Dreemit's World: Ithaca Community Children's Garden (Kid's Anarchy Zone)
A brief history of Ithaca Children's Garden.
The ICG was first organized in 1997 by Harriet Becker, Mary Alyce Kobler, and Monika Roth.
Located off of Route 89, just North of the city,
the garden, which is constantly expanding, currently takes up three acres and is open seven days a week from sunup to sundown.
It is entirely free for visitors. There is a small paid staff, but for the most part it's run by volunteers.
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And the sign says:
HANDS ON NATURE ANARCHY ZONE:
The mission of the Hands on Nature Anarchy Zone is to engage children and the community in the natural world through outdoor sensory play. This is a place where children of all ages and abilities are free to play and explore, construct and create, using a variety of loose parts.
LET THE CHILDREN PLAY
Research shows that children's growth, development, and overall well being is enhanced through access to nature and opportunities for free play. Playing outside makes kids happier, healthier, smarter. Research also shows that the more access we have to the natural world as children, the more likely we are to care about it as adults.
As you can see the garden is pretty empty today. Probably because we stopped here on the motorcycle in the middle of the afternoon on a school day :)
Wait...what's that, is there someone hiding in there?
Hee hee, Howie thinks we should start a theme called Where's Dreemit? in these posts.
I'm definitely not all that down for pictures of my horrible helmet hair, but I can deal with ones like this ;)
Gaia was built in 2005
The ICG hosts all kinds of events, including children's summer camps that run weekly with different themes, as well as special events such as Rejuvenate: This is the one and only event geared for adults as it is a fundraiser. With great food from local restaurants, wine and beer from local wineries and breweries, and a great variety of music from local musicians, it's a huge amount of fun and highly recommended.
Though I'm not sure if it quite beats this event-
International Mud Day, hosted every year in late June:
Alrighty guys, that concludes Dreemit's World post for today. Hope you enjoyed, and if you have any thoughts, questions, or even criticisms please feel free to throw them in the comment section.
Generously created for me by @son-of-satire
Very nice post. I didn't know there was such a thing over there in Ithaca. I'm probably not going by there anytime soon but it'll be neat to visit someday. Ithaca brewery would be cool to stop and see i'd imagine...hint-hint...The mud pit though, way to many cloths, just saying..hahaha.
Thank you, and yes, we should definitely hit the Ithaca brewery ;) Children's garden Jake, children's garden Lol.
Are you saying then that as you roared up on the motorbike they all fled!! ;0)
The place looks excellent. We have a similar place near us for the kids and they just love it. Great pics, especially Gaia!!
Ha, yes, that explains it! It is really awesome, when the veggies are ready to be picked we'll be back, a summer follow up post :)
Thanks! Actually I climbed all over that thing, haha, but the pictures didn't look like anything but grass and stone lol
It looks great in the pictures though!! Getting a sneaky selfie in as well. Top notch!!! ;0D
Ha, yes, when I do some exploring Watkins Glen posts I may get in some sneaky selfies too, at the marina, and there's an old telephone booth ;)
HEhehehe, thats a fine idea. Telephone booths are an endangered species these days!
What a great idea for a garden. Nice pics, too.
I know, I'm hoping my daughter can do an internship there this summer, it would be a great experience for her :) Thank you!
Edit: She can volunteer, that's for everyone, but an internship means she'd be helping out with the camp and possibly be employed the following summer :)
But if there's a problem here, don't alert the authorities... anarchists don't believe in authorities.
Definition of Anarchism: It is the absence of social hierarchy, with no one imposing their will on another by force or threat of punishment. Anarchy means "without a ruler", or "without government". Government here is meant in the sense of "governing over" and forcing compliance through coercion.
That is an early form of its definition and the one that this place is referring to.
The newer definition: state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority. (To which violence is generally attributed.)
This is what generally comes to mind when people here the word anarchy. But most people who consider themselves anarchists are actually pacificists. They believe disputes can be handled by working them out through respectful conversations and compromise.
In all of the years this park has been in operation, there has never been an instance where a situation arose that required calling in 'outside intervention'. I know, because I looked it up to be certain.
To be very clear though, I don't call myself an anarchist, only because I don't like labels of any kind. However I do agree with many of the principles.
Thank you for your respectful comment. I'm glad there has never been any situations that have required outside intervention, seeing as it would betray the philosophy of the park.
This is true, and may very well be the reason that I didn't find anything about it. Which is to say that perhaps there have been disputes, but they were handled without intervention because as you said, it would betray their philosophy. I'm more of an optimist when it comes to people, I think most of us are more inclined to be decent and kind, at least from my experience on this earth this seems to be the case. In fact, I'm sad to say that the worst behaved people I have ever encountered have been those who wear the uniform of 'protect and serve'. I also had an uncle in law enforcement who was a wonderful man who I loved very dearly, so I'm not saying that 'all cops are bad' by any means.
I appreciate your response, steemit is a platform full of people with very diverse sets of beliefs and I personally enjoy the variety and welcome differences of opinion :)
Haha! I was going to say that I couldn't help but notice that all of the installments of Dreemit's World contains no other humans. It's like you have tons of space with very little amount of people to populate them.
The place looks great! I agree with Howie's idea of doing a Where's Dreemit segment in this, maybe put in a 0.001 STEEM bounty for it to make things interesting haha find where @dreemit is in all of the pictures. I really like that idea! :D