SOLON & BEYOND: New trails being developed at Western Woods

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

Good morning, my friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

With my computer problem recently, I was afraid the following news would be too late, but thankfully it won’t be! There will be a spaghetti dinner and silent auction to benefit the Solon Fire Department Saturday, October 5, 2019, at the Solon Elementary School from 4 -7 p.m. You will be served dinner by our firefighters. There will be a door prize.

Thanks so much, Aryke L. Coombs, Fire Dept. Auxiliary President, for sharing your news.

New Trails are being developed by Western Woods and Waters Advisory Committee. Now that SWT owns Western Woods, it’s time to develop trails. The trails along the Kennebec River, known as Western Waters, are being extended into Western Woods. Cross Country courses are being developed for the local teams.

Art for Western raffle winners are Chris Young’s Pond Chair, won by Robert Cross, Kathleen Perelka’s River View, won by Dog McQuinston, Kathleen Perelka’s The Weston Homestead, won by Maggie Fernald, Kathleen Perelka’s Western Schoolhouse:, won by Anne Worthley, John Alsop’s Maine View, won by Rebecca Seel, and John Alsop’s Maine Stream, won by Mary Callan.

The following news is a bit late, but I thought you parents might appreciate it. It starts with the head line; ATTENDANCE MATTERS! As the new year begins, we hope to see all of our students set a goal to have a good rate of attendance. Unless students are ill or there is a family emergency, they need to be in school. WE ask that parents try to schedule routine doctor or dentist appointments after school hours and family vacations weeks as often as possible.

If your child is ill or needs to miss school for an appointment or family emergency, please contact Mrs. McFadyen so that we can log the day as an excused absence. If we don’t hear from you, we have to log the day as an unexcused absence. After seven unexcused absences , the state considers your child as truant. So please help us to document your child’s absences correctly.

After 18 absences (10 percent of the school days in a year) whether excused or unexcused, your child is considered chronically absent. In addition to MEA test scores, the percentage of chronically absent students in our school is a factor in whether the state decides that our school is making academic progress. Of course, sometimes students are out for extended illnesses, chronic health conditions or family emergencies, and those can’t be helped. So we are working to reduce the absences of our students for other reasons.

Punctuality is also a key to a successful school year. Our busses arrive between 7:20 and 7:40 in the morning. If you bring your child to school, please be sure that he or she arrives by 7:45 a.m. in order to be ready when teachers start their classes at 7:50 a.m. A student who arrives late misses important learning time.

So let’s work together to make sure your child gets the maximum benefit from his/hers school experience this year. Attendance matters! Thank you for your cooperation.

Received an e-mail from Happyknits recently stating that they had just turned five years old! They had a yarn cruise again this year and the lucky winners are: the August prize basket went to Wendy, from Harpswell, the Grand Prize went to Trudy, from Embden, and their Super Grand Prize went to Marcia, from Madison.

Happyknits is joining forces with CrabApple Whitewater, in the Forks for their second annual Confluence Retreat, a fall fiber and foliage get-away. They are inviting you to join them there from October 11-14, 2019, for a laid back four days of knitting and crocheting, and let the good folks at Crab-Apple take care of your every need. We’ll be offering a few workshops, but the focus will be on having fun and being with friends.

And now for Percy’s memoir, it is called “I’m Getting Younger:” Another year has come and gone, And I am growing younger, Yearning for each coral dawn, with what amounts to hunger. Becoming more and more aware of what means most to me, and each new day becomes a prayer of sweet simplicity. With brand new eyes I now observe each tiny growing thing, the graceful flight, the flashing curve of every feathering wing. And listening to the sounds of wind that whispers through each tree, I feel a surge of joy as if the Master walks with me. I’m younger than I used to be, and though it may not show, one doesn’t have to touch or see a miracle to know life isn’t offered piece-meal, we have to take the lot, But to the ones whose faith is real, ….Why time is not! (words by (Grace E. Easley.)