CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Light from sun powers gong

Aviva: These things are solar powered so that when the-

Zachary: The stronger the light is, the faster you hear the chime.

Aviva: Then, when the mallet goes all the way up, it bangs against the thing so it’s a solar powered gong.

NEAT. DID YOU HEAR IT GONG?

Aviva: We didn’t hear the one of the ones out here.

Zachary: Oh the one over there gongs!

Aviva: The ones inside gong much faster because

Zachary: there are lights shining.

Zachary and Aviva Schuh of Merion at the Schuylkill Center’s indoor/outdoor exhibit, “Elemental Energy: Art Powered by Nature” talking about "Solar Thumpers" by Jason Krugman and Christian Cerrito.

Watch video interview here.

Video of opening reception inside and outside artworks

Geocaches to fight muscle disease

HOW’D YOU GET STARTED GEOCACHING? “A friend introduced me when we went to hawk mountain, you know the bird observatory. He had his IPhone or his Droid and he had a geocaching app on it. So we decided to do some caching and I got hooked because the first one I found was in the middle of a beautiful valley surrounded by pine trees with a mountain range in front of us. It was a gorgeous view. I think the name of the cache was ‘The View’. Went to Cabela’s, bought myself a GPS for a couple hundred bucks and I’ve been doing it ever since. And it gets me out. I’m on oxygen because I have a muscle disease. It gets me out and moving instead of being sedentary- you know, getting atrophied and dying.” Dan McGrogan, Core Creek Park, Middletown, Bucks County.

Watch video here.

Alice McBee stirs sap by day and lights the stage at night

Alice McBee: “Sap’s coming from the maple trees” Bystander: “Does it get cold enough at night for a run?” McBee: “Oh, definitely. It’s going down below freezing every night.” Rudnick: SO, BY DAY A MAPLE SAP STIRRER? McBee: “And first grade teacher and graduate student, don’t forget!” AND AT NIGHT A THESPIAN! McBee: “That’s right, absolutely.…The show opened last night. It’s called “The Countess” and it’s at the Old Academy Theater and I play the Countess. It’s a true story about a Victorian love triangle between the lions of the art world in the 1850s.” CAN YOU DO A VERY SHORT MONOLOGUE? “Scotland is my home and the country, even in this weather, is delightful to me. I’m so happy to be able to dash into the woods, cross the trout streams without a bonnet or to walk across the moors to a mountain lake and watch a great flock of seagulls flying.” Alice McBee at the Andorra Natural Area Maple Syrup festival. Watch video interview here.

Zookeeping in the winter at the Elmwood Park Zoo

ARE YOU THE RAPTOR KEEPER? "No, actually, there’s usually four keepers on duty here at the zoo. And those four keepers could be in any one area. We split the entire area up into four so I’m area three today so I have the ferrets, these guys, the prairie dogs the elk, the bison, the peccaries, the rhea and then in the building next to the rhea there’s two parrots that live inside for the winter." AND WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING A KEEPR IN THE WINTER? "I like it because I’m not a summer person at all I’d rather wear ten layers of close and be warm than – in summertime you just can’t get cool. So I like it but if you ask my other keeper friends, they don’t like it." WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO? "In the wintertime, for all the exhibits, not everybody has automatic waters, so like today, that’s the water bowl from the red tailed hawk and vulture [showing frozen water disk] so you make sure they have water. Of course it’ll freeze again but at least they had it for a little bit. I cleaned up their dinner from last night, which was a rat, and the meatball, which was gone so the vulture ate all his meatball. There’s only a little bit left of the rat. The redtail hawk’s favorite part of the rat is the brain. Just as important as food and water, all the animals get enrichment and that is anything that you can put in their cage that will make them use their natural behaviors. So different food items that are different from their diet, scents like Old Spice or Aqua Velva, herbs and spices, puzzle feeders." YOU PUT THE SCENTS ON WHAT? "Depending on the animal, you can put it on their toys, put it on exhibit furniture. You can spray your shoes and walk around." AND HOW WILL THEY REACT? "For instance the wolves like to roll in certain scents just like your dog would if it found something cool in the backyard and wants to advertise or mask it’s own scent. The wolves also like to urinate on scents that they find, too.” Sierra Allen, animal keeper Elmwood Park Zoo, Norristown. Watch video here.

Antje Mattheus unhides Cresheim Farm

So this is Cresheim farm. It’s the first farm around this area and it appears on a map around 1700 so that’s just a few years after William Penn got all these land grants. Before that this whole area was Lenni Lenape land. And William Penn seemed to have a peaceful relationship but starting with his son there were a lot of wars between the white settlers and the Lenni Lenape . . . We have a very small garden.  It’s mostly berries and some herbs.  When we moved here 20 years ago we had a huge vegetable garden but then the trees grew too much and we couldn’t have  the  garden, not enough sun, and also I ran out of energy. I kind of create things. It’s pieces of natural art. I let things grow and whatever doesn’t grow doesn’t grow and whatever grows, grows. That’s my philosophy for gardening. Antje Mattheus, gardener. Mount Airy Learning Tree Hidden Gardens Tour.

Click here to see video interview. See more photos from other gardens on the tour here.

Jaime Perez shoots Kyudo archer

"I'm a student at Antonelli School of Photography in Erdenheim and today I'm shooting the Japanese Cherry Blossom celebration. We have to do an event for a photojournalism class and I chose to do one outside, enjoy the spring weather a little bit, get to meet some nice people. So this is Emilio. He's been doing the archery for twenty years. I wanted to come here to get a little bit of action pictures and just learn a little about his meditation archery and see how he does it. He's pretty good. He's been shooting some bulls eyes and the arrows are really neat- they go all the way through the board." Jaime Perez, Antonelli School of Photography student at Morris Arboretum. See video here