It's never easy moving to a new town, or state for that matter. Not to mention write about it. But that's what I will try to do here for you. Successfully, I hope.

My wife, five cats and I are on an adventure here in Maine. After all, life should always be an adventure, and sometimes you have to sit down and share it with others. Over the coming weeks that's what I'll be doing — sharing with you our new life in Maine.

Why would that be interesting? Well, let's just say we weren't from around here on a year-round basis — not until last December. We're the newbies — the ones who lived for the last fifteen years in the urban jungle of Boston. The ones who rented an 1820s farm house in Chesterville. With wood and K1 oil heat — neither of which we knew anything about before moving here.

There's the first-time wood purchases (I have to move and stack how much wood?); the bats in the house (to paraphrase Indy: "Bats. Why'd it have to be bats? I hate bats."); my first real garden; (everything grows big up in Maine — especially the slugs...); the first season of black fly (tell me again — why don't we all leave Maine for a month in the spring?) And how do you pronounce 'Dirigo'???

Then there's the still fairly novel adventure of working full-time from home. That's right, full-time. Working over the internet. Really. No matter what they say, it can be done. Successfully. I test software and lead a team across the globe in Ireland and India. Right from here in Maine. Global technology — talking to people halfway around the world while munching on a carrot grown in my backyard garden. Now if only I could figure out the time differences. (Let's see, if it's sunrise in Maine on the summer solstice and I'm standing on my head pointing north, it must be the end of the work day in India, but off by a half an hour....) And what is the business casual dress code when working from home? PJ's until noon? T-shirts and jeans? Surely not a Tie! And let's talk about the gas savings....!

My wife? After a successful (but stressful) career in Boston, she quit her job and reinvented herself from an archivist to an on-line antiques and collectables seller. The knowledge and drive to succeed is there, but is the economy? The jury's still out on that one... But the technology is here and it can be done... with a lot of hard work and patience....

So, I hope you'll come along on the Maine adventure with us and look at old and new Maine through fresh eyes. I hope you'll laugh with us as we go, and hopefully we'll all learn something of one another along the way...    

 When my wife and I first moved to the farmhouse in Chesterville, winter was just setting in and the snow was beginning to fly. We didn't have a lot of time to look around the house to see what might grow here, while we were unpacking endless boxes.

So, spring came along and my wife and I began raking up the side lawn, where we discovered a huge patch of knotweed all around an old chicken coop and trying to grow into the lawn.

You may not recognize the name, knotweed, and you may know it as Japanese Bamboo, but you've definitely seen it growing. Broad, dark green leaves on tall, bamboo-like stalks. And almost impossible to eradicate from a lawn or garden.

Originally imported to England from Asia in the early 1800s, it was brought to the U.S. in the Victorian era as an exotic garden plant. Unfortunately, outside of Japan there are no natural checks on its growth. Today, knotweed is considered one of the top 100 most harmful weeds in the world.

We had this weed on my parents' farm in the Adirondacks, and it grew through cracks in blacktop. As a kid, the dried stalks were great to play at 'swords' with my brother. As an adult, it's just an annoying plant.

What to do? Well, research these days is much easier than ever before and we quickly found two things on the internet: 1. knotweed is almost impossible to eliminate once it takes over a patch of ground; 2. it is edible.

So, as the thick, asparagus-like spears began to appear, I formed my plan of attack to exterminate it. Grabbing my bucket, I headed out to the knotweed plot and harvested every spear under six inches tall and as thick as my thumb. Everything else I cut down. As I carried my first harvest on the farm back to the kitchen, I had my doubts this stuff could possibly be edible. My wife had other ideas and with a couple of recipes from the internet in hand, she quickly whipped up a nice knotweed soup, with chicken stock and spices. Imagine an asparagus soup with lemon, but no lemon need be added. It's a unique and pleasant taste.

The rest of the spring, once or twice a week, you would find me early in the morning harvesting buckets of knotweed spears. And just as often, I'd slash everything else down. That is part of my long-term strategy to exterminate it from around the farmhouse. Starve it out over years, and cover it over to prevent it growing back. Phase 2 is under way, with all the leaves raked up from the maple tree near the house being piled high on the knotweed patch, to mat down over the winter into a nearly impenetrable cover.

Now, I have a dilemma, however. I want to wipe it out where it is growing... my wife wants a regular supply of knotweed soup. So, I've adjusted my original plan of attack and have left a section for future harvesting. We'll always have containers of processed knotweed in the freezer, ready to be made into a hearty soup in the middle of winter. And I'll keep having to cut it down all summer long to prevent it from spreading. I guess I might be winning the occasional battle, but the knotweed is winning the war.

 I look around the farmhouse today, as the sun slowly rises, and I see a lot less snow than was here last week. Frost's A Patch of Old Snow would still be bundle-sized instead of a few sheets, piled here and there around the house and barns, but there's more than enough bare ground to say spring is here. 

Robins are dancing over the lawn this morning, interested in what the moles have tossed up overnight. Small limbs fallen over the winter lay scattered across the yard, discarded by the old maple tree when the ice came on thick, followed by a heavy wind. I'll be gathering them up and adding them to the pile already started. They'll dry over the summer and work well for kindling.

The male ring-necked pheasant staying under the barn all winter has moved on. He survived the bitter cold and deep snow living off the scattered seeds dropped by other birds from the feeder. Warmer days and spring urges has sent him deeper into the woods in search of female companionship. May he stay healthy and safe and another generation come to winter under the barn. 

The garden has shaken off the remnants of snow that covered it deep for months. Sleeping well through the worst of the bitter cold under the snowy blankets, strawberry plants are already looking green and ready for warmer weather. For the rest, soon there'll be tilling and digging and rows to be planted — but that will have to wait awhile... 

I'll take the wreath down from the front door — hung in a different time, when hopes ran high at the beginning of winter, when the first flakes of snow excited the soul, rather than depressed later in the season. Long forgotten behind the glass of the storm door, the boughs are still as green as when they first cheered us months ago — but it is time to go. 

Maine spring is here, in the mountains to the west. Soon it will be the time of soil turning and planting, branch-harvesting and raking, garden planning and wishful thinking of harvests yet to come.  

No, soon I'll not have the time to read the wind-tossed papers of snow, tucked along stone walls and under deepest pine woods. News of spring has reached me here, and after a long winter, and a low wood pile, it's time to get going again. News of the land tells its own tale, and news of the world can wait awhile.

 As many of you know who read this blog, from time to time I write about growing up on a dairy farm in the Adirondacks in the 1960s and '70s. As a kid you don't always know the struggles your parents go through when times are tough on a farm, but you know enough. You know life on a farm is a struggle and there are good times and bad. Mostly bad, lately for the small farmers. Living here in Maine now, I see there's bad times ahead for farmers again. This time, it may have a huge impact on all of us

Dairy farmers in the US are in desperate trouble. Probably not since the Great Depression (should we start calling our own economic times GDII?) has the milk industry faced such a crisis. Unfortunately, unlike the 1930s, there are more of us now who work in jobs totally unrelated to producing food, and more of us who think food prices are directly related to the farmers who grow the product. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Take milk production. Most of us get our milk from the corner store or the mega-supermarkets. We pay what the store asks, often without thinking about how that price was determined. If the cost is low one season, we reason the farmers must be producing a lot of milk and the price comes down. When the price sky-rockets in the stores, we grumble about those farmers asking too much for their product and ripping the consumers off. How little we really understand. 

Some numbers to think about: Dairy farmers do not set their milk prices — that is fixed by the federal government through old, rather arcane rules (including the price of Chicago cheese commodities, which doesn't help farmers in New England.) Then there's the middle-men. And there are a lot of them.

Farmers are forced to sell their milk to cooperatives and shippers that take the milk to the processing plants. There's added cost for fuel and wages for the truckers. Then there's the pasteurization process to keep milk safe to drink. Added cost to the price of a gallon of milk. Then there's the cost of bottling and delivering that milk to all those stores that sell it to you and me. More added cost. 

Then there's the price those stores charge for that gallon of milk. This is where we grit our teeth and pay the price asked. Or go without until there's too much product and not enough buyers and the price has to come down.

And what about that price? Some more facts: Dairy farmers sell their raw milk by the hundred-weight. Think pounds — not gallons. Just one more area to complicate the situation. 1 gallon of milk = 8.5 pounds; 11.75 gallons = 100 lbs. of milk. So, if farmers in Maine are currently getting around $12 per hundredweight, their share of the cost you pay in the supermarket (say around $4/gallon) equals just about $1. So, one quarter of the cost you pay at the supermarket goes to the farmer. The rest? Well, we all know who gets that. Everyone else who handled the milk before it got to you. Especially the supermarkets. 

And think about this. Price per hundredweight is expected to be as low as $8 by March or April. Maine farmers will be in real trouble then. Maintaining a farm is not cheap. The average price for a milk cow in Maine in 2005 (the most current price I could find on the internet) was around $1300. Let's say the average herd in Maine is 50. That's an investment right there of $65,000. Not to mention the cost of land, feed for the cattle, fuel for the tractors, vet bills, etc...

And now, on top of all this, a task force appointed by Gov. Baldacci is recommending a cut of 4.8 million in subsidies to Maine farmers. At this critical time for dairy farmers in this state, I have to interpret this as at best, a lack of understanding on the panel's part of the importance of keeping this industry alive in Maine; at worst, a real shift by the Maine government away from agriculture as a way of life here in the future. 

So, Governor, reject this cut in farm subsidies, support Maine farmers and help them weather this latest economic storm. Keep the long heritage of farming in Maine alive for future generations. It's in your hands now. Frankly, we need to keep dairying going for no other reason than relying on milk from China in the future, with all the risks that brings with it. What do you say Governor? 

And for you farmers in Maine (especially in the Franklin County area): I want to hear from you. How are you making it? What do you see for your future in Maine? I'd like to pass along your stories here in this from time to time.

 How often these days we forget to walk up to the stone wall for a friendly chat. Our electronic walls are up and no one seems to see beyond them any more. 

Don't get me wrong:  I'm a techie — I work in IT (information technology) and it's the technology part that allows me to work remote from Chesterville. Still, some parts of technology just get in the way of good, old-fashioned, face-to-face communication.

Lots of white-collar office jobs (or is the polo-shirt set?) these days require computer skills, with all the baggage that comes along with that computer on your desk.  Email, instant messaging, cell phone texting, video conferencing... Does anyone just talk face-to-face any more?

No, we send an email to Ned in the next cubicle about our thoughts on what we are doing to resolve Problem A on the Enigma Project.  Ned responds with his thoughts and includes Jan and Nori, who in turn include a bunch of people on their respective teams who all have different thoughts on how to fix Problem A and the underlying Problem  B no one has seen yet.  Instant messages fly back and forth and Nori texts Biff on his cell phone while he's on the coffee run for the office to Starbucks. Biff texts everyone while he's driving back (while drinking his coffee?) the project will probably be delayed anyway due to  time delays resolving Problem X. In the meantime a week has passed and Problem A is still unresolved.

And then there's the kids.  (Never trust anyone under 30..., to take a riff from Jerry Rubin, and others....) My brother and I were talking about kids and texting and he mentioned his daughter's favorite habit of texting him while she's walking to the car... where he's waiting in the front seat. R U 4 real?

No, I'll take the slower, more direct approach, and pick up the phone when I can and talk to someone. Or better yet, meet them face to face.  Maybe find me a stone wall to sit on and wait for a friend to come by, just for a chat.  That'd be nice....

Now where'd I put my cell phone....

Growing up on a farm and then moving to an old farm house in Maine keeps you thinking in farmers' terms. "Milking the cats" is one of them. Now, before you get a bizarre image in your heads of tiny milk pails and scratching cats, let me explain.

Years ago we discovered our cats love half & half. I don't remember how we discovered this exactly, but it must have started with Abigail and her love of milk in the bottom of a cereal bowl. The other cats would try it and walk away in disgust. We must have run out one day and tried them on half & half. Life has never been the same for us.

So, once they got the taste for the richer things in life, they began demanding it. I'm the early riser in the family, and the first thing I have to do is "milk the cats." Let me set the picture for you.

It's dark this time of year, so I stumble out of bed and into the kitchen groping for a light switch and trying to dance with six swirling cats at my feet. All before I've had a drop of coffee.

Somehow I make it to the fridge and grab the half & half. That just sends one of the cats (Emmy) into a frenzy, standing up against the counter and pushing back against me while I pour out the tablespoon portions on plastic divided plates. Luckily for me the remaining five cats all wait patiently at my feet until I put the plates out for them.

Then there's the king of the cat pride, Nickolas. When the plates of milky goodness are being distributed, he walks off to the next room. I have to follow with his plate, and when I set it before him he dismisses me while he begins to slurp it up and I bow slowly backwards out of the room. My morning chores done, I head back to the kitchen where I can turn to the important work of making my own coffee.

Of course, Emmy over the years has taken it upon herself to be the official cat representative for the pride, and her one job is to make sure I don't sleep in. There are many mysteries in life for me, and the greatest one is the fact that Emmy nearly always finds a way to get me up just before my alarm goes at 5 a.m. Whether it's purring in my ear, sitting on my chest (trust me, you wake up when a 12-pound cat sits on your chest), or knocking things off my nightstand, she's usually spot on 5 a.m.

Of course, the return to Standard Time in the fall messes her up, but she figures it out in a few days. The problem is, I never seem to gain back that hour of sleep everyone else gets. You see, when it's 5 a.m. for Emmy that day, it's 4 a.m. for me. Not that she cares. After a few days she figures it out, and she's adjusted to that wacky human concept of time.

I spent last week in a hotel room in Boston for my work, going to meetings in the office. No cats to trip over getting out of bed. Coffee made first thing when I got to the kitchenette. Half & half removed from the fridge while I remained unfettered and free to pour it only in my coffee. It was the loneliest week I've ever spent... Oh, yeah, I missed my wife too...

We live in an old farmhouse in Maine. We have mice. We have five cats. What mouse problem, right? Wrong. When we moved to this farmhouse, surrounded by a large lawn and open meadow, I figured we might be visited by a few mice, especially in the old pantry off the kitchen. What self-respecting field mouse wouldn't go for a nice morsel in the pantry when it's below zero outside? But I knew my cats would take care of that problem.

OK. They're all full-time indoor cats. The oldest two are fifteen and the youngest is about two. The others are thirteen and seven. So, OK, the older ones may not be into mouse hunting, but the younger two, ah, they're the hunters! (I was so sure of it...) It was only a matter of time before a mouse showed up. My wife and I work from home and I remember well the time of the Mouse Caper.

It was snowing (again) and I was hard at work testing software for my employers based in Massachusetts. My wife was out of the house, hunting for antiques, and Genny was curled up on the cat perch in the window, watching the snow fall. The other cats were nowhere in sight.

Then it happened. A clatter arose in the kitchen that (I swear) sounded like a bird had got in the house. A high, twittering sound, that didn't sound good. Genny sat up straight and then tore off for the kitchen just in front of me.

There they were the posse: Abby, Emmy and Teddy. They had surrounded a small field mouse that had made it in, somehow. The mouse was twitching and squealing, terrified that it's final moment had come. And there was Emmy, gently patting it on the rump, trying to figure out how to get this new cat toy to move, while Teddy was gently patting it on the head, probably trying to get it to be quiet. And Abby? Sitting off to the side, watching the whole thing unfold, with no apparent interest in touching live meat.

Well it was all too funny, but, being the softy I am, I grabbed the cats and let the mouse run behind the fridge. I kept checking all day but I never saw that poor mouse again.

But I just have this image of that mouse, back in it's burrow with other mice, trembling and scared. Whiskers twitching, he relates his adventure in the big house, telling the other mice: "whatever you do, don't go in the house! They've got cats that'll pat you to death!"

While they might not be great mousers, they seem to be earning their keep. That's the only mouse we've seen so far. Of course, if Genny had been there, we really think she'd have played it to death. And then left it for me to find beside the bed... yuck.

 We always had a truck on the farm when I was a kid in the Adirondacks. Usually a Ford, and often red. There was always a lot of wire and baling twine holding something up or on. Things that fell off weren't considered that important, as long as it kept running. And it usually did. That was when you didn't need a mechanic's degree to work on a car. My dad always seemed to make it run, most days.

We were always carrying something for the farm in the truck, as I remember: bags of grain, rolls of barbed wire, hay bales stacked up over the cab. That was my personal favorite as it was my job to stack the load. A good day was when the bales bounced and shifted, but never fell off as the truck crawled over the field on the way to the barn. A bad day was when the entire load fell off and you had to start all over again. And if you were really good at stacking hay, you rode on top of the load all the way to the barn, proof you could trust your work. (Sometimes 'trust' is a funny thing with bales of hay ...)

Then I moved away to college, began a few careers, moved to Boston and never had need of a truck. Fifteen years living in and around Boston, where most things were in walking distance or a quick hop on the T. All that time, and never a desire for a truck (unless I wanted to buy one to impress the neighbors; I never felt that need.)

Things change; careers come and go. Sometimes you get to the point where you realize — careers aren't all they're cracked up to be. Sometimes, careers get in the way of life. That's where my wife and I were last fall. She'd had enough of a high-pressure job. Her family lives in Maine, and her dad had passed away at home after a long bout with cancer. We were all with him up to the end — the entire family. He passed on with dignity and love. And that experience make you think. Hard and long. So, she quit her job and decided to go into the antiques and collectables business on-line. Then we decided to move to Maine to be closer to her family. I kept my job, knowing I could keep doing it over the internet full-time. After all, I worked from Maine for three months while acting as a care-giver for her dad. So, last December, we rented an old farmhouse in Chesterville. All our life-stuff that used to fit in the back of our Festiva when we were first married now took two U-Hauls. Somehow, we survived our first winter in Maine, and it really wasn't that bad. No, really.

Spring came. Finally. Things turned green. That was my first proof snow might not be year-round in Maine. My thoughts turned to a garden, now that I'm in Maine. At an old 1820's farmhouse. With a shed, and a woodshed and barn. Of course I had to have a garden again.

So, with the neighbors' help and guidance a spot in the meadow behind the house was turned into a small plot. All this spring I roto-tilled, dug and planted. I laid black fabric weed cover over the entire garden. Probably not the best thing I could have done, looking back on it. The weeds grew just as well under it as through it. So, I decided it was time for a few bales of straw to really keep the weeds down. Right... off to Agway.

I park my Mazda Protégé between the pickup trucks in the parking lot and go in to buy some bales of straw. Yup, they've got plenty, and since I have no idea how much I need for the garden, I buy two bales. The kid at the cash register asks the other associate near by to go get the straw and bring it to me in the parking lot. He goes out back, while I purchase some herbs on sale for the garden and go out to my car. I watch as the associate wheels the bales through the lot, looking at the trucks, trying to figure out which one is mine. Then he sees me at the Protégé. He looks at the bales. Then at my car. I can tell what he's thinking. "He's not from around here." Yup. I'm not. Not originally, anyway.

We got those bales in the car. One in the trunk, and one propped up in the front seat. Truck? I don't need no steenking truck! I pulled out of there with the windows open and loose straw flying everywhere. But I got it home to the garden.

Just one problem. Two bales weren't nearly enough to cover the garden. My estimate? At least four more. Hmmmm... It's possible. One in the trunk, two in the back seat and one in the front seat again. Yes! So, if you see a guy with bales of straw stuffed in a Mazda, well...., let's just say I'm on my way back from Agway again.

Wonder if my dad's old truck still runs... It might make the trip from northern New York to western Maine.... Just a thought.....

OK, we've all heard the story: a driver installs a new GPS in his car and while following directions in detail, drives into a river when the road dead ends at the river bank. Ah, technology.

Now, we all know computers are logical, right? They never make mistakes. We've come to trust our new-fangled technology so much it's become a part of us. Working as I do testing software and finding errors, I know how error-ridden computer programs can be. Technology is only as good (or bad) as the humans who create it.

Case in point: It's a nice summer day, with afternoon downpours threatening. I'm working away in my home office, surrounded by my "office mates" (read cats) when the doorbell rings.

 (Think fog horn, or Addams Family door bell. No really — that's our doorbell. )

The cats scatter and I head for the kitchen door where I see a young woman and her dog. She introduces herself (we'll just call her "George") and explains she needs help. She was following her GPS which told her to follow the road past our house to connect to another road further north. The SUV she was driving got stuck in the mud on this "connecting road" and her cell phone didn't work and could she call for a tow truck?

Let me explain here that this "connecting road" is not a road at all. It is nothing more than an unpaved old logging road that I've only seen correctly described as a "jeep trail" on USGS printed maps. Few locals use this road, and then only to reach fishing spots on Egypt Pond. There are actually spots where small streams cut across the road.

The tow truck was called and my wife and I had a nice chat with "George" while we waited. When the truck arrived, I used my trusty printed map to show where the trail went. Turned out, the standard tow truck wasn't built for jeep trails either, and the driver had to bring a different truck to pull the SUV out of the mud. "George" drove back to our farmhouse to return the map I lent her, and I was amazed to see mud splattered over the windshield. I think "George" will think twice about trying an SUV on the logging roads of Maine.

Well, just the other day, early in the morning, the doorbell rings. This time it's an older gentleman, with "Sheriff's Office" printed on his jacket sleeve. He also was following his GPS down the logging road, but quickly realized the station wagon he was driving would never make it. Seeing our lights on, he decided to ask for directions. I pulled out my trusty map and explained to him how he'd have to drive five or more miles around to get to where he wanted to go.

So we know there are flaws in the GPS data. But what about Google maps online? Surely such a technologically savvy company would put all its resources into getting its maps right? Wrong. Google also shows this as a drivable road. Makes you wonder how error-filled all these "new" electronic maps really are...

So, all I can say to this experience is, while GPS is great if you live in a city or town, don't trust it as much as you may want to, once you're off the main roads. And never throw away those printed maps just because you bought that really expensive electronic mapping system. It may cost you more than you think.....

 We skirted a frost last week and the tomatoes are still growing strong, although the pumpkins in my garden are taking for ever to ripen. From that garden, I've frozen packets of snow peas, green beans, and butternut squash. I've picked quarts of blueberries to freeze and I've canned peach slices, peach and cherry jam, rhubarb and tomato sauce, not to mention numerous batches of 'sun-dried' tomatoes (OK, there was a food dehydrator involved for those...) Fall must be on its way.

Sometimes, the simplest things bring up past memories, and just two days ago the Harvest Moon shone bright over the house. There I was again, seeing all those times as a kid when I helped to gather up the last of the baled hay by harvest moonlight. All those years living in Boston I almost forgot about that moon. Sure, I'd notice the full, heavy moon, as it rose over the neighbors' houses down the street and maybe I'd take a couple of minutes to appreciate it. But I never knew then how much I missed it.

Photography has recently become a passion of mine and there were times when I took a stab at a night shot of a full moon in the city. The photos would come out technically OK, but there was always something not quite right, and I never could figure out why. I think I have now, though. It was seeing that moon through all those city lights. Pale, washed out, only the brightest of stars visible around it; I'd forgotten just how powerful that moon is without all that human clutter to look through.

So, fall has come and for the first time in almost thirty years, I am in the country again, with the entire Milky Way overhead and a full, bright, shining moon hanging over my garden. Turn the house lights off, step outside and it is simply amazing. The greens, browns and yellows by day all become shades of gray in the moonlight and it is wondrous.

I spent an hour outside, photographing by that light the other night. While the shutter of the digital camera ticked off the minutes of exposure time, I had time to just look up at the night sky. In the country, on a quiet, unlit road, the universe seems to explode from that sky. And the Man in the Moon? Yes, he's still there.

I'll have to make sure I get outside more often, now that the bugs are almost gone for the season, to look at that sky. I pity the people in the cities who are unable to look up and notice the universe above their heads on a night like this...

 

 We bought a canoe once spring arrived this year and the anticipation of all those endless trips around Egypt Pond forced us into it. My wife, Donna, saw it for sale in the yard of a neighbor and we had to buy it. With all the lakes, rivers, ponds and streams in Maine how could we not have a canoe? (My idea of a true boat is anything without a motor on the back end. I like to hear the world as I glide along, rather than ripping through it at a rock concert noise level...but just my opinion.)

Summer comes on fast here and this spring it seemed even faster with hardly any mud season to contend with. (A joy I have yet to face, here in Maine, but there's always next season...) Donna and I kept promising ourselves we were going to get out on Egypt Pond almost every weekend this summer, but when it wasn't raining (which was often) we always seemed too busy. Finally, toward the end of July, we cleared our calendars and just did it.

Now, we of the Mazda cars and no boat carrier to tow behind, had a bit of an issue: this canoe wasn't the lightest ever made. It's made of durable plastic and seats two with plenty of room for more people in the middle. But we were determined to go and the Pond boat launch is just a stone's throw from our house, so there was just one thing to do: flip it (gently) on top of the Protégé. Not an easy thing to do, but we managed it, after a struggle. Oddly enough, the canoe was longer than my car... Then we tied it on (OK, we bungeed it on with about a dozen cords stretched to the underside of the front and back bumpers...) and slowly drove the short distance to the boat launch.

It was early in the day on a Sunday morning, and we were the only ones on the Pond for a while. It was calm right at the launch area, and once my wife and I got our paddling method worked out, we set out to circumnavigate the Pond. We only ran aground once on one of the inlet shoals, which was pretty good for us.

As we rounded a corner of the Pond, there they were. We knew they were there since we could hear them at night, calling to each other. The loons were on the Pond.

It was a pair with their fuzzy offspring, still in its dark brown youthful feathers, great for camouflage while in the nest. But here they were, in the middle of the Pond, the mother and child close together, bobbing on the waves.

And then we heard the sound up close. The other-worldly call of the loon. What a haunting and beautiful sound. (Check out descriptions and loon recordings at Journey North Loon Migration.) Watching those loons from a distance made it a special day on the Pond. Mother and offspring stayed close together while the male swam and dived farther off, only occasionally joining the other two.

We continued our trip around the Pond, keeping an eye on the loon family, photographing them as best as possible from the inside of a bobbing canoe. All too soon it was time to head back to the boat launch, re-bungee the canoe to the top of the car, and head back to the farmhouse. We have yet to get the canoe out again the rest of this summer, but it was worth every minute, sharing the Pond with the loon family. But who knows, maybe a quick trip this fall...?

OK, I admit it. I hate bats. They're cute, they eat bugs, they are absolutely an integral part of our environment. And yet, when they are in flight, in my house, circling my head... I hate 'em. I'd never hurt one, but I want them out of my house. And yet, they have taken up residence. And so far this season, a number of them have entered the house — with interesting results for us all.

The first one was discovered in early July. Imagine — it's evening, you're reading or working on your computer and suddenly, you hear a scrabbling on the floor behind you. You look back, and there are the cats patting a young bat on the back, making him wing-walk across the floor. Luckily, our cats' hunting abilities are essentially nil. (Check out an earlier blog regarding our cats: Cats are Great Mousers, Right?) The young bat was terrified, but unhurt.

Springing to action, (that would be my wife, not me. My only words were: "Donna! Bat!") we grabbed the cats and covered the bat with a plastic container and set him outside. Then we noticed something: he wasn't flying away. There he was, crawling through the grass, heading for the underside of our car. Unfortunately, we now noticed our neighbors' cat was in the driveway, intently watching. We chased him away, hoping to give the bat a chance to get away. When we couldn't see the bat any more, we gave up for the night and went inside. (We found out from our neighbors later the cat had left them a present of a small bat around the time of this bat happening...)

Two days later, the bats upped the ante. Again, sitting quietly in the living room on a nice July night, we heard our cats freaking out in the next room. The next thing we know, a bat flies into the room, swooping and zigzagging around our heads. Now, here's where it gets interesting. There was the sound of a woman's shrieking... and it wasn't my wife... Told you I hate flying bats in the house.

Again, swallowing that panicky fear, we grab the cats and toss them in the bedroom. They were having great fun, by the way, finding this new flying toy in the house. Then, cornering the bat in the kitchen, we open windows and it finally flies out into the night. OK, we think, we've now got a plan to handle the bats — just open the windows! Perfect!

Keep in mind, through all of this, we couldn't figure out where they were coming from. The attic over the kitchen? The attic over the front of the house? Where were they coming from? Well, while writing one of these blogs in our library one day, I noticed a lot of chirping and scrambling sounds coming from the fireplace. Sure enough, that's where they are roosting! Now we knew they had been dropping down past the closed flue in the fireplace.

Well, we had a few more visits — lying in bed one night my wife and I were stunned to see one circling over our heads. The cats thought it was great; we scrambled to capture it. This time, opening a window didn't work, and it ended up roosting up inside the framework of an antique bureau we had to take apart to get it. The next one ended up doing the same in a record cabinet. That time we emptied the old records out of the cabinet and walked the entire thing outside, where it flew away.

And then there was the last visitation a few days ago. Again, it's evening, the TV is on — and the cats are going crazy. (We now call them our Bat Early Warning System... BEWS for short.) This one wasn't small and cute (yes, I guess I'm getting used to them); this one could have been used in a Dracula movie. Cats put away, we open all the windows in the kitchen, and keep it circling, hoping it 'sees' the windows. No such luck. He just keeps swooping and circling (and even my wife gave a few shrieks this time) and he wouldn't leave until we opened the kitchen door.

Now, we've been doing a lot of research on bats online. There's a lot of info out there, but we're discovering there's not a lot we can do right now, except live with them. Once they migrate, we're going to have the chimney screened off, hoping to prevent these visitations next year. In the mean time... we'll just have to rely on the BEWS... (Wonder if I can get one of those research grants from the government on expanding the BEW System nationally... Yeah, someone in Washington will snap this one up!)

Bat resources online: