REMEMBER THIS?: Pat Clark, of Palermo, photographed these water lilies last June.
LET’S TALK ABOUT IT: A blue jay and cardinal talk about it over lunch in Michael Bilinsky’s backyard in China Village.
PEEK A BOO: Bob Poulin, of Winslow, captured this chipmunk peeking out of this downspout.
Hearing aids have proven helpful for people with hearing loss who also experience tinnitus.
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Hearing aids have proven help-ful for people with hearing loss who also experience tinnitus. That’s because with better hear-ing, the brain has other external sounds to listen to, making tinni-tus less disturbing. Improved hearing also takes away the strain of listening, especially in difficult listening situations, and may help to reduce the stress associated with tinnitus.
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It makes good sense to take care of your hearing health, just as you do the rest of your health. You owe it to yourself to schedule a visit with a hearing care professional for a hearing evaluation.
Learn more at www.Oticon.com/Opn.
It was prompted by a telephone call, on December 20, from a reader in Freedom who alerted me that birds had returned to her feeders. So, I went home, told my wife about the conversation I had with the caller, and proceeded to refill our feeders.
It took a couple of days, but by the the time of the nor’easter of Christmas day, it was business as usual at the stations. The birds were back with a fury and it was standing room only on the feeders with a waiting line perched in nearby trees. They were hanging out on the wind chimes, waiting their turns, and one actually set himself, sideways, on an icicle.
There were chickadees, house finches, gold finches, nuthatches, cardinals, blue jays and juncos, even an occasional downy woodpecker. There was also a bird I couldn’t identify (it didn’t hang around long enough). It was like the good old days.
It has been well over a week now, and the activity hasn’t let up. In fact, I think it has escalated.
As a whole, bird populations fluctuate seasonally and from one year to the next for a range of reasons. According to the Audubon Society, often when someone reports that birds have gone missing from their yard, they are just seeing normal variation. However, what we all witnessed this past summer and fall was unusual in that there was a complete void of birds.
Causes for these regular changes include:
Fluctuating food supplies/ requirements. Cones, berries, seeds, and insects change from year to year, causing birds to move about to take advantage of food surpluses and to escape from areas with food shortages. Also, birds have different dietary needs during different times of the year, so they may move to or away from your feeders seasonally. You may notice fewer birds at your feeders during the late summer and early fall as there is usually lots of natural food available.
Weather patterns. Birds may temporarily move out of areas to avoid droughts, floods, storms, exceptional heat and cold waves, and other unusual weather conditions. However, with the recent extreme cold snap, the feeders are busier than ever.
Predator populations. Foxes, birds of prey, cats, and other predators have fluctuating populations too. When their populations are high, bird populations may fall. This can also happen on a very local scale, such when a hawk takes up residence in your yard. When the predators move on, your birds will come back.
Disease. On rare occasions, outbreaks of diseases can sharply reduce numbers of certain birds.
Habitat change. Tree removal, housing developments, land clearing, fires, and other changes can change the number or types of birds you see.
But none of the above reasons made any sense of the fact that the absence of the birds was not a normal occurence. It seemed to be isolated to this year.
Bird numbers fluctuate for natural reasons, but many populations of bird species are declining consistently from year to year.
The North American Breeding Bird Survey estimates how species’ populations have changed since the mid-1960s. In 2010, Partners In Flight compiled a list of Common Birds in Steep Decline – 42 species that have lost 50 percent or more of their population since the 1960s.
The 2016 State of North America’s Birds report examined 1,154 native bird species that are found in Canada, the continental United States, and Mexico, and determined that over 37 percent are of high conservation concern and at risk of extinction without significant efforts at conservation.
Projects such as NestWatch and FeederWatch focus on gathering data on birds during breeding and winter feeding times, respectively. Habitat Network, seeks to add another layer of data to bird watching by allowing people to follow the patterns in their yards.
And one of the biggest citizen science efforts ever undertaken, eBird, allows people anywhere in the world to enter bird observations anywhere, anytime, into a worldwide database. eBird also allows you to record and organize your bird sightings, use maps to view real-time sightings of particular species, create charts detailing which birds are seen in your area, and when, and make graphs to compare species occurrence for an area over a period of up to five years.
Programs like Birdcast use data from sources like eBird to compile bird migration forecasts, pinpointing where species are at certain times during migration.
eBird and Birdcast are great resources to find out more about where species of birds might be after they disappear from your backyard.
Through these efforts, they are learning more than ever before about many basic questions: Where does a given species live? How abundant is it? How are these patterns changing with time? With a clearer understanding of these baselines, they are in a better position to analyze the underlying factors that are acting on bird populations, and chart courses of action for their benefit.
In the end, the birds seem to be back in the central Maine area. Let’s just hope they continue, and whatever happened to cause their temporary exodus from our backyards doesn’t occur for a while. We’ll be vigilant.
Roland’s trivia question of the week:
In what year was the first Super Bowl played?
Yes, I have been into my books again. Okay, now give me a chance, quit rolling your eyes. It might be interesting. (I can hope!) Make a cup of coffee or tea and sit for a spell.
This morning I found a book that I hadn’t seen for a while. The title is The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias. It has to do with how we all learn in different ways. I wish our schools were able to teach to the individual style needed for each person. How incredible that would be.
The portion I really liked was in the chapter, “How Do We Understand.” The man ‘speaking’ was a police officer who helped investigate auto accidents. One thing he discovered was that three people could be looking at the same scene yet they will see different pieces of the same scene.
One witness gives an accurate description of the cars involved, the year, make, and models (Ken). Another witness could tell nothing about the vehicles yet could give an accurate description of each driver (me, of course, I am going to talk about the emotions involved, too!). The third witness would tell all about the accident and how it appeared to happen (also Ken, but he wouldn’t talk about how it “appeared,” it would be a “fact”).
Okay look at it this way: we are all looking through different windows (our mental view). My window is a mess; I even have “clings” on it. Ken’s windows are crystal clear because he needs to be able to “see” clearly. I can see past the “clings” easily.
Ken would look through my window and be extremely frustrated. Ken is a retired truck driver and mechanic. The mechanic part is amazing. He’d take those motors all apart and put them together again. I might be able to get the thing apart but I believe in trying to put it together again I would have parts left over.
It becomes obvious we would need different styles of teaching to learn the same information. Think about all the frustrations you may have felt in teaching your child, a sibling or a co-worker, or sharing with your partner, does it make more sense to you now? I don’t think many of us are thinking about “the different window theory” when we are feeling frustrated and can’t get a point across or can’t understand something being explained. Try to remember there are different windows.
The person you thought of as “impossible” to teach or the person you want to understand you or… Remember about the windows.
I’m just curious if you will understand ‘the way they learn’ and be able to use the information in this New Year. Contact me with questions or comments at dwdaffy@yahoo.com. Check us out on line. Thanks for reading!
Last Tahra label
Tah 768, one CD, released 2014.
Tahra was a historical CD label started in 1992 by Myriam Scherchen, daughter of the conductor, Hermann Scherchen (1891-1966), and her late husband, Rene Tremaine, journalist, producer and voracious record collector. They started the label as a means of releasing previously unavailable tapes, recordings that had been out of print for decades and some restored material that had wretched sound in their earlier release but now were much improved.
Hermann Abendroth
Although the catalog had several conductors, pianists and string players of significant interest throughout its availability, the couple’s initial focus would be three important conductors- Myriam’s father, Hermann Abendroth (1883-1956) and Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954). I own a sizable pile of their releases and enjoy them thoroughly.
Unfortunately, the decision to end the label, due to several business considerations in 2014, was made and the above CD was its last release.
It was focussed one final time on the same three conductors – Scherchen, Abendroth and Furtwangler, each of whom was a brilliant interpreter of Beethoven. They were also very personalized and individualistic in their conducting styles and gave frequently exciting performances, of which there are five vibrant examples on this CD:
Scherchen conducted a short instrumental piece by the fascinating French baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), Sixieme concert en sextuor , from a 1964 broadcast; and a powerful Schubert Unfinished Symphony, from a long, out-of-print 1960 LP.
Wilhelm Furtwangler
Abendroth was a most adept political survivor under two totalitarian regimes. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Abendroth was resistant to, and highly critical, of the regime; thus he lost one conducting post. By 1937, he had joined the Nazi Party and appointed music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
After the war, he was again dismissed by the recently installed Communist government in East Germany yet within a few short years would be busy doing concerts and recordings mostly in Leipzig and Berlin. After his death, from a stroke he suffered during surgery, he was honored by the East German government with a state funeral.
On this CD, Abendroth conducts the opening Allegro moderato, from Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, in a majestic, truly stirring 1951 broadcast performance.
Hermann Scherchen
Furtwangler is generally the most well-known conductor of the three, even sparking more interest in his many live and studio recordings since his death more than 60 years ago. He had a unique talent for communicating the spiritual essence of whatever musical piece he was conducting, whether it was Mozart or Wagner, and his sizable catalog of CDs is more profitable than that of any other conductor, alive or dead!
He conducts the Beethoven 7th’s joyously jubilant first movement in a 1943 Berlin Philharmonic broadcast and the same composer’s 5th Symphony’s second movement in a 1954 Vienna Philharmonic concert, both renditions typically fascinating Furtwangler tracks.
by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & PercyGood morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!
It has been awhile since I sat down at this computer to write a column, perhaps you noticed that The Town Line wasn’t published last week. Hadn’t had a chance to wish all of you a very Happy New Year!
As I look up, I see a very funny calendar that Lief received for Christmas, it gave me a good laugh!
Was pleased to receive an Embden Historical Society, Inc., program the other day. Officers for 2017-2018 are president, Carol Dolan; vice president, Larry Witham; secretary, Nancy McLean; and treasurer, Bob Donovan.
Executive Committee: one-year term, Norma Campbell; two-year term, Jim Lightbody, Sr.; three-year term, Lois Erickson.
There won’t be any meetings during January and February. On March 12, the program will be DVD Blizzard to Blossoms (Winter 1948-49, Skowhegan), sounds interesting. (The meetings are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. with the program at 7 p.m.).
Received a phone call about a Soup and Sandwich lunch on Saturday, January 20, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the East Madison Fire Station. This lunch, raffle and silent auction is sponsored by the East Madison Grange and donations for the Home of Little Wanderers would be appreciated.
Now for more news from Solon Elementary School. In November RSU #74 recognized the winners of the Principal’s Awards in math, reading, and science for their performance on the state test, the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA), in 2016-17. Each year they choose the top scorer in the district on the MEA in reading and math in grades 3, 4, and 5 and in science in grade 5. Each winner receives a certificate and a check for $50 (donated by community members Chet & Sara Hickox and the three PTOs), and their names are displayed on plaques in the hallway at CCS.
Four Solon students were recipients of these district awards this year. Our 2016-17 winners were Gavyn Easler, (third grade math), William Rogers (third grade reading), and Desmond Robinson (fourth grade math and reading). Former Solon student Jayden Cates won the fifth grade math award, and former Garret Schenck students Devyn Deleonardis and Asa Flanagin won the reading and science awards.
Received an e-mail from Tim Hunt, pastor of New Hope Church in Solon: “I would like to share with you something I am really excited about. I have been invited to go on a mission trip to Uganda with a few other pastors. Pastor Bob Emrich who is the Director of Hope and Mercy Mission in Uganda is leading the trip. We will be going to teach and preach the Word of God to these Ugandans to help equip them to reach Uganda with the Gospel of Christ.
“We will be leaving Boston on February 5 and arriving back on February 16.”
The trip will be quite costly, so if you would like to help, you can call 207-643-5601 or write to PO Box 208, 111 So. Main St., Solon, Maine for more information.
And now for Percy’s memoir: It is from a scrap of paper I had saved, and it says I used it in the New Year of 1990. “Prayer For A New Year.”
Instead of anger
Let me feel Compassion.
Instead of rage
Let me show Concern.
Instead of hate
Let me seek Change.
For, if
To a warring, wondering world
Each of us will bring
Compassion, Concern, Change,
Then perhaps there will be Love.
MESSING ABOUT IN THE MAINE WOODSThe more one wanders about in the land of survival talk, the more one hears about the rule of threes. It has been approached by many writers in many styles with many words and I claim no exclusivity to any part of it. The rule of threes is however a clever thing and worthy of our consideration. For those of you who have not heard, the rule of threes is a set of guidelines to use when prioritizing needs in a survival situation. A human can live three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food. Simple, yet elegant, the rule of threes can be easily memorized and put to practice.
Deal with each of the rules in turn when packing your bag. I don’t have worries about allergies or asthma, but if I did, an EpiPen and an inhaler would be first in the kit. Air sorted? Move on to shelter. Protect yourself from the wind at night with a tent or a tarp shelter. A water shedding outer layer will keep your rainy days usable, while a warm layer will make chilly afternoons and evenings comfortable. Check to see if you have the right rated sleeping bag for the season you are enjoying. I also always pack the reflective automotive sunshade to put between me and the ground for insulation and an emergency mylar blanket for an added layer above me just in case.
Water is easily the heaviest thing you will carry. In Maine, there are many sources for water so one could plan a hike around ponds and campsites and be very comfortable. Make sure to treat all water before you drink it. I went online and researched filters that went as high as a $100 but then settled on one for $20. It threads on a standard soda bottle for convenience and its price point was low enough that breaking or losing it didn’t worry me. You could just as easily use a simple can to boil the water to kill the microscopic contaminants. Different sources say different times for boiling, but I always go for five minutes at rolling boil. I start each day on trail with two 1-1/2 L “disposable” water bottles full of filtered water, one on each side of the pack. Excessive to some, but I find more is better than not enough.
Food is the last of the threes and I cannot conceive of going three weeks without. My breakfast plan is a high nutrition grain mix: amaranth, chia, quinoa and oats. Amaranth is high in protein, fiber and healthy oils. Chia is high in Omega 3s which are anti-inflammatory and it also slows how your body converts carbohydrates to sugars. Quinoa is a complete protein (it has all the necessary amino acids), has a low glycemic index, is high in fiber and has magnesium. Oats are high in dietary fiber, lower cholesterol and are filling.
Lunch is out of a bag while walking, usually homemade granola and a bag of trail mix. I carry coconut oil separately to add to the granola because it seems dry without something and milk just doesn’t work on the trail. Also, the added calories are always welcome when one is exerting in the woods. Dinner always starts with drinking water setting up camp. Then I eat whatever can be made with whatever energy is left. Ramen and bouillion and prepackaged meat usually work well for me with green tea.
Planning using the rule of threes is an effective survival strategy. Preparing for the weather will keep you comfortable. Keeping hydrated maintains body temperature and removes waste from the body. Portioning your meals and pre-bagging the day’s food at home is an easy way to control / plan the amount of food consumed. And that is how we thrive in the Maine Outdoors.
Eric’s Tech TalkIn August of 1981, an upstart cable TV station began broadcasting these slick new videos set to music. They called it “music television.”
The first music video to air on the new channel was the Buggles’ song “Video Killed the Radio Star.” It was supposed to herald the end of radio’s dominance and introduce the world to television as a new musical medium. Instead, nearly 40 years later, music can hardly be found on MTV and radio is still going strong.
The song’s theme, a lament about the old technology of radio being supplanted by the new technology of television, is playing out again with the Internet and traditional print journalism. Sadly, the Buggles’ song may turn out to be more prophetic this time around.
The newspaper industry is currently in a crisis, and even a little paper like The Town Line is feeling the hurt.
Advertising revenue, the primary source of income for newspapers the world over, has been steadily falling since the early 2000s. Between 2012 and 2016, newspaper ad revenues dropped by 21 percent, only slightly better than the previous five years where they dropped 24 percent. Overall, in the first 15 years of the new millennium, print advertising revenue fell to less than a third of what it was pre-Internet, from $60 billion to just $20 billion globally. And, unfortunately, that trend looks to continue in the years ahead.
On the positive side, circulation numbers are up for most newspapers, and public interest has never been higher, but income from subscriptions has not been enough to compensate for the lost advertising.
For small papers like The Town Line, which offers the paper for free and receives little income from subscriptions, this is an especially hard blow: more people are reading the paper, and there’s a great demand for content, but there is also less income from advertising to cover operating costs.
In the late ‘90s, The Town Line employed eight people: an editor, assistant editor, graphic artist, receptionist, bookkeeper and three sales people. Weekly issues often ran to 24 pages or more. Today that staff has been reduced to just three part-time employees, and the size of the paper has fallen to just 12 pages. There simply isn’t enough advertising to support a bigger paper.
People are more engaged than ever: they want to understand the world around them like never before. But as this business model, dependent on income from advertisers, continues to decay, without finding support from other sources, there is a real danger of losing the journalistic spirit that has played such an important role in our American experiment.
The reasons this is happening are fairly easy to explain. Businesses who once advertised exclusively in local papers have moved en masse to global platforms like Facebook and Google. These advertising platforms can offer the same targeted marketing once only possible with local publications, and they have the financial muscle to offer pricing and convenience that smaller publications cannot match.
This combination of local targeting and competitive pricing has caused a tidal wave of advertising to move from local papers to global corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter instead. In the last decade, thousands of newspapers all across the nation have closed their doors. Often the first to succumb are small, local papers that have a limited geographic audience and fewer financial resources.
Like The Town Line.
There’s also been a transition in media coverage, from local issues to ones that have more of a national, or even global, audience. Websites are globally accessible, whereas traditional papers tend to have limited geographic range. Most online advertising pays on a ‘per-click’ basis, and a news story about China, Maine, will never get the same number of clicks as one about Washington, DC.
That smaller newspapers have been some of the hardest hit only makes this problem worse, as the remaining media companies tend toward huge conglomerates that are more concerned with covering national issues that have broad appeal, rather than local stories which may only be of interest to a small, localized audience.
This means that local issues are receiving less coverage, and as a result average Americans have fewer tools to make informed decisions about their communities.
When local journalism dies, what rises up to replace it? I think the answer is pretty clear: whichever website is willing to publish the most salacious stories generating the highest click-count – with little regard to proper sourcing or journalistic ethics.
Essentially, we’ve traded journalistic integrity for clickbait content.
Only a few weeks ago, the Bangor Daily News ran a story about a recent local election that may have been decided by a local ‘news’ site with no problem running rumor as news, and political partisans only too happy to propagate the dubious links through social media. Examples like this will only become more common in the years to come.
If we don’t support the traditional values of honesty, integrity and unbiased reporting that have been the bedrock of American journalism for two centuries, we may not like what rises up to replace it.
With advertising revenues hitting all-time lows nationwide, and looking to worsen in the years ahead, newspapers increasingly must rely on support from their readers to make ends meet. Since advertisers have abandoned them, it’s now up to ‘us’ to support local papers like The Town Line.
In this New Year, make a resolution to support your local newspaper. If you’re a business, help to reverse the trend by advertising in local publications. If you’re an individual, consider becoming a member of The Town Line. A small donation of $10 a month can make a world of difference. Best of all, since The Town Line is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, private foundation, all donations are fully tax deductible!
To fulfill the American promise of an informed public, and fight the growing trend of clickbait sensationalism that has come to permeate much of the web, we must support local reporting more than ever. The time to act is now, before journalism loses another warrior in the fight for free expression.
Don’t let our generation be the one in which local journalism dies!
Eric Austin lives in China, Maine and writes about technology and community issues. He can be reached at ericwaustin@gmail.com.
FOR YOUR HEALTH(NAPSI) — While visions of sugarplums may be dancing in your head, don’t let your fitness and diet goals get pushed to the side during the holidays.
For many, it is the season of overindulgence—from holiday parties complete with decadent sweets and cocktails, to unexpected dinners out with friends and family. However, treats should be balanced with nutritious options and a healthy fitness routine. Don’t let short-term temptation derail you from achieving your long-term health goals in 2018.
Recruit a workout buddy. It’s much harder to skip a workout when you have a friend who is relying on you to participate.
Sims Corbett, certified national trainer with SilverSneakers, the nation’s leading fitness community for older adults, offers the following tips to enjoy yourself this holiday season while keeping your fitness goals top of mind:
For more than 25 years, SilverSneakers has been helping older adults reach their fitness goals, maximize their health, maintain their lifestyle and improve overall well-being.
To see if you are eligible or to find a class in your area, visit www.SilverSneakers.com.
RARE SIGHT: Pat Clark, of Palermo, photographed this rare variegated oak seedling last summer.
WINTER WONDERLAND: Winnie Merrill, daughter of Helen Mosher, of China, captured this winter wonderland photo of a bluebird at her home in Harpswell last February.
Have you taken a picture showing the beauty of Maine? Send it to The Town Line! Visit our Contact page!