t do it all. It was hard to choose.

The storytelling and music of Hand in Hand, Danny O’Flaherty, the Johnson Girls, and Robbie O’Connell filled us with joy. We thought about all the chores we didn’t get done and decided it was more than worth it. So much so, that on Father’s Day, Eric finally asked if we could go back for the last day of the Festival. That was what he wanted to do for Father’s Day. So I put the bread I’d been asked to bake on an extra rising schedule and we left for what we planned would only be about 2 hours.

Hand In Hand — Originally uploaded
by eclectic echoes.

Kenny Wolin — Originally uploaded
by eclectic echoes.

Over 6 hours later, we got home. The bread ended up tasting OK, but not the best looking I’d ever made! It didn’t matter, though, because we had another incredible day. After Johann ran in the field with the barn swallows and the cute little boy who was there, we went back to Lighthouse Point. We heard Barnacle, Bob Zentz, Finest Kind, and Rick Spencer perform from 11 am to 3 pm. The children’s parade arrived led by some of the performers playing instruments. The children were playing the instruments they had made for the parade. Then came the final concert. Every group that performed in the Festival came up and did one song. I didn’t know much about sea chanties before. I realized how much I’ve been missing out on. I love the rich history and the wide variety within the genre. The final song, as is their tradition, was “Going Down to Old Maui” sung by Don Sineti. He has such a powerful, deep voice. With all the wonderful performers backing him up, the sound was golden. We’re sorry we missed seeing the Festival before. We won’t miss is again while we are living in Mystic. I also won’t bake bread until after the concerts are over!

Johnson Girls + Johnson Boys — Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Finale! — Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

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Filed in Family, Mystic | Also tagged maritime history, music, sea chanties | Comments (0)

Swallow Chaser

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Rest — Notice the swallow behind and to the left of the boys.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Last weekend we went to the Mystic Seaport’s 29th Annual Sea Music Festival, (more on the music later) we all had a blast at the festival and Johann had a grand time. One of the things he always wants to do when we go to the Seaport is run in the large grassy village commons area. He runs and runs, Tammy and I take turns chasing him or playing tag, but he also just flat out runs with whoever is willing to run, even if it’s only himself. This time he had quite a few running mates—a three year old boy and about two dozen barn swallows.

The barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) were feeding on the small gnats and other insects that were flying around the field. When Johan started running in the field there were about a half dozen swallows at a time in the field. As he started running around the field he joined up with a ~3 year old boy who was enjoying the field as well. Together they must have kicked up a lot of insects because the number of swallows dramatically increased.

The swallows criscrossed the field behind the boys and even chased “after them” to get all the good insects. The boys did not fail to notice and began chasing some of the swallows as well! It quickly became a game with both sides chasing round and round. Eventually the boys plopped down and just watched the swallows crossing back and forth in front and behind them. Often flying within arms reach!

By the time we left to go to the concerts there were at least two dozen swallows crisscrossing the field doing acrobatics to avoid the people walking by. More than once a swallow flew directly at me veering off only at the last minute. They did loops and immelman turns seemingly effortlessly.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Hirundinidae
Genus: Hirundo
Species: Hirundo rustica

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Filed in Family, Mystic, Photography, Science, Wildlife | Also tagged Johann, lifephoto | Comments (2)

Summer Break?

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Since Eric was off from school in May, I decided to start summer break for Johann then too. Usually when Eric is around, the last thing Johann wants to do is study. “My live action figure is home, time to play!!!” is more along the lines of what goes through Johann’s mind. But we continued to check out the maximum number of books the library allows every visit. We planted seeds. We raised painted lady buterflies again and added on two consecutive sets of pink ladybugs. We put the global puzzle together three times. We played the Noah’s Ark math board game. We attended storytime, went to the seaport and the aquarium.

Eric did one of his last lab experiments on viscosity with Johann. We bought a large plastic beaker, filled it with seaweed glop, and dropped different objects into it to see how fast they fell in relation to each other and compared the results with how the same objects fell in water and air. We talked about gravity and wind resistance being factors and Johann remembered Galileo’s gravity experiment and hypothesis that a feather and a mallet would fall at the same speed on the moon where there was no wind resistance. (Thank you again Grandma and Grandpa Heupel for that wonderful HBO video series “The Inventors”!!!) Eric and Johann played with magnet paper to see the patterns of magnetism. We continued to do science and art activities from our projects encyclopedia.

Before I knew it June was gone. We had spent our whole break doing school stuff anyway, with the exception of daily written assignments and me keeping a record of what we were doing in my journal. Whether Eric was in school or not, I figured for July and August we might as well start Shanti School back up officially. I was very proud of Johann a few days ago when he decided he wanted to do Shanti School, even though it was Saturday, pulled out his math workbook, and started working on his own. I was getting showered and dressed at the time and didn’t even know about it until I came out and Eric told me what Johann had said. If nothing else, we have definitely instilled in him a love of books and learning!

Title: The Inventors’ Specials 6 DVD Collector’s Set
Director: David Devine; Richard Mozer; Allan King; Don Mcbrearty
My Rating: Rating: 5

This is a wonderful series that brings the work of 6 inventors/scientists — da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Edison, Marie Curie and Einstein — to life and makes their contributions to science accessible to a much younger audience. Our 6-year-old son loved the entire series. It was a great way to introduce him to each inventor as well as the historical time periods in which each inventor lived. The DVDs spurred lots of questions, many rich conversations, and an even greater interest in science.

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