Valarie Schwartz
In its fifth year, the Bolin Creek Festival has clearly caught on with young families.
What a beautiful scene unfolded at Umstead Park on Oct. 4 during its six hours of displays, music, drum circles (courtesy of Cathy Kielor’s Music Explorium), a bounce house and relaxing with community along, and in, Bolin Creek, as Leigh Aultman, a McDougle Middle School science teacher led Stream Watch.
Jonathan Shectman stood on a dry rock bed while his sons Oliver, 5, and Russell, 3, hunted for life in the stream. They were among dozens of other children and adults looking for the mussels, crayfish, tadpoles, salamanders, snails and fish that flourish in this creek that runs through our two towns. What the boys kept handing their father, however, were pieces of broken glass —a good thing to be removing.
“See, this is why we wear shoes in the creek,†Shectman told his boys. “We live in Quarter Path Trace in Carrboro, about a five-minute walk to the creek,†he told me. “We really enjoy going there two or three times a month. Chapel Hill and Carrboro have a cosmopolitan feel but you’re never more than a few minutes from nature.â€
Mary Sonis lives even closer to Bolin Creek. She lives on Cobblestone in Carrboro and her property on the creek faces the Carolina North property. Her love of creeks developed as a child.
“I spent a lot of time when I was little with my dad exploring critters. He was a lawyer but I think he loved nature more,†she said in-between teaching children and their parents about the creatures they can find in the creek and the woods around it at the “Critter Corner†table. Her display was filled with fabulous finds from her daily excursions along the creek. There was a box filled with leaf litter and worm snakes, which she would guide willing hands into for holding the squirmy, harmless creatures. There were glass-lidded boxes filled with tiny skeletons of crustacea; a wooden box with dead cicadas, beetles, butterflies and other insects; a container of snake skins; a beaver skull she used to demonstrate how the dam builders self-sharpen their teeth; turtle shells; and photos. When an adult asked how she got the photos of the beavers, she explained, “I go to the chiggers for my photos.†She knows no other way to get in as deep as the animals than to crawl her way through brush that inevitably exposes her to the pests that leave her itching for weeks.
But her exposure brought her new friends.
“The beaver built a small lodge near where she lives this year and she patiently befriended the beaver family to the point they wandered right up to her,†said Dave Otto, founder of Friends of Bolin Creek, the organization responsible for the festival.
Sonis also knows the birds and had an electronic gadget that could play the calls of the owls and hawks in our area.
She clearly enjoys educating people with the knowledge she has gained through keen observation and had an answer for every question.
No child left her table without a souvenir of either a feather found at the creek or an origami cicada kept in a jar there.
Enviroscape was a big hit with children, as well as Wendy Smith, Trish D’Arconte and others with the Chapel Hill Stormwater Management Department demonstrating the effects of stormwater runoff.
At least one consistency with previous years was the delicious Indian cuisine provided by Vimala Rajendran, who told me she’s getting ready to launch a restaurant in Carrboro.
“This is the best cook in the world,†said Lopaz Evans, 14, as he arrived with his father.
There’s something for everyone at the Bolin Creek Festival. Watch for it next October!
Contact Valarie Schwartz at valariekays AT mac DOT com or 923-3746.