These archival articles are presented “as is.” Except for minor corrections or clarifications, most have not been updated since they appeared in print. Thus, some details may be out of date, and some hyperlinks may no longer work.
In Search of the Perfect Cone
by Esther J. Perne
OK, here’s the scoop: It’s summer and it’s acceptable to splurge on ice cream. Better than that, it’s downright expected. Why else would there be so many ice cream stands so crowded with such happy adults, children and dogs openly enjoying bigger, better, more towering, more exciting cone and dish fulls. And why else would ice cream be so easy to find?
There are no secrets where ice cream reigns. Of course, there are little secrets like keep a metal spoon hidden in the car for faster consumption, sit beside the child with the smallest appetite who will need help, or offer to share an order with a slow eater or one who is not passionate about your favorite flavor, which you will, of course, order.
But big secrets? No. There are no secret ice cream locations like there are fishing holes or fiddlehead patches or wild berry picking trails, no secret servings, no secret handouts, no secret cameras, don’t we hope. Where there is ice cream the word gets out. If it doesn’t, it’s just like computers — ask a child. (“Do you mean the place we went after soccer or the one you promised when I had shots??”)
Of course, there are names for these places brand names, location names, owner names, cutesy names, but by any name they are the same — the place where you get ice cream which is so astoundingly logical that it’s hats off to The Ice Cream Place in Smithfield.
Where there is ice cream, there is also a size and flavor maze that in Maine definitely one-ups the game of trivia. Sports teams, almost every type of berry, outdoor themes, moose, and caribou (of which there are none in Maine) figure high. With a little luck during a lull in the line you can obtain samples of some of them (but not in that metal spoon you have hidden in the car).
As for size, think dish. Dish under the cone, dish over the cone, dish empty or full it’s the best chance for catching a tipping, dripping cone overflow of ice cream, which is to say every size is bigger than you would ever expect.
So, how about that perfect cone? Wherever place, whatever flavor, whichever melting size, there is no cone more perfect than the cone of the moment.
Sister ship of the Dennis family’s 23 ft. Lyman, this beauty plies the waters of Great Pond today and is owned by Ben and Barb Ford.
by Rod Johnson
Every now and then something happens that we witness or hear about that really is a Big Deal. The true story I am about to tell you, I do believe, falls into that category.
One warm August day in 1960, the youth of Great Pond were doing what they did best — waterskiing. In that era, water skiing was in, and there were some powerful boats around the lake that could do the pulling. One such boat was a nearly new 23-foot Lyman, powered by a Gray Marine/AMC 8 cylinder engine. No ordinary engine, this 260-horsepower puppy had been equipped with dual side draft carbs to give it a lot of extra soup!
Dr. Richard Dennis of Waterville had purchased the boat the previous year from Frost Marine in Portland. Mrs. Dennis named the boat Antigua. It was truly a beautiful craft, with varnished deck and rails, glossy white lapstrake hull and trimmed with bronze and brass hardware. Dr. Dennis or his son Dick were often seen coming into the Belgrade Lakes Village stream to purchase fuel and supplies from Day’s Marina, or the store located across the street. A few of you newcomers probably didn’t know the marina was located in what is now the Lakes Resource Center annex and post office.
A little aside here for history’s sake: The marina was a congregating spot during most summer days, with boats coming in to refuel and get snacks from the store. Dick and a local boy Joe Tinker both worked at the Day’s Marina for a season or two, and neither was a stranger to the lake. They were both good skiers as were many of the “lake kids.” Tink and I had learned as early teenagers using Camp Abena’s old 15 h.p. Evinrude on a Richline aluminum boat. (Tink’s parents owned the Abena girls camp at that time.)
The “Big Day” started out with Dick towing a couple of skiers up in North Bay, just off the sandy beach of Bear Spring Camps. Before long, a group of teenagers had formed and someone suggested seeing how many skiers could be pulled at one time. After borrowing some additional skis and ropes from other boaters and camp owners, and not without difficulty, a record of six people got up at once and were towed around the cove. The scene got lots of attention from local camp owners along the shore from Bear Springs up to Jamacia Point, one of whom was Howard Gray who worked for the Waterville Morning Sentinel.
After the boat returned to the beach and the skiers dropped off, Mr. Gray came down and asked Dick and the skiers if they could perform that feat the next day. He would have the newspaper’s photographer properly set up to take some photos, with the promise that they would get posted on the front page of the Sentinel. Of course they all agreed and were sure they would get the notoriety of the Cypress Gardens skiers!
The “Big Day” arrived and the group had borrowed some more lines and skis. At the intended hour the next afternoon, Dick had the Lyman warmed up and the crew had upped the ante to attempt ten skiers at once, an unheard of feat on Great Pond. With ten lines to the hitching post on the boat, and ten skiers in the water, Dick slowly tensioned all the lines with the big V8 loping at idle.
When given the thumbs up go sign, Dick put the hammer down and the big engine began its work with a roar. After struggling mightily with skiers’ arms getting tired, the big boat made progress and one at a time the skiers all got up and going. Memories say there were three people with slalom skis and seven on pairs. Dick remembers that the boat planed out at 26 m.p.h. with all skiers up, rather than its normal 36 m.p.h. A true feat for man and machine and well recorded it was by Howard Gray. True to his word, the photo appeared on the front page of the Waterville Sentinel.
Most of the skier’s names have been lost to time, though the Dubord boys, Steve and Bill, were two of the slalomers. We hope some of our readers might recall this event, or perhaps were on the tow lines some 56 years ago.
Margaret Pietrak and her 6-month-old son Zeke on top of French Mountain.
by Pete Kallin
I was out of town most of last week visiting some of my wife’s relatives in Dayton, Ohio. While there, I took a four-mile hike in a local county park with some of my in-laws. It was fun to get out into some terrain that is very different than ours, but I was shocked to see so many dead and dying ash trees that had been infested by the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis.
The emerald ash borer is a small, bright green beetle about ¾" long that is native to Asia that was first found in this country in Michigan in 2002. It has since spread to over 15 states and has reached Massachusetts. The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry is monitoring for the beetle and has placed strict restrictions on imports of firewood from out-of-state.
Ash tree defoliated by emerald ash borer.
You may have noticed some of their purple traps hanging in the tops of trees along roads near ash trees. At least one trap is along Route 225 in Rome. Please help do your part by being vigilant and not importing any firewood from another state.
It felt great to get back to Maine. I spent a bit of time foraging in the woods, picking red and black raspberries, blueberries, and searching for mushrooms. It has been so dry the mushrooms are way behind where they normally. Nonetheless I found a really nice Chicken of the Woods mushroom, which I have harvested most of and shared with some friends and neighbors. This large, bright orange shelf fungus really does taste like chicken and can be substituted for chicken in various recipes, including stir fry.
Chicken of the Woods mushroom.
I also got a chance to hike French Mountain with my old friend Margaret Pietrak and her 6-month-old son Zeke. Margaret is a former resident of Rome and was active with the BRCA’s* Stewardship and Education Committees when she lived here. A former park ranger and current middle school science teacher, Margaret was the primary BRCA Steward for French Mountain until she moved to Bangor two years ago when her husband Mike completed his Ph.D. at UMO and got a job in that area doing research on salmon aquaculture diseases. It was fun to share the experience of taking her new son on one of her favorite hikes.
I also hiked The Mountain this week and met my neighbor Shelly Fitzgerald, her dog Juneau, and her friends Tom and Jane, from PA and Great Pond. Shelly hikes nearly every day with her dog, usually on The Mountain. It is amazing how much you can learn about a property hiking with a dog on a regular basis. They will usually smell or see most wildlife well before you will and if you pay attention, you will learn a lot about the creatures inhabiting our forests.
*In December 2017, the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) and the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC) merged, forming the 7 Lakes Alliance. Now retired, Pete Kallin is a past director of the BRCA.
In a first-time partnership effort, Gold Top Dairy Farm of Knox Ridge collaborated with the Somerset and Waldo County Soil and Water Conservation Districts this summer to conserve more than 40 acres of active hayland as grassland bird habitat. Gold Top farm is run by brothers Mike and Greg Ingraham and their wives Jackie and Shirley, Greg’s son, Isaac and employee, Alex Green. The farm, started in 1876 and now on its fourth generation, is an icon in the town of Knox, and consists of 1400 acres. The Ingrahams milk 400 cows.
In return for an incentive payment to help offset loss in forage quality, Mike, Greg and family consented to delay mowing on a particularly productive parcel of active bobolink habitat at the end of June. This was a tremendous conservation effort, and resulted in the fledging of at least 50 bobolink youngsters last week. Bobolink family groups were up and about by Friday afternoon, July 8, gliding over the grassland, hunting for insects and making their joyous calls. In addition to hosting bobolinks, the fields were also nesting grounds for Savannah sparrows and possibly a meadowlark family.
Incentive funds were provided by the Davis Conservation Foundation for the Somerset County District’s Agricultural Allies program, an outreach and education project intended to encourage safe nesting habitat for grassland birds.
Bobolinks are a historic sight and sound each spring in the fields and meadows of Maine. In addition to being a delight to see and hear, bobolinks and other grassland birds are true agricultural allies to central Maine farmers as these birds consume large quantities of both insect pests and weed seeds each growing season.
Unfortunately, the population of these beneficial birds has been in a steady and precipitous decline since the 1960s, according to the State of the Birds 2014 report. The bobolink appears on their Watchlist of bird species most in need of conservation action. Here in Maine, the reason there is habitat for these birds at all is because of our agricultural landscape.
However, most hayfields are cut at least once during the nesting time, from the end of May to mid-July, which results in total nestling mortality, a pattern that plays out across the northeast. Ingraham’s delay in mowing, just over a week in duration, was the key to survival for this large group of bobolink nestlings. The willingness of the Ingrahams to work with the Districts on this issue, even extending the delay past the agreed timeframe, allowing additional time for late nesters) was a tangible and significant benefit for the grassland birds of central Maine.
It is not only farmers who can help grassland birds, however. Everyone can have a hand in helping these birds. If we as the general public could leave grass areas unmowed until August 1, including letting some lawn area “go natural,” we could help create non-competitive grasslands for birds, pollinators and other wildlife.
Reducing manicured lawn in favor of meadow creation not only benefits wildlife, but it saves time, fuel, and money for landowners, making it a true win-win situation. We encourage people to contact the Somerset County SWCD at 474‑8324, ext. 3 or www.somersetswcd.org to find out other ways that they can get involved with this critical conservation effort.
This week’s guest columnist is Technical Director for Somerset County Soil and Water Conservation District.
