Hot Spelling News: Congratulations, Isabel Carlson on Parsons Point Road, who won for the First Grade in the recent Edgecomb Eddy school-wide spelling bee! She maxed with "gentle," a Third-Grade level word!
Great news on the Sports front: Conrad Griffin's spectacular reversal for Wiscasset's game with Boothbay Harbor in the last four minutes of the Western Maine Class C basketball semifinals! Conrad, who has been voted Mountain Valley Conference Player of the Year, is the grandson of former Edgecomb Road Commissioner Russell and Sandra Griffin.
Russell Griffin has resigned as Edgecomb's Road Commissioner, so we need new candidates for that position. Nomination papers are available at the Edgecomb Town Office. Nominations can be turned in from Thursday, February 24 through Tuesday, April 5, during office hours. Offices open are: one Selectman, one School Board member and one Planning Board member (all three year terms); Town Clerk, Town Treasurer, Tax Collector, Road Commissioner (all one year terms). Nomination petitions require 25 signatures.
The Edgecomb Congregational Church project "Kits for Kids" is stockpiling materials both useful and sheerly frivolous to send children in the troubled remote reaches of this world. Bob Hardina says call him at 563-5236 to see what is still needed, how to solicit and/or buy wanted items. They plan to assemble the kits the first Sunday of May and ship them out underthe auspices of Church World Service.
The Town of Wiscasset is organizing a big extravaganza for 2005's Fourth of July and is inviting neighboring towns to participate: Westport Island, Alna and Edgecomb. I am representing Edgecomb on the planning committee, and so I invite ideas and opportunities for participation from my fellow residents. Should we create a float? Or let various businesses, organizations, other groups create several floats? Coordinator Pam Lear hopes each town will appoint a Grand Marshal. In most cases, this office is held by a town's oldest citizen. It would involve riding in a festive car, either in one, along with the three other Grand Marshals, or in a car flaunting a banner for Edgecomb!
The theme of this celebration will be "Neighbors Along the Sheepscot." Two days of events are planned. Sunday, July 3, will be devoted to waterfront activities, games, races, picnics and the like. Monday, July 4, the parade is planned for the late morning, with fireworks in the evening. Watch the papers for details about this celebration, and please do not hesitate to call or e-mail me regarding possible Edgecomb-side participation.
Naturally, I am hoping the Friends of Fort Edgecomb can play a role in the fun, float, marching group, or possibly come over the waters!
Zibette Dean on the River Road has recently identified some winter tracks as those of a fisher! From her description, I can recognize a fisher track on our own territory, right up on the south lawn. It looks like a trough, or a mini-bobsled run, because the fisher is low-slung, but with paw prints in the bottom.
That Red-Bellied Woodpecker has been back at the feeder several times this week, but last Friday we had another newcomer: a Carolina Wren! I could not believe it! Carolina wrens are bigger than our familiar jenny wrens, and colored a warm deep cinnamon brown, similar to a Brown Thrasher. They have a dramatic white stripe over each eye. Common in East Texas, where we used to live, they will nest in anything available. Bring your galoshes inside, or you may be creating scrambled eggs next time you put them on! They used to nest in our hanging spider plant, seven fledglings rayed outwards in a star among the roots, like trains in a train terminal. If we incautiously approached, they would buzz off in all directions like simultaneous darts.
It was this experience that made me realize the meaning of "wild." No bird, even the little round chickadee, should be considered "cute." It is a canny little food-gathering machine, fully competently adult, finely tuned to signs of danger. It most certainly does not regard humans as "cute," and the food we supply is, to it, pretty much like the food that comes out of the transponder on the spaceship Enterprise. It just is.
Swinging wildly from feeder to feeder at 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com. This column appears in several local papers, and at www.Edgecomb.org.