The Wrack

Americorps NCCC team Cedar 1 made the most of their 2+ weeks in Wells.

The AmeriCorps team spending the next five weeks at the reserve arrives on the beach at low tide. Its windy, raw, and the snow has started, but they seem in no hurry to leave. They shrink the chilly gap between their shoulders and their ears and face the ocean.

The young people are dressed in distinctive khaki pants and NCCC-labeled tee shirts are members of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. I recently sat with four of them at one of their newly constructed picnic tables.

Twenty chestnut trees arrived at the reserve in May for planting in the Yankee Woodlot.

I cannot believe its been six months since I left the Wells Reserve at the end of my MCC term. Last November, having spent the summer and fall gaining valuable field experience, I headed home to pursue my next career goal: admission to graduate school. It was a daunting but surprisingly natural transition, as my experiences at the Reserve prepared me well for this next phase.

Those who've studied Laudholm history know that the current barns were built in the first decade of the twentieth century, after a 1902 fire burned the old barns to the ground. Some may recall that the fire "was started by burning, wind-blown shingles from a fire at the Goodwin farm a quarter mile away." *

A couple of years ago, Charles Lord became curious about where the Goodwin farm stood, so he asked his father's sister what she remembered. She pointed him "just up the road."

May 21 and 22 were fish sampling days on the Mousam River estuary. Wells Reserve research staff were joined by volunteers from Maine Rivers and AmeriCorps to form a team that set fyke nets and fished on two tides, one by night and another by day. Steve Bodnar from the York County Coast Star tagged along and his article is in today's paper. You can read it at seacoastonline.com.