Raise your hand if you’re tired of the cold and rain! I’m writing this on Sunday morning, and I actually saw the sun earlier today, but just when I started thinking it might be a good day to hang out laundry, it disappeared.
I looked out the window of the town office last Tuesday during our selectmen’s meeting and saw a groundhog, and I’m beginning to suspect there’s some sort of reverse Groundhog Day thing going on, where the groundhog is scaring the sun away and giving us six more weeks of cold wet weather.
In recent years, we’ve made a reasonable attempt to participate in “No-Mow May” in order to leave the wildflowers that pop up in our lawn (mostly dandelions, but some nice violets, bluets, and a few unidentified weedy things that bloom in early spring) intact for the pollinators until the fruit trees, lilacs, and other sources of food for them start blossoming. Last year, we made it nearly to the end of the month before we had to break down and mow the grass, or risk getting lost crossing the lawn.
This year, though, the overabundance of April showers, whether or not they brought May flowers, did bring the greenest, lushest lawn we’ve ever had, which meant there wasn’t much chance of observing No-Mow May. When the showers kept coming and we renamed the month “No-End-to-the-Rain May,” we also had to begin observing “Mow-Whenever-You-Possibly-Can May.” Since about the second week of the month, whether it’s cold, or cloudy, or even drizzling, if it isn’t actually pouring, or the battery isn’t on the charger, you’re likely to see one of us out pushing the mower to try to stay ahead of the hayfield. We have been trying to mow around the wildflowers, and now that the lilacs and apple, pear, and plum blossoms are out, I hope the bees are finding plenty of pollen.
Actually, the long-range forecast is looking up, with at least some sun expected for most of the next ten days and some days with temperatures well into the 70s, making me think it’s time to move to camp. I spent two nights there last week while Donna was here to help with all of the opening-up chores, but we had to keep a fire going in the stove the whole time, and when she left on Tuesday morning I decided Tony had the right idea, and I’d be more comfortable staying at the house during the stretch of 40-degree nights and 50-degree days. He’s been cutting up brush and dead limbs around the yard and continuing to feed the outdoor wood boiler, so it’s been pretty toasty at the house.
Stuart McInnis wrote to let me know that there will be a Celebration of Life for his mother, Alice Hathaway McInnis, on Friday, May 30, at 2:00 p.m. at the West Bethel Union Church. Alice passed away on March 2 in North Carolina, where she had made her home near family for the past dozen or so years.
My neighbor Sally Smith asked me to mention that Jim Bolen, of Friendship, Maine, passed away on May 19. Jim grew up in Greenwood and was a member of Telstar’s first graduating class in 1969. No service is planned. You can find his obituary online at midcoastvillager.com/obituaries
Here are some upcoming June events:
Thursday, June 5, at 5 p.m. at the Pleasant Valley Commons, 721 West Bethel Road in West Bethel (formerly the Pleasant Valley Grange: Join the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society for a special party to commemorate the launch of the fifth edition of the annual history journal, Goose Eye. There will be a Grange-style supper and a presentation by Larry Glatz on West Bethel puzzler Edwin "Ruthven" Briggs. Rumor has it that America's Puzzlemaster himself, Will Shortz, an admirer of Glatz’s article, may even be dropping by for a brief video appearance! This event is free, although donations will be cheerfully accepted. To help us with planning for the supper (you wouldn’t want us to run out of pie!), please register for your free tickets at Eventbrite.com or by calling MBHS at 207-824-2908 or emailing info@bethelhistorical.org.
Saturday, June 7, from 9 – 11 a.m. at the First Universalist Church of West Paris: Annual Rhubarb Festival. There will be all kinds of rhubarb goodies, including pies, both rhubarb and strawberry-rhubarb. There will be some plain rhubarb available if you want to make your own. There will also be white elephant tables with all kinds of useful items. Come early, as everything sells out fast. This event raises money for the church and for the ladies’ group, The Goodwill Fellowship.
Thursday, June 19 (Juneteenth), at 6 p.m. in the Howe Exhibit Hall of the Mason House (14 Broad Street, Bethel): “Abolition and the Underground Railroad in Maine.” Mary Tibbetts Freeman, Assistant Professor of New England History at the University of Maine, will discuss the long history of slavery and emancipation in Maine before focusing on anti-slavery activism in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Professor Freeman will pay particular attention to the role of African Americans in advancing the cause of abolition in Maine and the complicated relationship between myth and historical fact in understanding Mainers’ involvement in the Underground Railroad. This free program is co-sponsored by the Hastings Homestead Museum and the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.
I’ll be extra busy in June, as in addition to being involved in all of the above events, I’ll be doing four book talks for Just Like Glass that month: June 6 at 1 p.m. at the Scarborough Public Library, June 21 at 1 p.m. at the Freedom Town Meeting House, June 25 at 6 p.m. at the Zadoc Long Free Library in Buckfield, and June 26 at 5 p.m. at the Bethel Library.
If you have news or events you’d like included here, email me at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or call 207-890-4812. The next issue of the Citizen will be out on June 13, but you can read the Locke’s Mills column online every week at amywchapman.com, or subscribe for free to have it emailed to you each week.
A big thank-you to Lainey Cross for sending me the photo of my brother Steve at Bethel’s Memorial Day observance on Sunday. I was ten years old the year Steve was in Viet Nam in the Air Force, and didn’t really understand much about war, except that I remember how grateful and relieved I was when he came home safely.
“Mowing the lawn, I felt like I was battling the earth rather than working it; each week it sent forth a green army and each week I beat it back with my infernal machine.” – Michael Pollan