Mercer County Library Blog

The fuzzy needles of the dark purple-green pine tree behind my computer screen sweep up and out across the silver-framed window panels beyond the scope of my vision. Flexible branches of this tree and all healthy trees point up and out on most non-weeping varieties. As trees make pine cones, fruit, leaves, seeds, flowers, bark, needles, twigs, and sticks, the air around them improves. The buds formed in the fall now widen. "Can we be flexible palm trees?" my friend asked her children. Can we be steady and stalwart like a tulip tree? During storms, the tulip tree, ten feet from my back door, drops lichen-heavy limbs. Spiky seedpods from his good friend, a Sweetgum, create a further hazard. I look at the trees, and ideas form. Some people must work without the sight of a tree. I wonder whether they mind. Lichens are also fun to look at and think about. Rare in urban areas and often found on tombstones, Golden Moonglow lichen is a thin, dusty-green, fluttering lichen with a ro...

If you visited the Lawrence Headquarters Branch last year, you might have seen a transformation occurring in our front garden beds — especially the birth of our native plant meadow. Have you noticed a magnificent chaos beginning to bloom outside the library doors this season? What may have once looked like an unkempt lawn is becoming a vibrant native plant meadow, a living extension of our Mercer County Library System's mission to foster growth and learning. By replacing traditional manicured grass with native species, we are doing more than just landscaping; we are restoring a vital ecosystem. These plants — like Creeping Phlox, the pollinator-favorite Purple Coneflower, and Purple love grass — are specially adapted to our local climate. Unlike typical lawns, this meadow requires no fertilizer and, once established, survives on rainfall alone. In the gardening world I came across what seems to be a common saying for perennials:  "The first year they sleep, the second y...

The TrashedArt Contest has grown quite a bit over the past 17 years! Each year, member of the Mercer County community remake, reuse and renew items that would otherwise be recycled or trashed into unique and beautiful art. Here are some highlights from the past decade. TrashedArt Contest 2016:   In 2016, we had 3 adult and 3 high school student winners in first, second and third place. Helene Plank, a participant of the TrashedArt Contest since the Contest’s third year in 2012, won third place for “Iris Fantasia” (window ledge). To read more about Helene’s button art, check out the TrashedArt Contest interview from 2020: TrashedArt at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch – Part 1 Michele Ben-Asher won first place for the adult category in 2016 for “Jersey Birds.” She crocheted plastic bags into the unique design at the center of the table. To find out more about Ben-Asher’s art, visit: TrashedArt at the Lawrence Headquarters Branch – Part 2 Gene Dombroski won second place in the ad...

The other day I went for a walk in Washington Crossing State Park. There is quite a bit going on there in preparation for the celebration of the 250 th anniversary of the founding of the United States – the Latin word is Semiquincentennial (or Bisesquicentennial, the Sestercentennial, America250 or the Quarter Millennium). Looking back to the last big anniversary, I have to admit that Bicentennial was way easier to say! There are construction and restoration projects going on – so some parts of the park are not as peaceful as they usually are. The construction is for a new Museum and Visitor’s Center and the landscape restoration is in response to the damage caused by ash borers. Washington Crossing’s paved loop road is my go-to hike when I want a walk, but it’s been rainy and I just don’t want to slog thru a muddy trail. The paved loop road is a good option – it’s got hills and scenery and history. Sometimes I like to hike across the bridge into Pennsylvania, but the pedestrian br...

In a world beset by climate change, environmental problems can feel overwhelming. Afterall, most people don’t set climate policy and even people who do don’t seem to have a firm handle on the issue. However, there are still things an individual can do to make the world healthier and more sustainable. One of those solutions is zero waste living: a form of living that minimizes waste, maximizes recycling, and reduces consumption. Another solution is upcycling. Upcycling is the process of reusing discarded material by creating a product of higher value. For example, using discarded clothes to create textile art. But the real goal of people trying to live a sustainable life is to reduce their ecological footprint, usually through simple living. There are many different ways to contribute to the health of the planet and some of the books in our collection are brimming with ideas on how best to do that. All the books mentioned in this blog post are available in Mercer County Library System’...

When I was in my graduate school internship with the Cherry Hill Public Library, I heard about seed libraries for the first time. The librarians there were discussing their programming plans for the spring and I was eager to hear all of the details. Later, I heard about them again when I went on a trip to Utah and visited the Salt Lake City Library, who advertised their own seed library with flyers and bookmarks. As someone who has always longed for a beautiful, bounty-filled garden, this sounded like an amazing library program idea. When I was young, I kept trying to plant my own seeds, oblivious if they were viable or not, in one corner of the yard and hoped they would grow. My mom was always growing plants outside in the backyard or houseplants in the living room. She would talk about her flowers and bushes and I’d love every single one of them, even if they were a pain to water as chores. As I got older, Mom would save her seeds from flowering plants to replant (which she still ...

We know it’s important to recycle, but some items, like computers and other tech, can present more of a challenge than others. Recycling is often thought of as the third R in Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle but did you know there’s actually a fourth “R”? By focusing on these 4-Rs we can help reduce our e-waste responsibly. The blog, Going Zero Waste , by Kathryn Kellogg has a good breakdown of the 4-R’s .  For more of Kathryn’s Zero Waste living tips, check out her book, 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste . REFUSE what you don’t need. REDUCE what you have. REUSE what you can. RECYCLE or compost what you cannot. ( Source :  About the Lingo - Going Zero Waste ) With this in mind, let’s walk through some simple ways each of us can reduce our e-waste! Refuse This step stops waste before it even happens. Thinking about getting a new gadget? Pause and consider if you really need it. If it’s not something that’s serving a true immediate need, choose an amount of time to wait before making ...