My View of Life on the Dock
Seaside Goldenrod for Bees and Butterflies
Come on over to the Sawyer Free Library Thursday night and learn how you can create a welcoming haven for birds, bees, and butterflies!
Plant Cosmos for the Birds, Bees, and Butterflies
Marsh Milkweed for the Butterflies and Bees
Male and Female Luna Moths
Zinnias for Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Bees, and Butterflies
Mexican Sunflower and Bee
Monarch and Hibiscus
On Cape Cod, that is. The south side of the Cape was about as stick-like as is Cape Ann, but the crocuses were coming up everywhere on the north side, with the yellow of a few daffodils peeking through, too. All along the marshes that border Rt. 6A, ospreys were constructing nests. From far across the marsh, I even caught a glimpse of a hawk fishing!
Crows investigating to see if the hawk left any remains behind
Osprey and Osprey Nests
Sandy Neck Lighthouse
Gentle twilight at Pebble Beach Sunday evening
Aside from Spring Peepers, is there a sound of the New England meadow that announces the arrival of spring more eloquently than that of the Red-winged Blackbird calling to his lady love? I think not. Happy Spring!
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Tomorrow, Monday, I’ll be giving my Pollinator Garden program in Osterville. Cape Cod friends please let me know if you would like to attend (kimsmithdesigns@hotmail.com). Tuesday I’ll be at the Nahant Country Club but I am most excited about giving the program at the Sawyer Free Library on Thursday evening. I hope to see you there!
Snowy April Fools Day scenes from Niles Beach, the Greasy Pole, City Hall, backshore, Bass Rocks, Good Harbor Beach, Fitz Henry Lane house, and more.
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See More Scenes Here Continue reading “SNOWY DAY TOUR OF GLOUCESTER”
Thank you friends for all your kind words for Rosie and our family. ❤
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Getting Over Rover: Why Our Grief Over a Dog Is So Intense
The barge has been hauled out onto Niles Beach to repair damage. Although in use for the environmental clean up underway at Gloucester Harbor, it is NOT filled with contaminated sand, but with new sand to replace the old sand. 
Our Rosie flying to heaven on tonight’s sundog.
Did you know that the schooner shown here in the Charles Movalli painting is none other than Gloucester’s Al Bezanson’s Green Dragon?
Saturday, April 1st, at 2pm author and art historian Judith Curtis is giving an illustrated lecture to accompany the “Charles Movalli: Cape Ann and Beyond” exhibit currently at the Cape Ann Museum. To reserve seating and read more about the event go to the museum’s website here.
Thanks to my friend Michelle for sharing this beautiful video today.
Mallards trying to negotiate ice has to be one of the funniest sights.
From an early morning walk over the weekend. Hurry Spring!
Will Lyman in Israel Horovitz’s Man in Snow Photo by Gary Ng
Boston Critics Recognize Gloucester Stage Company’s 2016 Season
Non-Profit Theater Receives Eight IRNE Award Nominations
The Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) recently announced the nominees for the 21st Annual IRNE Awards. Gloucester Stage Company received a total of eight nominations for the 2016 season. The IRNE Awards honor the best of the previous year’s actors, directors, designers and companies across the full spectrum of large, midsize and fringe theater companies in the New England area.
The nominations for Gloucester Stage’s 2016 season include two for Israel Horovitz’s Man in Snow: Best New Play and Best Lighting Design: Mark O’Maley; three for Deborah Zoe Laufer’s The Last Schwartz: Best Actress-Play–Midsize: Brianne Beatrice, Best Actor-Play-Midsize: Paul Melendy and Best Supporting Actress-Play-Midsize: Andrea Goldman; and three nominations for Peter Shaffer’sLettice and Lovage: Best Actress-Play–Midsize: Lindsay Crouse; Best Supporting Actress-Play-Midsize: Marya Lowry and Best Director-Play-Midsize: Benny Sato Ambush. In 2014 Gloucester resident and Academy Award nominee Lindsay Crouse won the IRNE Award forBest Actress-Play–Midsize for her performance in GSC’s 2013 production of Driving Miss Daisy directed by Benny Sato Ambush.Ms. Crouse returns to GSC in 2017 in the New England premiere of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect from June 16 through July 8.
The winners will be announced at the 21st Annual IRNE Awards to be held on Monday, April 24th, at 7:30 p.m. at the 1200 Hotel Ballroom (Holiday Inn) in Brookline, MA, just outside Kenmore Square. Tickets, as always, will be free, courtesy of the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE). They are soliciting donations to help cover expenses for the event. Donations can be made athttps://www.youcaring.com/irneawards-769410
The Gloucester Stage 2017 season opens on May 19 with John Kolvenbach’s Bank Job directed by GSC Artistic Director Robert Walsh and featuring Johnny Lee Davenport and Nael Nacer. For information about Gloucester Stage, or to purchase single tickets or subscription packages, call the Box Office at 978-281-4433 or visitwww.gloucesterstage.com.
Marya Lowry and Lindsay Crouse in Lettice and Lovage Photo by Kippy Goldfarb/Carolle Photography
Deadline for Applications: April 1, 2017
We are very proud to announce that the Art Loan @ Bass Rocks program has hit a milestone… its tenth anniversary year, in 2017!
As an artist-member of seARTS, you have the opportunity to exhibit and sell your artwork in the beautiful setting of the Bass Rocks Golf Club, where over 500 club members plus hundreds of visitors will attend club events, weddings, community group gatherings and functions. Now in its tenth year, this annual display/exhibition has been appreciated by countless viewers, generating sales, commissions and exposing our artist-members to a tremendous group of art enthusiasts. This unique partnership between the arts community and the club, made possible through the efforts of the seARTS team, creates an incredible connection to local arts. All seARTS members are invited to submit recent works, and all work will be juried in by an esteemed panel of judges, hand-picked by the seARTS board.
If your membership may have lapsed, or if you’d like to become a seARTS member, please take this opportunity to renew or to join when you send in your Art Loan @ Bass Rocks application.
Once again, an informative, enjoyable, beautiful opening reception will be held at the club (date TBA) that is free and open to invited guests as well as to the public. These receptions have always been tremendously well-attended, featured a panel of experts speaking on some aspect of making/selling/collecting/caring for art, and offer an opportunity for artists and patrons to meet and mix. This is a wonderful chance for the 20-40 selected participating artists to expose themselves and their work to a local, affluent, art loving crowd.
We hope that you will submit work to be included as part of this very successful program, especially in this milestone anniversary year! To find out more, please visit the seARTS website. For the 2017 application form, click here.
Dear Friends,
Please join me April 6th at 7pm, at the Sawyer Free Library where I will be giving my Pollinator Garden talk and screening several short films. The event is free and open to the public. I am looking forward to presenting this program at our wonderful Sawyer Free and hope to see you there!!
Thank you to Diana Cummings at the Sawyer Free Library for making the lovely poster!
Echinacea and Bee
Golden orange violet hued sunrise
Good Harbor Beach
People sure love their Rat stories! I shared a post on facebook about the Rat that my friend Kathy Lituri had shared on hers and the comments are super fun. If you have a favorite Rat story, please share!
Rocker
By Erin Amar
The Rat Remembered: 8 True (and Terrifying) Stories from Boston’s Legendary Rock Club
The music, the vermin, the disturbing bathrooms – Rocker celebrates the filth and the fury of the seminal club!
From 1974 to 1997 Boston’s Rathskellar – aka “The Rat” – was a rock and roll institution. A launching pad for some of the most important new wave, punk, and alternative rockers if its day, it’s dank basement stage played host to The Pixies, The Ramones, The Atlantics, The Damned, Blondie, The Fall, Robyn Hitchcock, as well as local luminaries including Mission of Burma, The Lyres, ‘Til Tuesday, The Neighborhoods, and more. Although the storied Kenmore Square space closed 19 years ago, its legend lives on through the memories of patrons who encountered not just their rock and roll heroes, but also wild drunken debauchery, seemingly on a weekly basis, all in the name of a great night out.
The recollections below have been sourced from a variety of former employees, patrons, bouncers and musicians who lived to tell the tale. At this point, they may be all hearsay (disclaimer! don’t sue us!), but as they say on the X-Files: We want to believe.
Thanks again to the folks who contributed their memories to this list. Every nightclub has a great story, this just a taste of the Rat’s.
Boston Globe
March 23, 2017
By Dave Rattigan
The city‘s Gloucester Fresh initiative had a big week, with a major promotional event and the announcement of a $13,000 grant award. It hosted more than 70 guests — including businesses from Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Mexico, and Iceland — at a tasting reception at Seafood Expo North America in Boston. The three-day expo, which ended Tuesday, attracted about 100 new business leads, according to a prepared statement from organizers. Also this week, Gloucester learned it would receive $13,000 from the state Division of Marine Fisheries’ Seafood Marketing pilot grant program. “If you are looking for fresh seafood, the quality that comes off our boats is 100 percent,” said Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, who spoke at the reception and ran a cooking demonstration with Angela Sanfilippo of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association.
Mayor Sefatia and Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association Angela Sanffilippo provide and update to the Seafood North America Expo delegation on the seafood opportunities in Gloucester.
Spring sunset from the Annisquam Lighthouse
Good Morning Gloucester 