Kinetic energy, ant empires, giant fossils and water fun: The Montshire Museum engages minds of all ages

In another life I must have been a scientist because, despite the fact that I'm an art writer, I am and always have been fascinated with a broad swath of the sciences, from quantum physics, astronomy and entomology to superstring theory, archaeology and botany. Fortunately, there's a nearby haven for people like me who never quite made it to MIT but who always keep a copy of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on hand for those frequent "must-know" moments.

The Montshire Museum houses a dynamic collection of engaging, interactive and multi-themed natural and physical sciences displays, as well as special traveling exhibits that are accessible and fascinating to every member of the family, whether it's the Wind Wall, the Frog Calls, the Heat Camera or the water activities outside.

Though my kids think I take them there out of the generosity of my motherly heart, the truth is I look forward to every semi-monthly or so trip we make just as much as they do. And when they head off to explore the theater of Fireflies, the Resonant Pendulum or the Bikevator, they know they can usually find me at one of two places: the Leafcutter Ants exhibit or the Honey Bees' hive.

At one end of what is a veritable kingdom of ant civilization — with Plexiglas boxes housing civic locales such as a dump and a graveyard, all linked together like a futuristic New England connected farm — an articulated magnifying lens is suspended over a factory teeming with activity. We get extreme close-ups of leaves being industriously cut and carried by the mediae ants, who transport them through a clear tube to the fungus garden, supervised by the smallest workers, called minims.

I have yet to spot the reclusive queen, which could be a good thing as she apparently has relatives in South America the size of hamsters. When it comes to serving her people, this monarch puts all others to shame. The story goes that she mated once 12 years ago and saved the sperm, fertilizing her own eggs and mothering the entire colony single-tarsally ever since. She is one feisty formicida and I, for one, find her and the family business riveting.

Leafcutter ant society is remarkable, particularly in terms of self-sufficiency. They are apparently the only animals beside humans that grow their own food, so we eco-glutton bi-peds have a lot to learn from these tireless farmers. They also outweigh us: As much as 20 percent of the total weight of all land animals worldwide is comprised of ants. Ergo, whenever I see one on the floor, I don't bother squishing it; there's no point, they'll be in charge eventually anyway.

The honey bee community is equally mesmerizing, with drones and workers going about their business in a hive that's completely visible and connected to the outdoors, allowing us to watch them taking off and coming in for a landing, laden with pollen.

Whether low-tech or state-of-the-art, live specimens or taxidermy, whimsical or scholarly, each display at the Montshire Museum is creative, captivating and compelling for every age. On the second level, near vitrines containing birds, their nests and delicate eggs, there are exquisite cases of preserved dragonflies, butterflies, moths and beetles, and nearby a massive moose, whose fur you can touch, watches over the gallery.

On the ground floor, there are bubble activities, aquariums, inventive puzzles and a zoetrope, as well as an under-5s play area where a faux black bear hibernates a the end of a darkened tunnel through which little ones can crawl if they dare.

A more recent acquisition is the Time Machine, a monitor with a manual dial that allows viewers to speed up or slow down seamlessly looped film footage of anything from milk splashing out of a dropped glass to ferns sprouting up from a carpet of pine needles to a hummingbird nipping nectar from a blossom. Bolts of lightning or the seasonal burst of a bunchberry flower, which is known to open and catapult its pollen in less than a millisecond, can be examined at a freeze-frame pace and, likewise, slow-moving clouds and even baking cinnamon rolls can be sped up to dramatic effect.

The Montshire's more traditional attractions are no less thrilling, including the impossibly huge (taller than my 9-year-old) 135 million-year-old femur of an apatosaurus, which is displayed next to a similarly sobering 18-foot skin of an anaconda snake.

Another major draw is the Science Park just behind the Montshire, an outdoor museum in and of itself, with hands-on — and, during warm weather — bodies-in exhibits that use natural elements to teach kids about the movement of air, sound and water.

The Stone Xylophone is a row of giant stone beams with a cork mallet and the rich, resonant sound it produces gets some kids so involved, they end up with a cardio workout as well.

Nearby, the Matisse Musical Fence, built by none other than Paul Matisse, the grandson of renowned painter Henri Matisse, transforms 59 vertical aluminum pipes into a huge versatile instrument that inspires imagination as well as teamwork.

Farther down a winding path through a beautifully landscaped sloping garden, H20 becomes the focus, with the Water Rill, a 250-foot course that allows kids to make dams, float balls and check out water patterns. The Mist Fountain creates an umbrella of soft spray that produces rainbows when the light is right and just beyond that, at the base of a tiered series of wading pools, are the popular water bells that kids can adjust into different shapes and explore from within.

This place is a 362-days-a-year goldmine and in the summer months, when kids are thirsty for intellectual and social stimulation, the Science Park's outdoor activities, picnic tables and six hiking trails make it an especially exhilarating all-day outing.

I've brought friends visiting with their kids from culturally fertile places such as D.C., S.F. and Germany, and they all comment that they don't have anything like this where they live, so I count my lucky stars — particularly during the museum's terrific constellation lectures — that we have this in our own back yard.

The museum regularly offers talks and films on various subjects, along with camps and classes for kids, such as the Inventors' Workshop, Aquatic Investigations and Exploring Nature Through Art. There are adult courses, too, including one on native wildflowers starting tonight and going through the weekend.

The Montshire Museum, whose name come from the last syllables of both the states it serves, is a treasure trove of wonderment. Whether you're a wannabe physicist or just a parent looking for an affordable family adventure, plan a visit — and don't forget the swimsuits.

Online: www.montshire.org
Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com

Quirky collections and early eco-wisdom: Edifying exhibits are the perfect tonic

Coming back from the left coast would have been easier if another 8 feet of snow had arrived in our absence but somehow, returning to what must be about the fifth mud-season so far this year, was harder. I'm starting to think it's a meteorological fifth dimension, with a groovy theme to go with it (sing along, everyone): "When the mud, is all around the house, and furniture is lined with soil."

When mud is all around the house, the yard, the sidewalks and the state, my tendency each weekend is to find fun things to do in places that are, by definition, dirt-free, and what better destination than museums? As mentioned herein last week, Vermont is home to a constellation of intriguing creative institutions filled with far more than just fine art.

There's the American Precision Museum, the Birds of Vermont Museum, the Cornish Colony Museum, the New England Transportation Museum, the Shelburne Museum and even the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Rumor has it there even used to be a Vermont Wax Museum renowned for its revolving Elvis but, alas, he's left the turntable as the place is now closed. The mind boggles at what else might have been in there … a marble-eyed Hetty Green savoring her fortune or an ashen Ethan Allen being charged with treason?

The top of my unconventional museums list, however — the mother of all treasure troves — is the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury. Vermont's much-celebrated field-trip favorite boasts more than 160,000 natural science, historical and cultural objects that 19th-century industrialist Franklin Fairbanks collected during extensive travels around the globe. Overflowing with everything from Victorian dolls, Egyptian sarcophagi and rare gemstones to paintings, textiles, farm tools and taxidermy — not to mention a planetarium and weather station — the Fairbanks is an ideal place to take friends and family for a remarkably engaging day steeped in vicarious sightseeing and international geographic illumination.

Soaking up this diverse collection is tantamount to taking a slightly surreal jaunt to other continents, distant cultures and past eras, an experience both abundant and intimate, if not occasionally daunting. During my first visit a while back with my daughter's class to what looks from the outside like a Victorian castle, I entered the massive main room, with its barrel-vaulted oak ceiling, and was instantly transfixed by a startling tableau. Just through the main doors, a towering stuffed polar bear the size of a minivan rears up on his hind legs in frozen, bared-ivories rage, dwarfing a massive grizzly and two black bears nearby.

Taxidermy isn't everyone's cup of tea but there is something profoundly stirring, albeit a tad spine-chilling, about being able to examine such gorgeous, colossal creatures up-close and personal. Watching bears on the Discovery Channel or pacing inside far-off cages surrounded by cement moats affords a modicum of enlightenment, of course, yet this was the first time I'd ever been in such close proximity to a species that's universally feared and revered, and it gave me a whole new perspective on their plight.

When I spoke to the Fairbanks Museum's Anna Rubin, she revealed that my reaction was not uncommon and also offered crucial and informative insights into the singular passion and purpose of Mr. Fairbanks who, I gathered, was something of an amateur Darwin of his milieu.

"The practice of collecting natural specimens in the late 1800s was not perceived in the same way we might look at it today," she explained. "It was really in the cause of science and wanting to preserve these animals so they could be studied and protected. All the pieces in the museum are from that era."

Before establishing the museum in 1891, he regularly invited the public into his home to see his "cabinet of curiosity" in which he displayed his eclectic collection, which contains items of international, national and regional interest. One of my favorite displays was on the second-floor balcony, which is brimming with shelves, cabinets and cases of antique dolls, vintage toys and various household and historical artifacts.

Inside a low vitrine is a group of personal possessions dating from the Civil War. I was particularly moved by a small, lovingly handmade sewing kit, given by a local 15-year-old girl to her sweetheart before he left to fight. One can only assume it was found out on a battleground, and the inclusion of that kind of human iconography in the context of a museum containing more than 3,000 natural specimens reflects Fairbanks' holistic view of the world and its inhabitants.

Fairbanks would come back from his trips with assorted pelts, weapons, insects, photographs, costumes, shells and other discoveries that could help to edify his friends and colleagues back in Vermont. Having inherited great wealth from his uncle, who invented the platform scale and founded the Fairbanks Scale Co., Franklin Fairbanks was committed to giving back to his hometown and integrated his own zeal for travel into this impulse.

"He was like many Victorian civic-minded family members who felt a real love for the community," said Rubin. "He wasn't a scientist or scholar but out of a deep appreciation for nature, he brought to this isolated part of New England these views of animals and visions of other parts of the world."

Working with local, self-taught taxidermist William Balch, Fairbanks eventually built a museum to house his finds, an eccentric landscape unto itself, filled with recreations of the flora and fauna that he'd come to cherish in places he knew most of his friends, family and neighbors would never see.

Balch proved to be an innovator in exhibit design as well, crafting lush, convincing dioramas in which he placed the exotic creatures he'd carefully preserved, deftly utilizing materials of the day, such as linen (this was long before plastic's time) to create the illusion of natural habitats. With the same scientific authenticity and remarkable eye for detail that was being employed in New York City's Natural History Museum right around the same time, Balch was, as Rubin reverently put it, "at the cutting edge of interpreting the natural world."

Together, the two men filled custom-made wood-and-glass cases with meticulously arranged environments, including a truly exquisite display of what is thought to be the world's largest collection of hummingbirds. With 131 shimmering specimens presented on realistic-looking trees, replete with nests, under glass at eye-level, it is yet another of the museum's many breathtaking exhibits.

Everyone at the museum clearly venerates Mr. Fairbanks' pioneering sensibilities and generosity of spirit, and with good reason. Though through our 21st-century lens we might consider a room full of posed animals in ersatz environs to be tacitly un-P.C., everything Rubin taught me about Fairbanks' motivations and expansive thinking as a true animal lover convinced me that, were he alive today, he'd probably be out there picketing for PETA and holding fund-raisers for Greenpeace.

The entire collection of the Fairbanks Museum is a manifestation of its founder's global sensibilities, which were evident in his respect for cultural diversity, an abiding love of nature and a staunch devotion to the stewardship of all the world's creatures. It is sobering and inspiring to realize that his visionary achievements pre-saged the very issues with which the human race now struggles, on so many fronts.

Eloquently summing up the magnitude of Fairbanks' accomplishments, Rubin said it best: "The museum is a timepiece, about the Victorian understanding of the natural world and the awesome beauty of these creatures."

Online: www.fairbanksmuseum.org

Ghostly household hijinks: Ethereal happenings abound in haunted Vermont

For the sake of full disclosure, I'd better get this on the table right up front: I'm a believer — in ghosts, that is. Not that I've ever seen any, you understand. Rather, I implicitly trust the good sense and rational recall of friends and relatives who say they've had up close and personal encounters of the weird kind.

With family rooted entirely in the UK — a place some would say has a corner on the market of all things blood-curdling — my childhood was generously peppered with chilling tales of one sort or another.

The first I ever heard came from my Dad, who grew up around the corner from Borley Rectory, considered by many to be England's most haunted location, with phantom nuns, horse-carriages and ill-fated lovers having been seen on the estate for more than a century. Though my Dad was only sure he'd heard the sounds of hooves when riding past on his bicycle, most of his schoolmates had sworn they'd witnessed all of its oddities.

While England is seemingly crawling with apparitions, its namesake is as well, for this area is steeped in oft-documented yet inexplicable mysteries. As someone who has never witnessed paranormal activity and who finds the notion both appealing and horrifying, it always astounds me that even those who have experienced it many times over can be remarkably matter of fact about it.

Friends who live in a nearby 220-year-old farmhouse are a case in point. They often awoke to find a man sitting motionless at the end of the bed, who then evaporates while turning towards them. Once they heard sounds of pots and pans crashing in the kitchen as if someone were preparing a 10-course meal, but, upon investigation, every wok and stockpot was still in its place and no one was there. And a door in the guest room has been known to open and close of its own accord.

Though they seem wholly unflustered by these creepy events, I'm fairly certain I'd be running to the nearest Realtor declaring it's time to sell and find a shiny new condo in a high-rise somewhere.

This flagrant cowardice is what kept me from heading over to Manchester's pre-eminently elegant—and allegedly haunted — resort hotel, the Equinox, to interview General Manager Courtney Lowe in person, as any self-respecting writer would. I'd heard about various preternatural incidents that have taken place at the Equinox since its founding in 1769 and, well, uh, my schedule was a little tight, so I ended up having to talk to him by phone, drat it.

According to Lowe, the hotel's housekeepers, in particular, are made aware of a presence that seems to enjoy interfering with their work in mischievous ways.

"There's a suite with floor-to-ceiling curtains which get tied up in a knot," he explained. "The housekeepers will untie them, go out of room and come back a few minutes later to find them tied again."

Lowe attests that there's a long list of peculiar goings-on, including vacuum cleaners turning on by themselves as well as ephemeral characters seen by guests. "Years ago, a corporate meeting planner looked out on the landing outside his door when he heard a noise and saw a ghostly looking figure standing there."

According to Lowe, because the hotel has been in existence for so long there are decades of testimony by employees and guests who couldn't have known each other, but whose observations have been identical, including accounts of otherworldly children running up and down one particular hallway.

I've also read about beds that have just been made up will be discovered moments later having been stripped of their linens and that a long-locked, uninhabited room has sometimes been found to have a tower of furnishings and other objects piled up in the center of the floor.

One of the most eloquent and encyclopedic resources for such compelling nuggets from this region's rich history of hauntings is Vermont native, Joe Citro, author of seven books on the countless intriguing, if not patently sepulchral, occurrences that have been taking place in New England for centuries.

Each of his publications — including "Ghosts, Ghouls and Unsolved Mysteries," "Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors" and "Green Mountains, Dark Tales" — offer a comprehensive selection of informative narratives documenting everything from big-band music emanating from a nonexistent Victrola to smells of cooking wafting through an old office building whose kitchen had long since been removed.

My favorite Citro collection is "The Vermont Ghost Guide," 100 pages of local legends in a handy pocket-sized format and perfect for keeping in one's glove box — if one has the courage to actually stop at the sites of his mesmerizing tales, that is. Citro's unofficial designation as the state's resident oddity historian is well-earned, for he has been recording and recounting these compelling reports for two decades and it all started with an eerie story told by his dad.

"My father was likely to tell stories about local events," Citro said. "And my earliest experience was when he told me about the Bowman House in Cuttingsville."

The Bowman House is said to be haunted by Mrs. Bowman, whose untimely death followed the demise of both her children. Mr. Bowman's profound sorrow is manifest today in the form of a massive mausoleum he built across from the family home, replete with a life-size statue of himself grieving, hat and wreath in hand.

"That's the first story that captured my attention," Citro said. "My father knew a lot of local lore and then I would get the real scoop."

The Vermont Guide has enough real scoops to keep readers busy for many a Hallows' Eve, with descriptions that are frightening and fascinating, and alter our view of many a landmark.

Tranquil Windsor, for instance, is the site of one of the most astounding phenomena I've ever come across. In 1955, a family was forced to move out of its home when water began mysteriously filling cupboards, closets and chairs throughout the house. It even rained inside at one point and a bowl of grapes filled up with water while being carried from one room to the next. Professionals in every field were consulted, from plumbers to parapsychologists, but the puzzle was never solved and within a month it was over. The family's name? Waterman.

The stories are riveting and diverse: In Bellows Falls, the spirits of native Abenakis are said to roam along the riverbanks on which a paper mill now sits, with legs submerged in the floorboards; phantom canoes have been seen floating across the water at Sumner's Falls in Hartland; Shaftsbury Cemetery is graced by the specter of one Gardner Barton who lingers near the family tombstones; and at Wilmington's White House Inn, the ghost of Clara Brown, wife of the inn's builder, is said to speak to guests who share her name. These are but a few examples of hundreds of unearthly happenings that color Vermont's cultural history.

Along with a Citro-guided terrifying tour of Vermont, you can take in a bit of spine-chilling outdoor theater written by the author himself as well. The Haunted Forest takes place on the grounds of the Catamount Family Center in Wilmington this Friday and Saturday and, from the sounds of it, your ghoulish goblet will runneth over.

As for my own fear of foreboding, I joked with my beau that maybe we ought to actually stay at the Equinox sometime so I can do some serious journalistic research along the lines of popular TV shows like "Most Haunted" or "Ghost Hunters," wherein authorities and amateurs alike prowl around bedecked with infrared cameras, motion sensors and electromagnetic field detectors. Since the Equinox is so beautiful and its ethereal events more curious than creepy, gosh, I might just do it. Next year.

Online: www.thehauntedforest.org

www9.addr.com/~jacitro

www.equinoxresort.com

Annie:  annieguyoncommunications.com