SOLON & BEYOND: Wrapping up the school year; encounter wildlife on drive home

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

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

Received the following e-mail from the Solon School News: We want to extend our best wishes and good luck to our fifth grade students who will enter sixth grade at Carrabec Community School in the fall.

Goodbye and good luck to…Tyler Ames, Gavin Atwood, Delena Cabral, Michael Crane, Charlie Golden, Courtney Grunder,Zackary Hemond, Alexis Leidy, Ciara Myers-Sleeper, Abigail Parent, Machaon Pierce, Allison Pinkham, Cailan Priest, Paige Reichert, Desmond Robinson, Gerald Rollins, Lawrence Soucie, Brooks Sousa, Carl Ward, Braden Wheeler, Ciarrah Whittemore and Nicholas Wildes.

Solon students participated again this year in the annual Bookmark Contest in conjunction with the Coolidge Public Library. Each student designed a bookmark with a theme that promoted reading. Town librarian Megan Myers and art teacher Richard Reichenbach judged the contest and picked a winner from each class. These students each received a book from the library, and their bookmarks were duplicated to hand out to patrons at the library.

Winners were kindergartner Evangeline Mullinax, first grader Dylan Priest, second grader Lane Frost, third grader Katelyn DeLeonardis, fourth grader Macie Plourde and fifth grader Ciara Myers-Sleeper.

The top readers in each class were Olive McDonald, Charlotte Hamilton, Annabell Roderick, Jillian Robinson, Cody James, Courtney Grunder, and Ciarrah Whittemore.

Congratulations for reading all of those books!

Winners of the Portland Seadog’s Most Improved Student Contest this spring were kindergartner Eva Mullinax, first grader Hunter Pouliot, second graders Gavyn Perigo and Levi Hamblen, third grader Hunter Emmy Golden, fourth grader Cody James, and fifth grader Abby Parent.

Received the following e-mail from Somerset Woods Trustees of Skowhegan: We have declared June 30 as Mountain Biking Day at Coburn Woods. The town of Skowhegan, Somerset Woods Trustees, the Somerset Trails Committee, and the Central Maine New England Mountain Bike Association have teamed up for a great morning of mountain biking. Bring your own bike and helmet or borrow (ages 10-adult) from them from the town. Bikes will be on site to borrow. Tours of the trails will be lead by experienced bikers. Again, thanks so much for sharing, sounds like a fun day.

Lief and I started out for Dave and Eleanor’s camp up to Flagstaff, where they were staying for a few days. Mark and Karen and Peter and Sherry were also staying the night. As always, there was perfect peace and quiet up in God’s country.

We had seen one beautiful doe on our ride up, which was great! We had intended to spend the night also, but something came up, so after a scrumptious supper we started back to Solon. When we left camp the sky was threatening rain and the bank of the road is very close to Flagstaff Lake, so we wanted to get out closer to civilization before darkness over took us.

We did get out to the main road when all of the miracles started to happen! The first wildlife was a fox that ran across the road in front of us. Soon after that, it started to rain lightly, and we couldn’t help exclaiming when a moose appeared in the road just up ahead of us, soon followed, by the tiniest baby moose. I got out of the car and took a few pictures, but not wanting to get wet or ruin my camera, I doubt that they will be very good.

By the time we had calmed down it had started to pour and darkness had overtaken us. Usually when we are up in that country we don’t see quite that much wildlife, it was a joy. But we decided, since the weather was definitely getting really rough we started out once more. We had traveled several miles, when to our wondering eyes, what should emerge from the bushes but a deer followed by her two babies!

Forgot to mention that when we left camp, to head home, an eagle was soaring over us, and miracles do happen!

Now for a quick one from Percy…..Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. (words by Grandma Moses.)