By Pamela West-Finkle
I’m back!
If you’ve been in the library recently, you might have seen me back at the circulation desk as I returned to work on May 22nd. The new shoulder is coming along and I’m happy to be back serving my patrons and our visitors, but if you’re one of my taller patrons, don’t be surprised if I ask you to help me shelve a few books on the top shelf. I can’t even reach the top of my head!
A great thank you to our new library assistant, Jesslyn Cleary, for doing such a phenomenal job filling in for me, as well as to Tami Jaegel, for providing continued training and also holding down the fort, so to speak, in my absence. We have decided to keep Jesslyn on to help with some of the added workload we have taken on over the last two years, between opening up our circulation to the rest of the 40+ libraries in the Four County System and now, with the sad loss of Gloria Carlson, taking over many of the acquisitions and book processing duties.
Speaking of Gloria, if you weren’t able to attend her celebration of life and memorial service, it was beautiful! It was truly a fitting tribute to such an amazing woman and friend to the library. As the return of the hummingbirds was upon us shortly after, we all talked about how much she loved feeding the birds. On May 10th, I was sitting in my yard when suddenly a beautiful ruby throated hummingbird with a jet black head hovered in front of me for a number of seconds before flitting off. Perhaps it was Gloria saying hello!
Edible Landscape/Community Garden update:
As I’ve previously mentioned in earlier editions of the Gazette, and as you may have heard via town meetings or the Reporter, we are in the planning stages of re-envisioning our library landscape to become an edible landscape that anyone can benefit from.
Over the next year, we plan to involve the community in our consulting sessions, educate the local children about what we are doing in a series of summer workshops with local horticulture experts, and then create a climate-hardy crop of dwarf fruit trees, blueberry bushes, culinary and medicinal herbs, greens and salad fixings, pollinator and cutting flowers, and some easy-to-grow vegetables in raised beds, which will be built in late summer/early fall 2023.
The Andes Garden Club is providing volunteers for planting and maintaining the garden, and we will use grant money to pay a caretaker and purchase plants, supplies, and materials.
To help us make the best decisions about our approach and to help us create a sense of ownership for this shared vegetation space, we have enlisted some of the best experts in the Catskills to provide our summer workshops.
All Together Now! Summer Reading Program – Save the dates!
Wednesday, July 12th: 11:15 – 12:30 – Reimagining the Andes Library Landscape with Birgitta Brophy
Andes CROP students and area youth, ages 5-12, will have an opportunity to learn about environmental science, problem solving and landscape design utilizing the Andes Library property as a project site. Guided conversation and a walk
By Pamela West-Finkle
I’m back!
If you’ve been in the library recently, you might have seen me back at the circulation desk as I returned to work on May 22nd. The new shoulder is coming along and I’m happy to be back serving my patrons and our visitors, but if you’re one of my taller patrons, don’t be surprised if I ask you to help me shelve a few books on the top shelf. I can’t even reach the top of my head!
A great thank you to our new library assistant, Jesslyn Cleary, for doing such a phenomenal job filling in for me, as well as to Tami Jaegel, for providing continued training and also holding down the fort, so to speak, in my absence. We have decided to keep Jesslyn on to help with some of the added workload we have taken on over the last two years, between opening up our circulation to the rest of the 40+ libraries in the Four County System and now, with the sad loss of Gloria Carlson, taking over many of the acquisitions and book processing duties.
Speaking of Gloria, if you weren’t able to attend her celebration of life and memorial service, it was beautiful! It was truly a fitting tribute to such an amazing woman and friend to the library. As the return of the hummingbirds was upon us shortly after, we all talked about how much she loved feeding the birds. On May 10th, I was sitting in my yard when suddenly a beautiful ruby throated hummingbird with a jet black head hovered in front of me for a number of seconds before flitting off. Perhaps it was Gloria saying hello!
Edible Landscape/Community Garden update:
As I’ve previously mentioned in earlier editions of the Gazette, and as you may have heard via town meetings or the Reporter, we are in the planning stages of re-envisioning our library landscape to become an edible landscape that anyone can benefit from.
Over the next year, we plan to involve the community in our consulting sessions, educate the local children about what we are doing in a series of summer workshops with local horticulture experts, and then create a climate-hardy crop of dwarf fruit trees, blueberry bushes, culinary and medicinal herbs, greens and salad fixings, pollinator and cutting flowers, and some easy-to-grow vegetables in raised beds, which will be built in late summer/early fall 2023.
The Andes Garden Club is providing volunteers for planting and maintaining the garden, and we will use grant money to pay a caretaker and purchase plants, supplies, and materials.
To help us make the best decisions about our approach and to help us create a sense of ownership for this shared vegetation space, we have enlisted some of the best experts in the Catskills to provide our summer workshops.
All Together Now! Summer Reading Program – Save the dates!
Wednesday, July 12th: 11:15 – 12:30 – Reimagining the Andes Library Landscape with Birgitta Brophy
Andes CROP students and area youth, ages 5-12, will have an opportunity to learn about environmental science, problem solving and landscape design utilizing the Andes Library property as a project site. Guided conversation and a walk around the property plus the current interest in redesigning the library grounds will culminate in a rough design (or designs) on a scaled plan view drawing.
Birgitta Brophy, RLA, recently retired as an Associate Professor from SUNY Delhi, where she taught for 25 years in the Landscape Design & Management/Horticulture Program. Birgitta has also worked as a consultant on numerous community-based projects throughout the Catskill region with an emphasis on park and main street master plan designs.
Explore the history of growing food at home, modern food movements, and the easy-to-grow edibles you can incorporate into your landscape. We will discuss basic plant care and propagation techniques. Participants will receive seed-starting timelines and companion planting chats.
Carla Hegeman Crim is a Community Horticulture Specialist for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Delaware County. She has a Ph.D. in Plant Physiology from Virginia Tech (1999) and did a NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell (2000-2004). She oversees operations at Birdsong Farm Community Garden and runs the Delaware County Master Gardener Volunteer Program. She has been gardening for over 20 years and has a small flower farming operation at her home in Meredith. 
Wednesday, July 26th, 11:15 – 12:30 (K-3 first half, 4th-8th second half) – Plant and Tree Impressions and Encounters with Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower
In this program, Registered Nurse and Plant Medicine pioneer Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower will take her participants on a guided visual and sensory inspection of plants and trees around the library grounds to demonstrate other ways plants and trees are alive. Using Music of the Plants technology, an electric synthesizer that liberates plant frequencies into audible sounds, the children will interact with the plants while each plant responds playing its own unique music, in order to answer questions like “Can the plants smell? See? Hear? Feel? Taste? Do they communicate with each other? Do they have a brain?”
Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower, R.N., Plant Medicine Person, writer, gardener, Radical Wild-Crafter and Guide; is co-founder of Plant Pioneers, a human-plant relations collective.
Her Nature programs grow traditions that help weave humanity’s understanding that we are part of Nature as an interacting ecological whole.
Saturday, July 29th 11am Family Concert – Groovin’ in the Garden with Story Laurie McIntosh
Named “Best Children’s Perfomer” by Hudson Valley Magazine, our very own Story Laurie will entertain with songs and share some of her favorite garden stories from her critically acclaimed album “Groovin’ in the Garden”, produced by Dean Jones of Dog on Fleas. Get ready to buzz like bees, sing your hearts out about wiggly worms and homegrown tomatoes, and generally delight in the magic of gardens & the wondrous web of life. Concert will be held rain or shine, but weather permitting, in Bohlmann Park.
Laurie McIntosh (aka Story Laurie) is a storyteller, songwriter and singer—an enchanting entertainer who transports listeners of all ages to lands near and far with her delightful renditions of folk tales and vibrantly entertaining, socially conscious songs for kids and families. Since making her home in the Catskill Mountains nearly 20 years ago, Laurie has performed for audiences of all ages at schools, libraries, festivals and historical societies.~