Suzanne Thompson

Gardening with a Vengeance

2009-06-29T17:37:00Z

By Suzanne Thompson, Special to the Times:

With gardening, timing is everything. Just ask the impatient New England gardeners who set out the basil too early.

My husband had the unfortunate miscalculation of observing on Mother’s Day weekend that our yard looks like a bunch of ongoing projects, not a landscape. Coming from a fellow gardener, it could have been a compliment. This was more of a whine than a horticultural observation.

Every weekend since then, I have been a possessed madwoman in the yard. Never mind the rain. In this, the year of the container garden, I insisted on installing a proper garden bed. It was time to do something with at least the vintages of mellowing compost, which I admit did look like heaps of stuff at the edge of the yard. Plus several yards of deer fencing, three long wooden planks just looking to be put to use, and big dreams of home-grown veggies. And my trusty old wheelbarrow with one extremely flat tire.

I’d like to claim that my crops have been strategically selected, the latest cultivars and hybrid seeds, All American Selection winners. There aren’t any 'Hansel' or 'Gretel,' cute elongated purple and white eggplant cultivars, the 2008 and 2009 AAS veggies of the year, in my garden. But I can take credit for using up three years’ worth of seeds, of varying merits and pedigrees, which I have been hoarding for Lord know what reasons.

It’s an eclectic lot: Asparagus beans promising to produce 18-inch pods, heirloom haricots verts green beans, Asian snap peas, okra, and French heirloom Charentais melon—my most exotic seed purchase in recent years.

My potatoes, great-looking plants right now, are nothing more than some Yukon Golds, Russets, and a couple of red spuds spared from the compost bin for their sprouts.

Since I’ve never been one to take a direct route anywhere, my garden hardly has straight lines and rows. It looks like Mel Bartholomew, Master of the Square-Foot Garden, took a wrong turn on the Mix Master. Our cool spring has kept the plants at bay, but before long, the eggplants will be colliding with hot peppers, Italian beans will be jockeying with my grape tomatoes, and by summer’s end I could be running a cross-breeding experiment between yellow squash, turbans. and zucchini. For good measure, I have stuck in miniature marigolds wherever there was extra space.

Ever hopeful, I’ve decided any extra abundance will be donated to the Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Food Pantries. Especially this year, I encourage all gardeners to plant an extra row for the hungry.

I’m not alone in my gardening quest this year. According to the Garden Writers Association, fully 12 percent more Americans who have a yard or garden are trying their hand at growing vegetables.

Dawn Pettinelli, UConn Home and Garden Center, Storrs, has been seeing a greater interest by Connecticut residents in, as she puts it, “growing their groceries.” Her first clues were the 1,000 additional soil samples that came into UConn’s soil testing lab in late winter, plus more questions than usual at the Connecticut Flower and Garden Show in February.

It’s not only been vegetables, but interest in growing fruits, especially apples and peaches, as well as strawberries and blueberries, says Pettinelli. She steers people interested in fruit trees to peaches instead of apples.

“With peaches, you don’t need to spray for insect pests and fungal pathogens,” Pettinelli said. Apples, on the other hand, are attacked by coddling moths, the proverbial worm in the apple, as well as plum curculios and maggot flies. Most insecticides available are broad spectrum, which means they kill off beneficial insects, including honey bees, as well as the unwanted ones.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” said Pettinelli, who lets her chickens help turn her compost pile with their scratchings. “Gardening is enjoyable, but it’s hard work.”

I haven’t planted fruit trees yet, but I did start some blackberries and gooseberries this spring, as well as an asparagus bed. Although it will be a few years before I can enjoy either, it feels good to check a few more gardening projects off of my list.

Master gardeners, trained by UConn Department of Extension, are out in full force this year to answer gardeners’ questions. In addition to staffing the eight centers around the state, many are setting up information booths at farmers markets this year. So, in addition to bringing your recyclable shopping bag to stock up on CT-grown goods, tuck that diseased plant part or pesky insect into a container for examining, diagnosis, and helpful advice.

The New London County Extension Center, 562 New London Turnpike in Norwich, is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome, call 860-885-2822, or follow along with UConn’s new gardening blog, http://uconnladybug.wordpress.com

“CT Outdoors with Suzanne Thompson” is on Tuesdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. and 6:30 to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m. on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook, or WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. She can be reached at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

CT Outdoors - Stop and Smell the Roses at Area Garden Tours

2009-06-19T02:00:19Z

We've all heard of OPM—Other People’s Money. It’s high time to put down the shovel and enjoy other people’s gardens (OPG) this weekend.

June is the high season for home and garden tours. Even the Governor’s Mansion was open to visitors last Saturday as part of the fifth annual Connecticut Open House Day.

Garden tours are appealing on a number of fronts. Usually, the venues are private residences, off limits unless you aspire to get arrested for trespassing. Many destinations are unknown treasures, historic, or new. Not all are ostentatious manors; often, the most charming ideas come from smaller spaces, tended by the owner. All are decked out, after months of planning and preparation. Even if you’ve seen some of the gardens in past years, it’s worth it to see how they have evolved, or perhaps been ripped out and replanted.

So, if you’ve had enough of your own planting, pruning, and mulching, here are some local excuses to take a break and enjoy another gardener’s labors this weekend.

Art in Bloom: The Lyme/Old Lyme Garden Tour is back this year on Friday and Saturday, June 19 and 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring six private gardens and two village gardens. Between four older gardens and two new ones, visitors will see stunning rose gardens and perennial beds, impressive stonework done with stones of massive scale, and equally large container gardens. There’s also a large sculpture garden and a shade garden of entirely deer resistant—if there is such a thing—plants, tucked into the forest.

This is the 10th such tour; the last one was held in 2006. Proceeds benefit the services and capital projects of Child & Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut, which is open to all residents of Middlesex and New London counties.

Advance tickets are $20 at The Bowerbird and Old Lyme Landscape in Old Lyme, Riggio’s Garden Center in Essex, Maggies of Madison, and www.cfapress.org, or $25 on tour days.

Rooms and Blooms – a Mystic House and Garden Tour: Saturday, June 20, 10 a.m . to 4 p.m. The Mystic River Historical Society and Mystic Garden Club have combined their respective tours of historic homes and gardens for the first time this year. The eclectic collection of 13 stops ranges from sea captains’ houses with sweeping river views to smaller empty-nester and retirement homes and gardens. Tickets are $22 in advance, at Bank Square Books and The Whaler’s Inn, or online at www.mysticgardenclub.org and www.mystichistory.org, or $30 on Saturday. Proceeds go to support the civic beautification and community education efforts of the two nonprofit organizations.

Through the Garden Gate: Ivoryton’s Garden Tour is Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring eight homes and gardens in Ivoryton and Centerbrook to benefit the Ivoryton Library. Call the library at 860-767-1252 for advance tickets, $20, and more info.

Garden Conservancy Venues

The Garden Conservancy’s open garden tours were started in 1995 by Page Dickey and Penelope Maynard, known for their extraordinary gardens in Westchester County, N.Y. The two were inspired by England’s National Gardens Scheme and guidebook, known as The Yellow Book.

More than 300 private gardens in 23 states are part of this year’s Open Days and listed in the Open Day Directory. Free to conservancy members, the guide can be bought for $21.95. Visitors who have haven’t ordered advance tickets or the guide can pay $5 at each garden.

Two Stonington gardens are open on Sunday, June 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days, a series of self-guided tours of private garden tours around the country.

Kentford Farm, 297 New London Turnpike, Stonington, is a continual work in progress for Paul Coutu William Turner, who has been planting and creating grass pathways and planting beds for 11 years on the farm that dates back to 1727. The perennial farm, open only a few times a year, has its own Web site, www.kentfordfarm.com.

Stone Acres Estate, 389 North Main Street Stonington, is an old-fashioned garden, with a century-old boxwood hedge a quarter-mile-long, rose arbors, and buildings of a past era.

For directions to both Stonington gardens, go to www.gardenconservancy.org.

If you’re still standing, and not so inspired that you have to rush home and resume digging, there are nine other venues this weekend, including Elizabeth Park and Hill-Stead Museum, as part of the River Valley/CONNECTicut’s Rose and Garden Weekend. See the online Garden Tour Guide at www.visitctriver.com.

Catch “CT Outdoors with Suzanne Thompson” is on Tuesdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. and 6:30 to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m. on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook or WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. She can be reached at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

Bringing Back a Good One - LeRoy Falconi, Jr., AKA "The Blues Dog"

2009-06-17T15:21:36Z

Here's one of my favorite stories - recently awarded first place by the CT Chapter of Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) as Excellence in Journalism for arts/entertainment feature.... read on, Suzanne

The Ambassador of the Blues
LeRoy Falcone, Jr.
Montville Times, Oct. 2, 2008

Montville has its share of aspiring musicians aiming to hit the big time. Plus, one blues harmonica player who has made it into the Blues Hall of Fame.

LeRoy Falconi Jr., also known as the Bluesdog, has played harmonica with some of the greats of blues and other genres. The list of bands he’s played with is as eclectic as it is impressive, from Devon Allman (Greg’s son) and Honeytribe, Lucky Peterson, and Buckwheat Zydeco to James Montgomery, Jerry Rosen, Taj Mahal, and the Tower of Power. For three years, he was the East Coast harmonica player for Shirley King, BB King’s daughter.

Falconi, 44, has been moving around in blues circles for years. He started out with the goal to some day meet BB King. He’s jammed with Bo Diddley, who labeled him “the known unknown” for being a solid “harp,” or harmonica, player whom musicians and bands know to call.

Through his music and hobby of collecting musical memorabilia, he’s met many of the live performing musical greats. He considers Sugar Blue, the harmonica player for the Rolling Stones, a friend. The numbers programmed into his cell phone and e-mail address list would make music groupies swoon.

In September, the Blues Hall of Fame recognized Falconi as a Master Harmonica Player. He also was named an official Ambassador of the Blues to Connecticut, an honor he takes seriously as a commitment to spread the music.

By being the musician’s musician, Falconi might be recognized more walking Nashville’s streets than New London’s. But he’s still a hometown boy. Born in New London, he spent his first years in Montville and then grew up in Quaker Hill. He learned how to play from his father, Leroy Sr., who went by “Ramblin Roy Friend,” somewhat of a country legend with the “Cousin Johnny Country Show,” a radio and traveling show.

Falconi grew up surrounded by a mix of popular music. His father played Hank Williams, Conway Twitty, and Charlie McCoy; his mother, Kathaleen, loved Donna Summer; the tastes of sisters LeeAnn and Toni ranged from the Ramones to Journey and from the Grateful Dead to Rod Stewart. Leroy cranked up Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

“I didn’t realize that Led Zeppelin was playing all these old blues numbers in their style,” he said.

Although his mother has passed away, his dad, age 73, still lives in Quaker Hill.

Falconi said he started dabbling with the harmonica when he was 14 years old. He performed with cousins back behind his Uncle Al’s Corners Edge sandwich shop in Waterford.

He credits a former Waterford school teacher, Mrs. Stidfole, for inspiring him.

“She said music was an inner expression. It’s your music, so don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re doing it wrong,” he said. “She’s a wonderful person.”

He graduated in 1982. After months of playing along with his collection of music, only for himself to hear, he concluded he sounded just as good, if not better, than people he was paying to hear play at clubs. Local gigs and music festivals led to larger events and venues. People in the industry heard him play, and his name got around.

Falconi describes himself as a blues harmonica player with a multifaceted contemporary twist. He crosses genres from gospel and blues to reggae and funk.

He said a buzz started around his playing style and abilities in the 1980s. Part of his reputation is the ability to improvise with a band. Another is his passion for the music.

Falconi’s work has taken him across the country, especially the South and Clarksdale, Miss., the crossroads and the home of the Delta Blues Museum.

“It’s pretty intense,” he said. “You’re surrounded by people who at first you heard about, then you’d seen them play. Then you got to meet them. Now you’re playing music with them.”

Falconi cuts a colorful figure on stage: long hair, flowing mustache and goatee, tattoos. He usually wears bib overalls, which, he said, represent the roots of the music, and a shirt and a tie, out of respect for all the musicians who have gone before him.

Then there is the black cowboy hat decked out with a stuffed rattlesnake, fanged mouth wide open.

“The hat is just class,” laughed Falconi. He’s been through several; the original hat is on display at the Delta Blues Museum.

Someone dubbed him “the Bluesdog” some years back at a gig in New Haven. He astutely copyrighted the name and blue hotdog logo, as well as the “Famous Since Day 1” tagline. He’s a one-man marketing machine, selling or giving away signature blue bumper stickers, T-shirts, and Frisbees.

Being a blues harmonica player is hardly a lucrative career, unless you’re Charlie McCoy, or the next Charlie McCoy.

“There’s no one CD that I’m on,” Falconi said. He’s a background musician on many CDs and video clips of recognized artists, though.

The future could hold playing music for big-name advertisers, becoming the recognized musical bed behind a jingle. He’s in discussions with at least one national food and beverage brand.

In addition, Falconi, a certified cabinet-maker, has created what he calls the world’s most unique blues collage. With more than 100 harmonicas and other music memorabilia, signed by 126 talented and famous musicians, it’s no doubt the largest collection of autographed harmonicas.

The collection is mounted on a 3-by-6 mahogany board, part of an intricate design of musical memorabilia Falconi has collected over 20 years. Strips of wood form frames around groupings of the harps, and symbolically tie them together.

It started when Falconi realized he was blowing through a lot of harmonicas and couldn’t fix them.

“They sounded worse after I tried to repair them,” he admitted. He started asking the musicians who had helped shape his sound to autograph them. Some were famous artists: Bo Diddley, Johnny Winter, Greg Allman, Billy Cox, Jaimoe, Jon Coleman, and Chubby Checker, to name a few. Each time he met the artist and got a signature, he snapped a photo.

Over the years, moving around, he continued to tuck away the signed harmonicas. He didn’t know what he’d make some day, but he promised each musician they would get something from him.

Falconi designed the large piece of art, building nine secrets into it, so it couldn’t be duplicated, and told each of the artists represented on it one of the secrets. His dream is that one day enough of them could meet up, compare secrets, and piece together all nine. It also would be one heck of a jam session if they brought their instruments.

Falconi’s finished piece is on display for the next year at the Delta Blues Museum in Mississippi. He also made a poster of it, running 3,000 copies, 500 of which are part of the special edition series.

He is presenting signed copies of the poster to the 126 musicians whose signatures appear on the original piece, as well as other performing artists. On Thursday, he will present BB King, the center of the piece, with his collectors’ edition print.

Copies of the posters, signed or unsigned, can be purchased from his Web site.

Through all of this, Falconi remains very down home. He doesn’t feel that he’s “made the big time,” or had that “one big break” yet.

“I’ve never said ‘I’m really doing it,’” he said. “I’m happy. There is no big break. You’re just as nervous at one performance as the other. I’m just fortunate to know everyone who’s on this art piece.”

Although he knows his way around Nashville and other musical cities, Falconi has always returned to Montville and Connecticut.

“It’s still one of the most beautiful places,” he said. “It’s home.”

The casinos are bringing more music to the area, too. Falconi has played with the Mohegan All Stars who perform at the Mohegan Sun Wolf Den.

“That’s some of the cream of the crop, the best of the best musicians,” he said. “It’s an honor and a half to be asked to play with them.”

Falconi has five children. He and his wife, Amanda, and 14-year-old daughter, Elina, live in Oakdale. Amanda is from Salem and her family is heavily into bluegrass. Her mother, Linda Turner, plays the standup bass, mandolin, and guitar.

In August, Amanda opened Bubbles Pet Salon in Chesterfield, which features “do-it-yourself” pet washing as well as professional grooming service.

To follow Falconi, go to www.thebluesdog.com.

Throw the Bums Out - When Old Friends Become Weeds

2009-06-13T14:00:00Z

This appeared in the June 11, 2009 Times Weeklies:

I always knew it would come to this: tried and true old friends no longer fit in. Four years ago, I was desperately seeking anything that would grow, bloom, add some character, and oh let’s face it, fill a void in some vacant new flower beds. But there’s just no way to deny that the cute little seedlings, full of so much promise, have shown their true character.

Times change, so do our tastes. What used to be perennial favorites, plants that worked in a pinch, have taken over my flowerbeds. They have become weeds.

I came to this realization on a sunny day, perfect for a little light gardening. Instead, I was exhausted after hours of manhandling a 5-foot Rose of Sharon, tackling a thicket of tansy that promised to grow even taller by mid-summer, and clumps of ornamental marjoram and oregano taking over all corners of my front flower beds.

Okay, I’ll admit it, perhaps I hadn’t made the best long-term choices. Like finding a last-minute date for the big party, I’d overlooked a few things just to make an entrance on someone’s arm. It’s not like we didn’t have good times. But who hasn’t let the relationship with a wild friend get out of hand? One day, we wake up, see all of their flaws and wonder what were we thinking?

The marjoram and oregano have performed like gangbusters and deer don’t touch them. Four seasons of interest, fuzzy green leaves that pop out early in the spring and grow in nice clumping form and produce sprays of lavender and pink flowers that give bees something to buzz over in the summer. These turn into interesting fall seed spikes that can stay through the winter.

Instead of just putting my foot down a few times and laying some ground rules in the relationship, I let my headstrong friends have free run of my place. Aside from mint - and that is another story - most spreading groundcovers can be managed through judicious weeding, thinning, reserving them only for containers and pruning back flowers before they go to seed.

The Rose of Sharon is another story. Hibiscus syriacus, or shrub althea or Chinese hibiscus, is a popular as a small specimen tree or pruned hedge because it can take lots of abuse and is a prolific late summer bloomer. Feisty and tough, even in New England winters, it sends out long lateral roots. Some consider it low brow, common, not worth getting excited over. Others would call it invasive.

But my specimen comes with extra emotional baggage. It and two siblings arrived in my father’s suitcase a few years back. A family of gardeners, we’re always tucking clippings, seedlings, sprouts and flowers into our carry-on luggage. I knew better than to plant it next to my light post, and reasoned I would move it soon enough.

Now the thing threatens to top me. What had started as careful digging and gentle handling of roots turned to exasperated hacking after I unearthed the first five-foot runner. After two hours of surgery, I gave up on any idea of transplanting it to the back yard and committed myself to give better treatment to the remaining two trees.

All that was left was the tansy, something off of garden club sale members’ plants table a few years back. Common tansy, or Tanacetum vulgare, grows up to six fee tall, with fernlike leaves and yellow button flowers. Deer don’t even bother to taste its pungent leaves, which also can be used as natural insect repellant.

But tansy is definitely a back of the border plant, needs plenty of room, and some staking unless you like the look of talk plants flopping over. Admirable traits, but not for the front of the house location I’d given it.

So, thinking it might have a spot in the side yard, I started gingerly digging up the perennial, still manageably below my waist in height. The maze of tree-like taproots convinced me to pull out the serrated trowel that doubles as a miniature hacksaw. I heard strains of Little Shop of Horrors as I steered a full wheelbarrow to the compost bin.

Unearthing those characters, I rediscovered the crowded lavender, shy lambs ear and salvias in search of their place in the sun.

There are always lessons learned in gardening:

As with any other relationship, don’t plan to change your partner’s characteristics. A plant genetically predispositioned to be tall, gregarious and floppy will be just that.

Aim to put the right plant in the right place, and for its sake, in the type of soil and amount of shade or sunlight it needs. You both will be happier.

If something has outgrow its space, or no longer fits with the surroundings, move it elsewhere and get on with your landscaping.

If you don’t like the way some plants look or perform, by all means, don’t hesitate to throw the bums out.

Listen to CT Outdoors with Suzanne Thompson on Tuesdays at 12:30-1pm and 6:30-7 pm and Sundays at 7-7:30 am on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook or WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. Contact Suzanne at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

Life in Old Lyme, as seen by our exchange student

2009-06-05T13:30:00Z

If you're looking for a multi-cultural experience, have a spare bedroom and some time to mentor a young person, check out this international exchange program - you don't need to already have a teenager in your house to host a student. Read on, Suzanne...

By Suzanne Thompson, June 4, 2009 cover story in the Lyme Times:

As the saying goes, everyone has—or should have—their 15 minutes of fame. For some in Old Lyme, my family included, it may have already happened in China, and in Chinese.

For 10 months in 2006 to 2007, a slender 16-year-old girl from Nanjing joined our household and completed her junior year at Lyme-Old Lyme High School. She arrived with her own laptop and quickly purchased a cell phone. She rode the school bus every day, excelled in AP math and physics, and struggled with Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” She tried her hand at fencing and crew and giggled her way through the winter ball with her new friends.

Wei Fang, or “Kate” came to the U.S. through the Academic Year in America (AYA) program, organized by the American Institute for Foreign Studies (AIFS) in Stamford. After returning to China for her senior year, she was accepted by multiple U.S. colleges. In May, Fang completed her freshman year at Boston University. She plans to continue there next year after a coveted summer internship in Beijing.

Fang recently came back to Lyme-Old Lyme High School to see teachers and former classmates. Students in the school’s Chinese language classes, started two years ago, tested their Chinese speaking and writing skills on her.

She also presented the school with copies of My American Life at 16, a book she wrote about her experiences as a “townie.” Published by Sushao, a subsidiary of the respected Jiangsu Province children’s publisher, it is a collection of Fang’s impressions and photos of her experiences in the United States.

Written in chronological order and based on a detailed diary she kept throughout her stay, it captures her impressions as she arrived and toured around New York City, met her host family, including our then 3-year-old daughter, who cried the entire drive back to Old Lyme and had no intentions of sharing her Mommy’s attention with a teenager, and adjusted to an American high school.

“The book is very reader-friendly and personable, as if she is talking to a teenager,” said John Wang, LOL High’s Chinese Language teacher. Born in China, Wang majored in English there and came to the U.S. about 25 years ago.

Fang writes about a typical high school day, taking Advanced Placement (AP) tests, dressing up for Halloween, and math team competitions. The book includes a trip to the voting polls at the Cross Lane Fire House on Election Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas with American families, an attempt at baby-sitting, and solo train excursions to New York, diplomatically dealing with her host mother who worried she might get lost in a big city. There are sobering observations of the tragic shooting of students and faculty at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.

“The book is filled with excitement, curiosity, love, and compassion about America and the Americans she has come to know. She talks honestly about not knowing how to deal with little kids, which makes it all the more human and natural,” said Wang. “What amazes me most is her sensitivity. It is very well written, and in an interesting vocabulary. You can feel her emotions.”

A touching addition are three letters from Fang’s father, a former journalist and now insurance industry manager, who regularly wrote to her.

Growing up, Fang said, she didn’t feel that close to her father, who traveled often for work and to complete a master’s degree while she and her mother stayed in Nanjing. He started her on the practice of writing a diary when she was 8 years old, which he read and critiqued for style. The two grew much closer through their many e-mails while she lived in Connecticut.

“When I have the really big questions in my life, I go to my father,” she said.

Fang said it took her about a year to turn her diary notes into a book. She worked on it while completing her senior year in high school.

“I had no sense about how to write a book, so it was very hard,” she said. Her editors kept asking her for more facts about her experiences, not just her emotions.

Fang has heard from Chinese high school students who have read her book, curious about life in America. Some are interested in studying abroad.

Fang’s choice to step out of China’s pressure cooker educational system, where national test scores determine if students go to college and where, to attend a year abroad and to apply to American colleges, is not typical. She wasn’t required to repeat her junior year there, but she was expected to know what had been covered.

While she found the math and science curricula easier here than in China, she writes how she discovered that American students do work very hard, but in a different way. Teaching styles and expectations are different, too. She found her LOL teachers to be very helpful and interested in her efforts.

A copy of Fang’s book will be on display at the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library, where Fang volunteered her time as a student assistant after school. See www.oldlyme.lioninc.org for info.

Academic Year in America (AYA), started in 1981, has grown to one of the largest high school/home-stay programs in the United States, linking volunteer host families with international students. Its sponsor, AIFS, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1967 with the assistance of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The foundation also awards grants to high schools for projects that encourage intercultural awareness and provides scholarships for young Americans to study and travel abroad. For more about the AYA program, go to www.aifs.com/aya.

Chinese Language Studies at LOL High School

There’s growing interest in Chinese as a world language at LOL High, according to Chinese teacher John Wang. The program started with just one class two years ago. This year, more than 40 students will have completed courses in the language and culture.

Next year, the school will offer four levels of studies, ranging from two introductory Mandarin Chinese classes through an advanced class. Wang compares progress of the LOL program with offerings in Clinton and Simsbury schools and stays in touch with Connecticut College’s East Asian Studies department. Waterford once had Chinese classes, but has been without a teacher.

Chinese isn’t an easy language to learn, Wang admits, but he’s seen good progress among the local students. The program also provides heritage Chinese students, or those who have grown up with it as a family language, the chance for academic studies in Chinese.

Looking for immersion experiences, the classes have traveled to New York’s Chinatown. Wang hopes future program offerings can include trips to China.

Wang, his wife, Airong Lei, a research scientist for Pfizer, and their teenage son live in Waterford. Wang’s English degrees earned in China were based on years of intensive English studies. He earned Masters degrees in linguistics and education at U.S. colleges and taught college level English composition courses in several states. Most recently, Wang taught at Three Rivers and Mitchell College, as well as English as a second language and ESL methodology courses.

Region 18’s 2009 summer school program includes Introduction to Spoken Chinese as an enrichment class for adults and high school students and is open to residents and non-residents. For more info, visit www.region18.org/uploaded/LOLHS/Summer_School_Brochure_2009.pdf.

Hit a Garden Club Sale this Weekend!

2009-05-08T13:14:00Z

Catch Sunday, May 10 replay of my CT Outdoors radio show with Old Lyme Duckies Gail O'Sullivan and Platt Arnold and Essex Garden Club members Cicely Worrall and Alyson Danyliw - 7-7:30 am on WLIS 1420 AM/Old Saybrook and WMRD 1150 AM/Middletown. Here's to good plant sale weather! Suzanne

Connecticut garden clubs are making it easy this year to find the perfect horticultural gift for all deserving women on Mother’s Day. The challenge is in making it to all of your favorite club plant sales—home town or next door—within the next two days.

Mother’s Day weekend has become the unofficial weekend for May markets. These are the annual fund raising events that make it possible (along with lots of donated sweat equity) for members to take on civic beautification and conservation projects, award scholarships, donate gardening books to town libraries, and put on entertaining seminars and garden therapy programs. These and other volunteer activities help to weave the fabric of our communities.

Many local garden clubs, mine included, stage one- or two-day sales of locally-grown plants, everything from herbs, vegetable seedlings, and blooming annuals to collections of perennials, shrubs, and trees. Hanging baskets have been popular as gifts, although member-created alpine trough gardens, terrariums, and container gardens are the latest trends.

Some groups sell only plants collected from members’ yards—utilizing the best time of the year to divide perennials—or from seeds started weeks back. If you haven’t noticed frenzied behavior in a lot of yards and landscapes in the past few weeks, you must not have garden club members as neighbors. Other clubs have trekked to Connecticut wholesale nurseries in recent weeks to pick out plants and seedlings.

Either way, stop by one of these community events and you’re bound to find unique plants, some great deals, and sincere and helpful advice from garden club members. Many show up with their favorite well-worn reference guides, gardening catalogs, and magazines.

A few pointers if you’ve never hit a club sale before:

• Most sales are rain or shine; slickers and boots become handy here.

• Treasures dug up from a good gardener’s yard might not look as showy right now as container stock at a commercial garden center. But don’t be deceived; these are healthy plants, already acclimated to our climate, no doubt deer-resistant, too.

• Don’t hesitate to ask questions or for recommendations of what to try. The pink Lily of the Valley in my front patio is all that more special to me
because I got to talk with the Thames River Garden Club member who dug it up from her own beds.

• Perennials need to be divided every three to five years to stay healthy, according to Susan Bailey, a long-time digging squad leader for the North Stonington Garden Club. Her advice is to dig up a large plant with a sharp shovel, discard the worn out core, and divide the plant into pieces. A nice clump can go back in the ground; the others get tucked into pots with some added compost or soil, and watered.

• Know that your plant purchases are supporting local community efforts.

• Keep an eye out for home-made goodies, gourmet treats, and “garden shed” sections that offer up gently used tools and containers, as well as educational literature.

To Market

While this isn’t a complete listing, here are a few sales to get you going this weekend.

• Duck River Garden Club of Old Lyme Garden Fair, Friday, from 3 to 7 p.m., Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Old Lyme Shopping Center. New this year are highly desirable ornamental shrubs and trees from Pride’s Corner Farm in Lebanon, including hydrangea cultivars, lilacs, flowering cherry, and magnolia, available through advance order plus more on hand at the sale.

• East Lyme Garden Club, Saturday, from 8 a.m. to noon or until the plants run out; behind town hall in Niantic. This is one of the longest-running sales in the area, known for its member-contributed plants.

• Essex Garden Club, Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Town Park, Main Street. Members expect 2,000 member-grown plants, disease resistant tomatoes, a conservation tent, gourmet foods, and, of course, the club’s famous garlic salt.

• Ledyard Garden Club, Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to noon; Ledyard Congregational Church, Route 117.

• North Stonington Garden Club, Saturday, May 9 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Rocky Hollow Recreation Area, North Stonington. Plants from members’ gardens, plus heirloom tomato plants raised by members and the Worm Ladies from Charlestown, R.I., with their red composting worms. Exit 92 or 93 from Route 95, or go to the end of Route 78 from Westerly, and follow the yellow signs. See www.nsgardenclub.org.

• Also, Thames River Garden Club will hold its sale on Saturday, May 16, at Waterford High School.

Catch “CT Outdoors” with Suzanne Thompson on Tuesdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. and from 6:30 to 7 p.m.; and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m. on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook, or WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. Contact Suzanne at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

Singing for Pete's Sake - May 3 Celebration in Old Lyme

2009-05-01T16:28:39Z

Madison Square Garden will be the epicenter of folk music and social activism on Sunday, May 3, when celebrities, fans and friends of Pete Seeger gather to celebrate the 90th birthday and legacy of America’s most influential folk artist.

Dozens of artists, from Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder to Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Taj Mahal, Richie Havens, Toshi Reagon, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, will perform. The star-studded evening is one of several concerts and activities organized by Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the environment group founded by Seeger and others in the 1960s to protect the Hudson River.

The sentiments will be every bit as heart-felt at For Pete’s Sake, Sing, a grassroots gathering at the First Congregational Church in Old Lyme. The sing-along, open to the public, is organized by Joyful Noise Productions, a project of Spectrum Arts and Education for Peace, a non-profit organization founded by East Lyme resident Julia Hikory.

Hikory, who started Spectrum in Vermont in 1989 with another musician, is the daughter of Elmira Ingersoll, one of the long-time residents of Harmony House in Lyme. Spectrum has become a collaboration of individuals and groups committed to promoting peace at all levels of human activity, with oneself, each other. Members use the performing arts and education to expand people’s awareness and to inspire change.

Groups across the country will hold similar events under the same title, Hikory said. She has heard of events in Ann Arbor, Michigan, San Diego and other communities.

“It’s a celebration for all ages,” Hikory said of the planned Old Lyme event. She and musician Jill Friedman, Hartford, will lead attendees through folk songs by Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and others.

Hikory and Friedman are members of the People’s Music Network for Songs of Freedom and Struggle, founded by Seeger and other musicians at least 30 years ago. The national network uses music and the arts to promote progressive ideas by transforming individuals, communities and society through multiple small actions.

“Pete feels that one of his main purposes in life is to get people to sing together – that’s what inspired us to do something locally, keeping with his spirit, to honor him,” Hikory said. “We just want people to know what a wonderful person he is. They may know his songs, but not know the story about him.”

Growing up in a family of classical musicians and Julliard professors, Seeger dropped out of sociology studies at Harvard at age 19 to ride the rails and hitchhike across America. He met the greats of American folk music, learning and collecting their songs, which he helped archive at the Library of Congress.

A prolific composer committed to civil rights and economic justice, Seeger also spent many years as a blacklisted musician because of his membership in the Communist Party through an arts organization. During the anti-war movement of the 1960s, his songs caught on with musicians, from folk to country and rock, and the public. In 1994 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the nation’s highest artistic honor, at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 1996, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Hikory has traveled the world collecting and sharing songs between cultures and continents. She performed Native American songs for children in Africa, bring the African songs back to American children, and sang American civil rights songs for listeners in the former Soviet Union.

The first time Hikory, who has sung with Seeger, met him, it was when she was traveling through the Hudson River valley with a fiend who had helped work on the Clearwater sloop. They decided to ask the Seegers if they could camp in the yard.

“Pete was in his long johns, carrying out the compost,” laughed Hikory, who stays in touch with Seeger. There’s a recent post-card from Seeger, telling her which of his books has the lines of one of his songs, suggesting that it might be at the public library in Mystic, hanging on her refrigerator door.

“He doesn’t think of himself as a super star – he and his wonderful wife, Toshi, are very supportive of young musicians and songwriters. His spirit is so great.”

One of Hikory’s favorite Seeger songs, Quite Early Morning, alludes to times being darkest before the dawn. A verse goes “and so we keep on while we live, until we have no more to give. And when these fingers can strum no longer, hand the old banjo to the young ones, stronger.”

Seeger, whose hearing is failing, still performs, including earlier this year at Presidential Inauguration with his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger.

At least two Old Lyme residents, Joan and Jerry Silberberg, will be at the MSG concert. Jerry was a Clearwater Board member, in charge of the Great Hudson River Revival site and Joan organized the festival crafts for 12 years. The arts and environmental education festival, held during Father’s Day weekend, draws upwards of 20,000 people each year.

For Pete’s Sake, Sing. 5:30 – 7 pm, Sunday, May 3, Sheffield Auditorium, First Congregational Church of Old Lyme. Birthday cake and beverages provided, people are welcome to bring healthy snacks to share. Suggested donation $10, children are free. Contributions of non-perishable food also accepted for the church’s food ministry and the Shoreline Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry.

For more information on Seeger and Clearwater, see:
http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/pete-seeger
http://www.clearwater.org/about.html

Gardening - the New Hot Trend - CT OUTDOORS

2009-04-20T15:22:00Z

By Suzanne Thompson,
Special to the Times:

Between my weekly radio show and writing for the Times weeklies, I talk with plenty of gardeners. The old adage goes that you ask three gardeners for advice and you’ll get at least five opinions of what to grow and how to grow it.

But that’s part of the fun of gardening—sharing ideas and, as often as not, seedlings, cuttings, and divided plants. If you’re lucky, there will be some ripe homegrown tomatoes before summer is over.

There’s consensus in the gardening world this year: gardening is the next hot trend. People who never even lifted a hoe before are flocking into garden centers, snapping up everything from vegetable seeds to perennials promised to draw butterflies and birds to their yards.

Teri Smith, who owns and runs Smith’s Acres in Niantic with her husband “Farmer Joe,” has been seeing it firsthand this year.

“There’s more interest in organics, using natural fertilizers and pest controls, as well as in growing your own food,” Smith said. In anticipation of the growing interest, the Smiths have been growing extra varieties of vegetable seedlings, including heirloom tomatoes, on their farm in East Lyme.

P. Allen Smith, the nationally-recognized celebrity gardener and designer, sees the same interest, too, across the country.

“Vegetable gardening has gone through the roof,” Smith said on my radio show last week. Smith recently published Bringing the Garden Indoors, the fifth book in his series that parallels his PBS television show.

Even in this down economy, or perhaps because of it, Smith said, the green industry has seen 20 to 25 percent increases in traffic and sales of vegetable seeds and gardening supplies.

“People are very concerned about where their food comes from,” said the Arkansas-based Smith, who travels back to New York City a couple of times each month to do some urban gardening for NBC’s Today show.

His advice for novices is to keep it easy and simple—not a bad strategy for all gardeners.

“You need early successes; start with containers if you haven’t gardened much,” he said, recommending Swiss chard and butterhead lettuces as attractive container crops, as well as arugula.

“You can almost sit there and watch arugula sprout. It takes only six to eight days to grow a crop of microgreens.

Teri Smith agrees and says herbs and vegetables make great companions in containers.

“Variegated oregano and golden marjoram are fantastic in containers,” she said. She has been potting up combinations of herbs and violas, little spring pansy blossoms that also are edible. She teams up bronze fennel, with its tall wispy plums, with blooming annuals and trailing vines in large containers.

“Put some red and green lettuce in window and deck boxes with your annual flowers, and you can enjoy a salad, as well as the blooms,” she said.

Raised beds are another way to contain the vegetable garden at a manageable size and make it look more like part of the landscape. Another trick the Arkansas Smith recommends is growing potatoes in old bushel baskets.

“Knock off the bottom of the basket, fill it up half-way with a good compost, plant a Kennebec potato, a 1948 heirloom, top it off with more compost, and in 110 days you’ll have eight to 10 potatoes,” he said.

For a prolific cherry tomato plant, Smith recommends the Sweet 100 variety.

“You won’t be able to count all of the tomatoes that one plant will produce,” he said.

Despite his credentials as a certified fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society of England, where he studied biology, history, and design, Smith makes gardening very approachable. He remembers family dinners and dinner-time discussions that centered around what came out of the garden each day and how it was grown.

“There are so many memories from the garden,” he said. “It’s exciting to see that another generation of gardeners will grow up with these experiences.”

“CT Outdoors” with Suzanne Thompson is on Tuesdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. and 6:30 to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 7 to 7:30 a.m. on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook, or WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. She can be reached at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

CT Outdoors - Can't Garden? Try Sprouts

2009-01-30T17:57:00Z

My green thumb is beyond pale this time of year. Christmas poinsettias are straggly, amaryllis are beautiful, but they can be about as aloof as a pet cat—they don’t really need you, beyond some water and a bit of food.

So what’s a fidgety gardener to do? Try sprouts. Not vegetable seedlings for this year’s garden. It’s still weeks too early. So, while I count down the days until the Connecticut Flower and Garden Show in Hartford and its blooms and blossoms in mid-February, I dig out my sprouting jars and lids to grow some of my own winter produce.

Sprouts are the germinating form of seeds and beans. Easy to produce because they require no soil—only water and cool temperatures—their popularity in the American diet and space in the produce section come and go with food trends. A salmonella outbreak in some commercially-produced alfalfa sprouts back in 1999 didn’t help.

I’m predicting a resurgence of sprouts with the Obama White House, if not by the first family, at least by loyalists who extol the low-calorie, low-fat, and high-vitamin virtues of the crop.

I admit, I got into veggie sprouts in my granola chick days, but it was because of their crunch, not to make a political statement. Yes, I tie-dyed, too, but that’s another story.

For other generations of foodies or back-to-nature types, sprouts can represent ancient rituals and agronomic prowess, New Age awareness of whole foods and mega vitamins, or off-shoots of their kids’ science experiments. My daughter came home from pre-school one day with a “sprout person” crafted from a gym sock (clean and new, but I suppose one could recycle tube socks), seed starter mix, and grass seeds.

Sprouting can be very egalitarian. Most of us could find all of the equipment we need scrounging around the kitchen. For people who like to buy gadgets, there’s all sorts of sprouting equipment available online.

The ultimate online experts have got to be the Sprout People, at www.sproutpeople.com. A mom-and-pop operation, these folks claim to have sprouted more than 200 tons of seeds since 1989. There’s even a kid zone on the site, complete with sprouting experiment kits, instructions, and the story of seeds.

Foodies can find nutritional information of sprouts, as well as cooking instructions and enticing photos of everything from ubiquitous alfalfa, mung beans, and garbanzos to exotic fenugreek, the Japanese green Mizuna, also called spider mustard and tat soi, or spoon cabbage, which often shows up in Mesclun salad mixes.

For those who want to branch out, check out sunflowers, pea shoots, buckwheat, and lettuce or the allium family of garlic, leek, and onions. There are even sprouts for animals, from birds, cats, and rabbits to frogs and iguanas. It seems every species likes, or needs, sprouts in their diet.

Nutritionally, a cup of raw radish sprouts has 16 percent of an adult’s daily Vitamin C, 2 percent of iron, and 9 percent of folate, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and only 16 calories. Mung beans have even more Vitamin C and 4 percent of daily fiber and only 26 calories.

I’m hardly exotic with my sprouting efforts, but the more I read online, that may change. My set-up is Spartan. Although I spent a few bucks on a big sprouting jar and stainless-steel screened lid combo, I also use a collection of pickle and other wide-mouthed jars, nylon netting, and rubber bands.

What I like about sprouting is that it is only a three- to four-day commitment, and the end results can be stuffed into a wrap, stirred into a soup, or noodle dish, or tossed in a salad.

Start by soaking the seeds in water for several hours, or overnight. Smaller seeds may need only five hours, according to NOW Foods, the Bloomington, Ill.-based source of my zesty sprouting mix of clove, alfalfa, fenugreek, and radish seeds.

Just remember that a few little seeds can produce a mighty large mess of sprouts, so start with a tablespoon or two. Most spouts need to be kept below 80 degrees, certainly not a concern in the winter, unless you forget and set them near a heating duct or source.

Although I only have to rinse my little wards twice a day, I admit to taking the jar out of the cupboard more times than that to check on progress. I would say this is in the interest of educating my daughter, but I’m examining my seedlings as much when she’s away at Kindergarten as when she is home.

I’ve also followed the seed source’s recommendation of mixing a little bit of citric acid powder into the rinsing water. This helps preserve against spoilage. It stands to reason that I could achieve the same with some diluted lemon juice, but I haven’t tried that.

By day four, my crop is ready, with delicate tendrils and little yellow leaves. Then I get to decide how much I want the leaves to green up before I serve them up. Just a couple of hours on the kitchen counter, in indirect light, and the leaves are delicate green. I can almost see the chlorophyll at work.

Depending on the seed type, sprouts can last a couple of days or longer in the refrigerator, especially if the citric acid rinse is used.

When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. Contact Suzanne at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

Looking for an outdoor family outing? Catch Suzanne’s weekly radio show, “CT Outdoors,” on Tuesday, Feb. 3, from 12:30 to 1 p.m. to hear about the CT DEP’s annual Winter Festival and other No Child Left Inside activities. Tune in to WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook, and WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. See www.wliswmrd.net for show replays and upcoming guests.

Dominick Dunne Tells All at Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce Dinner

2009-01-23T16:10:00Z

By Suzanne Thompson for the January 22, 2009 Lyme Times

Fur coats and winter parkas bulged out of the coatroom at the Old Lyme Inn on one of the coldest nights of the year as members of the Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut more than filled the dining room on Thursday, January 15, to hear the latest celebrity news and gossip from legendary journalist and next-door neighbor Dominick Dunne.

Dunne, a West Hartford native, who admitted he knew as early as 4 years of age that he was destined for something, somewhere else, more exciting the insurance business, enthralled the admiring crowd with the story of how his life as a writer has led to glamour and access to the rich, famous and often notorious, sometimes more than he’d ever intended.

Although fans can find the Vanity Fair writer and novelist’s life story on his website, it’s fascinating to hear Dunne recount how his start as the stage hand on The Howdy Doody Show and for actor Robert Montgomery’s television show in the 1950s led a life in movie production, and eventually as the reporter that celebrities want to tell their story to.

It’s not all neat and pretty. Dunne admits that drugs and alcohol ended his movie career just as he completed a year in Europe working on an Elizabeth Taylor film.

“Fame always fascinated me,” admitted Dunne, whose own celebrity identity as writer, stemming from his coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, was fueled by the tragic death of Dunne’s daughter, Dominique, in the early 1980s.

He recounted how his family sat through the courtroom trial as the man who strangled their daughter was sentenced to two years.

“It was disgraceful what I saw in that courtroom, the showbiz aspect of how they presented the killer,” Dunne said, describing how the man was dressed like a Catholic seminarian and held a Bible. His previous violent history with women was withheld by the judge.

Dunne admitted getting so crazed with the outcome that he approached a private detective to finish off the defendant.

Tina Brown, then beginning her career with Vanity Fair, had urged Dunne to write a journal through the trial. His article, Justice, became required reading for law school students as an example of mishandled trials.

“Then I realized, I have a power, the ability to write, to go on TV and to talk,” he said. “I became a regular on Larry King. My article put the judge out of business.”

Through the years, Dunne has covered most, if not all, of the big court cases, especially those with star power. There was Sunny Von Bulow, the Newport, R.I., heiress, socialite and philanthropist who went into an insulin-induced coma. Her husband, Claus von Bulow, was first convicted of causing the over-dose, but the decision was reversed on appeal led by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Sunny survived 28 years in a coma and died in December, 2008; Dunne had attended her funeral in New York only the day before the Chamber dinner. Celebrities have always seemed comfortable talking with Dunne. He recounted how he was secretly whisked away from California, during a break in the O.J. trial, to meet Princess Diana at a private home in England.

“She was utterly fabulous,” he recalled of the Princess, who immediately charmed him. “I kind of fell in love with her. It was an experience I’ll never forget.”

Dunne, who has been back to Paris and London during the inquest into the Princess’s 1997 death, doesn’t think the car crash was the result of a conspiracy plot by the Royal Family.

“It was an accident, caused by the paparazzi ” he said. Dunne also doesn’t think Princess Diane would have married Dodi Fayed. “It was a lark.”

On the other hand, he does suspect something behind the death of Marilyn Monroe. When Dunne moved to California, he and his then-wife rented a Santa Monica beach house near the actor Peter Lawford, who was married to Pat Kennedy, sister to President Kennedy. Dunne and Lawford became friends.

“Peter Lawford was never the same again, after that,” Dunne said, noting that Monroe’s last telephone call, before dying from an overdose of sleeping pills, was to the actor.

Dunne also spent an afternoon with Imelda Marcos, the deposed First Lady of the Philippines, two days after she and her dictator husband escaped their country for a safe house in Hawaii in 1986.

Despite being instructed not to talk to the media, Imelda responded to Dunne’s phone call and invited him over for ten minutes while Ferdinand went to the dentist for a tooth ache.

Convinced that her people would want her back, and complaining of destitution, she pulled out her collection of valuable jewels for Dunne to see.

“There I was, lying on the floor with this woman that the whole world hates, looking at her jewels, and Ferdinand comes back from the dentist,” he said. The two got into a yelling match over their visitor.

All entertainment aside, Dunne closed the evening with his conclusion that O.J. Simpson got what he deserved in the recent conviction and sentencing of 20 years for armed robbery.

Dunne, who found himself spending several mornings alone in the courtroom chatting with Simpson also wanted to set the record straight about his reported illness while covering the trial.

“It was reported that I collapsed in the courtroom. I didn’t, but I was taken ill and was removed. It was a slow day in court that day...so the reporters made me the story of the day,” he said.

Dunne lives in Hadlyme, His latest novel, The Solo Act, will be out soon. See www.dominickdunne.net

Christine Woodside Updates Energy Independence Book

2009-01-21T04:52:00Z

Don’t get too complacent with gasoline prices below $2 a gallon, cautions environmental reporter and author Christine Woodside. If there’s one thing Americans should have realized, with the past summer’s $4 a gallon sticker shock, is that the world’s oil reserves are dipping ever lower, and we’re going to have to change our ways because of it.

“Sometime in the next couple of generations, [oil] won’t be the cheapest and most efficient way to power the majority of society,” the award-winning journalist and Deep River resident writes in her updated edition of Energy Independence, Your Everyday Guide to Reducing Fuel Consumption, published by The Lyons Press, Guilford.

The point is to be proactive now about kicking our oil dependence, according to Woodside, who first published the handbook three years ago for anyone, urbanite, surburbanite or rural dweller, who was looking to change their energy-consuming ways.

“We know now too much to make fun of alternative energy as something for latter-day hippies living in yurts,” writes Woodside, whose works have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Woman’s Day, Christian Science Monitor and Hartford Courant.

Woodside thought she, her husband and two daughters were already living an energy-frugal lifestyle in their 1,100 square foot old Victorian home by turning off lights, minimizing television time and turning down thermostats. She got frustrated a few years back as Connecticut’s electricity costs increased to 13 cent per kilowatt-hour. Those rates, she points out, have risen to almost 19 cents per kilowatt-hour today. So even after reducing their energy use, residents have seen their bills stay the same or continue to increase.

In scrutinizing her household energy bills, checking out appliance use rates and Energy Star ratings, Woodside has compiled useful, fact-based information for the rest of us efficiency wanna’-be’s. Not only can we can use this information to improve our own energy efficiency, perhaps we can end some household debates about giving up with practices and appliances really will save energy in the long-run.

The 180-plus page paperback book is organized into ten chapters, from an explanation of how oil still rules as our go-to source for energy, to demystifying solar energy, installing wind generators at home to latest updates on fuel cells, biodiesel and geothermal heat pumps, plus the merits of heating with good old-fashioned wood.

Wood is an excellent fuel source for New England, and can be burned efficiently, points out Woodside, who also edits Connecticut Woodlands, the magazine of the Connecticut Forest & Parks Association. Wind generators aren’t that feasible in our state, but are solid options in high-wind regions of the country. Since Woodside’s book was published, funding for Connecticut’s solar energy rebate program, one of the most attractive in the country, has all but maxed out.

Bottom line, Woodside says that Americans, the biggest energy-users in the world, will need to learn to think and act in new ways. Growing up as a New Jersey suburbanite, she admits that she didn’t give nature a second thought until she visited the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Years later, she considers it her duty, as a journalist, to help other Americans learn to change our ways.

“The alternative energy sources won’t allow us to simply plug our energy- gobbling ways of life into new technology. We’re going to have to learn to use less electricity and fuel than we’ve been enjoying,” she writes.

Basic restraint is the ordinary person’s best strategy to cut energy use, according to Woodside, who makes “change behavior” palatable, even for computer-using, TV-addicted households, with sage advice to put electronics on power strips, which get turned off if the machine is idle for a couple of hours, and certainly overnight.

A computer uses the same amount of energy to turn on as it does to operate for about two seconds, according to Woodside, and don’t worry about wearing out the on-off switch. The unit will be obsolete before that happens. Turn off the PC monitor if you step away for 20 minutes or more.

While giving readers tools to analyze their own energy bills and charts to compare energy efficiency of hybrid cars to lower mileage gasoline-powered cars, Woodside also provides both compelling environmental reasons and energy-saving calculations to back up recommendations such as these:

• Turn off lights and keep switching to compact fluorescent bulbs. One-third of U.S. electricity gets used for lighting. Powering a single incandescent light bulb over its lifespan requires burning eighty-town pounds of coal, about 100 times the amount needed to power a CF bulb.

• If you can, switch from electric to propane stoves. Although you’re still burning a fossil fuel, it’s much cheaper and emissions are minimal.

• Give up the microwave oven. Although it might be the most cost-effective way to bake a casserole, most of us use our microwaves inefficiently to boil water or thaw out something.

• Anything that uses heat uses a tremendous amount of power. Try living without clothes or hair dryers. Woodside isn’t recommending civil disobedience if your neighborhood restricts outdoor clotheslines. Use indoor drying racks.

• Shop for appliances based on Energy Star ratings, required by the government. Front-loading washers use less water than top loads; replace refrigerators and freezers that are ten years or older with newer, more efficient ones.

• Drive your car less. Although America’s transportation infrastructure is car-centric, and fuel prices may feel “cheap” right now, Woodside reminds us that we should still think about walking, biking, and taking the train or bus whenever and wherever possible.

Energy Independence is available through www.LyonsPress.com, other online sources and area bookstores.

Woodside also is editor of Appalachia, the longest-running journal of mountaineering and conservation, published by the Appalachian Mountain Club, America's oldest nonprofit conservation and recreation organization. http://www.outdoors.org. Go to http://www.ctwoodlands.org for the Connecticut Forest & Parks Association.

Catch the Sunday, Jan. 25, 7 a.m. replay of Christine Woodside on my CT Outdoors radio show on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook and WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. Go to www.wliswmrd.net for show listings and upcoming guests.

When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. Contact Suzanne at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

Oh Peanuts - CT Outdoors Musings

2009-01-12T18:38:00Z

Tune into my weekly radio show, “CT Outdoors,” about people, nature, and the environment. Catch the show at 12:30 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Sundays at 7 a.m. on WLIS 1420 AM, Old Saybrook or WMRD 1150 AM, Middletown. Here's one of my recent on-line updates. Suzanne

Even in these austere times, when there may have been fewer gifts under your Christmas tree, or perhaps gifting this year took on a more rudimentary approach: groceries, cash for heating oil, or re-gifted items, and fewer of those perplexing things someone gave you that you never really knew what to do with, there’s always the post-holiday hang-over question: What to do with the mountains of packaging peanuts?

Convenient to a fault, plastic polystyrene peanuts have had a population explosion in recent years, mostly thanks to the growth of Internet shopping. With the advent of Cyber Monday, no doubt you have a spare box or bag of them lying around the house.

Admit it, you’re tempted to set packing peanuts out with the trash, right? Or maybe on recycling day—towns must accept these things, right? After all, many municipalities pick up Christmas trees soon after the holidays.

Most of our packing peanuts are chemical based, which means they will be around forever. While they aren’t recyclable, they can be reused many times, according to Janice Ehle/Meyer, recycling coordinator for the Connecticut River Estuary Regional Planning Agency (CRERPA) in Old Saybrook, which serves the nine communities on either bank of the river or next door along the Sound.

Ehle/Meyer suggests checking with local packaging services, antique shops, and eBay auctioneers who may be in constant need of packing materials. Back in October, in the middle of my fall cleaning attack, Office Express in the Old Lyme Marketplace gladly accepted my peanuts.

The peanuts must be clean and dry, whether you’re storing them yourself for next year, or handing them off to someone else.

No, although I have many home remedies drilled into my brain, thanks to my Depression-scarred parents, peanut washing isn’t one of them. Those things became ubiquitous much later than the 1930s.

As packers and shippers also look for more green products, you might find that some packing peanuts are made from a vegetable derivative and will break down in our environment. It’s hard to tell the difference, unless you get a few wet. If they disintegrate, they are made from vegetable matter. If not, they simply float.

If you’re still at a loss for what to do with your allotment, Ehle/Meyer suggests contacting the Plastic Loosefill Council at 800-828-2214 for a list of drop-off centers. Or, if you have massive quantities, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers at 410-451-8340.

Whether we re-purpose our peanuts or not, Americans at least entered the holidays with the intention of being greener gifters, according to Plow and Hearth (www.plowandhearth.com), a national catalogue and Internet retailer that specializes in home and lifestyle products.

More than half of Americans said they were likely to purchase environmentally friendly gifts, according to P&H. Although money was listed as the single largest obstacle, up to two thirds said respondents were willing to spend 10 to 25 percent more to “go green,” and women were more likely than men to do so. Those were September or October sentiments, so it would be interesting to see if actions followed intentions.

When she’s not writing or talking, Suzanne Thompson can be found puttering around her gardens in Old Lyme. Contact Suzanne at sthompson@wliswmrd.net.

Many Hands Lighten the Load: Area Groups Assist Haitians

2009-01-07T20:37:00Z

This story ran in the Jan. 8, 2009 Montville Times. Suzanne

Few Americans may realize that the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is only 600 miles off of our eastern coast. It is Haiti, which shares half of the island of Hispanola with the Dominican Republic. Eighty percent of its 8 million citizens live under the poverty line, 54 percent in abject poverty, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) World Fact Book.

For almost 25 years, the Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, based in Uncasville, has been working with counterparts in Haiti to support and empower the Haitian people. Following the Haitian proverb, “Men anpil, chay pa lou” (“Many hands lighten the load”), the ministry has sought to build relationships between Americans and Haitians in the process.

Founded in 1985, the ministry is housed with other diocese functions at the Bishop Flanagan Ministry Center on the St. Bernard School campus. Through its Mission House of Norwich in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capitol city, it has had a physical presence there since 1987.

“We’re on the ground in Haiti and we can get to the use of funds and assure donors that the money they donate is used specifically for projects,” said Emily Smack, executive director.

Also an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Smack said it collected and donated around $1 million, its largest amount ever, for projects in Haiti in the past fiscal year.

The ministries’ programs include emergency relief, medical assistance through emergency support, a clinic, and medical missions to work with Haitian caregivers. It also supports two orphanages, funds reforestation projects and neighborhood meals, and a long-standing scholarship program for children from elementary through college levels.

Smack credits the ministry’s success in part to its ability to bring Americans to its mission house for 7- to 10-day immersion experiences. This is where they can meet their Haitian counterparts and learn first-hand of the needs and challenges the country’s people face.

“We have learned working in a third-world country, when we go there thinking we have the answers to their problems, they are accepting, and tend to say ‘Yes, we’ll do that.’ But when you move away, the sustainability of that project isn’t there because they truly haven’t gotten into that project. Or our solution is too sophisticated,” she said.

She described how on a first mission trip to Haiti, an American man announced he had the perfect solution for a local community: a bakery back at home was shutting down, so why not tear down the equipment and ship it to the island?

But the automated equipment couldn’t be run without constant electricity. There was no clean water in the area. The local people didn’t really want a bakery.

An essential component of the work is in uniting Haitian parishes and projects with American churches, schools, and other groups through its “twinning” program.

St. John the Evangelist Church Parish at 22 Maple Ave. in Uncasville is one of a dozen such twinnings. For almost 10 years, church members have supported the L’arc-en-Ciel Rainbow House orphanage in Port-au-Prince. It provides a home to 32 children, from infancy through 17 years old, who are either infected by HIV/AIDS or have lost one or more parents to the disease.

“We support them with quarterly payments of cash, and send toys for Christmas and a shipment of over-the-counter medical supplies, things people could pick up at their pharmacy,” said Joan Malchiodi, one of the parish committee members.

Most of the original members have since cycled off of the committee. Malchiodi, who got active about five years ago, and Sheryl Lambert, one of the originators, have recruited a handful of new members in the past year.

Thanks to the Internet, the St. John Parish is able to communicate directly with the leaders of the orphanage, Robert Sr. and Danielle Penette, and their son, Robert, Jr., who visited Connecticut earlier this year. L’arc-en-Ciel also has set up a community outreach program and medical clinic for families affected by HIV/AIDS.

“They run a very good, accountable organization and they know how to go for grants worldwide,” she said. “The fact that many big organizations support their outreach program shows that they are not just a fly-by-night organization.”

The orphanage was one of the first models in Haiti that showed locals that people could live with others who had the disease and not get infected, Smack said. In the first years, when anti-viral medicines were not always available, it faced the tragic choice of having to divert medication from healthier children with the disease to sicker ones. As a result, a couple of children died each year, she said.

There haven’t been any deaths of orphanage children in the last five years, Smack said.

Although sometimes intermittent, Internet access has made it possible for St John’s members to stay in touch with the orphanage and see how their support is being used, Malchiodi said. The Christmas gifts had to be shipped out in August.

“At first, people had questions about if the money and gifts really got there. But with the e-mail, we hear back quickly. They also send us disks of photos of the kids getting their toys. We can share this with our parishioners.”

The orphanage has been around, and successful, long enough that some of its youth are old enough to set out on their own. To raise funds for them, the orphanage has started an arts project, where the students create holiday and other note cards that it sells. The proceeds are split between the artists and orphanage and put into savings accounts for each youth.

After the holidays, the St. John’s committee will consider supporting the gift card project. Malchiodi said they might buy some of the cards and resell them at church activities.

Malchiodi and the newest Parish committee members haven’t been to Haiti yet, but several have expressed interest.

“The whole purpose of twinning is to make lives larger, both here in the United States and in Haiti,” Tolson said, adding that many of the Americans come to feel that they get more out of the relationship than their Haitian counterparts.

“Being involved with Haiti is such an eye-opening, mind-expanding, and, we hope, heart-enlarging experience. There is something rather amazing about Haiti,” said Tolson, who grew up in Africa and has traveled the world with his miltary family. “It’s not just the shock of poverty. It is so close to the United States, but it is so different.”

The ministry also maintains Haiti’s Back Porch, a retail shop that offers a selection of art, crafts, clothing, and specialty foods that it has purchased directly from Haitian artisans and artisan collectives. It is located at 100 Riverview Center in Middletown.

Another popular program with individual donors is scholarships for children to attend elementary school through college in Haiti, she said.

“Only 60 percent of children in the country get to go to school, most of it private schools, which charge tuition,” Tolson said. “This can run from $200 to $400 per student per year, which is more than a family might make in a year.”

About 150 students currently are supported by five-year-long pledges through the Tierney-Tobin Memorial Scholarship administered by the ministry, Tolson said. These are based on family need and student merit or performance.

It costs about $2,000 per year to attend university, she said. Scholarships helped students in medicine and agronomy graduate last year and are supporting a third-year medical student and a number of young men in technical schools who are preparing to become electricians and plumbers.

“You would be amazed what some families will sacrifice because they so much want their child or children to go to school. It would break your heart and inspire you at the same time,” she said. “They see that as a way to get out of poverty.”

For more information, go to www.haitianministries.org.

East Lyme Shopping: Ever-Expanding Grace and Loving Dogs

2009-01-07T20:33:00Z

Special to the Times, Jan. 1, 2009

Even in this down economy, people still want something special for themselves—and for their pets. Local business owners Candy Shapiro and Rachel Rinoski, betting that will continue, have expanded from one to three retail establishments in downtown Niantic.

The two, who opened Grace, a coastal lifestyle shop at 31 Pennsylvania Avenue in Niantic in early 2007, have launched two more businesses across the street.

“We both have a huge love for the ocean and the simple, relaxed lifestyle that people have here,” said Rinoski, who came from Fairfield County. Shapiro hails from West Hartford. The two met through Niantic Main Street. Shapiro, the organization’s president, previously ran Gracie Gracie; Rinoski serves on the board.

“When we formed Grace, we really wanted to create a coastal lifestyle store with a little bit of everything, from home furnishings and décor to women’s clothing, accessories, and jewelry,” said Rinoski, who previously had Cottage Lane a few blocks west on Main Street.

The two envisioned a woman, named Grace, to develop the store’s inventory, which runs from linens and bedding, candles and apothecary, books and stationery, to hand-knit sweaters, breezy dresses, hats and bags, and jewelry.

“You think of somebody who has her own grace and style, sort of follows the fashion but is not dictated by trends. She is still very classic and creates her own trend,” Rinoski said.

There’s even an occasional blog posting by Grace Girl on the store’s Web site. She muses about childhood memories of Christmas, offers clips of her favorite mood music, and reports on trips to New York City.

Grace, the store, caught on and had outgrown its space.

“We’ve always been known for having the latest and the most incredible selection of hair accessories,” Shapiro said, “and we didn’t have the ability to keep it that way in this store.”

Enter Style and Grace, at 30 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the front of long-standing Bay Styles Hair Salon that is run by Beverly Newburgh.

“It’s a fun concept,” Shapiro said. “You can go and get your hair done, have a day of beauty, shop for some great hair accessories and jewelry.”

The shop carries all the hair accessories previously at Grace, plus a line of handbags, a line of jewelry priced for every pocketbook, hats, and scarves. The two businesses are run separately, so a customer can shop or come in for a hair appointment or do both.

“It’s been a great relationship,” Shapiro said. “Beverly’s already getting new walk-in customers from our presence, and her clients are becoming ours.”

For the Love of Dogs

Avid dog lovers, the two women always included a specialty section for the coastal pet in Grace. As things got tight, they decided the pet products didn’t fit.

“People kept coming in and calling for things for their pets, so we had to keep going into storage to bring them back out. It took on a life of its own,” Shapiro said.

Must Love Dogs opened in early November at 44 Pennsylvania Avenue, near Niantic Plumbing, another downtown institution.

“We look for and carry a lot of hard-to-find, specialty items for pets,” said Shapiro, who frequents trade shows and seeks to stay on top of new products. The top three for dogs are clothing, both functional and fun, toys, and natural food treats.

“People are very concerned with what their dogs are eating and as dog-owners, we are too,” she said. “Every dog food item the store stocks is human grade and we try to bring in organic pet foods when possible.”

The shop stocks a lot of its products from New England sources and the two owners pride themselves in quick response time for special requests. The doggy treats are freshly baked, made to order.

Two and four-legged customers are welcomed. On opening day, Shapiro said, there were as many dogs as people in the shop.

“Dogs are awesome customers. They’re always happy,” laughed Shapiro. “After they come in once,
owners can’t walk by without bringing them in. The dogs put their paws on the counter and look at you face-to-face.”

The three retail establishments are within easy walking distance along Pennsylvania Avenue, which is handy for customers and staff.

“It’s beginning to look a bit like New York,” joked Shapiro. “You’ll see us rolling racks of products and display pieces across the street.”

“Grace has been great for both of us, having a partnership and bringing together separate customers that we both have,” Rinoski said. “It’s really been a great experience developing these new businesses.”

“We always have our eyes open for new opportunities,” added Shapiro.

For current hours and newest products, go to www.gracestores.com and www.mustlovedogs.ct.com. Both sites offer online shopping, too.

Old Lyme's Sylvia Marsh: One Sharp Cookie Shapes a Family Tradition

2009-01-07T19:57:00Z

Special to the Lyme Times, December 25, 2008. See Patti O'Shaughnessy's photos of Sylvia and her works of art.

Old Lyme’s Sylvia Marsh is known for her water colors of flowers and coastal life. The 96-year-old, long-standing Lyme Art Association member has never been at a loss for subject matter. Or painting canvases.

Marsh, a Brit who first came to Connecticut on the heels of the Hurricane of 1938, still retains her British citizenship. This time of year, she can be found in her kitchen, decorating hundreds of cookies.

Not your typical colored sprinkles and frosting swirls. These are hand painted masterpieces, from Impressionist style Santas, angels and Christmas trees to whimsical foxes, tropical trees and a circus elephant, all too unique and beautiful to eat.

Sugar cookie dough is rolled and cut into shapes, baked and coated with white boiled frosting that sets up into a hard patina. Kitchen plates become palettes for dabs of food coloring paste that turns into varying hues and shades as Sylvia mixes the colors or dips her fine paint brushes into water.

The tradition has gone on at least 30 years, according to Jane Marsh, Sylvia’s daughter, a local attorney, who literally is up to her elbows in cookie dough. Identical twin sister Elizabeth, who works for Companions and Homemakers, paints a few early each morning. Jane’s 21-year-old daughter, Inglis, trains home from Boston on weekends to help out, too.

“Mummy’s always given things that she’s made, little baskets of this and that to everyone. It’s become a big production in the last ten years,” said Jane, a talented cookie painter, too. The women will paint about 400 cookies this year, plus make shortbread, chocolate chip cookies, British pecan candies and brownies, assembling all in about 40 baskets for family and friends.

The Marsh family home, Windy Crest, on Old Shoreline Road, becomes its own winter artists colony as family and friends stop by to see Sylvia’s creations and help paint a few.

Still sharp as a tack, but not able to speak so quickly, Sylvia’s wit shows in a memoir she painstaking hand wrote earlier this year. Typed up, printed and bound, it includes some of her paintings and old family photos. Sylvia notes in the forward that Grace Ella Muriel Brand, Recollections was supposed to be about her mother. But it’s a rich recounting of Sylvia’s youth, as well as family history.

Sylvia, who was two years old when World War I broke out, recounts what she was told of pre-war life and her memories of post-war England as families of all classes and sizes struggled. Her mother, raised an only child by a Navy man after his young wife died of TB, had an artistic flair. She took Sylvia into the woods to paint watercolors of bluebells blooming. Sylvia’s father became an Army chaplain during the war.

Sylvia had three sisters and two brothers, was brought up in a vicarage and attended Convent schools. An invitation from the Beardsley family, owners of the 1680-built house at One Sill Lane in Old Lyme, the Peck Tavern, brought her here in 1938.

Back in England, she married Austin Beardsley. The young couple sped back to America on the Queen Mary Two in the fall of 1939. Sylvia recalls how the ship’s captain announced England had declared war on Germany. The ship stalled in thick fog on the Grand Banks. Despite glimpses of destroyers, nothing was said about the Royal Navy escort. The Germans had torpedoed a slower passenger ship on a similar crossing.

In Old Lyme, Sylvia met Harry Hoffman, Will Howe Foote and other members of the Old Lyme Art Colony. She had two sons, Peter and Tim, but the marriage ended.

In 1950, Sylvia married E. Lea Marsh, a prominent lawyer. They set up family life at Pioneer Farm at Mile Creek, a working dairy farm, with her two sons, Lea’s daughter Carol and son Teddy, and had Elizabeth and Jane. The family moved to Windy Crest in 1958.

A pillar of the Old Lyme Republican Party, Marsh was elected to the Connecticut legislature in the 1930s and became House Speaker in the 1940s. He practiced law until his death in 1996. Jane joined him after graduation and continues her practice in Deep River.

Sylvia continues to paint; her 2008 paintings of clusters of apples, peaches and rose blooms have been printed as note cards by Tia Smith of Essex. This year’s Christmas card is a deep blue watercolor of bare trees outlined against a full winter moon.

“She’s a kitchen table top painter, not an easel. The scenes outside the kitchen window have been painted millions of times,” said Jane. “I have never seen my mother sit and watch television, without a pen in her hand, whatever is on her lap is covered with doodles, faces she is looking at on the television or something she has seen somewhere. She’s got a great imagination and a photographic memory.”

On a recent wintry afternoon, Sylvia mesmerized a cluster of young girls, delicately mixing colors to paint a portrait of one of them on a cookie.

Despite their beauty, Jane says the creators want people to eat the cookies.

“If you eat them, you are ensuring that we’ll be around another you to paint you another one,” she laughed. “It’s like an omen.”