With little fanfare, we added five beautiful mobiles to our stock last month: Now that the last we had ordered has come in, I will proudly announce that we are selling a selection of the wonderful Flensted mobiles, made in Denmark for over fifty years. As a child with a love for the Middle Ages, […]

“I believe that dreams–day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing–are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization.”
L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz

I was sorry not to be able to see the Salzburg Marionette Theatre this Sunday, when they presented “Hansel and Gretel” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It would have been a wonderful experience for the kids, I am sure, and I love marionettes and puppet shows. There remain some tour dates […]

Overheard at a birthday party, as one child inspected the unwrapped presents: “Made in China, made in China…Why is everything made in China?”

I hope to get to the American Museum of Natural History to see the “Voices from South of the Clouds” exhibition. The NY Times reviewed it in their Arts section, and the Times online shows some stunning images in a slideshow accompanying the article.
The photographs exhibited were taken by villagers in the Yunnan province of […]

We spent yesterday at the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, a very enjoyable chance to be outside after a week of rain. I would recommend next year’s festival to anyone within driving distance who has an interest in sheep or woolen crafts: there are demonstrations, and more vendors of woolen goods and crafts […]

We were in Vermont last weekend, spending Saturday at the Tunbridge World’s Fair. This has been an annual event for our family as long as I can remember: I have missed only a handful, and my boys now look forward to the Fair as I did when I was young. The commercial elements that seemed […]

Our boys have been at loose ends this week, with their travels over and school not yet started. They’ve fortunately managed to occupy themselves by searching for bugs, using a clear Tupperware container to catch them, a cloth-and-mesh bug house to hold them, and a National Audubon Society pocket guide to Insects and Spiders to […]

Our visit to the circus made me think of some other children who went to the circus: namely, Tommy, Annika and Pippi Longstocking. While we were content to watch and perhaps dream of doing what we saw, Pippi jumped right in, riding behind the horseback rider, walking the tightrope and even besting the “World’s Strongest […]

It was my sister’s birthday this past weekend, and to celebrate, my mother bought the family tickets to see the Big Apple Circus outside of Hanover, NH. Saturday afternoon found us at the Big Top, waiting to see one of the last performances of the season.
I haven’t been to a circus since my youth, a […]