I just added a poll on the sidebar of the Handbook of Nature Study blog and I would appreciate the Outdoor Hour Challenge participants popping over to answer the question about winter nature study.
I have a couple of ideas brewing in my head and I would really like to hear what direction everyone would like to go this winter.
Last year I kept the Outdoor Hour Challenges focused on a topic and posted those on Fridays. I added Winter Wednesday challenges using the supplemental book, Discover Nature in Winter.
I think I would like to go back to only having one challenge per week and I would like your input.
If you would vote in the poll and/or leave me a comment on the post, I would greatly appreciate your help.
To mark Halloween, the following post relates the story of the Hammersmith Ghost – one of the more famous ghost sightings of the nineteenth century. This case captured the public imagination and representations of the ghost through engravings (see left) and magic lantern shows, were repeatedly made throughout the 1800s.
During December 1803, an apparition dressed in white was reported as haunting the neighbourhood of Hammersmith, on the outskirts of London. It was said a locksmith had died of fright, and two other locals were close to death from the shock of seeing the ghost (which rumour had it, was the spirit of a local man who had committed suicide a year or so earlier).
The panic caused was so great that a group of young men took to patrolling the area looking for the ghost. On the evening of 3rd January 1804, James Smith, an Excise Officer, fuelled into action after an evening in a local pub, caught site of a pale dressed figure in Black Lion Lane. He called out for the figure to identify himself. When no answer came, he opened fire. When Smith came to the prone figure, he discovered he had shot not a ghost, but a local bricklayer, Thomas Milward, whose white working clothes had been misinterpreted by Smith as the garb of the Hammersmith Ghost.
When Smith realised he had killed a man, he gave himself up to the authorities. He was found guilty at the Old Baliley of mudering Milward and was sentenced to death (though in July 1804 he was pardoned and released).
But what of the Hammersmith Ghost? No doubt in remorse after the shooting of Thomas Milward, a local shoemaker named Graham appeared before the Hammermsith magistrates' office and confessed that he was the original ghost. The Morning Advertiser, dated 10th January 1804, reported his confession at the magistrates' office, with Graham stating he was angered that the apprentices at his shoemaking business had taken to frightening his children with ghost stories. To teach them a lesson, Graham wrapped a blanket around himself and appeared in front of the apprentices on their journey home... So causing the panic that would eventually result in the death of Thomas Milward.
(A full account of the Hammersmith Ghost – and a reproduction of the image shown above - is given in Owen Davies's The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)).
Chaney Does a Texas Carnival
I thought I was done with Halloween for this year till providence guided me to a trade account of beaten but unbowed Lon Chaney (The Lonster for those who revere him) dragging weary baggage to an El Paso pre-Halloween appearance circa October 1964. Junior’s a cautionary fable for all of us tempted to light up a Lucky or have that second snifter. He’s what happened to those who took career paths better left alone. I understand Lon began at plumbing and excelled at it. Lean times forced him into movies. He could barter Dad’s name for better money than was in fixing commodes. I always felt sorry for young Chaney and might even have taken up fishing had opportunity arisen to join the committed angler lakeside (Lon enjoyed best the simple pleasures in life). Texas hosts found Chaney's a rather sad, sweet face under the make-up as he joined celebrants at the Western Playground Amusement Park that October 17-18. Right now I’m making personal appearances to see where my ego belongs, said easy-to-like (their words) Lon. I want to find out if I’m an egomaniac or an introvert, and how the public feels about me. Yeah, that’s a quote. Chaney was 58 here. Wouldn’t he know by now? Maybe one of the carnys supplied pre-interview libation, for El Paso’s honored guest seized bully pulpit to sound off on what’s wrong with the whole horror movie business. Monsters should be entertaining without being ridiculous, said Chaney. "The Wolf Man" was a highly popular piece of celluloid. We didn’t clown it up. We worked at it sincerely and did it honestly. Perhaps wistfully, he’d add, The good old monster shows are still the mostpopular.
His "old monsters shows" served Lon best, for recent ones he’d done were little to brag on. 1964 had so far tendered Face Of The Screaming Werewolf and Withcraft(the latter released a month prior to his El Paso visit). I'd seen Werewolf at the Liberty (and remember thinking what a neat title that was to be appended to such a miserable film) with a thing called Curse Of The Stone Hand. Both were out of Mexico and plenty dire. It would be interesting to know how many (or few) bookings this combo managed nationwide. Chaney had last done reasonably classy work in AIP’s The Haunted Palace, from late 1963. Otherwise, features amounted to short weeks with A.C. Lyles’ ongoing outreach to vintage westerns, where cast members likely spent breaks talking of how good movies used to be. Maybe that inspired Lon to look back longingly on days past, even as he claimed to receive twice as much mail from 1964 fans. His manager in tow claimed 467 film credits for the actor and declared it a world’s record. Chaney himself added that that he’d been in show business almost sixty years … which, according to the doubtful trade scribe, means he was wowin’ ‘em in the front rows from his cradle. Still, it was a sympathetic piece. At least Lon was out there pitching, and not too proud to reveal the title of his latest, Cannibal Orgy: The Weirdest Story Ever Told, which emerged finally as Spider Baby in 1968.
All of which reminds me ofGeorge Reeves sawdust tours too lightly attended in the late fifties. If only we’d all been there to cheer Lon and tell him how great he’d always been! Reporting from El Paso acknowledged he was the idol of the younger set. They didn’t know the half of it. I’d have flipped had Lon Chaney showed up for one of our mangy carnivals, but all we got were bumper cars and caramel apples good for AM belly aches. Were there fan-snapped fotos made of Chaney that October? I’ll bet a few El Paso attics hold mementos we’d all like to see. For myself, late Lon sightings would be limited to Screaming Werewolves and what was left of him in Witchcraft, and yes, I too was sympathetic. His Larry Talbot became a friend for life thanks to stations close around liberally playing The Wolf Man during the sixties. He was handsome then in a doomed kind of way. What happened to Larry seemed almost to be happening to Lon as well. Something about those sad eyes bespoke hardship on screen and off. His might have been the first movie character that made me want to cry for him. Things start off well for Larry, then go horribly amiss. Sort of like Chaney’s career at Universal. ThoseInner Sanctums to come were like one man’s journey through disillusion and beyond. Who’d have expected Chaney to become such a fine character actor in the fifties? You wish he could have held things together a little longer, but Lon was game all the way to a 1973 end, and there’s plenty in that to admire for El Paso fans grown up and the rest of us who missed out on a Halloween treat to surpass any we’ll get in 2009 bags.
London really embraces Halloween. Walking down the street after dark you can find yourself chatting with anything from a witch to a werewolf, usually covered in enough fake blood to make a butcher squeamish. Last night I tracked down these creatures in Parliament Square outside Westminster, which they call "Zombie Parliament - Home of our Undead Democracy".
No... they are not there to meet up with relatives. They were there as part of the Vote for a Change campaign, which is calling for more accountable parliament with a referendum on the voting system.
In the New Year, the Wellcome Library's recently acquired collection of notecards from the archive of Sir Bernard Spilsbury will be available online.
The digital images will be accessible via the Archives and Manuscripts catalogue records as PDFs. Images can be downloaded and reused under a Creative Commons license.
Please note: the notecards will be digitised in November and December 2009, and will be unavailable for consultation in the Library until 4 January 2010.
9 November 1989 is probably one of the most significant moments in 20th century history. I remember watching the television as the events unfolded. I was ten years old and even then, I knew that I was watching history, and so 20 years later, across Europe, Germany and Berlin, well really the world, this significant moment is being remembered.
Art often has the ability to preserves historic moments from falling into oblivion. Artists from six European countries- from both former East and West- underline through their participation the international importance of the fall of the Berlin wall up to this day through a new show opening at Galerie Artodrome in Berlin on 7 November. The historic event is explored from different angles. It is seen as chance in general, but also an opportunity to investigate new horizons in the literal sense, as a metaphor for human psychosis, as the beginning of radical globalization and great disillusionment. Until now, one former artist from East Berlin says, the wall has existing in people’s minds. Thus the exhibition also is directed against prejudice and intolerance.
Participating artists in Berlin|| Berlin- 20 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall include : Christine Aebischer, Anton Buri, Steffi Deparade-Becker, Cornelia Groh, Constance Güttler, Doortje Kockelkorn, Gerlinde Kosina, Christine Kunkler, Heidi Leitner, Emma Lenzi, Manuel Lunardi, Hanna Scheriau, Martina Schettina, Lieselotte Schwennesen, Christine Siegrist, Markus Wanger.
For further information on the show and artists visit: www.artodrome.de Berlin|| Berlin- 20 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall opens 7 November 2009 at Galerie Artodrome, Berlin.
Image (c) the artists Anton BuriDer Traum vom goldenen Westen 160 x200cm, 2009 Renée König, 9. November 1989- Moment der Grenzöffnung, 100 x 70, Gouache und Kreide auf Originalzeitung , 2009 Lieselotte Schwennesen, Grenzenlos, 120 x 140 cm, Öl Collage mit Zement, Wachs, Blech, Stoff, Original-Plomben von der Grenzstation Boizenburg auf Leinwand, 2009
For anyone who missed it, here are Jay Z & Alicia Keys performing "Empire State Of Mind" before last night's Game 2 in the World Series at Yankee Stadium. The ball players expressions are priceless - a mixture of bemusement and enjoyment! And it did the trick for the New York Yankees who went on to win the game 3 -1 to tie the series at 1 -1.
The Outdoor Hour Challenge this week is to learn about squirrels. During autumn, squirrels are still very active gathering their stash of food. This challenge was originally posted as Challenge #45 and we only had a dozen or so people share links. I think that means that there are a lot of you who could still complete this challenge during our Autumn Series.
Please Note: If you do not have squirrels to observe, pick another mammal in your local area that you can learn about. Squirrels are rodents so you could choose a muskrat, a mouse, a woodchuck, or a chipmunk from the Handbook of Nature Study and still have a great time learning about a mammal that you have locally.
Here are the videos I shared in the original challenge to get your children interested in squirrels. The first one shows the squirrel's fantastic physical abilities. You will need to click over to my blog to actually view the videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWU0bfo-bSY
Outdoor Hour Challenge Autumn Series #6 Squirrels (Formerly Challenge#45) Inside Preparation Work Read pages 233-237 in the Handbook of Nature Study. Use your highlighter to mark the sections with facts you can share with your children. There are plenty of observation suggestions in Lesson 57 on pages 236 and 237. Keep these ideas in mind as you take your nature walk this week.
“The squirrel’s legs are short because he is essentially a climber rather than a runner; the hips are very strong, which insures his power as a jumper, and his leaps are truly remarkable.”
“The squirrel has two pairs of gnawing teeth which are very long and strong, as in all rodents, and he needs to keep busy gnawing hard things with them, or they will grow so long that he cannot use them at all and will starve to death.”
“During the winter, the red squirrel does not remain at home except in the coldest weather, when he lies cozily with his tail wrapped around him like a fur neck-piece to keep him warm.” Handbook of Nature Study, pages 234 and 235
Outdoor Hour Time Spend 10-15 minutes outdoors on a nature walk. As you walk, discuss where you might find a squirrel in your neighborhood. Remind your child where a squirrel lives and what it eats. If you know there is a squirrel in your yard or at your local park, take along some nuts or seeds to put out and observe the squirrel eating. Never feed a squirrel by hand. Don’t worry if you cannot observe a squirrel this week but rather enjoy your outdoor time during this season and observe any mammals that you come into contact with during your walk.
Follow-Up Activity For your nature journal you can write out your observations from your squirrel watching. Use the observation suggestions for ideas to include in your entry: describe the color of the fur, how the eyes are placed, what do the paws look like, how does the squirrel climb up and down a tree, describe the sound the squirrel makes as he expresses himself, record the tracks that the squirrel makes in the snow.
I have created a notebook page for you to use with your study this week and it is listed in the free download section of my sidebar.
If you would like to complete a lapbook on mammals, my daughter over at Hearts and Trees has one available for the reasonable price of $3.95: Hearts and Trees Mammals Lapbook Kit
She also has a Weather Lapbook Kit available that I forgot to mention last week for the weather study. It is also very reasonably priced at $2.95 and will take you and your children more deeply into a study of the weather. Hearts and Trees Weather Lapbook Kit
If you order a kit, be a little patient. Amanda has just moved to a place where she does not have internet access and it might take a day or two for her to answer your email and get the PDF to you.
Do not forget that you can always catch up on the Autumn Series Challenges over on my Squidoo Lens. I periodically add additional resources and suggestions for related art and music study using the Squidoo Lens.
Please come back and share your link on Mr. Linky. The Autumn Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges is such a great community and everyone loves to see what the other families are doing for their study. Thanks for your participation.
Peggy Brown approaches textile art from the perspective of a watercolour artist. She produces fine art painting on both paper and fabric and is able to drift between the two mediums without the usual barriers that are often thrown up between textile and fine art painting.
As far as textiles are concerned, Brown applies watercolour paint on to white fabric and then builds up layers of intensity of colour and texture as the mood takes her. These painted fabric pieces are then used within a built up collage composition. She also regularly uses paper within the composition as well as fabric, paper giving a different textural quality to that of the fabric.
Illustration: Peggy Brown. Another Form.
Interestingly Brown uses the organic and free flowing quality of the watercolour paint to emphasise that very fact, that water is both free and fluid in its seemingly random journey across both fabric and paper. However, she also manages to give this free flowing quality an element of containment. All the pieces shown in this article have at least one area of the composition, sometimes the majority and sometimes a small fraction that features an angular bordered off area. In the piece entitled Echoes for example, it is difficult to judge whether that free flowing element of the watercolour medium, is flowing into the ordered geometric area in order to obliterate it, or in fact retreating in order to make room for a very different element.
Illustration: Peggy Brown. Echoes.
The free form coming up hard against the contained is an interesting and clever concept. To use both the image of the free and seemingly independent organic flow of a natural element like water and the obvious constraints brought about by the use of a human right angle throws up some interesting questions and observations about the world we inhabit. It is this uneasy juxtaposition that now seems to dominate how we see the planet, but is also part of the complexity of our relationship with nature. It is inevitably up to the individual as to how this unlikely relationship between the organic and the artificial construct is interpreted.
Illustration: Peggy Brown. Collaboration II.
By balancing the allure between both the independence that is summed up in the element of free flowing water and the security that can be obtained from self containment, Brown has produced work that reflects who we are, who we want to be, and perhaps who we will never be.
Peggy Browns work, both fine art paintings and textiles, have been seen across the US in various exhibitions. Her work can also be seen in a number of public and corporate institutions including universities, banks, museums and art centres. She also has a comprehensive website with a much wider selection of her work on show. The website can be found here.
All images were used with the kind permission of the artist.
On 26th November, author Lydia Syson will give a talk in the Wellcome Library on James Graham, the controversial eighteenth century healer, widely regarded as the world's first sex therapist and subject of Lydia's recent book, Doctor of Love: James Graham and his Celestial Bed (2008).
This is the latest in our strand of evening events, held in our Reading Room, which explore how authors have drawn on the resources of the Wellcome Library to inspire and inform their writing.
The talk is free and open to all, though places must be booked in advance. Booking opens at 2pm today, 29 October. More details can be found on the Wellcome Collection website.
I don't know how I missed this one. But seeing as this is turning out to be the week of The Year in Pictures "Believe It Or Not" edition, here is a photograph that from all accounts I've read is not a fake.
Melissa and Jackson Brandt had set the auto-timer on their camera while posing by Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park in Canada. Just as the shutter was about to click, the squirrel popped up in the foreground, becoming yet another unwitting star of the internet.
According to Melissa: "We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot." The picture was submitted to the website of National Geographic magazine and from there began to make its way round the world.
The couple appeared on The Today Show where Matt Lauer grilled them over the picture's authenticity, but after further investigation he apologized and declared he was satisfied that the picture was real and un-doctored.
Over the past few years, there’s been a particular emphasis on digital light installations. I come to expect now, every year when the clocks go back, to see a city, bridge or cathedral illuminated. It’s by no way shape or form old hat; in fact, these light installations give us new perspectives on our cities and play with the old and the new.
The latest addition to this new tradition is Great Street Games created by digital artists KMA, which is simultaneously appearing in Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Actually, we featured NVA a few years ago in "Outside the Cube", CLICK HERE to read the article.
Projected light and thermal-imaging technology are used to create jaw-dropping interactive playing arenas in which human movement triggers spectacular light effects. The physical movements of players determine the outcome of the games, which will run on ten-minute cycles. Participants develop their game-playing skills as they progress through a number of levels to help their area to victory or to simply have fun.
Audiences in each of the three locations can take part in the games, which are played on ‘courts’ created by projected light; each court comprising a central playing area and two zones representing the other two locations. Balls of light appear from the centre of each court – these projected images can be moved by players physically ‘touching’ them. The aim of the first game is for each location to gain points by moving as many balls as possible to the other locations.
Games last 90 seconds and 5 games make a series – through which the games increase in complexity as players become more familiar with the rules. The town or city with the most points at the end wins. KMA’s mission is to apply leading digital innovation to large-scale live environments in order to expand the audiences’ experience of the work beyond the physical environment in which it is presented.
Great Street Games will take place in Baltic Square, Gateshead, Centre Square, Middlesbrough and The Old Fire Station, Sunderland from 29th October – 1st November 2009, 17.30 until late. (Part of the Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme)
Billy's heart in Bow Cemetery was one of many in this style grouped together. Is this significant? Was it Victorian fashion or are they part of group who died in similar circumstances? Any locals know the answer?
I don't know why but I thought that Halloween was an American invention. But no, it's origins go back further than that. Back with the Celts a couple of thousand years ago. Samhuinn (pronounced.. sah'win) marked the end of summer or the beginning of winter. The cows all had to be brought indoors. The ghosts of the dead were all a bit cold so were hanging about. Hence a good idea to leave them some food and do whatever was necessary to keep them happy.
So I hope Billy is resting happily under the trees in their red and gold autumn robes.
The parks in London are just magnificent at the moment. It is tempting to bring you an autumn image every day. It wont be long before there are no leaves, no colour and the beautiful light has disappeared.
The Wellcome Library Blog was born a year ago today. On that day, a small group of staff at the Library decided to try to bring our audiences closer to the holdings and work of the Library in an engaging, personal, but professional way. Drawing on the natural enthusiasm and interests of the Library's staff, a blog would, we hoped, allow us to achieve this.
As a result, Library staff have in the past 12 months waxed lyrical about the Library's collections in the areas of cataloguing and digitisation projects, new accessions, and new discoveries about existing items in the collections; bragged about the use of Library material in the media, news topics about the Library's activities, and events and workshops going on at the Library or involving Library staff, or pontificated to the wider world about so many other areas of relevance to the Library and the History of Medicine that I can't possibly list them all here.
Our efforts haven't gone in vain: this blog has been visited over 20,000 times in the past year, and those visitors have viewed our pages over 40,000 times. People keep coming back again and again, with nearly 40% returning multiple times. We're truly global as well. We've attracted fingers at keyboards and eyes on screens in 139 countries, representing 78 languages.
We haven't done this completely on our own, however. A good proportion of traffic to our site was routed via several other blogs such as Wonders and Marvels and Morbid Anatomy who pick up on our stories and take them to new levels on a regular basis (thanks guys!). Twitter has also raised our profile by a significant margin - all those fans retweeting our stories for the delectation of their followers has spread the word to audiences we would never otherwise be able to reach.
So here's a big thank you to all the Library staff who have contributed to the blog, and an even bigger thank you to those who read it. We hope you will keep coming back for more!
For more specific information on the blog statistics over the past 12 months, see this staff presentation.
Note: The word cloud at the top of this page is based on the labels we use to tag individual posts.
More Halloween Harvest --- You'll Find Out
I’ve got sympathy for casual buyers/renters blundering into the path of Warner’s new Karloff and Lugosi DVD set. The box says they’re Horror Classics, though closer examination puts the lie to that. Between forums and disc reviews, these four titles have been parsed into molecules and fan conclusions are pretty near the same. I’m like others for wanting everything K and L did at Warners/RKO/Allied Artists (those catalogues owned by WB). Having descended to Zombies On Broadway and You’ll Find Out, it looks as though victory is ours. Best of this pack The Walking Dead plays Judas Goat in leading collector sheep to the slaughter of Frankenstein – 1970 and aforementioned two. I won’t try reader patience dismembering these when for surprising fact there’s much to like about You’ll Find Out and points of interest in all four. Kay Kyser has always interested me for being a North Carolina native and having returned here after making a clean break from show biz in 1950. The story was that Kyser declared he’d drop out upon realizing a first million from performing. Apparently, that’s just what he did. Unlike bandleaders lured back to spotlights from retirement, Kyser put paid to all aspects of music-making life and had zero desire to revisit his past. Major names having done that number in a handful. I’ve not forgotten one of Richard Lamparski’s books wherein Kay was tracked down to Chapel Hill by NC collector Milo Holt and subjected to an afternoon of old Kyser musicals unspooled in the family’s living room. The former headliner’s daughters had no interest in seeing them and … it seemed Kay and Georgia (his wife Georgia Carroll) watched only out of politeness. That was 1973. Kay Kyser died in 1985. His daughter has subsequently taken up a documentary project with aid from the North Carolina Museum Of Art. I’llwant to see that when it’s done.
The Bad Humor Men that livened up You’ll Find Out in 1940 wereBoris Karloff,Peter Lorre, andBela Lugosi. Their billing played musical chairs according to which credits or poster you consulted. Wide audiences preferred the three laughing at themselves. These were days when Mom, Dad, and kids attended movies together and nothing split tickets like a show too scary for fragile patronage. The FrankensteinsandDraculasweren’t worth a risk of sleepless nights for little ones. Horror films served best in isolation and done on small budgets, for they’d never broaden out to audiences so big as those listening weekly to Kay Kyser’s radio program. You’ll Find Out was the richest stage Karloff and Lugosi ever worked on together. Thousands would have been seeing them here for the first time. The likes of You’ll Find Out made K and L safer commodities, paving a way for spook spoofing to come and Karloff’s triumph of self-parody, Arsenic and Old Lace. I’m happy to see the pair amidst luxurious trappings wherein careful photography and elegant costuming display both at peaks of effectiveness (we fans are very protective of K and L’s status and dignity). It may be all in fun, but Lugosi here conducts a whale of a séance that I found creepier than many such episodes played straight amidst cheaper environs. Yes, you could say they’re "wasted," but there’s generally at least one of the three menacing Kyser and band throughout You’ll Find Out’s 97minutes, so I was not restless.
There’s a big dose of silly with every Kyser serving. Comedy became as much his shtick as music, and jesting band members were favorites with or minus instruments. Smoother than fire engine Spike Jones, the Kyser sound bounced from squirrelly to mellow depending on a given moment’s demand. Kay was immensely likeable and pretty good with dialogue (his a lilting drawl, just like mine). He didn't seem intimidated by powerhouse talent sharing sets and stages (a later co-star would be John Barrymore). You’ll Find Out opens with the band’s radio show in progress, and it’s here we glimpse how well Kyser worked his audience. The act plays at a disadvantage later as YFT repairs to its haunted house, a setting more congenial to triple threat of Karloff, Lugosi, and Lorre. What’s left essentially replays Cat and Canary nonsense with extended slippage through hidden panels and concealed rooms. Nowaday fans have loosed microscopes upon scenes where Kyser comes across King Kong’s spider and dinosaur models inexplicably strewn about cupboards, these being a handy short-cut for RKO set decorators who’d kept the things in storage since 1933. With help of freeze frames, the 2009 Kong brain trust has identified each and all of these miniatures. Working my own pause button was a singular highlight of You’ll Find Out, but the thing I want to know is, what happened to those wonderful artifacts? How long did they survive? It seems someone told me of a Desilu sales reel whereinDesi Arnaz strode amongst props at the RKO lot he and Lucy bought in the fifties, and there were Kong models still in evidence. That would be some fifteen years after You’ll Find Out. Were all these little monsters eventually thrown away, or did little monster offspring of lot personnel wind up taking them home for play toys?
We had a perfect morning for a weather study as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Autumn Series. The air was cold, the wind was blowing, and the leaves were raining down all around us. It *felt* like autumn. Note: This morning it was 38 degrees outside..that is cold.
There are still loads of leaves left on the sweet gum trees but as of this morning, the fall color is breaking through. Reds, oranges, burgundy, and every shade in between are all popping out on the trees.
Still a few insect friends in the flower garden.....look at his wings in the sun. Gorgeous and amazing. I think this is some kind of hoover fly.
We came back in to warm up with a bowl of soup and then our weather notebook pages were filled in and filed away in our nature journals.
I love having a specific subject for our nature study....it motivates me to spend time with the boys outdoors each week. Don't let anyone tell you that high school age boys do not enjoy nature study.
Detail of painting of Benjamin Jesty by Michael William Sharp, 1805. Wellcome Library no. 654136i
In 2006 the Wellcome Library repatriated from South Africa the portrait of Benjamin Jesty, a farmer who practised vaccination in Dorset in 1774, twenty-two years before Edward Jenner conducted his first experiment with vaccination. The portrait had been commissioned in honour of Jesty in 1805 by the Original Vaccine Pock Institution, and was painted from the life. Its whereabouts later became unknown to researchers, until in 2004 it was located by Patrick Pead in a farmhouse on a large estate in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
The portrait is now on loan from the Wellcome Library to Dorset County Museum as the centrepiece of the exhibition Benjamin Jesty: Dorset's Vaccination Pioneer at Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1XA. The exhibition was opened on 26 October 2009 by Professor Frances Gotch, Professor in Immunology at Imperial College, London, an authority on vaccines against AIDS, smallpox and other diseases, and a relative of Benjamin Jesty. It is open until the end of February 2010. Also on display in Dorchester are documents related to the painting, objects documenting the history of vaccination, and the museum's wide-ranging collection. There is an entrance charge: see Dorset County Museum's website for details.
The exhibition marks the 30th anniversary of the announcement on 26 October 1979 in Nairobi by Dr Halfdan Mahler of the World Health Organization that the global eradication of smallpox was complete. The opening of the exhibition also coincided with the UK government's roll-out of 4.4 million doses of H1N1 swine-flu vaccine to GPs for high-risk groups. Both events have their historical roots in Jesty's actions in Dorset in 1774. The remarkable story of Jesty's innovation is recounted in Patrick Pead's new book Benjamin Jesty: Dorset's vaccination pioneer (Chichester: Timefile Books, 2009, ISBN 9780955156113, email tfbooks@hotmail.co.uk).
Above: Amanda Paulley (the conservator who restored the the painting for the Wellcome Library), and Patrick Pead (the rediscoverer of the painting and author of the new book on Benjamin Jesty), with the portrait at the opening of the exhibition
I just added a poll on the sidebar of the Handbook of Nature Study blog and I would appreciate the Outdoor Hour Challenge participants popping over to answer the question about winter nature study.
