May not only brought the library its fair share of flowers, but also saw an author visit, Mother’s Day Tea, major garden progress, and a new Friends of the Library group.

Our students at Troy Elementary School had a special visit on May 14 from Author Marek Bennet, thanks to our Children’s Literacy Foundation Rural Libraries (CLiF) grant! NH-based cartoonist, musician, and educator Marek Bennett leads discovery-based Comics Workshops for all ages throughout New England and the world beyond. His comics work includes the graphic novel series, The Civil War Diary of Freeman Colby, as well as drawing, translating, & editing for The Most Costly Journey (2021) with the bilingual El Viaje Project. In September 2022, both books were featured at the National Book Festival in Washington DC. Marek is the recipient of the New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award for Art Education.

Mother’s Day came with a Mother’s Day Tea hosted by MaryLee Obert at the library, complete with poetry, refreshments, and laughs. Thanks to all who came out to celebrate mothers and caregivers alike! Thank you, too, to those who have volunteered to support the library through our new Friends of the Library group! The group will continue to meet on the first Tuesday of the month, every month, at 6 pm, and is always looking for new members. If you are interested in joining, please attend a meeting or call the library at (603) 242-7743 for more information.

We’ve also been fortunate enough to have help from several groups and individuals in getting our gardens and seedlings started. There is still a lot of work and planning to be done! Please watch our social media pages and website for details of when we will meet and the kind of help we are looking for.

Jumping into June, we are looking forward to a Biodiversity presentation on Wednesday June 10 at 5:30 pm by Troy resident Dan Bisaccio. Dan led biological diversity projects for the Smithsonian Institution for over 30 years in tropical forests around the globe. He will present a slide show on why biological diversity is important to all of us and discuss how to get involved with our upcoming Troy, NH BioBlitz.  Dan will also go over how you can participate in BioBlitz by using iNaturalist and contributing your sightings of plants, bugs, birds, and all things natural to our day’s biodiversity inventory. This presentation is geared for adults who are willing to assist young naturalists or with friends, neighbors, or by themselves contribute to our biodiversity “snapshot” inventory. It’s important to bring your phone to this event! Following this, and as part of our summer reading programming, Gay-Kimball Library is hosting a Bioblitz Saturday, June 27 from 10 am to 2 pm…

Are you a birder, a snake enthusiast, fascinated by insects, or find yourself wondering what plant or critter is that? Are you looking for a chance to train your naturalist skills with like-minded peers? Get your phones charged and help us record every plant and critter you see. We will be using a free app – iNaturalist – to record what neighborhood species we share our Troy community with.

A BioBlitz is a fast-paced, community-driven event where scientists, volunteers, and nature enthusiasts work together to identify as many species as possible in a specific location within a set timeframe (often 24 hours). It combines education, scientific observation, and nature exploration to document biodiversity, often using apps like iNaturalist.

Speaking of summer reading, we will kick off this year on Saturday, June 20, with sign-ups from 10 am to 2 pm. All who sign up will receive a gift bag, reading contract, and more! This year’s theme is Plant a Seed: Read! June 20 will also mark the first date and opening of our week-long ‘Escape the Greenhouse’ Escape Room.

This year’s summer reading program is suitable for preschoolers and up. Sign-ups are required for both the escape room and summer reading. The escape room will run through the 27^th, and sign-ups are required. You do not have to participate in summer reading to participate in the escape room, which is free of charge. You do, however, need to sign up to participate in the greenhouse escape room. The escape room is suitable for children and adults ages eight and up and can be done in groups of six or fewer.

As always, we are thankful for our patrons, who help make the library not only a resource but a community hub for so many in town. Give us a call if you have ideas on ways we can better serve Troy and its residents!

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Our Hours:

Tuesday – 10:00 am – 7 pm

Wednesday & Thursday – 2 pm – 7 pm

Saturday – 10 am – 2 pm

Do those hours not work for you?  You can make use of our 24/7 Library Lockers!

May 25 – After a very rainy Memorial Day weekend, Mr Kyle came out on the end of the day Memorial Day to pull up 100 square feet of sod for the vegetable part of our garden! This was in preparation for our long-awaited DUMP TRUCK DAY!

May 26 – With perfect weather, our Storytime crew, curious patrons, volunteers, Mr Kyle, and library staff gathered to listen to Mr Kyle read to us before the big Black and Gold Compost dump! Next, the kids took turns making their own dump truck runs to the garden plot to fill up our new garden with compost! In two hours time, and with a lot of laughs, not only did we have a new garden space, but our hands and faces were covered with almost as much dirt as great memories!

Later in the day, volunteers and staff put up a fence, worked together to plant pollinators in the pollinator bed, and cleaned up as Mr Kyle replanted sod around the library property to spruce things up! Looking forward and based on weather patterns and one cold night ahead, the decision was made to wait one more week before getting our greenhouse seedlings in the ground. Meantime, gutters will go up over our container beds so that the roofline drip doesn’t hurt our fragile stems.

This week’s pictures say it all: