Spring 2022

 

He looks a little like Groot resprouting.  We just saw Guardians of the 

Galaxy, watching on a lazy Saturday,when no one felt well and it was still cold. The next  day it 

was nearly 60, today even warmer.  But this little twig was budding, and more flowers and plants were sprouting in American Doll and Toy Museum's garden.   Robins are rampant, and so are blackbirds, and the river is alive and flowing.  We don't dye it green for St. Patrick's Day, but it is as vibrant as any mythical green river.

No one knows what this year will bring.  It has started as badly and sadly as the last two, and the very world itself trembles and what happens in its environs.

I have social media contacts in Ukraine and Russia, and I fear for all of them.  

Plant a flower, get some seed packets, buy or make some flower pots.  Dig into the earth this pre spring season, and drive away the death of winter. Affirm life.  Do something green.

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Miss Charlotte Bronte meets Miss Barbara Pym: Skyward for March 2022 by guest blogger David Levy

Miss Charlotte Bronte meets Miss Barbara Pym: Skyward for March 2022 by guest blogger David Levy:   Once again, here is our guest blogger, Dr. David Levy.  This post is dedicated to the memory of our friend, Terry Dufek, avid astronomer a...

Peppers are both Fruits and Vegetables

 Int his bitter cold, with windsheilds at 25 below or more, my thoughts turn to all kinds flowers and seeds.  I start thinking about all the things I want to plant, and what goes into my container gardens.  Over a peasant salad that is mostly cut up tomatoes and cucumbers, I started to think about what is fruit, what is vegetable.  Peppers sprang to mine.  I thought they were more fruit because of the seeds they contained, and because many grew on vines, or seemed to do so.  I also was watching Cook's Country, and watched the chef slice jalopenos and remove the seeds.  Well, here is a link to an article that explains why peppers are both fruits and vegetables, along with other plants considered botanical fruits, in part because they bloom from a flower:

https://www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/is-a-pepper-a-fruit-or-a-vegetable-and-why

Enjoy!  Soon, the sun will warm us, and it will be time to spring clean, and prepare your yards and gardens.

Happy planting!  If you have a local food coop, look for seed savers packets of various heirloom and other vegetables and flowers.

Online Literary Magazine for CM 220, CM 107 Classes and Friends of KU: Imagination and the Astronomical League by David L...

Online Literary Magazine for CM 220, CM 107 Classes and Friends of KU: Imagination and the Astronomical League by David L...:   From our guest blogger, Dr. David Levy Skyward for January 2022       Clipper began life in around 1956 as a Bar Mitzvah Present  ...

Local doll museum previews open house

Local doll museum previews open house: Did you have a favorite doll as a kid? Executive Director Ellen Tsagaris joined us today to talk about how the American Doll and Toy Museum celebrates all kinds of toys. For more information visit …

For the Upcoming Solstice, Galoob's Golden Girls

 It is almost The Solstice, Blessed Be!

 

Below are some new additions to a subcollection of some of my favorite dolls.  They are among the first action figures created with girls in mind.  They are inspired by Celtic Woman Warriors like Maeve, Cartimandua, and Boadicia.  Wild One, not in this group, even has a woad painted face.  

Look for books on the lives of Celtic women and Joy Chant's, The High Kings, and others by Lady Antonia Fraser, Nora Chadwick, Pauline Goudge, and Jean Markale.

These dolls had a Celtic hall, a doll house really, which I have.  I collected all of them, including their chariots and as many individual outfits as I could find.  I even put fresh evergreens, like little trees in their Hall, because that's where many of our  Christmas tree legends come from, when the old Celts brought in fresh evergreens during the bitter winter months.

Mothra, a nod to the Celtic shape shifters, from where our

werewolves come

Ogra, male doll

Vultura

 Wild One in her box

Bleakness of December

 Images of a dying garden . The seed bell is  a tradition I adopted after reading Tasha Tudor's Take Joy.  A month of deaths and funeral rembrances. preceded by November, an even crueler month. A time for reflection and auld lang syne .