Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Improving Our Local Roads

    By State Senator Bill Diamond One of the most important things that the state does is maintain and improve our roadways. Maintenance of our transportation infrastructure is critical to our economy as well as the safety of Maine’s citizens. As a member of the Transportation Committee, I take that responsibility very seriously, and it was […]

  • Earth Day: we need a new way to make people care

    Tomorrow we honor the planet, without which we wouldn’t exist. Bridgton will be cleaning up Stevens Brook on Earth Day, and the kids will be making kites. We’ll celebrate the preservation of Bald Pate Mountain with a hike to the summit, and a “Prize Patrol” car by DancingTrees will be on the lookout for neighbors […]

  • Leaving our mark in the world

    We all want to leave our mark, to make a statement, to indelibly proclaim, I was here right now. I got through this spot, and I can prove it. I left one mark on a January morning in 1985 while running a screaming circular saw in the upstairs bedroom of a house on a quiet […]

  • Balancing the Budget

    By State Senator Bill Diamond In addition to preparing a balanced budget for the next two years (the “biennial budget”), the Maine Legislature’s Appropriations Committee is also responsible for keeping the current budget in balance. Conditions and assumption change over a two-year period, and periodic adjustments need to be made. This past week, they completed […]

  • Stone Farming

    By Alice Rose Each spring, I farm the stones in the field behind my home in Casco. Many are stones that the earth drove to the surface over the winter and the now soggy ground allows them to be pried out with shovel and long-handled spade. A wet spring is best for farming stones before […]

  • Good Day for Birding

    Yesterday, with its cloudless blue sky, bright sunshine, and no wind, was a perfect day to look for migrating birds. A friend and I decided to drive half an hour west of here to an area of open fields, where flocks of migrating birds often stop to rest and fuel up on their way north. […]

  • The haberdashery of the back roads

    April is nearly upon us, the time of the great transition, winter slowly trickling into spring; and with it comes the inevitable trepidation regarding what to toss over our shoulders when we walk through the mud room and out into the new air. It’s too cold for the down parka, too warm for the John […]

  • Chase pays clearcut fine

    By Dawn De Busk Staff Writer NAPLES – As was agreed upon during a settlement in December, businessman John Chase paid the $65,000 fine to the Town of Naples. Stemming from a shoreland zoning ordinance violation on Long Lake in Spring 2010, the property owner and the town opted to settle through mediation, rather than […]

  • The Asian lady beetle

    By T. Jewell Collins There have been a fair number of Asian lady beetles sharing my Maine farmhouse of late. I find them clustered in the corners of south-facing windows.Although their correct name is Asian lady beetle, they’re also known as the multi-colored Asian ladybird beetle, the multi-colored Asian ladybug, and even Hallowe’en beetle. I […]

  • Evening owl

    The other evening, I was standing at the kitchen sink washing vegetables for our supper and looking out the window, when a movement in the woods caught my eye. A large bird swooped low through the trees, and then glided up and landed on a branch. It was big enough to be a hawk, so […]