Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival - July Newsletter Edition

Summer weather and summer trips have filled my life the past month. We enjoyed a trip to the Oregon Coast (blog entry coming soon), a crazy lightning storm, the amazing display of colors in our garden, lots of eating outdoors, swimming at the lake, and counting bees in the garden.

Summer as your children get older changes. The rhythm is different and I have found such satisfaction in my gardening and bird watching. There is time to read in the evenings as the sun sets slowly over the landscape. There are far fewer Popsicles being consumed and lots more Gatorade in the fridge as the boys take on new sports like soccer and volleyball with friends, mountain biking, running, and Hacky Sack.

On our camping trip I found that my boys were still happy to walk along the beach with me looking for pretty rocks and watching for marine life in the tidepools. They scooped up sand for me to look at as we compared each beach's unique sand. Nature study is not formal in our family anymore....it is casual and comfortable. We make observations, we make comparisons, we try to notice details, we read signs and books and displays when we travel, and we learn more every time we but forth the effort.

Thank you to all the families that sent in entries for this edition of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. It is always one of the highlights of my month to get to put this entry together after reading all the entries. I appreciate your time and effort to make this carnival a success. 



Summer Pond - Turtles and Pondweed
Robin from Academia has submitted her post: Bike Ride to The Pond.  They rode bikes to their pond and she was able to capture some interesting pond life. Love the damselfly!

Kristin from Broom and Crown put together their Pond Study for the carnival. What a perfect summer pond day they had with insects, animal tracks, and so much more. She also includes a great example of a younger child's journal.  You can also read about another day they had at the Madrona Marsh. They are taking advantage of their local nature center this summer!


Summer Weather
Shirley Ann from Under An English Sky shares her entry: the Great British Weather. What a great entry to show how their summer weather is unique to their part of the world. I learned a few things too!

Summer Butterfly Study
Tricia from Hodgepodge shares the account of their summer butterfly story: The Marvel of the Butterfly Cycle.  I agree with her and know that reading about this in a book does not even come close to comparing with watching the life cycle in person. Thank you so much for sharing your family's study.

Cristy from Crafty Cristy recorded and submits for your enjoyment: Studying the Life Cycle of the Fritillary Butterfly for this edition of the carnival. They discovered eggs and caterpillars in their own butterfly garden.

Heidi from Home Schoolroom writes about what she calls Mesmerized by Monarch Metamorphosis. This mama went above and beyond to find the caterpillars, keep them fed with milkweed leaves, and then take a time lapse for us all to see of the caterpillar's change into a chrysalis. What a jewel! You don't want to miss sharing this one with your children.


Potpourri
Jennifer from Royal Little Lambs tells carnival readers about their Hummingbird Study. They have a variety to observe and they are making the most of it..complete with notebook pages for their nature journals.

Wendy from Loving Learning submits: Foraging for Fungi.  Their family went on a guided fungus hike and learned more about their local specimens. I enjoyed reading about this South African nature study!

Shirley Ann from Under An English Sky has written a wonderful entry: Cuckoo Spit, Froghoppers, and Other Things.  This is such a wonderful entry showing a nature walk they took with a friend...and ended up getting soaked in the rain.

Kristin from Broom and Crown shares their skunk study: My Lil Stinkers. Her girls really enjoyed learning more about this creature that we all hope not to see up close.

Zonnah from Zonnah's Addictions shows us how they jumped back in with the Outdoor Hour Challenge: We Are Back. Looks like they are using the newsletter grid to have a hot summer afternoon of outside activities. 


Catherine from Grace to Abide writes about their Outdoor Hour Challenge #14 (Pressing Flowers). They are experiencing some cold, wet weather in their part of the UK but they have spent time in their garden and observing things as part of the OHC. Love their colorful flower garden!

Jen from Snowfall Academy submits their entry, Summer Tree Study, for you to enjoy. Don't miss reading her daughter's next stanza in her "My Tree in All the Seasons" poem. Excellent job.

Don't forget to share your blog entries with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. All entries done in August are eligible for the next edition. The deadline for entries is 8/30/12 and you can send them directly to me: harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com or submit them at the blog carnival site (link on the sidebar of my blog).

Also, the August Newsletter link will be in tomorrow's blog entry so make sure you are subscribed so you can download your copy as soon as possible. You will not want to miss this edition of the newsletter because it is going to explain the Outdoor Hour Challenge plans for the next year. I will be giving you a detailed account of how the newsletter, Friday nature study challenges, and some new facets of the OHC are going to all work together to bring the OHC to the next level.

To subscribe to the Handbook of Nature Study, you can enter your email in the box below and you will receive each blog entry and the link to the monthly newsletter in your email inbox. Thank you so much for reading and supporting this blog!

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Brixton Windmill

The Brixton windmill was built in 1862 for the milling of flour and wheat meal. It relied totally on wind power until 1862, as technology changed so did the operating of the mill. Water to steam engine to gas engine. After WWII as it lay abandoned plans to demolish it and build a block of flats were proposed and finally rejected. It has since undergone several restorations, the last one in 2011. Check their website to see what days it is open to visitors.


To help visitors to find the Olympic Venues see my new Olympic Venue map in the sidebar (just below the weather widget).

How to Make a Waxed Paper Pouch For Your Nature Journal or Notebook

I have been experimenting with a variety of ways of putting pressed flowers and leaves in my nature journal. The latest way is to use a small piece of waxed paper, folding it to make a pouch. The pouch can then be adhered to the nature journal page or notebook page

Steps for Making a Waxed Paper Pouch 
for Your Nature Journal or Notebook Page


Step 1: Cut a strip of waxed paper about 6 inches wide.


Step 2: Fold the two long edges and one small edge up about half an inch.


Step 3: Remove your pressed flower from your press. For instructions on how to make a flower press with cardboard, copier paper, and rubber bands, see my tutorial in this entry: How to Make a Plant Press.


Step 4: Place the pressed flower into the pouch with the folds of the waxed paper holding it in place.


Step 5: Fold the top flap over, crease the wax paper, and insert the flap behind the bottom fold. This will keep the flower from slipping out of the pouch and it will allow you to open the flap and view the pressed flower when desired.


Step 6: Adhere the pouch in your nature journal or onto your notebook page using double sided tape or a tape runner.

You can custom make the pouch to fit any size space you have in your nature journal. Adjust the amount of paper you start with and how large you fold the pouch. 

Adding pressed flowers and leaves to your nature journal gives them a more personal touch and will remind you of your time outdoors. Enjoy!

The Women's Cycling

The women's cycling on Sunday was a thrilling race. Here are the three medalists in the order they crossed the finishing line. Marianne Vos of the Netherlands won the gold, Lizzie Armistead the silver, and winning Great Britain's first medal of the game. The bronze went to Olga Zabelinskaya of Russia. The weather was not great with heavy rain, and many riders just had bad luck with so many punctures and several tumbles. It was a hard race, a well deserved win for these three.

George Tice and Gaslight Anthem

For this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, George Tice was commissioned to photograph the indie band Gaslight Anthem. It was a good pairing - the band considered to be the righteous heirs of the Springsteen tradition photographed by New Jersey's unofficial photographer laureate.

In there increasingly multi-media world that is the new reality of magazines, there is also a nice short video which you can see below which not only shows the shoot but presents a well edited selection of the pictures that Tice is so rightly renowned for

The Volunteers

A large part of making the Olympics successful is due to the work of the volunteers. Thousands of them all over the city are doing little things to help visitors find their way around, answering their queries, and generaly making them feel welcome. Shirley and Harry are a husband and wife team who work for Network Rail. They and their colleagues will work 19 days as volunteers during the period of the games. Yesterday, volunteers were handing out bottles of water and ice-creams. They took care of your rubbish (all the rubbish bins are gone for security purposes) helped visitors find the right train or onward connection. All this with a cheery smile. A big cheer to all the volunteers.

Singing Wall

No its not a new religion the wall does sing, just not on every button. It is addictive.
Next time you are at Kings Cross station give it a whirl.

20th Fox and Boy On A Dolphin --- Part Two

Trade unions got up in arms over so much overseas lensing. The A.F.L's Hollywood Film Council spread incendiary word, according to The New York Times, that a number of motion pictures being produced by American interests or with American financing are employing Communist union members in preference to members of anti-Communist unions. Dynamite charges these were, but times were desperate (October 1956 saw just over 12,000 US pic industry workers drawing a check, down 1,700 from the previous year).

Loren Sketches at Right by Jean Negulesco

Word got out that Fox planned to roadshow Boy On a Dolphin after producing same in 55mm, this traced to West Coast personnel, but met "with surprise" by New York's home office. The sales department said the plan was news to them, and so did Fox's technical division, reported Variety, one exec adding that it's doubtful many exhibitors would go for the extra cost. 20th had used 55mm for Carousel, 35mm release prints thereby benefiting from greater clarity. Fox tech wizard Earl Sponable acknowledged that 55mm would add somewhat to the quality of the picture, but it would mean really dressing up the house, with special sound presentation, etc. What went unsaid, but appeared clear enough, was that Boy On a Dolphin didn't merit anything like deluxe unveiling such as these rumors promised.

Director Negulesco Offers Up-Close Guidance to Sophia Loren

Jean Negulesco wrote a book wherein he colorfully described Boy On a Dolphin's production. Even from twenty year hindsight, it read as though the director had a distinct crush on Sophia Loren, judging by playful images of them together and drawings he made of the actress. Negulesco handed Loren Boy On a Dolphin with an intro scene where she emerges like a robust Aphrodite from the sea, a bountiful body-slam to US viewers, particularly male ones, who'd word-of-mouth and repeat attend Boy to $2.2 million in domestic rentals. Alan Ladd saw the attraction(s) and boiled, his wife further stoking flames of resentment. Not-knowing-better Loren told interviewers of mirth doing love scenes stood in a trench so as to avoid  dwarfing Ladd, relations between the two becoming cool as if on Arctic location.

Ad For Boy On A Dolphin's Hollywood First-Run

Ladd had surprised his crew by showing up ravaged for the wear of travel (he wouldn't fly, so passage was by ship, then train, clothing and other valuables stolen en route). His alcohol excess and weight gain obliged Negulesco, who never wanted Ladd in the first place, to cover with protective set-ups in addition to ones even-ing height vis-à-vis AL and SL. Compensation for all this was worth-the-trip Grecian backdrops that dominate Boy On a Dolphin, interiors kept to a minimum so that even when dialogue's dull, there's something at least to look at. Scenery alone might have justified 55mm and roadshowing had Boy come off a better movie. Still, there was enough to merit a New York Roxy open with on-stage performing by Louis Armstrong for a four week run begun April 19, 1957.

Fox had made what Variety called a "Wallopy" season preview called The Big Show, which among other things, announced fifty-five features for the coming year. The 110-minute trailer cost a quarter million and would run throughout the country to exhibitors, press, radio/TV reps, and "community leaders." 2,500 Fox stockholders attended the Roxy's morning premiere of The Big Show, and were invited to remain as guests for Boy On a Dolphin. 20th's grand gesture was seen as a frontal assault to competing television, but TV would win. Beyond The Big Show's push would come retrenchment and more lay-offs, salary cuts, and reduced production at Fox. Boy On a Dolphin, a hit for the Roxy, drooped elsewhere. From $3.3 million spent on the negative, $2.2 came back in domestic rentals, $2.4 foreign, with a final loss of $1.1 million.

From here came a half-century's (and counting) oblivion for a show that needed every inch of wide screens. Boy On a Dolphin went to NBC for new-minted Monday Night At The Movies, one of sixteen Fox titles leased to the network for two runs at $175,000 for each, the series to premiere February 4, 1963. Later in that decade (1968) came The American Cinema, a book by Andrew Sarris wherein he ranked directors, Boy On a Dolphin's helmsman among "Miscellany." Jean Negulesco's career can be divided into two periods labeled B.C. and A.C., or Before Cinemascope and After Cinemascope ... Everything After Cinemascope is completely worthless, said the critic. Sarris applied a finishing thrust thus: Negulesco's is the most dramatic case of directorial maladjustment in the fifties. Query to Sarris: Had he screened Boy On a Dolphin and others Negulesco wide-directed in their original Cinemascope format? To have done so would be at the least difficult in the late-60's when these films had long vacated theatres and were playing solely pan/scan on television. Boy On a Dolphin remains compromised in a transfer that is wide, but badly in need of remastering. What we occasionally see on TCM and The Fox Movie Channel does little credit to one of the 50's most striking travel folders. Suggestion to Screen Archives' Twilight Time DVD series ... give us Boy On a Dolphin on Blu-Ray with Hugo Friedhofer's fine score on an isolated track. There would be a must-have disc for 2012.

OHC More Nature Study Book #4 - Monarch Butterflies

 
More Nature Study Book #4
Summer Butterfly - Monarch Study

Inside Preparation Work:

• Read pages 305-310 (Lesson 71) in the Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Botsford Comstock really knew her insects so this section is rich with information for your Monarch butterfly study. She breaks the observation suggestions down into categories: The Butterfly, The Caterpillar, and The Chrysalis. Read through the information and highlight any ideas you plan to incorporate into your Monarch butterfly study.
• YouTube: Monarch Migration (Journey North and Monarch Watch): Part 1 and Part 2. For West Coast families, you can watch this YouTube of Monarchs overwintering in Pacific Grove, CA.
• Highly Recommend: Your Backyard The Life and Journey of the Amazing Monarch Butterfly -Read my review HERE. There is also a study guide that you read more about HERE.
• You may be interested in reading through or completing the Outdoor Hour Challenge for Milkweed along with this Monarch Butterfly Challenge.

Outdoor Hour Time:

• Take fifteen minutes outdoors for this challenge looking for Monarch butterflies (or any other insect). Remember that depending on your location and the time of year you may look for a chrysalis, a caterpillar, or the adult butterfly. Monarchs will be found near their food source of milkweed.
• Alternate activity: Acquire some milkweed seeds and plant some in your garden.
• Advanced study: If you live in an area that has monarch butterflies, consider joining Monarch Watch (link below) and participate in the Monarch tagging activity.

Follow-Up Activity:

• Butterflies always are exciting to observe. Use the suggestions from the Handbook of Nature Study lesson to take a closer look at any butterflies you find. If your child has more questions about insects, consider reading pages 294-300 in the Handbook of Nature Study. This general section on insects may give you some answers.
• Complete a nature journal entry. Advanced students can use a field guide to gather more facts or record the butterfly’s life cycle on a notebook page.
• Advanced study: Conduct additional research on the insect order– Lepidoptera. Use a field guide and complete two additional nature journal entries for insects in this order found in your backyard or local area.

Additional Links:

• Monarch Watch—Migration and Tagging
• Journey North—treasure of a website for you to use in preparation or to answer questions. The page with Kid’s Resources has links to slideshows and printable booklets that you can share with your children. 

Suggested Resources to view or print:

• Do You Know a Monarch When You See One?
• The Annual Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly
• When, Where, and How to Watch the Fall Migration
• Butterfly Wings

All the summer challenges for 2012 are included in the new More Nature Study Book #4 Summer Sizzle ebook. The challenges in the ebook are the same challenges that will post every Friday here on my blog. If you want to follow along with notebook pages and coloring pages, click over and learn more about the ebook.

The Party Begins

As the torch made its way through London yesterday so did accompanying entertainment. This morning at 08:12 bells will ring throughout the country. Olympic fever is high. The party begins.

Another Great Book

Just had thirty or so pages of Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Have Known Them by Frank Langella with chicken/dumplings at Hadley's. It would have been as easy to sit there all afternoon reading. The book arrived this morning and it'll be finished by nightfall. I found out about Langella's memoir atCinema Retro, that dependable signpost to best reading/viewing in addition to marvelous articles/reviews generated by moderator Lee Pfeiffer and staff members. Retro's coverage of Dropped Names steered me to Amazon and a bargain-priced copy for $13.98 (just pages at lunch were worth that). Part of reason for buying was longtime conviction that Frank Langella is about the best actor working. His are among select contemporary pics I try never to miss.

Yvonne Criss-Crossed Burt in 1948 --- She'd Do As Much for Frank in 1974

What Langella does here is profile the famous names he's encountered over a long career, these including many Golden-Agers headed for the barn. And it's not just ones you'd expect. FL does pungent looks-back at Gilbert Roland, Oliver Reed, Yvonne DeCarlo (a notably saucy section) --- he doesn't spare barbs, but Langella views each with understanding and appreciation for greatness they once had, whatever trying times were upon them by 70's and afterward occasion when the young actor worked with, and learned much, from said seasoned pros (the Jo Van Fleet reflect is sheer spun gold for Langella finding humor and pathos in a grand old actresses' approach toward the finish line). The Oliver Reed portion is both celebration of an all-time great immoderate and scathing indictment of 90's Hollywood waste and ego-excess, the movie being execrable Cutthroat Island, from which Reed was summarily removed after drunkenly suggesting what seemed an outrageous change to his character/cameo (to which you may say --- if only they'd used it).

This is Pret-Near the Oliver Reed That Frank Langella Encountered When They Met in 1995

The photo at left shows Langella with his yellow pad on the beach, proof enough for me that he, not a ghost, wrote this book. The perspective is just too individual for any stand-in to have penned. Each chapter is bite-sized, tasty, insightful. I laughed enough to attract Hadley's waitress attention (young Langella meets Bob Mitchum on The Wrath Of God --- expected howl-arity ensues). This is no casual star-tour, though. Langella observed these people with a laser. I don't wonder for the knowing and masterful performing he's done since the first thing I saw him in, a fairly wretched ABC-TV remake of The Mark Of Zorro in 1974 (which he covers nicely in Stars Dropped). Miraculous was Langella's portrayal of Richard Nixon in 2008's Frost/Nixon --- he makes the character perhaps more sympathetic than writing/directing intended --- made me sure enough root for Dick! Then there was Starting Out In The Evening (2007) where he was a J.D.Salinger'ish writer recluse. Frank Langella's at least as accomplished a scribe as actor, that amounting to considerable, with Names Dropped work of a hugely entertaining piece with the best this artist has given us.

English Decorative Ceilings at Crewe Hall

Illustration: Decorative ceiling of the Carved Parlour, Crewe Hall, England.

Crewe Hall is a Jacobean mansion located in Cheshire, England. It was originally built between 1615 and 1636, although restored, renovated and expanded over the generations. The hall is fortunately still standing, so many have been dismantled over the twentieth century, and although altered it is still considered one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. The three examples shown here are illustrations of the decorative ceilings at Crewe Hall, some of which are the original decoration produced for the house in the seventeenth century.

Decorative ceilings have always been popular from the earliest cultures right through until the end of the nineteenth century and in some cases into the twentieth. However, despite many of the examples that are readily available from so many different periods, it was not a decorative format that was limited to the wealthy. Although stucco ceilings specifically might well have been out of the financial reach of many that did not stop ceilings of the more financially restrained showing the love of decoration and pattern. Many of the smaller cottages of England for example show evidence of painted beams, rafters and ceilings, very often seen in carved wood or using a stencilled technique, giving lively  and colourful pattern work that followed the medieval fascination with floral tendrils, birds and even fantastical animals, much of it produced on an amateur scale and on an amateur budget.

Illustration: Decorative ceiling at Crewe Hall, England.

The ceilings of Crewe Hall are a fascinating glimpse of how far decorative art could be expanded in order to encompass all levels and surfaces of an interior. Although they may well not fit in with our own limited and constrained decorative palette, they do show much of what was considered normal for the vast length of the history of decoration, such as a high level of showmanship, a projection of perceived wealth, as well as an understanding of sophistication and belonging. Much of the history of the decorative arts has been about wealth and the showing of that wealth. However, there was also a whole level of the decorative arts that often seemed almost invisible compared to the projections the aristocracy and semi-aristocracy. These two groups of individuals although dominating society seemed often to have had the most fragile egos and were dominated themselves by a sometimes acute sense of insecurity.

As stated earlier, even the relatively financially poor or socially unconnected decorated their homes as best they could, and although this may well have served the same purpose as the wealthier individuals, a projection of status, wealth and sophistication, it also must surely have had at least an element of joy in the use of internal decoration for its own sake. That these forms of decorative art were often not commented on or critiqued, says perhaps much about the stratified snobbery of both decorative art in general and the critic specifically.

Illustration: Decorative ceiling at Crewe Hall, England.

In some respects, by concentrating our admiration on the decorative elements to be found only amongst the rich, we degrade and marginalise the decorative formats adopted, expanded and reimagined by the poorer elements of society, who, through much of human history including our own, were often the majority of the society and therefore the norm.

The nineteenth century Arts and Crafts movement in England tended to concentrate not only on the ideal of the craftsmanship of the ordinary artisan, but also of the decorative work that those artisans supplied, much of it being distributed through the working and lower middle classes, rather than the aristocracy. It is easy to see why the English Arts and Crafts movement quickly took on a political rather than purely decorative stance, with Socialism being at the heart of the movement with its celebration of the working man and woman and their contribution to the creative culture of England through generations of innovation and tradition. 

 Illustration: Carved wood ornament.

The irony of course was the fact that many in the English Arts and Crafts movement who celebrated the achievements of the ordinary working artisan were selling work produced in the same vein to the rich and powerful of England not to the ordinary citizens, an irony not lost on those intimately involved in the movement and an issue that still dogs the English craft world today.

Therefore, although the ceilings as well as interiors in general that were produced for the wealthy are extrordinarily beautiful and should be treasured as some of the finest workmanship produced during their respective decorative ages, the decorative details that can also be found in the more humble homes across England should also be celebrated as equally beautiful and treasured. After all, fine workmanship is fine workmanship and all adds to the celebration as a whole of English decoration, not just that supplied to the aristocracy. 

For anyone interested, there is a good Wikipedia site for Crewe Halland can be found here.

Further reading links: