The Case of the Missing Glove: A reflection on an MMA Winter Afterschool Adventure

Camden Palm • March 30, 2023

By: Camden Palm, MMA Director of Education

 

“Grab your coats, it’s time for an outdoor adventure!” I hollered to students in the newly expanded MMA afterschool program, generously funded by the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnerships. Students scurried to their cubbies, and loaded up on layers- hats, gloves shoved in their pockets, jackets pulled over their sweatshirts. We embarked outside into a calm winter day. To Dead Horse Valley we go! We wandered down New Dollar Lane in our safety sandwich- a formation with one MMA staff member leading the front, one MMA staff member managing the back, and kids filling the middle. We passed Ham Pony Lot, and waved to the workers who were building an entry way wall on the way. We crossed Prospect Street and arrived at the freshly mended Dead Horse Valley hill. At least 3 students sped down with all their might. 


Today we embarked on a nature hike, the goal? Investigating signs of spring. . . We found snowdrops, and buds on shrubs, we discovered daffodil buds, and moss soft as a carpet. Each student had a magnifying glass in hand, and we wandered for a long while. Oh, what a day. Then, all of a sudden, a camper proclaimed “OH NO! I lost my glove!!” It was the epitome of a winter adventure and the case of the missing glove. Next thing we know we were testing our orienteering skills to retrace our steps. We passed the moss soft as a carpet, turned at the fork where the daffodil buds sprouted, waved to the patch of snowdrops, with no luck on the glove hunt. . . Each member of our team was fully invested. The last place to look was the bottom of Dead Horse Valley’s hill. Searching high, low, and in between, a student yelled, “I see something blue!,” and running commenced. Could it be the glove. . . Why YES, YES IT WAS!! Glove in hand our mission felt like an utter success, and just like that our after-school adventure had to wind to an end. 


After that day, more and more signs of spring came to the spotlight, and even a week or two later, some students wore only a sweatshirt while gloves and coats stayed in their backpacks. As we enter into April, I see more moments of light jackets and the glimmer of summer shorts. This winter has been full of programming including Afterschool Series, Winter Break programs, and another exciting Nantucket Science Festival. It has also been full of planning for our April programs and Summer Discovery Camps. The seasons change and more engagement is ahead. The best part is the unknown of what adventures will come, and what we will find or lose while we explore Nantucket. 

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 27, 2025
This is what our landscaper for MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House this is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF
Show More