National Public Lands Day



Volunteer stirring up deer

 Today, September 29, 2012 is National Public Lands Day. Homestead National Monument of America hosted a Deer Survey and encouraged people to come and volunteer. We had about 21 people come to this event, everyone who participated got a certificate that allows them free entrance to a National Park Service site as a thanks for volunteering. The event started with a briefing at the Education center and then everyone moved to the east end of the prairie, up near the Heritage Center. The volunteers, SCA's (Molly, Nicole and myself) and the staff formed a line from the north boundary of the prairie to the south boundary. The line of people then began to walk toward Cub Creek on the Western end of the monument. The point of this was to count the number of deer stirred up, each person would count and deer that ran between them and their neighbor on the right. There were also some observers posted on the boundary of the monument to count any deer exiting the area. After the prairie and the woodlands had all been covered, everyone returned to the education center to compare notes. The results of the survey were that 24 deer were sighted in the monument. Past yeas results have been a low as 8 and as high as 25, so this year the number was amongst the high.

It was a great event attended by all ages, and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves!


Paperwork

Discussion of results with Ranger Jesse Bolli

Homestead holds Naturalization Ceremony

      September 17 is Constitution Day. On Constitution day 2012 Homestead National Monument of America hosted a Naturalization Ceremony. During the Ceremony 43 people became new citizen of the United States. There was a good sized crowd present at the ceremony including many family members of the new citizens and some school groups, including a group from Wisconsin viewing the ceremony through a distance learning computer connection. Some of the countries the new citizen were from included Mexico, Sudan, Germany, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, China, Somalia and many others. The ceremony was a very nice way to welcome the new citizen and it seemed to be enjoy by all in attendence.

Superintendent Mark Engler

Historian Blake Bell

New Citizens

Soundscape, Labor Day weekend, Artist in Residence, and Tall Thistle

On Sept 14 with the assistance of fellow SCA intern Molly Watters, I set up the soundscape equipment again. This time at a site much further from the road; I will be interested in seeing what the difference are. I thought I would share some pictures of the actual equipment and the set up process. 

Fellow SCA Molly Watters assisting me with setting up
the Soundscape equipment

The whole soundscape set up

 On Labor Day weekend the monument hosted a living homesteaders reunion and living history extravaganza. The monument had many programs running throughout the weekend, including living history activities such as pioneer toys, hand sewing, butter churning and many others. One of the programs was given by Ken Deardorff, who is the last person to receive land under the Homestead Act. There was also a discussion panel including 3 other living homesteader. It was a great opportunity to hear their  first hand stories of homesteading in Alaska.

Ken Deardorff- The Last Homesteader

Historian Blake Bell

Living Homesteader Panel

I was lucky enough to share living quarters with Artist in Residence Emily Melhorn. Emily is a writer living in LA and originally from Gettysburg PA. She did two programs while she was here, one about the American Dream and the other about Squatter's Rights. Emily was at Homestead for two weeks and during that time I was able to enjoy all of the bits of information that she gathered while doing research for her programs.

Artist in Residence- Emily Melhorn

I have also had a chance to write about the Tall Thistle for Homestead National Monument's NPS web page, you can read it here: http://www.nps.gov/home/naturescience/tall-thistle.htm