July 16, 2016 - ChaddsFordLive.com

Old Fiddlers’ Picnic a summer mainstay

The musical legacy of Chadds Ford’s Chris Sanderson will continue as Chester County welcomes hundreds of musicians and fans to celebrate traditional music at the 88^th Annual Old Fiddlers’ Picnic on Saturday, Aug. 13.

The 88th Annual Old Fiddlers' Picnic — The 88th Annual Old Fiddlers’ Picnic will take place at Hibernia Park on Saturday, Aug. 13.

Known originally as the “Chester and Delaware Counties’ Old Fiddlers’,” the event was conceived by S. L. Anderson and organized by Sanderson, a teacher and historian whose many talents including playing the fiddle. The event will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hibernia County Park in Wagontown, according to a Chester County press release.

Beginning at 9 a.m., groups and individuals may register to play on the main stage on a first-come, first-served basis. Solo acts are allotted 10 minutes, and up to 20 minutes for groups. At 10 a.m., Remington Riders will take center stage, leading into a continually changing slate of performers.

A highlight of the day is the jamming and singing throughout the venue. Visitors can stroll through the event grounds and listen to the blend of music. In the woodlands flanking the stage, musicians play tunes using a variety of instruments, such as guitars, banjos, and mandolins, and perform styles such as bluegrass, old-time and gospel. Lawn chairs are encouraged. Canopies, tents and alcohol are not permitted. An ATM is available on site. Pets are welcome but must be on a six-foot lead, the release said.

The Old Fiddlers’ Picnic features more than 30 vendors, offering a variety of craft items and novelties, as well as food options with menus ranging from BBQ and funnel cakes to smoothies. Tours of the 19^th century Hibernia Mansion are offered throughout the afternoon beginning at 1 p.m. A $3 donation per person is requested.

Children and those new to string instruments are encouraged to come learn by observing and talking to the musicians in this relaxed atmosphere. Instrument demonstrations, beginner jam sessions, and children’s activities are also planned. Old Fiddlers’ souvenir shirts and hats are available for purchase and anyone performing on stage will receive a 2016 commemorative ribbon.

The rain date for the event is Sunday, Aug. 14. Parking is $5 per car with no admission fee. Gates open at 8:30 a.m.

The Fiddlers’ Picnic began at Crystal Springs Park outside Parkesburg and later moved to Lenape Park, south of West Chester. When Lenape Park closed in 1980, Chester County Parks & Recreation offered to sponsor the Picnic at Hibernia Park. Sanderson’s fascination with history and “living records” ultimately led to the transformation of his former residence into the Christian C. Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford. Museum representatives will display some of those items during the picnic.

Hibernia Park campgrounds must be reserved for both Friday and Saturday night during Old Fiddlers’ weekend. The fee is $15 per night with a maximum of six people and two tents per site. The person reserving the site must be one of the campers and at least 18 years old.

Hibernia Park is located in Wagontown, four miles north of Coatesville off the Route 82 exit of the Route 30 Bypass. Call 610-383-3812 or visit www.chesco.org/ccparks for more information.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

Old Fiddlers’ Picnic a summer mainstay Read More »

Kennett Library to whip up artistic cuisine

Arts & Entertainment

Unless area residents have their cooking skills down to a science, they might want to participate in the upcoming “Molecular Gastronomy Workshop” at the Kennett Library.

Designed to teach participants the art of creating and redefining food using scientific methods, it will be held on Saturday, July 23, at 2 p.m., at the library, 216 E. State St. in Kennett Square.

A hot trend in some of the nation’s top restaurants, molecular gastronomy transforms meals into works of art as delicious foams, gels, structures and spheres. Chefs blend physics and chemistry into their regular culinary ingredients to alter the taste, texture and appearance.

Local chemist and amateur molecular gastronomist Justin Beatty will lead the workshop, showing attendees how to create delicious treats that will be the talk of their next dinner party. According to Beatty, molecular dining is not just for the elite: You can do it at home with some surprisingly easy methods.

Library Director Donna Murray said the idea originated with Ivy Weir, the library’s program coordinator. Murray said Weir was familiar with molecular gastronomy from watching TV’s “Master Chef.” She also knew of Beatty’s background because he volunteers with the library’s teen programs. So Weir extended the invitation, which Beatty graciously accepted, Murray said.

Participants will also get to sample some unique treats as they learn their new scientific skill. For more information or to register for this workshop, visit kennettpubliclibrary.org or contact Weir at iweir@ccls.org or by phone at 610-444-2702.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

Kennett Library to whip up artistic cuisine Read More »

Grant to expand reach of water-monitoring

Health, Local News Birmingham, Local News Chadds Ford, Local News Concord, Local News Kennett, Local News Pennsbury, Local News Pocopson

Citizen-science volunteers will soon be monitoring the state of threatened water sources for millions of people under the auspices of the Stroud Water Research Center.

Stroud will guide the effort through a $2.5 million grant from the William Penn Foundation. The goal is to enhance citizen-science volunteer monitoring of water quality in eight regional sub-watersheds in the Delaware River basin, said a Stroud press release.

The grant is part of the Delaware River Watershed Initiative, which was initially funded with $35 million in 2014 and then supplemented with additional funding in 2015-2016. More than 50 leading nonprofits are working together through DRWI to reduce threats to water quality for the 15 million people — more than 5 percent of the U.S. population — who get their drinking water from the Delaware River basin, the release said.

The eight carefully selected sub-watersheds, or clusters, make up 25 percent of the Delaware River basin and are of critical ecological value. A science-informed evaluation under DRWI showed that while these clusters face significant threats to water quality, the opportunity for successful intervention is significant at these locations.

Each cluster is comprised of three to 11 organizations jointly implementing restoration or preservation plans. With this new Penn Foundation grant, the Stroud Center will work with these organizations and their partners to grow their network of citizen-science volunteers and enhance the quality and quantity of the data they collect.

The Stroud Center will offer similar support to Penn State’s Master Watershed Steward Program, which trains volunteers in watershed management so they can educate communities about watershed stewardship and will also evaluate if, and how, the Water Stewards Program can assist in advancing the monitoring capacity of DRWI clusters.

Erin Frederick, the Master Watershed Steward coordinator at Penn State, said, “I’m looking forward to working with the Stroud Center to provide advanced training and volunteer opportunities to our Stewards so they can play a key role in citizen-science water-quality monitoring.”

The Stroud Center will work with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University to ensure that the water-quality monitoring collected by volunteers will help scientists better understand how well watershed restoration and conservation efforts in the Delaware River basin are working to protect clean fresh water.

Over the next two years, the Stroud Center will develop and provide professional-level science training to citizen-science volunteers, covering basic watershed ecology and more advanced topics on how to monitor and restore streams and rivers.

“The trainings will help citizen scientists better understand what questions they should be asking and why,” Matthew Ehrhart, Stroud’s director of watershed restoration, said in the release. “Plus they’ll learn how to analyze and interpret the monitoring data they collect so they can use it to guide future restoration and conservation work.”

The citizen-science volunteers will also learn to use cutting-edge technologies to monitor and evaluate water quality. For example, they’ll learn how to build and deploy do-it-yourself wireless environmental monitoring stations the Stroud Center recently developed.

These inexpensive, customizable, and easy-to-use sensors are featured on EnviroDIY.org, an online community of enthusiasts who enjoy sharing ideas for environmental science and monitoring. With these devices, the citizen scientists will be able to measure water temperature, stream water level, electrical conductivity, water clarity, and more.

Data the citizen scientists collect will stream automatically to a web portal to be developed over the next two years by computer scientists and programmers under the direction of Jeffery Horsburgh in the civil and environmental engineering department at Utah State University. All of the data will be available via a website designed to provide citizen scientists with simple access to visualize, analyze, and download the data they collect.

Tried-and-true monitoring methods such as the Leaf Pack Experiment Stream Ecology Kit, will also be featured in the trainings. This simple tool can be used to collect, identify, and analyze the bugs living in streams to evaluate water quality.

“We are thrilled that Stroud Water Research Center will use this grant to help DRWI clusters expand citizen science to help streamline their efforts to monitor water quality,” William Penn Foundation’s Director of Watershed Protection Andrew Johnson said in the release. “The goal of DRWI citizen science is to not only engage the public with conservation, but train and deploy volunteers to generate meaningful, professional-quality water data that can be shared more broadly across the watershed.”

The grant builds on the Stroud Center’s ongoing efforts to work with farmers and landowners in the Delaware River basin to protect, restore, and monitor the long-term health of streams. The Stroud Water Research Center has been working to protect the health of the world’s fresh water for nearly 50 years.

The Stroud Water Research Center is located at 970 Spencer Rd., Avondale, Pa., 19311. For more information, go to www.stroudcenter.org.