My View of Life on the Dock
Showering Sara with love and confetti ❤
Sara Favazza is the daughter and tenth child of Captain Salvatore Favazza and Maria Lucido Favazza. Salvatore Favazza commissioned the original Saint Peter’s statue in 1926 and in 1927, Gloucester celebrated its first Saint Peter’s Fiesta.
For our awesome Ward One City Councilor Scott Memhard –
With three flawless walks, eighteen-year-old Gloucester ‘Farm Boy’ Derrick Hopkins sweeps the Greasy Pole competition Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Only one other walker, Jake Wood, has won three consecutive competitions. As announcers Tom Favazza, Al Millefoglie and Jimmy Tarantino joked, “he could have walked all the way to the Boulevard.”
Derrick’s Dad Rich Hopkins came out of retirement to walk with his son.
Saturday’s winning walk
Friday’s winning walk
Friday’s winning walk
More photos tomorrow 🙂
Derrick Hopkins took the flag for two consecutive wins, joining only a handful of Greasy Pole walkers to do same. As he did in both courtesy rounds and his win on Friday night, he seamlessly walked the walk. Odds are he may take the flag tomorrow night, too.
Thunder clouds passed overhead threatening the sporting events. Most of the afternoon was cloudy with a few raindrops but just after Derrick’s amazing win, the sun burst through the clouds. Viva San Pietro!
Congratulation to Backlash, Your 2019 Women’s Seine Boat Champions!
Congratulations to Derrick for a fantastic win! Derrick’s Dad also won and the two make only one of four father and son wins!
More photos tomorrow 🙂
Thank you to the Fiesta Novena Ladies for all they do to create the beautiful novena to Saint Peter.
Faye Quinlan, Joanne Aiello, Caryn Ryder, Jean Linquata, Rosie Verga, Anne Sanfilippo, and Grace Cusumano
They are also superb cake testers, and lots of fun ❤
The delicious Buona Festa cakes served the last night of the novena are courtesy of Caffe Sicilia
Our chicks are 26 days old today. We’ve nearly made it to the four-week-old milestone!
Doesn’t Papa look content? 🙂
Although state guidelines say piping Plover chicks have fledged by 25 days, that simply is not the case with our chicks. They cannot fly more than a few feet and are still swimming across the creek to the other side (about ten feet wide at mid-tide). If they could fly across, they would.
Every morning I find the chicks thermoregulating under Mom or Dad. Throughout the day, the parents guide the chicks up and down the beach to the most safe locations for foraging. And in the evening, they return to the protected area to snuggle under Mom or Dad, spending the night as a family unit.
The Federal guidelines are much more accurate when comparing my own observations and documentation. USFWS mandates protection up to 35 days. We PiPl monitors are going with protecting our family to 35 days, at five weeks old.
Thank you to all our wonderful Piping Plover volunteer monitors. Without a doubt, our chicks would not have made it this far if not for your time, patience, and dedication.
Thank you to the Johnson Family of Wakefield and Connecticut for their interest in learning about the Piping Plovers and for giving them the space they needed when trying to get to the creek.
Volunteer monitor Laurie Sawin spent time with the family on Wednesday, sharing her binoculars and teaching the young conservation-minded kids all about Piping Plovers and their habitat. The kids were so interested and considerate of the birds, it was a joy to meet them!
People love the portable new signs, both beach goers and the volunteer monitors. The signs provide an opportunity for beach guests to ask questions and learn about the PiPls, and they also provide a reference for the monitors. Many thanks to volunteer monitor Heather Hall for sharing a photo online of the signs used at PiPl protected areas in Ontario.
Our PiPl family are finding lots of fat sea worms at the creek.
Photos from Tuesday night’s procession from the American Legion Hall to Beach Court to return Saint Peter to the Saint Peter’s Club until the official Fiesta opening ceremony on Friday evening.
Thank you to the Saint Peter’s Fiesta Novena Ladies and the Saint Peter’s Fiesta Committee for a beautiful novena. Buona Festa!
Photos from the second to last night of the beautiful novena to Saint Peter
These three ladies lead the congregants in the Italian songs sung nightly. Left to right are Grace Taormina, Eleanor Mortallaro, and Josephine Russo
PLAYTIME STORIES CELEBRATES FIESTA WITH A LIVE PERFORMANCE OF
LAURA M. ALBERGHINI VENTIMIGLIA’S
NONNA, WHAT IS ST. PETER’S FIESTA?
ON JUNE 29 AT GLOUCESTER STAGE COMPANY
A Live Fiesta Theater Performance for Young Audience Members Age 2 and Older
and An Opportunity to Meet the Author
Gloucester Stage Company proudly announces a special Playtime Stories event celebrating St. Peter’s Fiesta with a live performance of Laura M. Alberghini Ventimiglia’s NONNA, WHAT IS ST. PETER’S FIESTA? on Saturday, June 29 at 10 am at Gloucester Stage, 267, East Main Street, Gloucester. An engaging combination of children’s stories and live performances for ages 2 and older, Playtime Stories offers young children the unique opportunity to experience the fun and magic of live theater as they watch their favorite books come to life onstage. To celebrate Fiesta on Saturday, June 29 the Playtime Stories Company will read and perform Gloucester resident Laura M. Alberghini Ventimiglia’s new book, NONNA, WHAT IS ST. PETER’S FIESTA? and Tomie dePaola’s STREGA NONA. Following the performance audience members will be invited to join the Playtime Stories Company in fun and interactive workshops and crafts relating to the story. On June 30 audience members can craft their own Seine boat and participate in Playtime Stories Seine Boat Races at GSC and make their own Fish magnets.
Playtime Stories is pleased to welcome special guest author Laura M. Alberghini Ventimiglia to sign copies of her new book which will be available for sale. According to Youth Acting Workshop Director and Teacher Heidi Dallin, ” We are honored to have Laura at this Playtime Stories special event to celebrate Fiesta for the second year in a row. She is an inspiration to our audiences and the young performers in the Playtime Stories Company. Last year’s Fiesta Playtime Stories was standing room only – the biggest audience we have had in Playtime Stores history! The actors and I could not wait to bring Laura’s story back this year. NONNA, WHAT IS ST. PETER’S FIESTA? is now a Playtime Stories tradition. ”
Each Saturday from June 29 through August 17 the Playtime Stories Company, consisting of veteran members of the Gloucester Stage Youth Acting Workshop program and special guest narrators perform a children’s story against the backdrop of the story’s illustrations as well as create a dynamic weekly series of interactive events related to the story. “We have had a great response to the Playtime Stories program over the past four summers, ” points out Dallin, ” It is a terrific way for YAW to reach out to younger audiences to spark their excitement in live performance. Many of the veteran YAW students in the Playtime Stories Company have been involved in the YAW program since they were 5 years old and now they will inspire the next generation of YAW students!”
Playtime Stories explores different stories ranging from classic fairy tales to new stories to works by local authors. The Playtime Stories season consists of July 13: MAGIC 101: The Magic Tree House: Stage Fright on a Summer Night and The Magic School Bus: Inside a Beehive ; July 20: A DELIGHTFUL DAY of Dr. SEUS: The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who; July 27: MYSTERY MAYHEM: Scooby-Doo and Where’s Mommy?; August 3: FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO READ ABOUT THEM: Where the Wild Things Are and Pegasus, the Flying Horse; August 10: BONJOUR! ADVENTURES IN FRANCE: Madeline and The Little Prince; and August 17: SUMMER FINALE: Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Quiet Cricket; and Judith Viorist’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
All Playtime Story performances are held at 10 am at Gloucester Stage, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA. Admission is $5 for one child (includes one free adult). Free coffee and donuts provided by Jim’s Bagel and Bake Shoppe. For more information or tickets, call the Gloucester Stage Box Office at 978-281-4433 or visit http://www.gloucesterstage.com
Playtime Stories Cast members with Author Laura M. Alberghini Ventimiglia and Translator Diletta Ballati at Gloucester Stage Photo by Heidi
While filming PiPls, from high overhead came the shrilly distinct call of an Osprey. As majestic in flight as a Bald Eagle, he perused the beach and then circled back several times more. I wondered, is he coming for Piping Plover chicks or possibly the creche of Common Eider ducklings that was sweeping the shoreline for sea lettuce.
Creche of Common Eiders foraging for sea lettuce.
When I returned home I read Osprey pose very little threat to baby birds. Ninety-nine percent of their diet is fish and only rarely do they hunt other creatures, mostly when fish are not available. Commonly called Fish Hawk, Sea Hawk, and River Hawk, Osprey have evolved with such highly specialized physical characteristics to aid in hunting fish that they have been given their own taxonomic genus and family (Pandion haliaetus)
To learn more about Osprey, you may find John J. Audubon’s life history super interesting: Fish Hawk, or Osprey
Link to Essex Greenbelt live osprey cam: https://ecga.org/Osprey-Cam
Piping Plover chicks make easy targets for avian predators, but not Osprey 🙂
On Saturday our Good Harbor Beach PiPl chicks turned three weeks old. They remind me so much of toddlers, with their indefatigable spirits, high energy and great appetites, adventuring, tumbling and bumping themselves throughout the day, flopping their tired selves down and wanting to be cuddled and protected, and then picking themselves up to start all over again.
Our chicks are spreading their wings! Their flight feathers have not yet grown in nonetheless, it doesn’t stop them from testing their wings. They stretch wide and take little leaps in the air, often ending with a face plant.
And sometimes, lift-off!
The chicks spend a good part of the day at the creek. On Saturday they crossed the creek and much to PiPl monitor Laurie Sawin’s dismay it appeared as though they were trapped on the other side and might have been swallowed up by the incoming tide. Instead, all three chicks swam across the creek to the safety of the shore.
We are stymied by the decision to shrink the Piping Plover’s protected area and are working toward re-establishing the size of their designated area. It’s really much too soon to be shrinking the roped off area and to have raked over the mini mounds of sand they sleep on every night. The chicks are all over the beach at all times of day and the protected area not only provides safety from people and pets, the un-raked areas provide a feast of good eating.
It clearly takes a village to raise a family of chicks at a popular city beach and we have a corps of wonderfully dedicated volunteers. We could really use help over these final ten days before the chicks are fully fledged. The weather has warmed and the beach has become much busier. Please contact Alicia Pensarosa if you would like to help. You can also directly sign up here. Thank you so much, and even more importantly, the PiPls thank you, too ❤
Tiny mollusks for breakfast
Good Morning Gloucester 