Two boys muck about in the cattails during a nature camp at the L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley, one of many day camps offering summertime enrichment. (Photo courtesy of L.C. Bates Museum.) More…
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When a Kid Returns From Camp
by Esther J. Perne
When a kid returns from camp, whether from a day, a week, or a season, there will be single socks, someone else's sweatshirt or shoes, wet swimgear and wet whatever has come in contact with it, sticky but empty treat wrappers, something damp in the bottom of a bag that had best not be probed too thoroughly, natural treasures especially things sandy and smelly from a trip to the beach and an enhanced vocabulary — "epic," "boss," "beast," "what's good?," and terms not necessarily repeatable.
When a kid returns from camp, whether early, mid-, or late summer, there will be amazing physical growth — How do they get taller in just one day?? — and social growth, too, There will be new names of new friends not to be confused with the same names of old friends, new songs, and new games, new not-funny jokes, and new accusations of "Oh forget it. You don't understand."
When a kid returns from camp, there will be some creative eating etiquette — like fingers for everything — Everybody does it — and an increase in appetite. There will be the discovery of some items that the house has been searched high and low for. There will be many arts and crafts projects to display on shelves and walls.
Of course, when a kid returns from camp, there may be only clean clothes, carefully dried swimwear, improved table manners, perfectly matched socks and nothing lost, no foreign objects — natural or otherwise — lodged in pockets of clothing and backpacks, new friends with new names only, and a new high in politeness.
Most important, when a kid returns from camp, it's time to think and plan about next summer already, because before too long it will be time when a kid goes to camp.
Last night there was a bitter loon battle in our little bay. In the end, the baby chick was dead, and the rogue loon who fought the father loon was on shore, stunned/injured. It was quite an evening. Here's what happened:
My husband and I and our black Lab Shinobi, climbed in the canoe for a late afternoon paddle. The sun shone across our bay at the north end of Great Pond. The water was calm, but we were surprised to see our baby loon there in the water — all alone. That was unusual. She is usually right beside her Mom — or Dad. We so enjoyed seeing the chick develop.
In June, neighbors kayaking had observed the eggs in the nest in the swamp around the corner. By the 4th of July, we were happy to see the mother loon swimming by with the baby on her back. All of the Northbay Lane residents loved watching the little family.
When we returned from our paddle, baby was with the Mom. All was well. Later while eating dinner, we noticed a boat in the bay close to the loons, watching the birds thrashing about. People were gathering along the shore, all concerned about the skirmish in the bay. The baby was a little distance away, and then swam towards the Mom. The rogue loon attacked and quickly killed the babe. The mother loon swam back to the baby who was now dead in the water, its little white belly up. Then the two males fought. The father grabbed the rogue loon by the neck and they engaged above and underneath the water. Eventually, they took their fight to the shore, beating each other against the rocks. The rogue male, losing the battle, crawled up on shore, quite stunned and/or injured. We all watched not knowing what to do.
As it happens, the three men in the boat were Belgrade Regional Conservation Association* employees who had come to our quiet cove to water ski. When they saw the bizarre loon behavior, they stayed to check it out and they took videos. After the loon beached, they were concerned about the injured bird; and knew from their training, that even if the loon were able to swim away, the fight would resume and he would be the loser. He would die.
Now it was close to 8:00 p.m. and all the experts the BRCA guys called were gone for the day. Voice mail only. Eventually they contacted a bird protection group who advised them to put the loon in a cardboard box — carefully — and bring the bird to them. The BRCA employees — Michael Stevens, Milfoil Field Area Leader; Adrian Heath, Milfoil Surveyer/Diver; and Collin MacGibeny, Diver — with the help of the Northbay Lane neighbors, put a blanket over the bird. One person, controlling the wings, picked up the bird while another held the neck and beak and they put it in the box for transport. Lee Pooler, Northbay Lane resident, drove the BRCA men and the injured loon to meet the bird rescue experts at a designated location.
The BRCA guys, Michael, Adrian and Collin, didn't get to water ski, but this was quite a unique experience for them. Some of the folks who gathered to watch the drama have lived in the area for more than thirty years and have never seen such loony behavior. In retrospect my husband and I recall some bizarre, somewhat frantic loon calls the past few nights and mornings — different from the usual yodels.
And our neighbor Lois also questioned the racket. "Did you hear the loons last night? They were nuts." Perhaps this was a foreshadowing of a building hostility.
We all await news of the injured loon, hoping that time will heal him. Yet we all feel an incredible loss — our loon baby. Now, as night settles, the loon calls seem especially sad, and we imagine that the parents are mourning their offspring. We are too. Nature indeed, can be cruel.
loon tragedy
*In December 2017, the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) and the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC) merged, forming the 7 Lakes Alliance.
The Jackson Family from New Vineyard, including Lily, 7, and Dottie, 3.
by Peter Kallin
This was another busy summertime week in the Belgrades. I spent some time early in the week hacking down some Japanese knotweed, locally called "bamboo." It is an invasive species, which has infested BRCA's* Mount Phillip property along Route 225 in Rome.
This plant was introduced into the United States by the famous landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed NYC's Central Park and Boston's Emerald Necklace in the mid 19th Century. He wanted a plant that would do well along waterways and bloom in the summertime.
It has since spread to at least 24 states in the northeastern US and is especially pernicious along waterways and roadsides. It is a difficult plant to get rid of once established but with dedication and a multi-year effort can be done by repeated cutting. The young shoots in the spring are quite tasty (sort of a lemony cross between asparagus and rhubarb) and can be used to make jellies and brew wine (my favorite use of the shoots).
This greedy fish bit two lines.
After hacking knotweed, I hiked up Mount Phillip and met the Jackson Family from New Vineyard, with daughters, Lily, 7, and Dottie, 3. They have been hiking trails in this area for several years since being introduced to them when their parents rented a camp on Great Pond several years ago.
I also managed to get out to do a bit of fishing. One morning I was trolling in Long Pond, with a Mooselook flutter spoon on one line in a rod holder on the port side set just below the thermocline, hoping for a landlocked salmon or brown trout and holding a flyrod with a sinking line and my trusty White Zonker fly on the starboard. I then got a phone call on my cell phone from a friend I was supposed to meet later that day to do some fieldwork for a potential BRCA project. Ironically, the best cellphone coverage in the area is in the middle of the lakes as the towers are up on the hills surrounding them and there is no topographic interference in between.
Luke Orup, 13, holds his nice smallmouth.
As I was talking, a fish suddenly took the line on the port side. I quickly terminated the phone call, placed my flyrod in the rod holder on the starboard side and began reeling in the fish. When I had the fish about halfway to the boat, suddenly I had a strike on the flyrod. I scrambled back and forth trying to reel in both rods and when I finally got the fish in I discovered I had the same fish on both rods. The roughly 14" smallie hit the spoon first and then spotted the fly as I was reeling him in and tried to grab that as well!
The next day, I invited Luke Orup, the son of one of my neighbors, out for a bit of fishing in the late afternoon. As you can see by the picture below, we were successful. While the photo missed the top of his head, it captured the most important parts — the fish and the smile on his face.
Feeding the aquatic invertebrates to the fish at the MLRC.
I finished up the week helping out with Aquafest, a family event sponsored by the BRCA Lake Trust at the MLRC. All the lake associations and some Camp Runoia counselors helped out with various water-centered activities aimed at kids, including the Maine Lakes Society 30 ft., floating classroom, collecting invertebrates, learning about stormwater, painting T-shirts, etc.
I think the high point for the kids was when they got to feed the zooplankton and invertebrates they collected and identified to the fish in the tank at the MLRC. I also spotted Dave Hallett of Great Pond with his 4-year old son and a friend catching fish after fish near the MLRC docks. It was good to see so many youngsters enjoying the lakes!
Dave Hallett with two 4-year-old anglers.
*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.
One never knows when some person or some event is going to come to town which kind of riles things up a bit. Before you know it, there's chatter amongst the locals and summer folk about what is or isn't happening in our midst. Most always, the rumors get modified over and over to the point that the gossip has no relation to the original event.
Well, that happened in the greater Belgrade area in the late '70s. Word was out on the street that one of our own summer folks had written a play called On Golden Pond. Not only that, but the movie folks from New York and California wanted to make it into a movie. Keep in mind that none of this was verified by the local establishment, but they were diggin' for clues as to whether or not it was true. There were more questions than answers flying around town.
Next thing we knew, someone said Dave Webster was going to be on the six o'clock news that night. Most folks had their televisions tuned in and sure enough, Dave and his wife Barbara were interviewed down by Great Pond Marina. Dave of course, was the REAL mailman on Great Pond for decades, his dad Harold before that. I suppose they wanted to pick his brain and see what info they could get to create the movie's mailman. We locals all stood pretty tall that night, watchin' Dave with his corncob pipe tell about the movie and that he and Barb had been offered complimentary tickets to either the play — or movie once it was made.
We boys who were working at Day's Marina found out the day before that there was some definite truth to it. Our boss Darryl Day announced, as we paraded into work one morning, that some folks from the Big City were coming over midmorning and needed a ride around the lake.
Apparently they were gonna look it over a mite and get a good idea if it fit their plan for making the film. I got the chauffeur's job and when the pair of city folks showed up, Darryl pointed to the 17' Boston Whaler that sat at the dock. If memory serves me right, we had hooked up a new V4 Johnson 100 horsepower the day before for the owner Walter Frame, and it needed a good test run anyway. By the way, I think that boat is still on the lake today, towing grandkids around Sahagian Cove.
The folks pretty much kept their thoughts to themselves as we headed out Mill Stream, and when we reached the mouth and got some open water, I put the boat up on a plane and set a nice cruising speed. The weather was a bit chilly as I recall, but I was comfortable behind the wind screen and they toughed it out sitting in front of it. I was still young enough to have go-fast urges, and knew this boat would fly like the wind if I let her go, but the motor wasn't broken in and more than likely it would have scared the daylights out of them.
After a good hour of looking over the lake and background hills, we returned to the stream and idled back into the marina. The folks had a short chat with Darryl and headed along.
It was weeks or months later that we heard through the grapevine that the movie was to be filmed over in New Hampshire, where the mountains in the background were larger and likely other reasons we weren't told.
I think at first we were all miffed and felt rejected. Of course that quickly turned to derogatory statements about the movie folks and their decision-making abilities. To this day, I still hear statements like, "It was for the best" or "It would have been a pain to have them around anyway."
Regardless of all the above, I for one, and I think the rest of the world, are grateful that Ernest Thompson grew up on our lake, wrote the play that became a movie — and for all the great actors who came into our living rooms. Doris and I as a couple, have yearly On Golden Pond nights, when we set up the living room with extra chairs and snacks, invite the neighbors over, and watch the magic. It takes us home from anywhere and helps us remember where we came from.
