Green Day 4: Composting

Representatives of the Liberty Science Center, which is located about an hour away from us (in Jersey City), came out to Maplewood’s Green Day to give demonstrations on composting (among other things).

In order to compost, you need worms, right? So they brought some red wigglers along, and let the kids hold ‘em.

As you’d expect, the red wigglers wiggled a lot.

Because it was an educational science demonstration, they got into the science of how and why you need worms for composting.

There was even an anatomical model of the innards of an earthworm (shown above), which is quite honestly the thing that drew me over to the booth, because I am a giant nerd.

This concludes my coverage of Green Day! ‘Til next year.

Green Day 3: pH Testing

As a former chemistry minor and present Person Who Is Attracted To Colorful Shiny Objects… I had to go check out this pH display.

pH stands for “potential Hydrogen,” and it’s basically (forgive me, chemists) an approximation of how many hydrogen ions are in a liquid. Lots of hydrogen ions = low pH = acidic; few hydrogen ions = high pH = basic/ alkaline.

This particular company (Pur2o) was trying to sell us on the idea that water should be BASIC, not neutral, and set up this display to prove how acidic most bottled water is, particularly compared to their own very alkaline water. (I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that they used phenol red as their pH indicator.) Several fairgoers were skeptical about the underlying concept of this.

Green Day 2: Tiny Turtle

This is my favorite photo from the day.

Rizzo, of Rizzo’s Reptile Discovery, brought some tiny turtles to show off at Maplewood’s Green Day!

I was lucky enough to nab this shot while he was standing still to answer a question from the guy standing in front of me; otherwise, he was bobbing all over the place. Neither this photo nor his website give any indication of what a fun performer he is/was.

Green Day! (not the band.)

In honor of Earth Day, Maplewood’s Green Day Fair was today! It was a big celebration of all things environmentally friendly.

In addition to all the vendors and eco-friendly demonstrations, the main stage featured local bands, so fairgoers were serenaded with ongoing music.

This is MoodRing, a self-described jam band.

I’ll be showing a few more photos from the festival for the next few days, so stay tuned!

Le ballon vert

I could’ve sworn I read somewhere that Maplewood was designed to have an old European/ Bavarian flavor, but I didn’t write down the source of this tidbit, and now I can’t find it. I could be making things up.

Regardless, this is downtown Maplewood (with a mom and a kid and a green balloon). It’s cute.

Mural mural on the wall

To allow people to cross from one side of the tracks to the other (without getting run over), most local train stations have either an overpass or an underpass.

The underpasses are usually kept in decent condition; a few months ago, when the New Providence underpass was defaced with black-painted obscenities, the wall was repainted within a week. (I was impressed.)

Still, the beige concrete can leave something to be desired.

So artists in Maplewood decided to paint murals in their underpass!

There’s a prominent complaint painted there, asking why these murals are “art” but his graffiti is “illegal,” and I think it’s a good point.

The painted reponse? “Well come on down and help! “

Let’s bench some iron.

This lovely old New Jersey Transit bench, cast in iron (or steel? or…?), is part of Maplewood station.

P.S. Happy Labor Day!

Country clubbin’

The predecessor of the Maplewood Country Club [website] was the Maplewood Field Club.

This photo was taken around 1910.

I… it… it seems like a nice place to go. I don’t know much about country clubs. I’ve never been invited to one. My impression is that you go and play billiards or golf or something, and you wear fancy polo shirts, and have fancy catered dinner parties where you can talk to all your other country club friends.

Are you a member of a country club? Don’t hesitate to tell me what goes on in there.

 

Reference:

Durand-Hedden House and Garden Association. (1998). Images of America: Maplewood. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0752412795.

Maplewood Cinema

I took this last month. I don’t even know if these movies are still in theaters. Did you see them? Were they any good?

Schoolin’

Maplewood Middle School [website] was built in 1902.

Most suburbs around here doubled or tripled their populations between 1950 and 1960, which meant that pretty much all buildings were suddenly too small. Therefore, like pretty much all old-and-still-used buildings, Maplewood Middle School has had several additions.

…And there it is around 1940, before the additions and back when there weren’t quite so many trees in the way.

 

Reference:

Durand-Hedden House and Garden Association. (1998). Images of America: Maplewood. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC. ISBN 0752412795.