Fifty-two local students graduated from Telstar or Gould this Spring. Thirty-six are planning on college in the Fall. Ten in community colleges, 10 in the University of Maine System, 11 out-of-state. The schools are very various. SMCC: how many community colleges, how many colleges, period, have their own beach? Farmington: state university as liberal arts […]

My new favorite trail is the Esker Loop Trail. If you haven’t hiked it, give it a try. This is an easy 1.1-mile loop on North Road. It starts as an easy, rolling walk along Chapman Brook down to the Androscoggin. I did it early one morning just last week. It was damp from a […]

There are two forms of pinene: alpha-pinene and beta-pinene. Alpha-pinene is also the most abundant terpenoid found in nature. It is useful as an insect repellent because insects dislike its aroma. Many plant essential oils that contain pinene have been shown to reduce inflammation. Alpha-pinene exhibits a number of anti-inflammatory properties in animal cells. One American […]

  As summer wears on and temperatures go up, there’s a bird I listen for in the deep forest in our area – the Eastern Wood-Pewee. (Photo by Andy Reago and Chrissy McClarren.) This flycatcher spends its winters in South America but comes here for our protein – our bugs! Like many other flycatchers this […]

The Maine Sunday Telegram of 19 July gave teachers front page coverage. Rightly. They do a hard and vital job. And it’s now harder. It’s hard work becoming a teacher. Time and money and effort; education, training, practice; periodic updating. It also requires dedication and caring; without those, why not choose some other profession? Teachers […]

  This is the time of year when many songbird babies have fledged which means they’ve left the nest, like the young Eastern Phoebes pictured here. (Photo by Cephas). Last year, I found a young phoebe on my back deck. At first, I thought it was an adult that had hit the window. When I […]

  Did you know cuckoos nest in our area? In fact, we have two different types, the Black-billed (photo by Wolfgang Wander) and the Yellow-billed. However, they are seldom reported. At least not in recent years.  Up until this summer, I’ve only heard or seen them a couple of times in the almost 30 years […]