Museum fling heralds spring

What would an Earth Day celebration be without enjoying nature’s trees, grass, birds, and butterflies? Organic farmers from Easton’s Langwater Farm will bring a lowly but necessary ingredient for the new growing season: worms.

“I’ve found that kids love worms,’’ said Alida Cantor, one of Langwater Farm’s four young farmers, who will come to the event to talk about composting and building healthy soil. “They like to hold worms, touch worms. It’s a great way to get the message across.

“We’re going to bring in a worm bin and teach people about composting,’’ Cantor said. “As an organic farm, we know that healthy soil is the key to success.’’ And adding composted organic materials to soil is the natural path to good earth.

In most households, she said, food waste goes into the trash, adding to the waste stream and costing towns money to haul away. Instead, it can be turned into compost and used to improve the soil on your property. Earth worms are a key ally in the process because they break up organic matter in the soil, enabling plant roots to access nutrients.

Cantor plans to bring worms in a big plastic tub to show visitors at the Spring Fling. To raise worms to fertilize your soil, fill a bin with shredded leaves, add red worms, and feed them with occasional food scraps, she said.

While it’s too early in the year to show off their produce, the Langwater farmers will also talk about the Community Supported Agriculture business they are starting up this year. The farm’s customers pre-pay a certain amount each month in order to get a share of the farm’s produce at regular intervals, generally two weeks, during the growing season. The farmers will also be erecting a new farm stand at Langwater Farm on Route 138 (Washington Street) near Elm Street in North Easton this summer.

The Spring Fling marks the museum’s return to its outdoor learning center, said Steven Hill, operations manager for the Children’s Museum in Easton. “It’s the annual celebration officially reopening the Wild Place’’ — an outdoor space encompassing a bird and butterfly garden, a performance space gazebo, the sandy “fossil pit’’ where children can dig for reminders of earth’s geological past, and a two-story structure for climbing, Hill said.

“In the summer months we have summer camps and summer drop-in days that utilize the Wild Place,’’ he said.

The event, which drew about 300 last year, features drop-in visits by farm and landscape vehicles, a demonstration on planting a starter herb garden, and a show by Animal World Experience featuring live animals.

Matt Gabriel of Animal World Experience in Stoughton, will present a program on “Going Green in your Backyard’’ at the event.

“The way we change nature in our yards to cater to us is not the best thing for animal habitat,’’ Gabriel said.

His presentation offers examples of changes people can make in their yards to make them more habitable for native animals like rabbits, frogs, and possums. “I suggest some little changes you can make without making it bad for people — such as cutting down your lawn area, and planting native plants and trees,’’ Gabriel said. Sumac trees and native varieties of roses, for example, provide food for bird and other animals.

Animals need four things to live in a place, Gabriel said — shelter, food, water, and a place to raise their young.

To help make the point, Gabriel plans to bring some native wild animals to the shows — a rabbit, a possum, a millipede, a tree frog, a corn snake, and a snapping turtle.

The Children’s Museum is also beginning its celebration of spring with a series of special school vacation week activities that start this Saturday. Youngsters will have the chance to touch fossil tracks that are more than 200 million years old from Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Conn., Saturday from noon to 4:30 p.m. Activities also include casting your own fossil. Sunday afternoon’s activity is making a dinosaur costume.

Other vacation week activities include presentations on dinosaurs with fossils and dinosaur models by local young paleontologists Max Fioritti (Monday at 1 p.m.), Jenna Magaldi (Wednesday at noon), and Emma Barry (Friday at 10 a.m.).

Tuesday morning from 10 to 11, a program on the relatives of the dinosaurs will include visits by snakes, reptiles, and a giant tortoise. On Thursday at 1:30 p.m., Marla Isaac of New England Reptile & Raptor of Taunton, will show off live alligators and a giant tortoise. For more information, go to the museum’s website, www.childrensmuseumineaston.org.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.