The Wrack

Just hours before the vernal equinox, installers from ReVision Energy were shoveling snow off the roof of our Maine Coastal Ecology Center to make way for the reserves first major solar array. By afternoon the roof was clear and dry, thanks to its southeast exposure, and the workers went about building an aluminum framework and running wires.

Valentine's Day. How many lovers committed to one another today, first with a "Will you" and then with a "Yes," launching themselves giddily into an engagement that promises to be filled with joy, anticipation, growth, and bewilderment?

It seems like every year, every budget cycle, there's another call to action. Each year, the situation is supposedly more dire than ever. "This is the year when the buck may finally stop here," they say. "We could lose everything this time," they say.

Would a neat package stuffed with a fresh Watermark, a daringly long President's letter, and a ready-to-write snow globe card inspire more gifts to the annual fund? Or would it have little more impact than a simple request for year-end donations?

In the summer of 2009, Marissa Hammond came to us as a wide-eyed freshman with little experience in research science. She has blossomed into a NOAA scholarship award winner who has been accepted into a highly respected graduate program in fisheries management and policy.

The gazebo beside the farmhouse, as iconic as any building on the Laudholm campus, was suffering from aged wood. The very structure was weakened to the point where something had to be done.

A new boardwalk protects a fragile bog habitat while keeping feet quite a bit drier. This has been a long-desired improvement.

August 31, 1986, was for celebrating the new Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve.

A Laudholm Farms promotional booklet from about 1920 was reproduced several decades later and is now scanned for sharing online. Enjoy.

Warm sun and a gentle breeze made pleasant the opening reception for George Burk's "Aspects of Change" exhibit in the Eugene Frederick Artway.