Fireflies live! Topher Belknap reports plenty of them in his Englebrekt Road garden, "30 at one blink," he counts. Sue Carlson says they've been swarming in Singing Meadows, like a shower of sparkling lights. And our tenants tell Bruce they see hundreds of them around 9:30 p.m. over our very own garden!! So all is well on that front. Perhaps all the rain we've been having encourages them.

So now I will complain, has anyone heard a whip-poor-will lately? I remember as a kid listening to them in the dark before I went to sleep. My mother told me, oh, 20 years ago, they'd disappeared, possibly due to acid rain. So if anyone has heard one, let me know. Even if it avoids my back yard, I will be comforted.

Speaking of birds, Topher also reports a bald eagle flying around his tall pines on the Sheepscot shore. It would be nice if it would nest there, would discourage Bypass Route N2a. Topher also asks, what's a small, sleek bird, dark grey above, lighter chest, shades blending smoothly, with black feet and "quite a vocabulary." My guess is it's a catbird, which is a cousin to the mockingbird, and shares its "mocking" trait.

More alluring than the Casbah! More glamorous than Miami's Miracle Mile! 5 – count them! – 5 miles for your shopping pleasure! This Saturday, Aug. 9, is the Annual 5-Mile Yard Sale on Cross Point Road! (Rain date, Aug. 16). Hours are up to the individual yards, so come early, stay late! Bargains, bargains, bargains! (Gee, wish I could be there.)

Bruce has alerted me to the MDOT's Roadside Spray program which will end in August. They use the herbicides Triclopyr and Decamba to discourage poison ivy and other roadside weeds, but avoid buffer areas such as schools, pastures, gardens, bodies of water and wetlands. Landowners may enter into no-spray agreements with MDOT at their Rockland office, 596-2230.

There is a rumor of milfoil in the Mill Pond. Is this true? Please get in touch with the selectmen at the Town Hall, 882-7018!

Mark Gorey on the River Road, who teaches English at Boothbay Harbor HS, is one of 29 teachers from Maine and Massachusetts to participate in a Longfellow Institute presented by the Maine Humanities Council. The Institute, around the theme, "Longfellow and the Forging of the American Identity," started off with a week at Bowdoin College, featuring lectures, discussions of readings, and trips to Longfellow-related sites in Brunswick and Portland, including, oddly enough, the Joshua Chamberlain House, because Longfellow was once a lodger there! The group will meet several times during the school year, and reconvene for another such week at Bowdoin in July, 2004.

In addition to rehabilitating Longfellow both in the classroom and generally, the Institute is charged with building an on-line Longfellow module for the Maine Memory Network (which already has over 4000 primary source documents relating to Maine history). In part, this module is to assist teachers nation-wide to teach Longfellow's significance, but also for anyone with an interest in the life and works of America's most popular 19th century poet. Longfellow has been out of fashion since the advent of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the school of unrhymed, highly symbolist poetry, but there is more to Longfellow than The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (which I can still recite, if the temperature is right, and the barometer is steady). He wrote many poems against slavery, and, news to me, he wrote plays. One of them, "Giles Corey of the Salem Farms," is very dark, about the infamous witch trials, and could be paired for performance with Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." (Hint, hint, ye drama groups and re-enactors!)

Another moose sighting! Sue Carlson, Ros Strong, and their guests from Connecticut, riding down the Mill Road, first flushed a large grouse which fluttered across the windshield. Sue announced that while this was a fine example of Maine wildlife, what they might see next ought to be a moose. It was. A bull and cow in the middle of the road, gazing right at them! "After a few minutes of amazed stand-off, the moose couple nonchalantly sauntered along the downhill side toward the old mill pond," giving them all ample time for viewing. Ros revealed that in 30 years living in Maine, she had never before seen a moose here. It was the highpoint of the CT Yankees' visit to Edgecomb!

Coming Soon to Your Local Celestial Corner: The Red Planet Spectacular! Earth's closest encounter with Mars in recorded history will culminate on Wednesday, August 27. It will be only 34,649,589 miles away. Already, if you look to the east around 10 p.m., the rising Mars will be the brightest object in the night sky, aside from the Moon. In fact, through a telescope with a 75-power magnification, Mars will look as large as the full moon does with the naked eye. Be sure to grab this opportunity, because it won't happen again until roughly 2287.

My apologies to George Kidder; his correct position at MDIBL is Senior Scientist and Instrumentation Officer.

Gee! A pretty exciting column, ain't it? From 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com, via Bloomington IN.