Please note new email address correction on flyer for contact information.
Author: Kimsmithdesigns
Documentary filmmaker, photographer, landscape designer, author, and illustrator. "Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly" currently airing on PBS. Current film projects include Piping Plovers, Gloucester's Feast of St. Joseph, and Saint Peter's Fiesta. Visit my websites for more information about film and design projects at kimsmithdesigns.com, monarchbutterflyfilm.com, and pipingploverproject.org. Author/illustrator "Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! Notes from a Gloucester Garden."
Carol Berge Second Sunday Open Mic at The Hive February 9th
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Write Now ~ Winter Workshop Series with Eastern Point Lit House
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City of Gloucester CODE RED from Mayor Kirk
CODE RED – Issued at 6pm, Tuesday, February 4, 2014.
Good afternoon. This is Mayor Carolyn Kirk with an important message from the City of Gloucester’s code red emergency messaging system.
If you tend to park in school lots during parking bans, please listen especially carefully to this message.
Effective at 7am tomorrow morning, Wednesday, February 5th, the city has declared a snow emergency and parking ban on all city streets due to the arriving snow storm. Due to the timing of this storm, parking is also prohibited from school parking lots.
From 7am tomorrow morning, Wednesday, February 5th until 7am on Thursday, February 6th, all vehicles are banned from parking on city streets and school parking lots.
Violators of this emergency declaration are subject to ticketing and towing at the owners expense.
Residents and businesses are reminded that they are responsible for clearing snow from sidewalks adjacent to their property. Your cooperation during this parking ban is necessary for efficient and safe snow removal efforts.
To repeat, the city of Gloucester has issued a parking ban on all city streets and school parking lots as of 7am tomorrow morning. The ban shall be in effect until 7am on Thursday, February 6th.
Thank you for listening, and this concludes this message.
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New Video: Reflections Good Harbor Beach (and sunrise time lapse)
Outtakes from films in progress, too pretty to delete. In thinking about music for my forthcoming film I found this beautiful pan flute song “Mochica en la Noche” by Santiago y Sus Flautes de Pan. The evocative music and heron in the vivid rising sun just felt like a perfect pairing.
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Seaside Garden Club Presents All About Bonsai February 11th
Hi Kim- I hope you can post this in GMG for our club. I am very interested in this topic. Hope all is well with you – keep up the good work! Love, love your posts and photos – amazing as always!
Best regards,
Kate Willwerth
The Seaside Garden Club kicks off 2014 with a program all about Bonsai on February 11th at the Manchester Community Center. Social time begins at 7:00 pm and the program starts promptly at 7:30 pm. All are welcome, guests $5. Light refreshments will be served.
Bob Downey will introduce the club and guests to the wonderful world of bonsai. He will present the history and art of bonsai as well as demonstrate bonsai creation and styling. Bob Downey was the president and now co-president of the Northeast Bonsai Association for over 30 years. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this art.
Bonsai is the art of dwarfing trees or plants and developing them into an aesthetically appealing shape by growing, pruning and training them in containers according to prescribed techniques. In Japanese, bonsai can be literally translated as ‘tray planting’ but since originating in Asia, so many centuries ago – it has developed into a whole new form. Overall, bonsai is a great interest, hobby or even profession to undertake. It has to be said that a successful bonsai is most definitely a horticultural masterpiece.
The Seaside Garden Club is a group of fun, active, civic-minded and hands-on gardeners. We welcome all types of gardeners from beginners to experienced… there is always something to learn and share. We invite you to become a member of our club and enjoy our monthly meetings which feature interesting guest speakers and creative workshops. Visit our blog: http://seasidegardenclub.wordpress.com/
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Wild Boar with Creamy Polenta Tuscan Dinner at Savour and Beach Gourmet!
Doesn’t that just sound divine? I have never had Wild Boar and this menu seems especially tempting–all for only 65.00 per person, including (many) wines!!
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What We Can Do to Help the Monarchs
Everywhere we turn this past month, there is a report in a major newspaper about the declining Monarch butterfly population. This forwarded from one of our GMG readers: “Monarch butterflies keep disappearing. Here’s why,” was published in the Washington Post on January 29th, 2014.
The author, Brad Plumer, interviewed Dr. Lincoln Brower, a professor of biology at Sweet Briar College and one of the nation’s leading authorities on the subject. I will be meeting Dr. Brower and interviewing him for my film while at the biosphere this month.
One of Dr. Brower’s suggestions on how we can help the Monarchs is along the millions of miles of roadsides in the eastern United States, if we cold get highway departments to plant for pollinators rather than cutting everything down and spraying herbicides. This would be of great help to the Monarchs, insects in general, and many species of birds.
I’ve thought a great deal about this and it is my foremost reason for creating butterfly and habitat gardens, such as the butterfly gardens at the Gloucester HarborWalk. I think too, of the many patches of unused city-owned land dotted about our community and how we could turn these little patches into habitats for all our winged friends. For several years I have wanted very much to organize this project however, I have my hands full with launching the film. Once the film is complete, my hope and plan is that it will become an inspirational and positive educational tool to help generate interest in community projects such as these.
In the meantime, as many of you may be aware, since 2007, I have been creating exhibits and giving lectures about the life story of the Monarch, on the state of butterflies migration, and how we can help the Monarchs, both as individuals and collectively. I purposefully do not publish a price on any of my lecture listings because the cost of my programs are rated based on the size of your group or organization. No group is too small and I don’t want budget constraints to prohibit making the information available to all who are interested.
Here is a link to my Monarch program. If you and your organization would like to learn more about the Monarch Butterfly and how you can help, please contact me at kimsmithdesigns@hotmail.com.
Spangled Dawn Eastern Point Gloucester Massachusetts
Recent Posts on GMG about the Monarch Butterfly:
September 2013
Where Are All the Monarchs?
November 2013
The Year the Monarch Didn’t Appear
January 2014
Monarch Butterflies in Crisis
Request for Help from GMG Community and Monarch Film Update
March 2013
How Exactly is Monsanto’s Roundup Ravaging the Monarch Butterfly Population?
To read more about the life story of the Monarch Butterfly type in Monarch in the GMG search box.
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Super Bowl Puppy Love
Only in America are the artistic and humorous commercials as eagerly anticipated as is the main event! This commercial really pulls at your heart strings. What’s not to love!
When first I heard the commercial I thought the beginning of the soundtrack sounded similar to the chorus of the Lumineer’s sweet song “Ho-Hey.” Do you hear the similarities?
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Johnny Winter’s Johnny B. Goode at the Larcom Last Night!
Congratulations to Gloucester’s Peter and Vickie Van Ness for a sold out Johnny Winter concert last night at the Larcom Theatre!
Click here for What’ Happening Larcom
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Big Bang Boom
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Calling All Kids!
 Join us February 8, 2pm
at the Ferrini Dramatics Center, HWRHS for:
Big Bang Boom, a pop/rock band playing (parent-friendly) kid’s tunes, is set to rock the house in a live family concert sponsored by the Hamilton-Wenham Friends of the Arts and funded in part by the Hamilton –Wenham Cultural Council.
 Established in 2007, Big Bang Boom hails from Greensboro, NC and has played venues large and small around the country. Big Bang Boom is kid’s music with a pop sensibility. It is something parents can feel good about letting their kids listen to and that they will enjoy too!All proceeds from the event go right back to our community arts programs!
– Tickets are $10 each or 4 or more $8 (limit 12)
– Seats are general admission
– Save time and order your advance tickets online @ HWFOTA.ORG
– A limited number of tickets will also be available at the door
For more information on Big Bang Boom go to:
Thank you for supporting the arts in Hamilton-Wenham! We’ll see you at the show!
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The Writer’s Book Club at Duckworth’s Bistrot
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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Saturday, February 1st at 10:00am at the Sawyer Free Library
Free Movie and Popcorn!
Families Welcome!!
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Craft Beers for Your Super Bowl Celebration
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Monarch Butterflies in Crisis
Each winter, since I began photographing the Monarchs in 2006, I compare this graph from Journey North to the number of butterflies observed on Cape Ann. As you can clearly see, this is the worst year on record, which corresponds to the near complete lack of Monarchs in our region this past summer.
Monarch Butterflies Eastern Point Gloucester
Many thanks to Kathy Chapman and our GMG Readers for forwarding the following New York Times update about the shrinking Monarch Butterfly popluation.
By Michael Wines
January 29, 2014
Faltering under extreme weather and vanishing habitats, the yearly winter migration of monarch butterflies to a handful of forested Mexican mountains dwindled precipitously in December, continuing what scientists said was an increasingly alarming decline.
The migrating population has become so small — perhaps 35 million, experts guess — that the prospects of its rebounding to levels seen even five years ago are diminishing. At worst, scientists said, a migration widely called one of the world’s great natural spectacles is in danger of effectively vanishing.
The Mexican government and the World Wildlife Fund said at a news conference on Wednesday that the span of forest inhabited by the overwintering monarchs shrank last month to a bare 1.65 acres — the equivalent of about one and a quarter football fields. Not only was that a record low, but it was just 56 percent of last year’s total, which was itself a record low.
At their peak in 1996, the monarchs occupied nearly 45 acres of forest.
The acreage covered by monarchs, which has been surveyed annually since 1993, is a rough proxy for the actual number of butterflies that survive the arduous migration to and from the mountains.
Karen S. Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Minnesota who has studied monarchs for decades, called the latest estimate shocking.
“This is the third straight year of steep declines, which I think is really scary,” she said. “This phenomenon — both the phenomenon of their migration and the phenomenon of so many individuals doing it — that’s at risk.”
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African Americans in Gloucester
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Save the Date: Upcoming Screenings of My Film Life Story of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly
I hope to see you there!
For more information about Life Story of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly click here.
Tuesday, April 29th, 2014 at 6:30 pm Lowell Eco-Film Festival ~ More details to follow.
Tuesday, May 13th, 2014 at 6:00 pm. Willowdale Estate, Topsfield Massachusetts: Artist Spotlight Event
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CATV’s Lunch and Learn Series – Thurs, Feb 6th, 12pm
Hello friends of Cape Ann TV,
Please join us for our second “Lunch and Learn” presentation featuring 13-time Emmy winner Tom Todisco. Tom has produced and directed live games and promotional videos for the Boston Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins for over thirty years. He is also a producer and director at ProVid Production and an adjunct professor at Emerson College.
Tom’s amazing career originates in Gloucester in 1964 at the local radio station WVCA-FM where he worked as the first on-air DJ!
Tom will be using examples from his decades of work to discuss the creative process amid changing technology.
We welcome you to join us for some pizza and what’s sure to be an amazing conversation. Feel free to invite friends who might be interested in joining us.
Please RSVP if you plan on attending.
We hope to see you Thursday, February 6th at noon.
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The Mari Martin Trio at the Sawyer Free Library
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Winter Wine Tasting At Savour Thursday Night!
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Good Morning Gloucester 