The Wrack

?

The following was originally published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 8/4/13:

?

Music is in the ear of the beholder. Whether finch or frog, cricket or quartet, its all part of natures symphony.

Working at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm, I listen to recorded music in my farmhouse office most hours of the day. Because its such a natural fit here, Im bringing more live music to our barn this summer too. String quartets sound particularly fine in a hundred-year-old wooden barn. An acoustical engineer recently told me: Wood slats like your barns walls have ideal absorptive, reflective, and diffusive characteristics for live instrumentation. Sounds good to me.

Barns aside, Im constantly discovering new artists in our fields and marshes too.

Turning the bend on the Laird-Norton trail, the path narrows.? Above, rivulets of blue are breaking apart a gray sky. To the right, the weathered brown bark of an apple tree is imprinted with the secret language of the yellow-bellied sapsuckers.? To the left, the emerald expanse of honeysuckle leaves are dotted with red berries.? Below, a worn path parts a sea of green shaggy grass& embedded with a shaggy spot of black!

A pint-size boy held a fishing rod alongside his dad, enjoying a quiet midweek morning by the pond, when more than a dozen cars pulled into the lot behind them. The automotive intrusion didn't exactly shatter a peaceful solitude  their fishing spot was beside a busy state highway after all  but the father and son may have been curious to know? Why the sudden crowd?

The arrivals were gathering to see Low Impact Development (LID) practices in use near Willand Pond in Somersworth, New Hampshire. The pond was a fitting spot to meet, given its history.

In this issue of Watermark: Switching to Solar Completed and Active Projects Nik's Notebook: Giants…

"We have the opportunity to re-invent the world." That was a final thought from one participant at the end of last week's Teachers on the Estuary (TOTE) workshop here at the Reserve. After four busy days of guest speakers, hands-on activities, and visits to field research sites, the eight middle and high school educators hailing from states along the east coast from Maine to Florida shared their ideas for i…

A defenseless nest, an unleashed dog, and in twenty seconds, tragedy.

The following was originally published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 7/21/13.

In Maine, were continually blessed with natures beauty and its bounty. Our forests, our Gulf, and our thousands of miles of rocky and sandy coast are major drivers of our economy and the envy of the Northeast. Our summer population quadruples because, yes, lifes good here, thanks in large part to our environment.

But science indisputably tells us that the Maine we know is not the Maine that has always been, or will be. Even our rich cultural history is but a millisecond in our environments life.

If our accustomed way of life was, climatologically-speaking, born on third base, should we be blamed for thinking wed hit a triple? What if instead of playing baseball, weve been surfing a wave that must, as all waves do, break?

Our appreciation to the 2013 summer interns who make the "busy season" that much more efficient and effective for everyone around here. In alphabetical order (and with their favorite candy)&

Fog: welcome hydration after the heat wave. Lunch on the porch. Barn swallows, and a couple of trees, whip past incessantly. A vigilant starling keeps going to the gutter with a beakful of food and leaving without one. Two adolescent bluebirds perch on the sapling chestnut and its wire barrier, watching for bugs. I imagine it's their dad who stops while passing downhill, sporting colorful leg bands he probably got a few miles (not a few rods) away. A mockingbird moves in and out of the Sialia space without its typical confidence. To the west, somewhere along the swampy head of the Muskie Trail, cu-cu-cu, cu-cu-cu, cu-cu-cu, cu-cu-cu. The rain crow.

On Saturday June 29, 2013, stakeholders?in?Southern?Maine participated in a full day field trip hosted by Maine Sea Grant that highlighted techniques being implemented by property owners to become more resilient in the face of climate-related impacts.