Happy International Moth Week, UESiders!!
And how better to celebrate this particular 7 days (in addition to festivities at Brooklyn’s 4th Street Garden noted below) than spotting a moth, butterfly, beetle… Even a lowly fly… Then reporting that sighting to the NYS Empire State Native Pollinator Survey!!
(There’s an on-going NYS Birding Challenge, too!!)
But there’s more than moths and birds to the coming week:
Thursday Evenings: Stamp Out Blindweed at Stuyvesant Cove!
Stuyvesant Cove Park, East River Esplanade at 23rd Street, 5-7pm
It is quite pretty-looking, but it’s a Mongolian invader vine and poor Stuyvesant Cove’s crawling with the stuff and needs our weed-pulling hands!! Drinks provided!! For full details… (We don’t want this stuff spreading northwards!!)
Friday, July 20th: NYSkies Astronomy Seminar
McBurney House, 125 West 14th Street between Sixth & Seventh, 6:30-9:30pm
Starmaster John Pasmino explains lunar occultation… An ‘occultation’ being the hiding or covering of a angularly small celestial object by a larger one. Wow!! Free!!
Saturday, July 21st: 82nd Street/St. Stephen’s Greenmarket
82nd Street between First and York, 9am–2pm
Compost & Clothes Collection, 9am–1pm
At their tables will be American Pride Seafood, Bread Alone, Ballard’s Honey, Sikking Flowers, Samascott, Rising Sun Beef, Old Mother Hubbert, Gajeski, Ale Wife, Hawthorne and Cherry Lane Farms!!
AND…
This week adds yet another great farmer to the 82nd Street Greenmarket family… Walnut Hill Farm… With their amazing pork charcuterie… i.e. salami, ham and sausages!! (“Perfect with the market’s many delicious cheeses,” Market Manager G advises! )
AND…
Market Manager G continues: “Get inspired with a spiralized dish for the demo, then grab the beginning of the field tomatoes, the start of corn, eggplant and beyond!!”
AND…
G continues, “Welcome back our resident Master Knife Sharpener!!!
AND…
Be sure to bring your own container for 82nd Street’s 2018 First Come-First Serve Compost Giveaway!!
Recycling totals 7/21: 61 lbs batteries; 22 lbs cords, corks, cellphones and cartridges; 10 compost bins; 41 bags of clothes!!
Excellent!!
Sunday, July 22nd: The 92nd Street Greenmarket
92nd Street at First Avenue, 9am-3pm
Compost Collection, 9 am-1pm
With us will be American Pride Seafood, Back to the Future Farm/Ole Mother Hubbert Milk, Central Bakery, Sikking Flowers, Consider Bardwell, Meredith’s Bakery, Norwich Meadows, Halal Pastures, Phillips, Sun Fed Beef/Maple Avenue Farms and NS Wager’s Cider Mill!!
Could well be that the Master Knife Sharpener will be with us, too!
Then there’s this wisdom from Market Manager G: “This Sunday, the star of the show is the grill! Get inspired by some grass fed burgers with a refreshing tzatziki. And don’t forget to get your frequent shopper card punched at the market info tent. (If you need one, we will happily give one to you to reward your dedication to one of your seasonal favorite markets!)”
Might even be another round of giveaway compost on hand!!
And for those who might have missed getting up close and personal with Halal’s epic zucchini:
One Epic Zucchini
Recycling totals: 7/15 – 24 lbs batteries, 8 lbs corks, cords, cellphones and cartridges; 4 compost bins
Holding firm at 4!!
Sunday, July 22nd: Moth Night 2018!
East 4th Street Community Garden, 179 East 4th Street between Caton Ave and Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, 8-10pm
High time we celebrated the butterfly’s lesser esteemed cousins, that humble but vital creature… The moth!! And who better to lead the festivities and appreciation of this 1400 member species than naturalist, writer and founding member of the NYC Butterfly Club, the great Don Riepe!! Co-sponsored by the Sierra Club. Free and it doesn’t get more family friendly!!
Sunday, July 22nd & Thursday, July 26th: Composting with the Green Park Gardeners
East River Esplanade at 62nd Street, Sunday: 10am-12pm, Thursday: 2-4pm
If there’s a moment of moral superiority greater than dropping off one’s compost, it’s the act of learning how to convert food scraps into plant-nourishing compost with one’s own – gloved – hands!! Add good company and… Well, you’ll thank yourself!! Just wear comfortable clothes you won’t mind getting dirty!! For more, give Composter Supremo Marise a call: 212-688-1632…
Wednesday, July 25th to Sunday, August 12th: Store Front – The Disappearing Face of New York Exhibition
Storefront Project Gallery, 70 Orchard Street
James and Karla Murray have pretty much dedicated their creative lives to preserving images of the ever-dwindling, one-of-a-kind, totally NYC-centric neighborhood business. Their focus this time out: Small businesses of the Lower East Side!! For more…
Sunday, July 29th: Paper Shredding on the Upper West Side
230 West 72nd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue, 10am-2pm
Safely shred and recycle up to 3 boxes of confidential documents, free! Sponsored by Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal. For more: 212-873-6368.
Tuesday, July 31st: Queenboro Bridge Area Committee Meeting
New York Blood Center, 310 East 67th Street, 6:30pm
Under discussion this time out: Continued conceptual planning for Andrew Haswell Green Phase 3: Transition from East Midtown Greenway through the former Sanitation Building to AHG Phase 2B (i.e. immediately south of the Aycock Pavilion). A propos of that scathing Center for an Urban Future’s report, plans for this 3-block segment of the Esplanade’s been under discussion/”design” since 2005!! Meanwhile, the disaster that is Tram Plaza is cited as a design reference!! Be smart of us citizens to make sure that this certain-to-be-costly thing gets done right!!
August already:
Friday, August 3rd: Wildflower Workshop with Swale
Swale at Nolan Park, Governors Island, 1-5pm
You know Swale… The barge that’s farm! Now it’s developed a landlubberly branch – as ever focused on food access, ecology and horticulture – on Governors Island and will be celebrating with classes in flower weaving, plant-based fabric dyes and the brewing of a special Swale tea!! $125. For complete details and tickets…
Tuesday, August 7th: Why Do Honey Bees Like Dirty Water Lecture
The Arsenal, 830 Fifth Avenue at 64th Street, 3rd floor, 6pm
Honey bee nutritional ecologist Rachael Bonoan answers the question of why when beekeepers give their bees a really nice, clean dish of water, those bees always go for really dirty water sources! Organized by the Honeybee Conservancy. Free but a $20 donation to aid Haitian beekeeping is suggested. For more and tickets…
Miscellany… Miscellaneous activism on deck first:
Ex-EPA head Scott Pruitt’s last act in office was rolling back regulations on new trucks fitted with old, most-polluting engines. Should you think this roll back should be rescinded...
Or that the Endangered Species Act should remain intact…
Or that NYState should ban plastic straws…
Give The Times on the Plum Island sale a read (if you’re not familiar) and should you object...
If you continue – and, yes, the poor things are still under attack – to believe the sage grouse deserves protection...
Effects of a warmer world on the Cedars of Lebanon…
Going brighter and lighter:
Who knew NYC’s testing a Meatless Monday school lunch program…?
Have to say, NYS’s artificial reef program is pretty impressive… (Scroll way down!)
And then:
In the We-Are-Not-Alone-But-Wish-It-Wasn’t-So Category: Yes, while our subway and much else in NYC’s crumbling, so’s the Taj Mahal...
The week in critters:
And the winners of the UK AKC photo competion are…
How to attract bats (They’re pollinators, too! We want ’em!!)…
Why did the snake cross the road…? (Scroll down.)
Then from the Hudson River Almanac:
7/2 – Manhattan: We braved the sweltering heat to check our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project’s sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25. The payoff included pots and traps brimming with fish. We counted nine tautog (275-310 mm), four oyster toadfish (50-205 mm), a lined sea horse (70 mm), and a northern pipefish (200 mm). Among the fish we also found two spider crabs (60 mm). – Henry Doering, Claire O’Loughlin, Paula Lavalle
lined seahorse
Remembering that it’s still Plastic Free July,
UGS
This Week at The Markets 