Come all ye, come all ye to the Harvest Fair at the Edgecomb Eddy School! On Saturday, Oct. 25, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., you can bid for local goods and services at both a silent auction and a full-blooded auction under the gavel of Kaja Veilleux! Copious food including an abundant baked-goods table. Crafts, games, face painting, a Moon Bounce and fire engine rides will amuse the kids, for a $3 hand stamp per child. All and more! brought to you by the Edgecomb Eddy Parent Teacher Club. Call the school, 882-5515, or Ann Poole, coordinator, 633–2228, for details.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Oct. 26, the Center for Teaching and Learning will hold its annual open house from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Come and tour the school, meet the faculty, find out about the CTL's award-winning alternative K through 8 education program. Located on the Cross Point Road, a half mile down on the right, past the Old Eddy School, CTL is starting its 13th year of operation. In addition to its "rigorous but joyful" school environment, CTL is a demonstration school, training teachers nationally through internships, seminars, and the faculty's published writings in education journals. Please call the School Manager, Roberta Jordan, at 882-9706 during school hours for Open House details or questions in general.

The Stewards of the Sheepscot meeting planned for Oct. 15 has been changed to tonight, Oct. 23 at 7:00 p.m. in the Wiscasset Municipal Building Hearing Room. New members welcome. Call John Reinhardt at 882-9628 or visit giova@wiscasset.net for information about this and future meetings.

For people who want to learn what is at stake vis-a-vis industrial development along the Sheepscot, the Lobstermen's Co-op on Westport Island is offering free lobster boat rides on the river. Call the Co-op at 882-9797, leave your name, phone number, and best dates (through Nov. 1) with Adam Webber. Someone from the Co-op will get back to you to make arrangements.

On Thursday, Oct. 23, at 2:00 p.m., the Edgecomb Historical Society will gather in the Town Hall loft to continue building our road map of historic Edgecomb sites. This map will eventually be published, to complement and supplement all the various other maps of the town. Please join us! Bring us your candidates for historic places and your explanations of the odd names that come up from time to time! Hettie's Hump, for instance?

The Town Hall book exchange has really taken off! Thank you, people, for the many donations over the past couple of weeks. Either trade, leaving off a book of your own, or borrow and return. Lots of good winter reading! (Hint, hint: We dote on mysteries.)

Travelers on the River Road may notice that the Camerons have taken down half of the noble white ash tree on the south bank of our terrace. My mother had been agonizing over the decision a long time, and so have we, but knowing it was badly rotted through, and imagining what might happen to our roof and indeed, the south-facing door, if it should fall, we bit the bullet. On the cheerful side, craftsman Dick Corson in Bremen has hauled of a lot of the sections of the trunk (easily two feet thick!), for making bowls and other decorations, so it will live on in objects of beauty. [In retrospect, during Wednesday's ferocious storm, I'm relieved we did it.]

Reflected glory moment: The famous 30-Minute Record Maine Pumpkin was raised in my sister-in-law's garden in Bristol Mills–although not by June Ricker. Long years of Cameron gardening, and recent fertilizing with shrimp shucks, have no doubt contributed to the enormous size of the pumpkin, which, last I heard, now rests in state at Poole Brothers in Damariscotta.

If this column strikes you as too too egotistical, whose fault is that? Send me your news! Here I sit with open computer, phone line and mailbox at 234 River Road, 633-2978 , bonesukl@midcoast.com This column appears in The Boothbay Register, The Lincoln County News, The Wiscasset Newspaper, and at www.Edgecomb.org.