Old Lyme Celebrates Earth Day

Curled up on Brendan Hylan's lap, Scout seems more like a lapdog than a goat. Then again, the goats at Ivoryton's Bushy Hill Nature Center, where Hylan serves as a camp counselor, are really more pets than produce.

These goats are not milked and they'll never be part of a Jamaican curry. Like the rabbits, the pot-bellied pig, the sheep, and the llamas, they exist to help foster an appreciation for animals. 

Scout and his bunny buddy, Candy, made themselves available for petting purposes at the second annual Old Lyme Earth Day Celebration organized by the Conservation Commission on Sunday. Though they're newcomers to the event, the summer camp offered by Bushy Hill has played an instrumental role in the event's establishment. 

Old Lyme Conservation Commission head Lauralyn Lewis, who organized the Earth Day Celebration, attended the Bushy Hill Nature Center as a child. The late Karl Kotzan, a founding member of Old Lyme's Conservation Commission, was her 6th grade teacher.

When it comes to developing an appreciation of nature and the natural world around us, Lewis says, "It starts when you're little, so here I am." 

And her aim is to pass it on.

This year's Earth Day celebration included posters by Lyme-Old Lyme third grade students "because they are the future conservationists," says Lewis. 

Lyme-Old Lyme High School students were also on hand to show younger kids how to turn recyclable materials into art and to show adults ways to repurpose materials in an environmentally-friendly way. 

Heather Fried, the high school advisor for the group, was demonstrating how to crochet bags using plastic shopping bags cut into strips rather than yarn.

It takes about 30 plastic bags to make one crocheted bag, she says, but apparently it's become a popular substitute for yarn among many members of the congregation of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme—who often trade plastic bags with each other to get the colors they want for crochet projects and whose church hosted the event. 

Here are a few tips that were demonstrated by Lyme-Old Lyme High School students at the Earth Day Celebration:

How to make a bird feeder from a pine cone:

Step One: Attach yarn to a pine cone as a hanger.
Step Two: Spread peanut butter on the pine cone.
Step Three: Roll the pine cone in bird seed. 
Step Four: Hang it up and you've got a bird feeder from which, when all the seed is all gone, the birds will take the yarn to make a nest. 

How to turn old magazines into jewelry:

Step One: Cut magazine pages into long triangular strips.
Step Two: Spread glue on one side.
Step Three: Roll the paper strip around anything cylindrical, such as a straw or a pencil.
Step Four: String the newly-created "beads" together to make bracelets, necklaces, anklets, or earrings.