The Daily Five: Beer For Beauty, Looking Back at Slavery, and Celebrate Earth Day!

1. Weather.com is predicting a mostly cloudy day with a high of 63 degrees an overnight low of 51 degrees. There's a 20 percent chance of rain during the day but rain is most likely this evening, when the chance of rain increases to 80 percent. There's also a possibility that we might see a thunderstorm tonight. 

2. East Lyme Historical Society holds its Spring Pot Luck Supper at AHEPA, 267 Roxbury Road, Niantic, tonight starting at 6 p.m. This event is open to the public. Participants are invited to bring dishes to share and local teacher, author, and historian Jim Littlefield, will be there to share a few stories.

Littlefield will be bringing copies of his recently published book, The Slave Catcher's Woman, which is described as "a tale of love, intrigue, death and awakening in the Antebellum South." He'll be telling stories in character as a Georgia slave catcher “Coswell Tims.”   

3. Slavery is the theme for another event this weekend. On Sunday, Lyme native Bruce Stark will give a talk on Slavery in Lyme and the Browne "Plantation" in Salem. The talk will begin at 2 p.m. at Lyme Public Hall, 249 Hamburg Road in Lyme following an open house at the hall from 1 to 2 p.m. This event is free.    

4. And now for something completely different ... Beer for Beauty! On Saturday, Smith's Acres, 4 West Main Street in Niantic, will transform itself from garden center to beer garden when it hosts a beer tasting fundraiser to benefit ongoing East Lyme beautification efforts.

The event, which is organized by Niantic Main Street, runs from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance and are available at Smith's Acres and Mermaid Liquors in Niantic. Tickets are also being sold at the door for $25—although you want to get there early as there are a limited number of tickets available. For more information, contact Sue Kumro at (860) 739-2300.

5. Earth Day is Monday, April 22, but there are a whole host of events leading up to that. At the Children's Museum of Southeastern Connecticut in Niantic, it's a weeklong celebration that began on Monday with special programs daily. ("Earthworms are Easy" gets my vote for best name!)  

In Old Lyme, the Florence Griswold Museum celebrates on Sunday, April 21 with "Wild Neighbors 101 — How To Be a Good Neighbor to Wildlife," which is offered by staff from Mystic's Pequotsepos Nature Center at 1:30 and 3 p.m. 

These special programs are free with museum admission. You'll find more Earth Day events at the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's Web site.