2018 Life Logs, Day 208—Art and Science Walk at Highfield Hall
Date: Friday, July 27, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 84, Low 69 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Fridays are free of any lessons or sports practice, so I have been thinking of them as Free Fridays. So, it is the one day of the week when the boys don’t have to be whisked out the door to swim lessons. They enjoy a slow start to the day, playing games and just relaxing.
But today we decided to take an afternoon walk at Highfield Fall with Heather and Jed.
Highfield Hall is an historic site here in Falmouth and serves as a cultural center for the community.
This summer they offer an Art and Science Walk. There are 12 science-related art pieces scattered around the Highfield Hall grounds to be discovered in a scavenger hunt manner. It was so special that Heather and Jed could join us and I think everyone enjoyed the walk. Heather, Ollie, and I really enjoyed a stainless steel sculpture named Pollinate. We imagined that we saw a very busy bee pollinating a flower. Then that flower became a bird. When Jonah joined us, he said he saw a dog. Then we moved to the cast bronze botanical fainting couch. The twenty-six letters of the alphabet that form the chair are each imprinted with plant textures.
For instance, A is for Acer (maple tree), B is for Begonia, and C is for Comptonia (sweetfern). Our favorite was K for Krasheninnikovia which is winterfat. None of us had any idea what that might me, but we all loved the word. I looked it up tonight and it is a type of amaranth. The special thing was that there was a map showing where many of the plants were located on the property. We visited the main garden where we enjoyed watching funnel web spiders
and just enjoyed the beauty.
We enjoyed seeing Pangea which is a glass mooring ball and as we walked in the woods adjacent to the property we discovered Migration, a terra cotta sculpture of migrating fish,
Tumblestar which was steel sea stars painted with acrylic paint where everyone did their best to look like a sea star,
and a rope main lift line from Alvin. It was biggest rope I have ever seen in my life and very heavy!
Finally the Chimes and Musical Instruments made of anodized aluminum. The boys, as well as Heather and Jed, loved playing the instruments which made such beautiful sounds.
Heather had to return to work and Jed headed home to work on the upstairs bathroom project. Sam went with Jed, but Ollie, Jonah, and I drove downtown get a shellfish permit so we can go clamming. That ended up to be a frustrating experience as I was told that I do not exist in the city data-base. Since I know that I pay excise tax and that I have bought permits for the beach and the city dump in the past few months, I found it very frustrating that they could not find my name today. I finally asked that they look under Mark’s name, and there I was a secondary listing. Since this has not been a problem in the past two years since Mark’s death, Jonah decided the problem arose when I moved in May. He might be right, but it is something I need to deal with through Motor Vehicles according the woman at City Hall. Frustrating! But we got the permit and traveled on to the French bakery to get a treat for the Goldstones to enjoy after dinner tonight or in the morning. And then before returning home, we went to Smitty’s to get an ice cream treat to celebrate the half-way point of summer. The Goldpebbles, plus myself and Heather and Jed, can hardly believe that this ten-week summer is half over. It has gone by so quickly, but in our celebration this afternoon, we pledged to enjoy each day as we move forward and to do our best to slow-down time.
