SCORES & OUTDOORS: How do animals, like deer, survive during the worst of winter

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Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

During the blizzard that swept through our area a little while back, I was standing at my kitchen window, watching the bird feeders. To my surprise, even during the peak of the storm, with heavy snowfall and howling winds, the birds kept coming to the feeding stations.

“Tough little buggers,” I thought while watching.

That got me to thinking. How do these animals and birds survive these harsh winters?

So, I decided to do some research on the white-tailed deer. I had recently read an article that said the “mild” winter so far made it easier for the deer to move in search of food. That all changed that weekend. Now that there was a significant amount of additional snow on the ground, how will they survive the remainder of this season?

White-tailed deer have developed a set of adaptations that enable them to survive the deep snow and cold temperatures that occur in Maine. Maine is the northern-most point of their range and there are very few of them north of the St. Lawrence River. Also, the further north you go in their range, the larger the body size, as compared to their counterparts in the south.

According to Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologists, deer shed their hair in the spring and fall. The summer hair has solid shafts and lacks the undercoat, but the winter hair has hollow hair shafts, and dense, wool-like under fur, providing effective insulation.

Also, deer will alter their diet to accumulate and retain more fat under their skin and around organs, providing them with insulation and energy reserves for the months that lie ahead. The winter diet is lower in protein and less digestible than the summer diet, requiring more energy to digest and resulting in fewer calories. The stored fat is burned during winter to partially compensate for the lack of energy in the winter diet. Deer will lose weight during the winter. If winters become too long (early start and late finish) deer could run out of stored energy and die.

Fat reserves in adult does can account for up to 30 percent of their body mass in the fall.

Their winter habitat is also important. Dense softwood canopies intercept more snow, resulting in reduced snow depths. Gathering in these areas also allow many deer to share the energy cost of maintaining a trail network to access food and to escape predators.

As you would suspect, the greatest mortality in the winter is found among fawns, followed by adult bucks and then does. Severe winters can drastically deplete the fawn population, resulting in fewer young to mature into adulthood. Consecutive severe winters can have a devastating effect, by as much as 90 percent, of young maturing, depleting the adult herd.

So, should you try to help out these critters?

Although supplemental feeding of deer is usually well-intentioned, it could have some severe adverse effects. Just to touch on a few of the reasons to leave the deer to Mother Nature’s natural course:

  • Supple­mental feeding may actually increase predation. Providing supplemental food sources crowds deer into a smaller area than their usual range, making it easier for coyotes and bobcats to hunt down the deer, by limiting their escape routes;
  • Feeding sites near homes may place deer in danger of free-roaming dogs;
  • Deer feeding stations may increase deer/vehicle collisions. Feeding stations near homes also place the deer in close proximity to well-traveled highways;
  • Deer could actually starve when fed supplemental foods during winter. It takes deer two weeks to adjust to new foods, and could starve in that time period;
  • Deer compete aggressively for scarce, high-quality feeds;
  • They could die from eating too much at one time;
  • Deer concentrations at feeding sites may increase the vulnerability of deer to disease. MDIFW has documented deer concentrations equal to 350 deer per square mile at some feeding sites can cause an outbreak of infectious diseases, such as the bovine tuberculosis in 1994, and more recently, the fear of introduction of Chronic Wasting Disease, which, by 2016, had only been found in deer and moose. Although CWD, a disease that causes weight loss leading to death, has not been detected in Maine, the disease, which originated in the midwest, seems to be making its way east. It is now found in 23 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Finally, predation and vehicle collisions claim more deer during the winter than starvation. Mother Nature has provided well for her creatures, so just sit back and watch them go about their daily routine.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Which NFL quarterback has the fewest Super Bowl rings, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, John Elway or Jimmy Garoppolo?

Answer can be found here.

Give Us Your Best Shot! for Thursday, February 24, 2022

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To submit a photo for this section, please visit our contact page or email us at townline@townline.org!

KEEPING WATCH: Joan Chaffee, of Clinton, snapped this immature bald eagle keeping a watchful eye.

BY DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT: Pat Clark, of Palermo, captured this early sunrise last fall.

IT’S MINE: Emily Poulin, of South China, photographed this gold finch seemingly challenging the tufted titmouse at the feeder.

FOR YOUR HEALTH: Building A Stronger Retirement

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A healthy, happy retirement can be easier to achieve if you plan ahead.

(NAPSI)—With each generation’s expected retirement time growing longer and longer, you may need to plan for 20 to 30 years of life after you stop working. And when it comes to ways to save for the future, many Americans think first of the 401(k), the most popular and well-known retirement savings option.

Saving for Your Health

Lesser known—and understood—is another way to save for your future: the Health Savings Account (HSA). With rising healthcare costs that can exceed $10,000 annually during the retirement years, HSAs are gaining more recognition as a smart way to complement 401(k)s and other retirement savings options by helping you plan and save for healthcare costs encountered now and in the future.

The Foundation

Traditional 401(k) plans are popular retirement vehicles for several reasons:

  • Tax advantages: 401(k) contributions are taken out of your paycheck before federal taxes are withheld, which lowers your taxable income. Contributions are also tax-deferred until you withdraw them.
  • More control: You can contribute as much as you want to a 401(k) within your plan and IRS limits, and you can change your contribution at any time.
  • Compound interest: The earlier you start investing in a 401(k), the more time your money has to grow.
  • It moves with you: The money in your 401(k) belongs to you—even if you change jobs, you can keep your money invested and growing.
  • Ease of use: 401(k)s are easy to contribute to, with many employers offering automatic payroll deductions.

Add More Stability and Strength with an HSA

If you save in your HSA as well as a 401(k), you can take advantage of three unique benefits:

1.Triple-tax advantage: No federal taxes on contributions, withdrawals for qualified medical expenses, or investment earnings

2.Build long-term healthcare and retirement savings: Especially with HSA Bank’s self-directed investment options

3.No “use it or lose it”: Investment balances carry over from year to year and grow tax-free (just like the HSA cash account)

Save for Expenses

Tax-free HSA fund withdrawals are limited to IRS-qualified medical expenses, but there’s a lengthy list of future healthcare costs your HSA can pay for, so your 401(k) funds don’t have to. These include everything from acupuncture to a wheelchair and many things in between.

Learn More

For further facts and tips on HSAs and planning your retirement, go to www.hsabank.com.

ERIC’S TECH TALK – My life in video games: a trip through gaming history

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King’s Quest III: To Heir is Human (1986)

by Eric W. Austin

It was sometime in the mid-1980s when my father took me to a technology expo here in Maine. I think it was held in Lewiston, but it might have been some other place. (Before I got my driver’s license, I didn’t know where anything was.) This was at a time when you couldn’t buy a computer down at the local department store. You had to go to a specialty shop (of which there were few) or order the parts you needed through the mail. Or you could go to a local technology expo like we were doing.

They didn’t have fancy gadgets or shiny screens on display like you might see today. No, this was the age of hobbyists, who built their own computers at home. It was very much a DIY computer culture. As we walked through the expo, we passed booths selling hard drives and circuit boards. For a twelve-year-old kid, it wasn’t very exciting stuff. But then we passed a booth with a pile of videogames and my interest immediately piqued.

My father didn’t have much respect for computer games. Computers were for work in his view. Spreadsheets and taxes. Databases and word processing. But I was there for the games.

I dug through the bin of budget games and pulled out the box for a game called King’s Quest III: To Heir is Human. The game was released in 1986, so the expo must have taken place a year or two after that. The King’s Quest games were a popular series of adventure games released by the now defunct developer, Sierra On-Line.

Somehow I convinced my father to buy it for me, but when I got home I found to my disappointment that it was the PC DOS version of the game and would not play on my Apple II computer. I never did get a chance to play To Heir is Human (still one of the cleverest titles for a game ever!), but I never lost my fascination with the digital interactive experience of videogames.

The first videogames did not even involve video graphics. They were text adventure games. I remember playing The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Game (first released in 1984), which was a text adventure game based on the book series of the same name by Douglas Adams, on a PC in the computer lab at Winslow High School. These games did not have any graphics and everything was conveyed to the player by words on the screen. You would type simple commands like “look north” and the game would tell you there was a road leading away from you in that direction. Then you would type “go north” and it would describe a new scene. These games were like choose-your-own-adventure novels, but with infinitely more possibilities and endless fun. Who knew a bath towel could save your house from destruction or that you could translate alien languages by sticking a fish in your ear?

Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (1990)

One of my first indelible gaming experiences was playing Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (released 1990) in my father’s office on a Mac Lisa computer with a six-inch black and white screen. These sorts of games were commonly called “dungeon crawlers” because of their tendency to feature the player exploring an underground, enclosed space, searching for treasure and killing monsters. As was common for the genre at the time, the game worked on a tile-based movement system: press the forward key once, and your character moved forward one space on a grid. The environments for these types of games typically featured a labyrinthine structure, and part of the fun was getting lost. There was no in-game map system, so it was common for players to keep a stack of graph paper and a pencil next to their keyboard. With each step, you would draw a line on the graph paper and using this method you could map out your progress manually for later reference. Some games came with a map of the game world in the box. I remember that Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988) came with a beautiful cloth map, which I thought was the coolest thing ever included with a game.

As I grew up, so did the videogame industry. The graphics improved. The games became more complex. As their audiences matured, games flirted with issues of violence and sexuality. Games like Leisure Suit Larry (1987) pushed into adult territory with raunchy humor and sexual situations, while games like Wolfenstein 3D (1992) had you killing Nazis in an underground bunker in 1940s Germany, depicting violence like never before. These games created quite the controversies in their day from people who saw them as corrupt indicators of coming societal collapse.

Wolfenstein 3D (1992)

In 1996, I bought my first videogame console, the original PlayStation. At the time, Sony was taking a giant gamble, releasing a new console to compete with industry juggernauts like Nintendo and SEGA. The first PlayStation console was the result of a failed joint-effort between Sony and Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), a console released in 1991 in North America. When that deal fell through, Sony decided to develop their own videogame system, and that eventually became the PlayStation.

There was a lot of debate during these years about the best medium for delivering content — solid-state cartridges, which were used for the SNES and the later Nintendo-64 (released 1996), or the new optical CD-ROMs used by Sony’s PlayStation. The cartridges used by Nintendo (and nearly every console released before 1995) featured faster data transfer speeds over optical CDs but had a smaller potential data capacity. Optical media won that debate, as the N-64 was the last major console to use a cartridge-based storage format for its games. Funnily enough, this debate has come full-circle in recent years, with the resurgence of cartridge-based storage solutions like flash drives and solid state hard drives. Those storage limitations of the past have mostly been solved, and solid state memory still offers faster data transfer rates over optical options like CD-ROMs or DVDs (or now Blu-Ray).

Star Wars arcade game (1983)

The PlayStation was also built from the ground up to process the new polygonal-based graphic technology that was becoming popular with computer games, instead of the old sprite-based graphics of the past. This was a graphical shift away from the flat, two dimensional visuals that had been the standard up to that point. This shift was an evolution that had taken place over a number of years. First, there was something called vector graphics, which were basically just line drawings in three-dimensional space. I remember playing a Star Wars arcade game (released 1983) with simple black and white vector graphics down at the arcade that used to be located next to The Landing, in China Village, when I was a kid. The game simulated the assault on the Death Star from the original 1977 movie and featured unique flight-stick controls that were very cool to a young kid who was a fan of the films.

Videogame consoles have changed a lot over the years. My cousin owned an SNES and used to bring it up to my house in the summers to play Contra and Super Mario World. Back then, the big names in the industry were Nintendo, SEGA and Atari. Nintendo is the only company from those days that is still in the console market.

Up until the late 1990s, each console was defined by its own unique library of games, with much of the development happening in-house by the console manufacturers. This has changed over the years so that nearly everything today is made by third-party developers and released on multiple platforms. In the early 2000s, when this trend was really taking off, many people theorized it would spell doom for the videogame console market because it was removing each console’s uniqueness, but that has not turned out to be the case.

Videogames are usually categorized into genres much like books or movies, but the genres which have been most popular have changed drastically over the years. Adventure games, usually focused on puzzles and story, ruled the day in the early 1980s. That gave way to roleplaying games (RPGs) through the mid-’90s, which were basically adventure games with increasingly complex character progression systems. With the release of Wolfenstein 3D from id Software in 1992, the world was introduced to the first person shooter (FPS) genre, which is still one of the most popular game types today.

The “first person perspective,” as this type of game is called in videogame parlance, had previously been used in dungeon crawlers like the Wizardry series (mentioned above) and Eye of the Beholder (1991), but Wolfenstein coupled this perspective with a type of action gameplay that proved immediately popular and enduring. Another game I played that would prove to be influential for these type of games was Marathon, an alien shooter game released in 1994 for the Apple Macintosh and developed by Bungie, a studio that would later go on to create the incredibly popular Halo series of games for Microsoft’s Xbox console.

One of the things I have always loved about videogames is the way the industry never sits still. It’s always pushing the boundaries of the interactive experience. Games are constantly being driven forward by improving technology and innovative developers who are searching for new ways to engage players. It is one of the most dynamic entertainment industries operating today. With virtual reality technology advancing quickly and promising immersive experiences like never before, and creative developers committed to exploring the possibilities of emergent gameplay afforded by more powerful hardware, I’m excited to see where the industry heads in the coming decades. If the last thirty-five years are any indication, it should be awesome!

Eric W. Austin writes about technology and community issues. Contact him by email at ericwaustin@gmail.com.

I’M JUST CURIOUS: Home, sweet home

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by Debbie Walker

Here’s wishing everyone felt that way, the warm memories of home. I love my little home but right now I am having a little bit of a hard time keeping anything in place. I know I am like Dolly Parton: trying to put 25 pounds of flour in 10-pound bag. It sure is not working here!

I just read a little blob about “Follow Five Rules of Order”. I can’t remember what magazine I tore the article from, and I hope they would forgive me for using it without giving credit to the writer. What follows is what she had to say:

1. Establish a Routine: When we enter our homes we should put our handbag in a designated place, along with coats, dog leash, and other items. Don’t overload the area. (It would defeat the purpose.)

2. Reset: Every time you use something, put it back in its home. Think of this as “resetting,” so it’s ready the next time you want it. (I hope you are better with that than I am, but I am going to try to improve.)

3. See tasks through: Unfinished chores are a major factor in a disorganized home (Oops, that’s me.) Laundry isn’t done until the clothes are folded and put away. The same would be true with any projects. Don’t start a job unless you have time to finish it. (I flunked again)

4. Cycle items in and out: If you bring something new into your home – from a new winter coat to a newspaper – something else can likely be thrown out or given away. (I am good at bringing it in, but I am not at all good about disposing of something else. I need to at least make an intent.)

5. Work one room at a time: Don’t organize by going back and forth between areas of your home. It will sap your energy and often result in half-finished projects. (That must be what happens here but most likely it is because my little great-granddaughter is nearby.)

How did you do with these? Of course, I believe I would have failed, let me know, please. We can compare notes. But we really aren’t done yet. The same magazine page had the following:

Keep it Clean

EVERY DAY:

Make the bed. Put away clothes and toys. Empty the trash.

ONCE A WEEK:

Do the laundry and put it away. Organize shelves. Go through bins, making sure the items are properly sorted. Straighten up the clothes closet and chest- of-drawers.

ONCE A MONTH

Remove clothing and shoes that no longer fit. Edit down playthings, asking your child to donate one toy for every new item he received that month. (He won’t even remember what he got.) Move toys that your child is outgrowing into a bin – if she doesn’t play with them by the following month, donate them.

Now we have all the tips we need for organizing when we get done with Spring Cleaning, and that time of year is coming up. Never mind the weather. You can always get a head start. By the time spring arrives you will have the time to spend outside.

I’m just curious what tips you would be willing to share. Contact me at DebbieWalker@townline.org with questions and comments. Thanks for reading and have a great week.

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Writer: Sarah Orne Jewett

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Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Sarah Orne Jewett

Sarah Orne Jewett

I have read very little of Maine writer Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) but that little includes a story I very much consider a masterpiece, The White Heron. It depicts a nine-year-old girl, Sylvia, who lives with her grandmother on a farm in a seaside community based on the ones near Jewett’s native South Berwick, such as Wells Beach, Ogunquit and Kittery.

Sylvia has the daily task of driving a cow back from the woods surrounding the house for milking. While doing so, she hears from a visiting hunter that he has seen a white heron, which is a rarity in Maine:

“‘You would know the heron if you saw it….A queen tall white bird with soft feathers and long thin legs. And it would have a nest perhaps in the top of a high tree, made of sticks, something like a hawk’s nest.'”

The description of Sylvia climbing 100 feet or more to the top of an adjoining pine tree atop the highest ridge to get a closer look at the heron and its nest constitutes one of the scariest passages in a story for any reader such as myself who suffer from vertigo:

“Sylvia’s face was like a pale star, if one had seen it from the ground, when the last thorny bough was past, and she stood trembling and tired but wholly triumphant, high in the tree-top….Westward, the woodlands and farms reached miles and miles into the distance; here and there were church steeples, and white villages; truly it was a vast and awesome world.”

Nebraska novelist Willa Cather (1874-1948) once commented that My Antonia was heavily influenced by Sarah Orne Jewett’s own sense of place.

The Mississippi writer Eudora Welty (1909-2001) wrote the following about place in fiction: “the goodness-validity in the raw material of writing…the goodness in the writing itself-the achieved world of appearance, through which the novelist has his whole say and puts his whole case.”

In her depiction of Sylvia’s own peak experience atop those dangerous heights, Sarah Orne Jewett achieved a magnificent sense of place.

SOLON & BEYOND: So long to a long newspaper career; it’s time to call it a day

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Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

This will be the last column I write in my long newspaper career. Father time and modern technology have taken their toll on me. It has been a pleasure writing for The Town Line all these years.

The following is from an old clipping that I am sending which is from The Town Line dated October 10, 2019, with the words: Don’t Worry, be happy!

It has surprised me greatly, that there are so many people who have never heard of Flagstaff, Dead River and Bigelow being flooded out by Central Maine Power Co. in 1949! Have been trying to get all my old history of the event together and came across an old clipping from Central Maine Newspapers dated June 6, 2002, with the headline “Make Flagstaff Lake a certain stop. History only one reason to visit area.”

This story was written by M.J. Kaniuka. There is a picture stating that “A view of Flagstaff Lake from the causeway in Stratton. The 26-mile long lake was formed more than 50 years ago by flooding three communities. When travelers on Route 27 first view Flagstaff Lake, in Stratton, from the causeway just beyond Stratton, their typical reaction is,” What is this?” For Flagstaff Lake, a seemingly endless puddle, looks like no other body of water in Maine . Yet it is the centerpiece of a story that encompass the Revolutionary War, progress in mid-century America and evolving ideas of outdoor recreation.

“Flagstaff Lake is a man made lake, approximately three miles wide and 26 miles long.” Its banks really recede in a drought. ” said Forrest Bonney, regional fisheries biologist. The lake was created in 1949 by Central Maine Power Company as a water storage facility for Long Falls Dam, “progress” in controlling the flood-prone Dead River. Subsequently, the lake submerged three communities: Flagstaff, Bigelow, and Dead River. The next year CMP received permission from the Legislature under the government’s right of eminent domain to buy property as it became available.

Over the years CMP bought land and buildings and moved some homes and razed others. Eventually, CMP also clear cut 18,000 acres of woodland. Wildfires took care of many of the stumps and other debris that remained. By 1939 only 30 adults and their families were left to be moved. That summer the Flagstaff and Dead River cemeteries were relocated to a site on Route 27 beside the newly-built Flagstaff Memorial Church. CMP erected the church to replace the town’s Congregational Church that they flooded. Stained glass windows from the Congregational Church were removed and installed in the chapel.

Today a memorial marker beside the chapel refers to much earlier events. In the fall of 1775 Col. Benedict Arnold passed through the region on his ill-fated march to Québec. He had left the Kennebec River below Carratunk to cut across the wilderness and reach the height of land, the dividing line between Maine and Québec. To avoid the twists and turns of the meandering Dead River, Arnold and about 1,100 men portaged their bateaux and dwindling supplies through the uninhabited Maine wilderness. They suffered incredible hardships with few or no trails to follow, rough and wet terrain, bad weather, fatigue, accidents and illness. Finally they reached the camp of an Indian named Natanis. Here Arnold erected a flag, an act that gave the town of Flagstaff its name. The historical marker on Route 27 commemorates the event, but states, “the actual spot is now under water,”

Now I’m going to end this column with a few words from a little book called Don’t Ever Give Up Your Dreams. The only way to find rainbows is to look within your heart; the only way to live fairy tales is through the imagination and power of your mind; the only place to begin a search for peace is within your very soul; because rainbows, fairy tales, and peace are treasures that grow from the inside out. – by Evelyn K. Tharp.

Poor Percy, I haven’t been sharing his great sayings lately,” As long as you can admire and love, then one is young forever.”

I take a simple view of living, it is: Keep your eyes open and get on with it.

Editor’s note: Marylin Rogers-Bull began writing for The Town Line in 2003. Prior to that, she wrote weekly columns for the Somerset Reporter and Somerset Gazette, until their closings. She has been a delightful and refreshing addition to the many volunteers who have contributed to the success of this newspaper. I have known Marilyn for over 30 years, and she has been a pleasure to work with all this time. It is also hard to say goodbye to Percy, whom I never met, but greatly admired. Her name will definitely be added to our Wall of Fame.

CRITTER CHATTER: Just who is Punxsutawney Phil?

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Woodchuck adult

by Jayne Winters

After reading Roland Hallee’s recent column (The Town Line, Scores and Outdoors, February 3, 2022) about his groundhog buddy, Woodrow Charles, and his prediction of six more weeks of winter, I wondered if the Cotes have had many groundhog visitors over the years. I found an article Carleen wrote in 1997, so I thought I’d share some of it:

“As their name implies, woodchucks were originally forest dwellers. With the clearing of the land, woodchucks left the forest to take advantage of the abundant food found in fields and meadows.

“The woodchuck, a member of the squirrel family, appears not to be territorial and, at times, may choose to live in close proximity to other ‘chucks. They are expert diggers and may dig a five-foot tunnel in a day. Requirements for their burrows (there may be several, not all connected), which they continually alter and rework, are that they be on slopes of at least 30 degrees, have good drainage and be close to food and water. From one to eleven entrances (three on average) open into a burrow.

“Woodchucks are true hibernators. In July, they start building a layer of fat which can become a half inch thick. By mid-October, they’ve gone into their winter burrow, which is in a more protected area than their summer burrow. They curl up in a ball, their body temperature drops to between 38-57 degrees F, and breathing occurs about once every six minutes. They start coming out of this state between January and March.

“Mating occurs sometime in March, after they emerge from their burrows. Occasionally a male will remain with his mate, but they usually have no role in rearing the young. A litter may consist of 2-9 young; the female brings them greens, as well as nurses them. At about four weeks of age, they may appear at the burrow entrance. At 6 – 7 weeks, they start straying, but remain near the entrance, scurrying inside at any hint of danger. The female finally evicts them from the premises sometime in July.

“Woodchucks are usually active in early morning and late afternoon. They often lie on top of their burrow or near its entrance to sun themselves. Most literature states woodchucks are strict vegetarians; from our experience at the Duck Pond Rehab Center, we’ve found this to be true, although they have dined on canned dog food and even baby birds.

Woodchuck

“We have cared for several ‘chucks. Everyone has a different personality. Some would allow us to handle them; others were totally hostile, snapping and chattering their teeth to signal their displeasure at being approached. In 1995, we cared for a ‘chuck we named “Charlie” who was very friendly and really enjoyed her association with humans! She was so well behaved she was allowed to roam inside the house. One day, however, when I left for a period of time, she was left alone in the house. BIG mistake! She went totally bonkers. When I arrived home, I discovered just how panicked she had become, knocking over and breaking any object she could reach, including china cups. She was subsequently released in the duck pen where she would come to the fence every day to get her treat. Eventually she stopped coming and we assumed she had “jumped” the fence.

“The next spring, on one of Donald’s walks around the pond, he suddenly heard a grunting sound behind him. There was Charlie! She had spent the winter in a burrow in the duck pen. She began her daily trips to the fence, remembering that seeing a human meant receiving a treat. Some days she would appear several times, begging for the treat. One day, she did not appear and we assumed a mate had taken on more of a priority than a treat.”

I searched online to confirm that groundhogs and woodchucks are the same critter; they’re also called whistle pigs (because of the alert whistle they make when alarmed), earth pigs, and grass rats! The name “woodchuck” was apparently created by English settlers from “wuchak” – a Native American word for them. In addition to squirrels, they’re also related to prairie dogs and are sometimes mistaken for beavers or muskrats. Groundhogs, however, make their homes in burrows in the ground instead of near water. They are 20-27 inches long, weigh between 5 and 15 pounds, have brown fur and small, fluffy tails. They eat about a third of their weight in food daily, mostly plants, flowers, nuts, fruits and sometimes insects and grubs. Their lifespan in the wild is typically three to six years, but in captivity is usually triple that!

Those tunnels Carleen wrote about? They can extend up to 60 feet, with multiple levels. I found it interesting that the lowering of their body temperature during hibernation fluctuates. After an all-time low for a week or so, their temperature will rise for a few days before dropping again. Groundhogs are apparently known for their cleanliness and resistance to germs and diseases that infect and kill other wild animals. Cheers to a healthy life!

The continued assistance from other rehabbers is greatly appreciated as Don has cut back on admissions and long-term residents. Please check these websites to see if there is a rehabber closer to you to help make critter care at Duck Pond more manageable: https://www.mainevetmed.org/wildlife-rehabilitation or https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/wildlife/living-with-wildlife/orphaned-injured-wildlife/rehabilitation.html.

Donald Cote operates Duck Pond Wildlife Care Center on Rte. 3 in Vassalboro. It is a non-profit state permitted rehab facility supported by his own resources & outside donations. Mailing address: 1787 North Belfast Ave., Vassalboro ME 04989 TEL: (207) 445-4326. PLEASE NOTE THE PRIOR wildlifecarecenter EMAIL ADDRESS IS NOT BEING MONITORED AT THIS TIME.

SMALL SPACE GARDENING: Save money, and boost seed starting success

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by Melinda Myers

Boost your success, save money, and reduce plastic waste when starting plants from seeds this year. The options are many, so you are sure to find one that works for you.

Reuse plastic containers for starting plants from seeds. Disinfect the pots, flats, and cell packs before planting to avoid problems with damping off and other diseases. Soak the containers in a solution of one part bleach to nine parts water for ten minutes. Rinse with clear water. The pots are now clean and safe for starting seeds.

Biodegradable pots are another option. They have been around for many years, eliminating plastic and reducing transplant shock. Just plant the container along with the seedling when moving plants into the garden. You will find degradable pots made from a variety of materials.

Organic gardeners may want to use biodegradable pots made from sustainably grown wood fiber. These contain no glue or binders and are Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) listed. Cow pots are not currently OMRI listed but are made from odor-free composted cow manure and an alternative to plastic and peat. These are biodegradable and add nutrients and organic matter to the soil at planting.

Replace plastic seed starting cell packs with Honeycomb Paper pots. This 50-cell interlocking paper seed starter expands to fill a flat for easy planting. Roots expand through the open bottom and the cells easily separate, making it easy to move transplants into the garden. Once in the garden, the paper liners decompose.

Invest once and use the dishwasher-safe Sili-Seedlings Seeding Tray for years of seed starting. These durable and reusable seed trays are made of BPA-free food-grade silicone. The flexible cells allow you to easily pop seedlings out without pulling and tugging. After the transplants are removed, rinse off any remaining soil and place in the dishwasher so the trays are ready to use for future plantings.

Employ self-watering systems like Pop-Out Pots (gardeners.com). Move tomatoes and other transplants from seedling trays into these larger containers. The Pop-Out system, made from recycled polypropylene, uses wicks to move water from the reservoir to the plants as needed. Transplants are easily removed, and both the pots and wicks can be reused after hand washing in hot water.

Skip the pots and avoid transplant shock by using a soil blocker to create an endless supply of soil blocks for planting. Just moisten the potting mix, preferably one with a high percent of organic matter, to help the blocks hold their shape. Press the soil block maker into the moistened potting mix and rock back and forth to fill. Then place the blocks on a clean seed tray. Once planted, water from the bottom to avoid disturbing the soil block.

Look for ways to repurpose any remaining plastic containers. Use smaller containers to apply fertilizer, animal repellents or other granular material. Just scoop and shake to distribute the fertilizer over the garden bed.

Cover plants with empty pots when applying mulch to garden beds. Spread the mulch then lift the pot when the job is finished. Use them for double potting. Grow your plant in an old nursery pot and set it inside a decorative pot that lacks drainage.
Some nurseries are asking customers to return plastic containers and flats for their use. Other plant retailers have an area set aside for customers to return plastic pots for other customers to use or for recycling.

Sustainable gardening starts with products used for starting seeds. Continue the trend throughout the growing season by conserving water, repurposing leaves into mulch and recycling plant trimmings into valuable compost.

Melinda Myers is the author of more than 20 gardening books, including Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses How to Grow Anything DVD series and the Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and was commissioned by Gardener’s Supply for her expertise to write this article. Her website is www.MelindaMyers.com.

SCORES & OUTDOORS – Rats: terribly misunderstood creatures

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Giant pouched rat

Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

RATS! No, it’s not something you say when things don’t go your way. Instead, it describes, profoundly, what people think of this rodent that is perceived as a member of the underworld of the animal kingdom. They are scorned, feared and totally misunderstood. They are portrayed as evil and filthy little creatures that spread disease as they scamper through the sewers of major cities. Among unions, “rat” is a term for nonunion employers or breakers of union contracts.

Few animals elicit such strong and contradictory reactions as rats.

The Black Death is traditionally believed to have been caused by the micro-organism Yersinia pestis, carried by the tropical rat flea which preyed on black rats living in European cities during the epidemic outbreaks of the Middle Ages. These rats were used as transport hosts. Another disease linked to rats is the foot-and-mouth disease.

The reason I bring this up is because of something I saw last week. My wife showed a video to me on Facebook – I don’t do Facebook – showing this woman who had two pet rats she had trained to do some amazing things. That piqued my curiosity because I had heard rats are fairly intelligent.

The best known rat species are the black rat, which is considered to be one of the world’s worst invasive species, and the brown rat. Male rats are known as bucks, females are does, and infant rats are called kittens or pups. A group of rats is referred to as a “mischief.”

The woman on the video had her rats trained to bring her a tissue when she sneezed, respond to flashcard commands, and even come when called, just to name a few that I remember.

Those who keep rats as pets know them as highly intelligent and social animals who clean themselves regularly and thrive on regular interaction.

Specifically-bred rats have been kept as pets at least since the late 19th century. Pet rats are typically variants of the species brown rat, but black rats and giant pouched rats are also known to be kept. Pet rats behave differently from their wild counterparts depending on how many generations they have been kept as pets. The more generations, the more domesticated it will be. Pet rats do not pose any more of a health risk than pets such as dogs and cats. Tamed rats are generally friendly and can be taught to perform selected behaviors.

Because of evident displays of their ability to learn, rats were investigated early to see whether they exhibit general intelligence, as expressed by the definition of a g factor as observed in larger, more complex animals. Early studies around 1930 found evidence both for and against such a g factor in rats.

A 2011 controlled study found that rats are actively prosocial. They demonstrate apparent behavior to other rats in experiments, including freeing them from cages. When presented with readily available chocolate chips, test rats would first free the caged rat, and then share the food. All female rats displayed this behavior, while only 30 percent of males did not.

Rat meat has become a dietary staple in some cultures. Among others, I personally observed rats being consumed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

Back to the pet rat. While most people cringe at the thought of having a rat for a pet, believe it or not, domestic rats make great pets. They are not aggressive, diseased and dirty animals, but in fact are very clean, fun-loving, sensitive, very social and affectionate. They genuinely enjoy interacting with people and should be handled daily. Rats are very intelligent and can be taught simple tricks, and will often learn their names. They can be litter box trained.

Whatever you do, don’t go down to the river to select a pet rat, but rather visit your local pet shop. When choosing your rat, choose one that does not appear skittish or does not squeal when picked up. Males tend to be calmer than females. Males usually enjoy being held for longer periods of time, especially when they get older.

If you get a pet rat, it is best if they are kept indoors rather than in a shed or garage, where they would get less attention. As mentioned before, rats are extremely clean animals and will constantly groom themselves – similar to cats. If you have more than one rat, they will groom each other.

So, now that we have seen a lighter side of rats, doesn’t it make you want to run right out to get one?

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

What is the square footage of the opening of a hockey goal?

Answer can be found here.