This Sunday, May 19th we are celebrating our "Paint the Village Red" day.  We have an enjoyable array of red-themed activites planned to interest and amuse your family.  You can even help us paint one of our buildings!  In addition, for those of you who have a GCV& M membership it is a "Share the Village" day.  That means you can bring two extra people with you to enjoy the village free under your membership.   Now, just to whet your whistle for our red theme, I have a little guessing game for you.    This building has a brand new coat of paint inside and it is pink!  What building is it?                                                              ...

Allium tricoccum is known by many names:  ramps, ramson, wild leek, wild garlic, spring onion, wood leek and more.  Whatever you call them, they are tasty!  A member of the lily family, ramps are one of the first green plants to emerge from the soil of the woods in late winter or early spring, and are loaded with vitamins A and C and important minerals.  No wonder they were considered a spring tonic!  Winter-weary early settlers in New York and other areas eagerly harvested the bounty as the first fresh vegetable they'd had since the previous fall harvests.  According to some historical records, many a family who had suffered poor harvests in the previous summer and fall, staved off starvation by eating leeks during the "six weeks of want" the following spring.  Ramps were also used medicinally for treating colds and croup, and when steeped in brandy were considered a remedy for gravel (stones).  The warmed juice is an old Native American remedy for earach ...

Since you all enjoyed our last pop quiz, I thought we might try another. 

Who can identify what we are looking at and tell me why it was important?   

I'll post the answer and a bonus after the weekend!

Our pop quiz question: True or false?   “They were all shorter back then.”  While there is a small grain of truth to this, the answer is FALSE.   At some times and in some places, some people were shorter than at other times and other places, but overall heights are pretty-much the same as they have been all along.  Although height does have a little to do with a person's genetics, for the most part it is directly related to availability of food and good nutrition (especially meat and milk), disease, mother’s health during pregnancy, economic conditions, climate change, growth of cities, and rapid industrialization.   That said, the idea that people were shorter and have been growing taller as the centuries go on, is completely wrong.  Today’s data shows the average height of men to be 5’9”, while women measure in at 5’4” on average.  Now here are a few height statistics from the past that are illustrative. &nbs ...

Today we have a little pop quiz for you. 

"People were shorter in the 19th and previous centuries than they are today." 

True or false?

Please comment below with your guess!