On Wednesday, Aug. 3 from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., everyone is invited to take part in the Library Crawl. The challenge is to visit as many libraries as you can and take a picture of yourself with a designated item in each library in a 21st-century scavenger hunt. Download your Library Crawl passport with library locations and photo ops.
This is an event for all ages – all you need is a love of libraries and a way to get from place to place. Post your pictures and tag the libraries at #mlncrawl2022. Each library will have handouts and giveaways. Show your pictures to a librarian, get a prize, and see how many you can collect. Start and end wherever you like on the self-guided crawl.
Participating Minuteman Library Network libraries are Arlington Robbins & Arlington Fox Branch, Ashland, Bacon Free (Natick), Concord & Fowler Branch, Dedham & Endicott Branch, Framingham & McAuliffe Branch, Lexington (Cary), Lincoln, Maynard, Morrill Memorial Library (Norwood), Morse Institute Library (Natick), Needham, Newton, Sudbury, Wayland, Wellesley Main, Wellesley Hills, Wellesley Fells, and Westwood Main & Islington Branch.
Come celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lincoln Garden Club volunteers maintaining Station Park at an open house on Saturday, Sept. 17 from 10 a.m.–noon at the intersection of Lincoln Road and Ridge Road, just across Lincoln Road from the mall at Lincoln Station. Light refreshments will be served, and the farmers’ market will be open across the street with produce, crafts, and music. Information on the park’s history and how to join the Lincoln Garden Club will be also available.
All Lincoln residents are cordially invited to the Lincoln Garden Club’s wine and cheese evening for new and prospective members on Sunday, Oct. 2 at 5 p.m. Come hear about the club’s many horticultural events and meet some members. Please RSVP to Ann Parke at annparke@verizon.net or Lucy Sprayregen at lucypage@aol.com.
UPDATE: this event has been cancelled due to expected bad weather.
Because of its driveway construction project, Codman Community Farms is not holding its annual Harvest Fair and Harvest Feast this year. However, there will be an open house at the farm on Sunday, Oct. 23 from 12–2 p.m. with a party vibe, farm tours, tastings of new sausage flavors, and sliced deli ham… and the Just Hummus food truck will serve up hummus bowls, pita sandwiches, and falafel.
The Walden Woods Project is hosting “Silent Spring Revolution: A Conversation with Douglas Brinkley” on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. In his newest book, New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the 1960s. Join us to learn more about Silent Spring Revolution and Brinkley’s discoveries during the writing process. There will be a live audience Q&A. Register here. This event is sponsored by the Walden Woods Project, Concord Festival of Authors, and RESTORE: The North Woods.
Codman Community Farms is offering a hands-on workshop on Gardening for a Changing Climate: Sheet Mulching on Sunday, Oct. 30 from 2–4 p.m. in the market garden. This workshop is free but registration is required; click here to register. The fall Gardening for a Changing Climate workshops are part of the Healthy Soils Series, a collaboration among the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, Lincoln Common Ground, and Codman Community Farms.
The Lincoln Garden Club welcomes all Lincolnites to a Zoom program on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. Bud Sechler, Ecological Program Director of the Native Plant Trust, will discuss rare plants that can be found in the Boston suburban area, as well as the invasive plants which threaten them. Register online in advance and you’ll receive a confirmation email with information about joining the meeting.
Learn about the people and events that helped Jackie Robinson break baseball’s color barrier in 1947 at an author talk with Ted Reinstein, a reporter for WCVB-TV’s “Chronicle,” on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln Public Library. The hidden story of Reinstein’s Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier includes former stars of the Negro Leagues, the Black press and Pullman porters who battled the color barrier for 60 years. Sponsored by the Friends of the Lincoln Library. Click here to register.
Mothers Out Front is sponsoring the Great Pumpkin Smash at Codman Community Farms on Sunday, Nov. 6 from 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Every year in the U.S., an estimated 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins are carted away to landfills or incinerators where they produce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Green your Halloween by bringing your pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, and decorative gourds to this family-friendly event, smash your Halloween creations, and recycle them into the soil by feeding them to the Codman Farm pigs. Please remove any stickers, paint, candles, or other decorations. Suggested donation of $1/pumpkin to benefit CCF. Click here to register.
The Lincoln Public Library will present virtual events hosted by the Tewksbury Public Library in collaboration with several Massachusetts libraries. Sponsored by the Friends of the Lincoln Library. Advance registration required. Details and registration.
Do you need holiday gift book suggestions for the young readers in your life? Join the Lincoln Public Library children’s librarians on Thursday, Dec. 1 at noon as they review their favorite new books of the year as well as some perennial favorites. The event is open to all adults (feel free to share with grandparents and relatives near and far). Email dleopold@minlib.net for the Zoom link.
Join us via Zoom on Thursday Dec. 8 from 7–8:30 p.m. for an evening with mystery writers Sulari Gentill, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Eva Jurczyk moderated by Rachel Raczka of the Boston Globe. Everything was fine until it wasn’t — a scream in the library, books gone missing the first day on the job, a secret threatening to tear apart a perfect life. Register here.
Join an evening with two of the country’s top young adult authors as Maureen Johnson (Nine Liars) is interviewed by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Final Gambit) in a webinar on Wednesday, Jan. 4 from 7–8 p.m. Sponsored by the Lincoln Public Library. Click here to register.
Join us for a book talk on Who’s Raising the Kids? with author Susan Linn hosted by Lincoln Nursery School at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum on Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. in the museum’s Dewey Gallery. Linn, an expert on the impact of big tech and big business on children, provides a deep dive into the roots and consequences of the monumental shift toward a digitized, commercialized childhood, focusing on kids’ values, relationships, and learning. Linn is a psychologist, a research associate at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Read the New York Times review of her book. Click here to register for the talk.
Civil War historian and Lincoln resident Megan Kate Nelson will give a talk about her new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner, 2022) at the Concord Museum on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. at the Concord Museum. It tells the vivid story of how, 150 years ago, Yellowstone became the world’s first national park amid the nationwide turmoil and racial violence of the Reconstruction era. A narrative of adventure and exploration, the creation of Yellowstone is also a story of Indigenous resistance and the struggles of Black southerners during a turning point in the nation’s history. Nelson was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (read this Lincoln Squirrel profile of her). Click here to register.
All residents, especially parents and grandparents who are watching children during school vacation week, are invited to an intergenerational event on maple tree taping. Learn about how indigenous peoples in our area collected and boiled sap, sample some of Will and Abigail’s syrup, and then go outside to tap the sugar maples next to Bemis Hal with Nancy Bergen from Matlock Farm. Dress for outdoor weather. Sponsored by the Council on Aging and Human Services.
The Friends of Modern Architecture/Lincoln Film Series presents “The Oyler House: Richard Neutra’s Desert Retreat,” a first-run feature film release directed by Michael Dorsey, on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. in the Lincoln Public Library as part of the 2023 Lincoln Winter Carnival. There will be a reception after the screening.
The Oyler house was designed for Richard Oyler in 1959 by Neutra in Lone Pine, Calif. The design resonates with Lincoln’s Modern architecture, where careful attention to specific site qualities has enabled architects to celebrate and enrich the experience of living with the land in modest homes. The film highlights a place that remains a valuable example of how Modern principles and sensibilities continue to resonate and enrich our lives today.
“The Challenges of Being a Debut Author” featuring Chelsea Banning will take place via Zoom on Monday, Feb. 6 from 7–8 p.m. Debut author (and librarian) was very excited to publish her first book, “Of Crown and Legends”. And then came the book signing where very few people showed up, and then the Twitter storm of support when Chelsea posted about the experience. Now, we speak with Chelsea in conversation with debut authors Laura Gao, Brian D. Kennedy, Jean Louise, and XiXi Tian to chat about the challenges and joys of getting your first book out in the world.
This event is hosted by the Ashland Public Library. Click here to register.
On Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m., join Emily Levine of Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site for “Freedom’s Cause: Historical Black Communities and George Washington’s Cambridge Camp,” a discussion of how free and enslaved Black members of Washington’s war camp interacted with one another, members of the local community, and the general himself. For example, Washington corresponded with poet Phillis Wheatley; he segregated the Continental Army, then reversed the decision. The family of Tony and Cuba Vassall, formerly enslaved by the first owner of the Cambridge house (which Lincoln’s Pierce House was designed to emulate), lived in freedom next to people enslaved by the Washingtons.
This event is hosted by the Wellesley Free Library. Click here to register.