It's My Party and It Better Not Rain

 

7-18-2025

It’s the final countdown. Eight days until the end of the reading portion of the Summer Reading Program. All reading grides and lists are due no later than 1:00pm July 26, 2025. Drawing for the raffle winners will take place at 1:15pm. I am very excited about the changes made to the final Pizza Party beginning with the early drawing. This will allow both a guarantee of limiting winners to one prize and becoming a real celebration.

Nobody in the greater East Troy area with an ounce of compassion may wish/hope/think about rain for July 28^th. That will ruin the bounce house portion of the event. Arguably we would be able to face paint and make balloon animals, but our boldest change will have to stay at Martin’s Hardware Store if it rains.

This year Prairie Lakes Library System’s new Programming Consultant Kate Davis approached businesses in the three counties to solicit donations on behalf of member libraries. The donations we received didn’t fall in line with our traditional program. Most of them are coupons that will be offered up during a raffle at the Pizza Party. While winners do not need to be present to win the ice cream making kit on display in the library, they will need to be present to win these coupons. I believe the coolest of which is a free day pass (with shoes) for Climb @ the Loop in Burlington. That’s saying a lot as a free chocolate chip cookie from Casey’s is also in the offerings and I do love chocolate.

Before we reach either the due date or the party, Wednesday, July 23^rd at 2:00pm is the date and time for Mary Bub’s author talk at the IGET Community Center. (By the Pickleball courts.) Mary published her Letters to Betty: The Anatomy of One Woman’s Grief a year after the death of her husband based on letters written to an imaginary friend over the course of that year. That book was followed up by And So It Goes: A Companion to Letters to Betty, which can be described as a toolkit or workbook for others experiencing their own losses.  

Before Mary Bub’s program, on Tuesday, July 22^nd, our new website goes live. This is the second new website in seventeen months as our website provider announced his retirements six months after the last one. I’m looking at that as a rough draft. The next one is the revised final product. This is the version that will include the LocalHop calendars for the library and our Community Calendar. Check it out if you want to sign up for either Sourdough events electronically.

Reading Now: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Listening to Now: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Art Attack and Registrations

 

7-4-2025

This year’s Children’s Parade was a glorious way to kick off 4^th of July celebrations. We had eighty-one children and parents participate. Many of the children will, however, need a stern talking to before they get their temps as they broke a cardinal rule. Never pass the police officer. While Chief Swendrowski led the start of the parade, using the high school’s bus lane provided many of the bicyclists the opportunity to lead the finish. Perhaps we should add bike races to the final celebration on July 28^th.

This week is a short one for the library as we will be closed for the holiday and the carnival. Miss Maria will appreciate the breather as Friday’s Art Attack has been quite popular. The first week was a bit slow with eight participants, but now that summer is in full swing last week’s craft had twenty-nine participants plus their parents. This will definitely be a program we run again next summer. Miss Maria has also brought up the possibility of offering it one Saturday a month during the school year as well.

Moving forward with a program like Art Attack will be made easier with the new website we are soon to reveal. Our current website is only sixteen months old; however, six months after it went live, our provider announced his retirement. Prairie Lakes Library System stepped in and provided funding for a web designer and will host the new site. One of the changes we’ll make is in converting our calendar feature to the event management service LocalHop, also provided by PLLS. That’s a fancy way of saying our new calendar will allow us to add events with built in registration. This will be used for future Art Attacks and events such as the returning Sourdough Made Simple.

The final service PLLS provides its libraries that we are beginning to implement is Patron Point. That service allows us to send a variety of emails to patrons. The first of which went out this week. It provided information on adult programming for July and August. The two August events, Sourdough Made Simple and Sourdough Bake Off, include links to LocalHops registration page. The new website isn’t live yet, but the registration process is ready. For patrons without email, a call or visit to the library will allow for easy sign up. Benefits of using LocalHop include setting limits to the number of participants, but allowing for waitlist as well in case someone cancels and email reminders before the event so fewer people forget they signed up.

More next week on other features of the new website and upcoming programming.

Reading Now: Moira's Pen by Megan Whalen Turner (Short Story collection from the Queen's Thief series)

Listening to Now: Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

 

More Sourdough and Community Storytime

 

2-7-2025

Anyone who follows our Facebook page knows it is full of sourdough updates. The program last month was extremely popular. We had 80 people sign up for the two sessions. Only live animals consistently do better than that. Although they don’t have the advantage of two time slots. It’s been fun experimenting with different recipes. Crackers are nice an easy. So far, I’ve tried fresh cracked black pepper, sea salt, and rosemary flavors. The bread I made this week is like my annual apple pies: doesn’t look the prettiest, but tastes just fine.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the free MasterClass seats available in 2025. In looking for additional recipes, I discovered they have a sourdough class. I will definitely need to try the sourdough brownies as I have a weakness for both.

We’d love to hear other baking stories. We’d also love to hear suggestions for other adult programs, either a topic of interest or interesting community member with something to share.

Miss Maria has arranged for eight community members to cover her February and March storytimes while she is recovering from surgery. Thankfully, it was planned well in advance so plans are all taken care of. The rest of us just have to read and follow directions. Just like subbing at school, of which I have years of experience.

February will bring us retired teacher Claudia Felske who after years of high school English is enjoying subbing in elementary classrooms, yoga instructor Jennah Strand, ETCSD bus driver Rachel Neubauer, and East Troy Trolley Superconductor Jim Feyerherm. In March we have acupuncturist Brandon LeGreca, ETPD Chief Jeremy Swendrowski, ETFD Chief Joe DeGaro, and Citizens Bank teller Jennifer Christensen. Library staff will run the storytime and craft with guests sharing books of their choosing. They have been encouraged to show off any special vehicles related to their occupations, but I don’t think the trolley will make it.

All but one of the crafts are planned out. The remaining one is making a piggy bank. The top idea is to create a leprechaun’s pot of gold from a Oui yogurt jar. Those jars are a favorite basis for craft projects, which gives me an excuse for spending the extra money on that brand. They were also used to hand out sourdough starters. We’ve added them to our list of accepted donations along with books, yarn and plastic bags.

Reading Now: Breath by James Nestsor, Twenty-four Seconds from Now by Jason Reynolds

Listening to Now: An Aura of Mystery by Joy Ellis

Summer Schedule Changes & Saturday Programs

 

5-31-2024

We are on the cusp of June. As I enter my third summer posting teaching, I have finally begun to shift my thinking and realize I won’t looking for projects and activities to fill the time until school starts up again. The library’s summer schedule fills it for me. And never before has it been so full.

Six weeks ago, this article contained a preview of programming for Mondays and mentioned the Adult Book Club (June’s book is Lessons in Chemistry by the way). Those are standard programs. We have several new programs planned and a few schedule changes beginning Saturday, June 1^st.

Let’s start with Saturday programs. Miss Anna will be working the 1^st and 3^rd Saturdays of each month. On her Saturdays we will open the Lower Level to groups who would like to work on puzzles. While this is open to all, we have an ulterior motive. The Prairie Lakes Library System, which ETLPL is a member of, is sponsoring a puzzle competition this fall. No word on the actual rules yet as far as number of pieces or time allotted. It will have three levels of competition: individual library, county, and system. That means East Troy can have a team that would compete against teams from other Walworth County libraries. The winner of that competition will compete against winners from Racine and Rock Counties.

In order to prepare our team(s) for competition, 500-piece puzzles will be available on Miss Anna’s Saturdays for practice (or just family fun). Once the official rules are adopted, we will announce an official competition date for ETLPL’s representative team at the county level. For now we’ll pull puzzles from the permanent puzzle swap. New, identical puzzles will be purchased for the competition.

Miss Maria will be working the 2^nd and 4^th Saturdays of the month. She will be offering a repeat of her Friday storytime without the craft for families who are unable to make it during the traditional work week. The Saturday storytime will begin at 10:30 and run approximately 30 minutes. Also new for families with young children is a 6:30 Tuesday Bedtime Storytime. All participants are welcome to attend in the PJs.

Schedule changes will go into effect this coming week for Preschool Playgroup (Thursday morning), Teens & Tweens (Thursday afternoon), and Lego Club (Wednesday afternoon). To keep it all straight, we have a summer calendar available at the library or online under the Activities and Events tab.

The 2^nd Saturday storytime will be held on the main level of the library in June as that is also the day of Nancy’s Dedication ceremony. Remember that will start at 11:15 by the flagpole before moving inside to the storytime area.

Reading Now: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (June Adult Book Club Selection), Dancing at Midnight by Julia Quinn (pre-Bridgerton)

Listening to Now: Fire on the Fens by Joy Ellis (DCI Nikki Galena #9)

School Connections

 

5-3-2024

Today’s lead is a library program next week. The FFA will be helping us with the One Seed, One Wisconsin program again this year. The program is running for the second year. Last year it kicked off with the Wisconsin 55 tomato. This year the seed is for Pride of Wisconsin melons. On Wednesday, May 8^th, right around the corner, at 5:30 the FFA will begin helping people plant seeds. All materials will be supplied.

Timing for the program was determined by two factors. I’m told that melons should be started later than tomatoes as they don’t do as well indoors. This way we’ll start them later so that outside gardening will be an option sooner. The other factor was the FFA flower sale which runs this weekend. I’ll be over there before this article arrives in the library mailbox. Miss Nancy used to plant nearly 100 geraniums along her front porch every year. I’ll be picking up some for outside the library to plant in her memory.

Any seeds remaining after the program will be handed out at the circulation desk in the days following the program.

One of the big surprises revealed by the Community Survey was in the priority for changes to library services question which listed increase coordination with local schools as the #1. This was surprising given that for the past two years, librarians from the East Troy Lions Public Library have been the librarians for the East Troy Community Schools. Anna and I are in and out of school buildings on a regular basis providing services in the form of storytime, library instruction, Battle of the Books, and class field trips to the public library. Last year ETLPL formed a partnership with the FFA to provide an outlet for them to deliver programs to the community, hosted a room during CoOperation Learn at Little Prairie Primary, and participated in the PTO’s End of Year Bash.

This is the one area in which the timing of the survey and our plans don’t align as Anna and I just resigned our position with the school district. We were simply spread too thin. In our letter we did vow to continue providing/supporting all but the daily classes and material purchases. Once they have a new school librarian in place, we will reach out and discuss how the two institutions can continue to partner. In the meanwhile, this week we were at this year’s CoOperation Learn and next weekend we will be at the End of Year Bash.

As always, we are open to suggestions on what else to add.

Reading Now: The Book Of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate (Book Club)

Listening to Now: Beseiged by Kevin Hearne (Book 9 of the Iron Druid Chronicles)