Hartland Public Library

09/28/2026

We love our wildlife and love hosting this special group of young learners.

For the younger nature lovers, please join us!

09/28/2026

For this in-person event, Ben Goldfarb, award-winning environmental journalist and author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, will join us via Zoom for an exploration of how transportation networks have reshaped the natural world. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as alien forces of death and disruption.

More than a million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone; creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates; and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from vast swaths of habitat.

Today, road ecologists are seeking to blunt that destruction through innovative solutions. Conservationists are building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers are deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, and community organizers are working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities.

In this talk, Ben Goldfarb will discuss the ecological harms wrought by transportation and the movement to redress them — and how we can create a better, safer world for all living beings.

If you heard Ben speak to us about beavers in May, you know how good that presentation was. Join us for his return October 1.

Register Here Please:

https://granbylibct.events.mylibrary.digital/staff/bookings?id=406097

09/22/2026

NATURE RANGERS CLUB
This month our little Nature Rangers learned about the beautiful female Yellow Orb Weaver spider.

In September, as the growth in our gardens slows and the foliage dies back, it is a good time to look for orb weavers, as they're otherwise quite skittish and reclusive. Given her size and striking black and yellow markings, the female orb weaver is quite something to lay eyes upon. She will often sit on her web with her legs paired up to look as though she only has four. If you see her, look nearby to see if you can also locate her egg sac, or two or three. The more the merrier!

The female yellow orb weaver is quite large. These images really don’t do her justice. She has a 3 inch legspan! Known by many other names: the writing spider, the zigzag spider or zipper spider, one look at her web will tell you why. Her webs sport a distinctive thick zigzag pattern down the center of them called a "stabilimentum".

Scientists don't have a single, definitive answer as to why the yellow orb weaver includes this zigzag pattern in her web design, but the most supported theory is that the bright white silk makes the web more visible to birds, deer, and other large animals, stopping them from accidentally flying or walking through and destroying it. Pretty smart if you ask me.

The most famous spider of children’s literature, Charlotte, of E.B. White’s beloved book, “Charlotte’s Web” was based on an orb weaver spider. With the fall fair season upon us, it seems to me to be the perfect time to visit (or revisit) the sweet story of a pig named Wilbur and his lovely friend Charlotte the spider. The Hartland Public Library has a copy if interested, as well as copies of the following two delightful books donated this month by our local land trust, the North Woods Land Conservancy:

“Seaver the Weaver” by Paul Czajak and
“Argiope Aurantia” by Deborah Keever

And as always, much gratitude to the Hartland Public Library and it’s staff for volunteering their time and their hearts to host our little club and to the North Woods Land Conservancy for their continued generous sponsorship. Thank you all!

09/08/2026

Have questions about the upcoming changes to Medicare/Medicaid?

Don’t go it alone! The Library board cordially invite all interested to attend this free and vital information session.

Please rsvp for further details:

[email protected]

Don’t be caught off guard with something this important.

09/08/2026

ATTENTION!!

New date! Now on September 17th @10:30!
Please adjust your calendar!!

09/01/2026

Hi folks, due to unforeseen circumstances the library will close one hour early this evening, at 7pm.

08/28/2026

This weekend! Hope you can make it!

08/24/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FK7EHEK2z/?mibextid=wwXIfr

08/06/2026