Independence Day Celebration. Saturday, Jul 4, 2009. John Jay Homestead State Historic Site (map). A reading of the Declaration of Independence and patriotic music on the front lawn. Bring a picnic to enjoy! Free admission to outdoor event; normal house admission fee for historic house tour. John Jay Homestead. 400 Jay Street. Katonah, NY 10536 (914) 232-8119 www.johnjayhomestead.org

Pops, Patriots & Fireworks: Family Fun at Caramoor (Children 12 and under half-price!)  Celebrate July 4th with great American music and a spectacular fireworks display! Caramoor`s Michael Barrett leads the Orchestra of St. Luke`s (Darius de Haas, vocals) in favorites for the whole family. Alan Menken`s hits from the beloved Disney films will be performed, along with Sousa marches and music by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and other greats. Following the concert, families will gather on the lawn for a brief, brilliant fireworks display (for Caramoor concert ticket holders only). Special for the 4th: Great Performances® will grill hamburgers and hot dogs on the picnic grounds. Tickets (children 12 and under: 1/2 price): $30, $40, $50, $60, $70. For more info or to purchase tickets, please phone or visit the Box Office (914) 232-1252; online: www.caramoor.org. July 4th parking: parking is free on-site on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once on-site parking is full, off-site parking will be available with free shuttle bus service.

Independence Day 1809. Saturday, July 04, 2009 from 10am to 6pm. Festivities begin with the roar of the cannon and feature a reading of the Declaration of Independence. All visitors are invited to join the Independence Day Parade through the manor along with its costumed residents. Stirring patriotic speeches and songs follow the parade, and military re-enactors invite one and all to drill and muster. Children and adults can experience military camp life through hands-on activities. Food and beverages are available, or visitors can bring a picnic lunch. Van Cortlandt Manor. 525 South Riverside Avenue. Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 (914) 271-8981 www.hudsonvalley.org

Caboose Weekend. July 4-5, 2009. Aug 1-2, 2009. Sept 5-6, 2009. During the first weekend of each month (May through October), the Friends of the Valley Railroad bring out their bright red caboose for a special fund-raiser. For an extra $5, you can ride in the caboose, and help out this group of Valley Railroad friends and fans! The Valley Railroad Company. 1 Railroad Avenue. Essex, CT 06426 (860) 767-0103 www.essexstreamtrain.com

Pops, Patriots & Fireworks. Saturday July 4, 8:00pm. Darius de Haas, Julia Murney, vocals; Orchestra of St. Luke`s; Michael Barrett, conductor. Celebrate July 4th with great American music and a spectacular fireworks display! Caramoor`s Michael Barrett leads the Orchestra of St. Luke`s in favorites for the whole family. Alan Menken`s hits from the beloved Disney films will be performed, along with Sousa marches and music by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and other greats. Following the concert, families will gather on the lawn for a brilliant fireworks display ONLY AT CARAMOOR! Special for the 4th: Great Performances will grill hamburgers and hot dogs on the picnic lawns. Fireworks Display to Follow the Concert (for ticket holders only) Venetian Theater. Tickets: $30.00, $40.00, $50.00, $60.00, $70.00. Tickets for children 12 and under are half price! (to order children`s tickets, please call the Box Office at 914.232.1252) Caramoor. 149 Girdle Ridge Road. Katonah, NY 10536 (914)232-5035 www.caramoor.org

Clucky, the Brave Little Hen. Saturdays and Sundays, June 20, 21, 27, 28 and July 4, 5, 11 and 12 at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Playing time is 40 minutes. Back by popular demand, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and Visible Theatre are pleased to present the return of Clucky, the Brave Little Hen, an empowerment tale for ages 5 to 100. Written by Susanna Pitzer, author of the award-winning “Not Afraid of Dogs,” directed by Julia Beardsley, and featuring: Angela DeMatteo, Bill Green, Gregg Mozgala, Krista Smith, David Wagner, and Michael Quattrone. Play Synopsis: Trapped in a factory, Clucky the chicken dreams of living free-range. She bravely escapes her cage to embark on an adventure. Fleeing across the countryside, Clucky meets a nature-challenged young girl, a farming grandmother, the free-range rooster of her dreams and many other animals, all the while narrowly escaping the chicken factory workers. Clucky, the Brave Little Hen is a high energy romp into subjects of sustainable farming, the cycle of life, composting, farm animals, growing vegetables, and figuring out how we, humans, fit into the overall picture. Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. 630 Bedford Road. Pocantico Hills, NY 10591 (914) 366-6200 www.stonebarnscenter.org

Child Safety Seat Check.  Experts are available to check your car seat for free on the first and third Saturday of each month, July 4th and 18th from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm at the Greenburgh Police Department Child Seat Inspection Station at 11 Hillside Avenue. No appointments are necessary.  Organized through White Plains Hospital Center.

Vegetables and Kids. June 27–September 13. Tuesdays-Fridays, 1:30–6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00 a.m.– 6:00 pm. For young visitors and their families, Vegetables and Kids in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden will enable children to plant, tend, and harvest fruit, herbs, and vegetables all summer long. Various display gardens will educate visitors on the ingredients in their favorite meals. For example, the Pizza Garden will feature wheat, oregano, basil, tomatoes, and more. The Breakfast Bowl bed will display edible plants that provide the ingredients in common cereal such as corn, barley, oats, rice, and wheat. Each month features a different programmatic theme. In July, children can go on an herbal scavenger hunt to smell, taste, and touch some of the 40 herbs in our collection during Herbal Delights, Naturally! They will make and sample a healthy herb snack and pot up an herb to care for at home. Cool off with refreshing herbal iced tea. The New York Botanical Garden, for more information visit www.nybgnybg.org

Flower Power.  June 27– September 13.  Tuesdays–Fridays, 1:30–6 p.m.  Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.  In the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, explore how flowers become fruits at this fun, hands-on program. Plant beans to take home, make pollinator puppets, and participate in a plant-part scavenger hunt, all demonstrating the life cycle of a plant and the pollination process.  The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458, 718.817.8700, www.nybg.org

Farm to Table in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.  June 27– September 13.  Tuesdays–Fridays 1:30–6 p.m.  Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m.–6 p.m.  A Farm to Table play station in the Bendheim Global Greenhouse for the youngest visitors allows children to pretend to be farmers, growing the fruits and vegetables to serve at a “cafe.” Adults:  $20, Seniors: $18, Students (with valid ID): $18, Children (2-12 years): $8, Children under 2: Free.  Members: Free. The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458, 718.817.8700, www.nybg.org

Organic Raspberry U-pik at Amawalk Farm in Katonah. Come and pick nutritious, delicious, organic raspberries in a beautiful rural setting tucked between Lasdon Park and Muscoot farm 3.5 miles from the village of Katonah. For the third year this beautiful 1825 organic farm, brought back into production by Larry and Marian Cross, will open its high pasture raspberry beds to pickers young and old. Enjoy the view down the lovely Amawalk valley as you wander through the vegetable beds where pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, flowers, herbs and much more are ripening. Boxes and picking trays are provided - hay rides too! Raspberries are $6 a pint. Farm hours: Tuesday and Thursday from 3-6 P.M., Saturday from 10-6, and Sunday from 2-6. Call 914-245-2319 or visit www.amawalkfarm.org for daily picking conditions, special events and availability of other organic vegetables, herbs and flowers. Amawalk Farm is located at 42 Wood Street, Katonah, New York, 10536.

Journey to the Stars.  Whoopi Goldberg narrates the American Museum of Natural History’s spectacular new Hayden Planetarium Space Show, Journey to the Stars. Journey to the Stars launches visitors through time and space to experience the life and death of the stars in our night sky. Audiences travel 13 billion years into the past, when the first stars were born, and witness brilliant supernova explosions that sent new kinds of matter coursing through the universe, into the atoms of our own bodies and the air we breathe. They visit the heart of our fiery Sun, and glimpse its eventual demise as it transforms into a massive red giant some five billion years in the future. Visitors tour stellar formations, explore new celestial mysteries, and discover the fascinating, unfolding story that connects us all to the stars. Journey To The Stars, written by Emmy award winner Louise A. Gikow with a score by Robert Miller, follows Cosmic Collisions (2006) narrated by Robert Redford, The Search for Life: Are We Alone? (2002) narrated by Harrison Ford, and Passport to the Universe (2000) narrated by Tom Hanks.  The Space Shows are shown every half-hour Saturday–Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and every half-hour, Monday–Friday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., except Wednesdays (first show on Wednesday begins at 11:00am). American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West and 79th Street, NYC, www.amnh.org

Hilltop Hanover Farm Stand. Open Thursdays & Fridays 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. & Saturdays 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.  Hilltop Hanover Farm’s farm stand, designed and built by local Eagle Scout Joe Dent, is open and ready for business.  The farm stand will be open three days a week, Thursdays and Fridays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  All produce is grown on the farm and without the use of pesticides, synthesized fertilizers or herbicides.  Vegetable and flower starts will also be available at the farm stand.  You can check the website weekly for available produce.  To find out more visit us at www.hilltophanoverfarm.org.

Crafty Critters.  Saturdays in July and August, 12 pm to 3pm, Overbrook Nature Center.  Join us each Saturday in July and August in the newly renovated Overbrook educational classroom for an exciting craft project which will center around one of the many animals that you will get to see here at SMNC. Stop by between 12 pm and 3 pm to create your own craft!  Members: Free, Non-Members: Free with gate admission.  Stamford Nature Museum, 39 Scofieldtown Road, Stamford CT 06903, 203.322.1646, www.stamfordmuseum.org

Muscoot Farm Happenings.  July 4: Old-Fashioned 4th of July -- 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. Bring a picnic for old-fashioned games and churning your own ice cream. July 4th and 5Th: Gnomes and Nature: A Photography Exhibit by Sonja Godfried -- noon - 4 p.m. On view weekends through the end of July. July 5: Farmers Market -- 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Local farmers offer fresh produce and food products. More info at www.westchestergov.com/parks or call (914) 864-PARK. Muscoot Farm, Somers -- (914) 864-7282.

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. The season features total mad-cap hilarity; love hiding in plain sight; battles of wit (and the sexes); shipwrecks; marriage; near death experiences; and one of the greatest reunions in all of Shakespeare. It will open with last season’s runaway hit, the impossibly funny The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), followed by the romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing, and the action packed adventure/romance, Pericles. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), directed by the Festival’s Founding Artistic Director Terrence O’Brien, will open the season on June 20. Much Ado About Nothing opens June 27 and Pericles, also directed by Mr. O’Brien, will open on July 4. The three plays will run in repertory through September 6. Performances begin at 7pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; 8pm Friday and Saturday; and 6pm on Sundays. The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival makes its home under an open-air tent theater perched high up on the banks of the Hudson River on the grounds of the historic 19th Century Boscobel estate in Garrison, New York. Using the dramatic views of the Hudson Highlands and the sweeping vistas from the elegant lawns of Boscobel as near-perfect stage scenery, the critically acclaimed Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival presents unparalleled productions with the perfect marriage of theater and nature. Audience members are invited to arrive two hours early in order to enjoy a picnic meal - with one of the most spectacular al fresco views - on the grounds of the estate. Ticket prices for all performances are $29-$46. For tickets, call 845-265-9575 or visit www.hvshakespeare.org. Discounts are available on most nights for groups, students, senior citizens and children 12 and under.

Book Signings. July 4, 11:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Vivian Volovar is back at the Museum Store during our Independence Day celebration to sign copies of Lobster Lady. Known up and down the Eastern Seaboard as the quintessential "lobster lady," Mystic-resident Volovar has been lobstering commercially in the waters of Fishers Island Sound and eastern Long Island since 1978. She relays many of her tales in this charming picture book written for children ages 9-12. Mystic Seaport. 75 Greenmanville Avenue. Mystic, CT 06355 (860) 572-5315 www.mysticseaport.org