Finally! We can welcome the first day of fall next week. I am hoping for many clear, crisp days with chilly nights, a fire in my chimenea and a candle to complete the scene. While there are no promises on the weather, we can help your fall ambiance with our next crafternoon kit for adults: beeswax candles. It is super easy, as we have beeswax sheets that can be rolled around the wick. These kits will be available while they last in all of our branches on Friday, September 17. You may pick them up at the second floor reference desk at the Columbia library and near the service desks at our other branches.
There are instructions and supplies in your kit to make two small candles or one larger one. If you find the written instructions difficult, check out this video for more assistance. This is an inexpensive craft that can be done with friends and family and we have many more library resources if you want to expand your candle-making skills.
I started working at the Columbia branch of the Daniel Boone Regional library earlier this year. During the whirlwind of training I’ve learned about a variety of helpful, charming, surprising and useful resources of which I was previously unaware.Continue reading “A Few of My Favorite Things”
A Parsnip Swallowtail butterfly sips nectar from a coneflower. Photo credit Maggie_M
August is not usually considered a great time to be outside in Missouri. The weather is hot and humid. Except for a few wildflowers blooming many plants seem to give up this time of year and wait for cooler weather — not a bad strategy if you ask me. But this August, I’ve noticed a couple bright spots in my outside observations that are worth sharing
Just this morning I saw several species of large, vibrant butterflies on my morning dog walk. The Monarch butterflies are suddenly plentiful, floating around on their orange and black stained-glass wings. There were also Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), Parsnip Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) and Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) and many smaller species that I don’t know at a glance. Other insect life is plentiful as well. I frequently see a variety of wasps collecting spiders and other quarry as food for their larvae. An iridescent Rainbow Beetle (Phanaenusvindex), a type of dung beetle, lumbered across the road. The next generation of carpenter bees are emerging and buzzing around, as are many other species of bees (I need to learn more of these). A hawk moth, which imitates hummingbirds and forages during the day, darted between and hovered over flowers. My short walk up the road with my dogs was full of bright surprises. Continue reading “Bright Spots in August”
I was one of the thousands who adopted a dog during the pandemic. Our new dog, Freya, is an intelligent, sweet and motivated young German Shepherd mix. We had a bit of a bumpy ride integrating her into the family back in March 2020, so I had already been working with a local trainer on obedience when I saw “The Art of Training Your Dog, How to Gently Teach Good Behavior Using an E-Collar” by the Monks of New Skete and Marc Goldberg in our new books collection and knew that I wanted to check it out. Continue reading “Pandemic Dogs”
During these hot, steamy days of summer, we’re often stuck inside. I love to curl up with a good book or movie and a cold drink. I imagine many of you do as well. But sometimes we need a bit more stimulation, something to give the brain a bit of a workout. If that sounds appealing to you, you might want to give our digital escape room a try.
A digital escape room works very much like one of our in-person rooms in that you work to solve puzzles that will help you come up with the combinations for a variety of types of locks. In this newest digital escape room, Trapped in a Folk Tale, a visit to your local library leads you into a world of folk and fairy tales. Characters have gone missing from the stories and it’s up to you to help them get back to their worlds. Do you think you have what it takes to find all the clues?
This room is geared towards adults, but would be fine for ages 12 and up (maybe even younger if you have some little problem-solvers in your household). It’s something you can work on by yourself or you could pair up with members of your household to solve. Because it’s available online, you might even set up an escape room night with family or friends who live far away and have a little friendly competition to see who can escape first.
Give it a try and let us know if you were able to get out!
June is a time to remember the Stonewall Riots (or Stonewall Uprising/Stonewall Rebellion). In 1969, what started as an act of protest has become a way to continue to celebrate the LGBT+ Community and promote activism within the community.
As we are distant this year, with hope in the future for less distance Pride events, here are a few websites to hear and share LGBT Voices. Through these online resources, there are avenues for expression, stories, and creation of spaces to keep and protect voices that might otherwise be lost. Continue reading “LGBT+ Voices: Online Archives on Coming Out”
Blue skies, sunny days, open windows and flowers blooming everywhere: all of the bright and shiny celebrations of spring. This month’s Crafternoon-To-Go: Hanging Paper Stars project is a perfect way to increase spring’s glow. They’re super easy to make, and then you can hang it in a window — or anyplace you want. These are also great decorations for a summer gathering, a birthday party or another special occasion. Continue reading “Crafternoon-To-Go: Hanging Paper Stars”
In the United States, chess has seemingly been held at arm’s length, generally thought of as a game for rainy days and old men in parks. A few times in the past 170 years, interest has swelled to a more appropriate representation of the populace. Understandably, these surges usually coincide with the ascension of a prominent player to the world stage. Most notably, this happened when Bobby Fischer won the World Chess Championship in 1972. Continue reading “The New U.S. Chess Boom”
The Environmental Protection Agency explains what compost is and why it’s important: “Compost is organic material that can be added to soil to help plants grow. Food scraps and yard waste together currently make up more than 30 percent of what we throw away, and could be composted instead. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.” Continue reading “International Compost Awareness Week”
Have you ever taken a drive through the countryside in Mid-Missouri and were amazed at the vast lawns that people spend hours mowing, which otherwise could be used as arable land? Have you ever thought about the possibilities of “farming your yard,” even a small patch of land in a nice sunny spot on your front lawn? Did you know that most of the food that we enjoy invariably comes at a high fuel cost?
Each Earth Day we reflect on many different perspectives for how climate change can be mitigated. Some believe that producing a chemical cloud across the planet, thus reducing the heat of the sun, would be a good thing. Others feel that drastic policy measures on a global scale must be made. The Kyoto and Paris Accords, for instance, are a great examples of monolithic recommendations that would happen on a unfathomably large policy scale. However, what if the climate problems aren’t merely so fixable by pure policy? Perhaps they are also fixable though our attitudes toward human existence itself. Some thinkers believe that many of our environmentally destructive behaviors are actually created by globalism, manic consumerism and unfettered technological advances. Many writers, some of them quite obscure, others lost in the mists of time, have called for something slightly less futuristic to combat climate change: a return to localism. Continue reading “Earth Day and Localism”
the scene. While there are no promises on the weather, we can help your fall ambiance with our next crafternoon kit for adults: beeswax candles. It is super easy, as we have beeswax sheets that can be rolled around the wick. These kits will be available while they last in all of our branches on Friday, September 17. You may pick them up at the second floor reference desk at the Columbia library and near the service desks at our other branches.
