It’s coming up on another election year with town officials, legislators, congressional and senatorial candidates all on the ballot. For us here in Lincolnville, in addition to the town candidates, Republicans and Democrats will be voting in a primary on June 10 to decide their respective candidates for the Second Congressional District: Bruce Poliquin versus Kevin Raye for the Rs, and Troy Jackson versus Emily Cain for the Ds.  Candidates for Senate are Susan Collins (R) and Shanna Bellows (D).

Lincolnville is in a new Legislative district – No. 96 – made up of Belmont, Lincolnville, Liberty, Montville, Morrill, Palermo and Searsmont. (Read about this in Redistricting shuffles the deck on Midcoast house races).

With no primary race for either party, candidates for the November election will be Peter Weston (R) of Montville and Christine Burstein of Lincolnville (D). State Senate candidates for Waldo County are Mike Thibodeau (R) of Winterport and Jonathan Fulford (D) of Monroe.

 After much discussion the 2014-15 school budget passed at last week’s special town meeting by a vote of 59 in favor and 0 opposed. School budgets often raise hackles among taxpayers; our schools take the biggest amount by far of our property taxes, but also because we get to vote directly for or against it, the school budget looks like an easy target to cut. But almost inevitably when voters begin to question school officials and budget committee members – the very people who craft and analyze the spending recommendations– it becomes evident that there’s not much “fat” in those budgets. Pretty quickly they’re staring at cutting personnel or programs that obviously benefit our kids. And that’s when they usually do the right thing, and vote for the budget.

Of course, the option is still there to get on the Budget Committee and join in the hard work of analyzing these budgets from the start.

Last week students in second and eighth grade took the baby salmon they’ve been raising in Mrs. Stevick’s science room to Swanville where they released them into the Passagassawakeag River.

The Historical Society’s annual newsletter to townspeople went out last week and generated several comments on the discovery of bog iron tools near Slab City Road. If this subject interested you, mark your calendars for August 20 when Skip Brack, Liberty’s Davistown Museum tool expert (and owner of Liberty Tool) will be speaking at the Library on the subject of these very primitive tools. Randy and Jill Harvey took Wally and I on a tour of the quarry he’s uncovered on his property, and it’s truly a fascinating archaeological find.

We remember walking in there every spring to see the lady slippers, back when it was a woodsy, swampy, and mosquito-invested place. And we both remember the cuts in the granite ledges, which we assumed were someone’s failed attempt at rock cutting. We now know, thanks to the Harveys’ work, that we were actually walking on a very old and forgotten quarry.

If you enjoyed reading the newsletter, and look forward to seeing the newly-built Open Air Museum in the Center when it opens later this spring, please consider supporting the Historical Society through the Community Birthday Calendar. The order form is in the middle of the newsletter, the deadline for ordering is June 15, and you get a fun calendar listing yours and your neighbors’ birthdays and anniversaries, all for about $10 including listings.

The team that turned the old Center Schoolhouse into our new Community Library still has one more major item on their agenda, and that’s making the building pay for itself. This can happen by securing a grant for solar panels on the roof of the building. With an excellent site for solar power, this has been on the list from the beginning. The grant application, which was detailed and long, has been sent in with high hopes of success. Since the building is heated with electricity, primarily with an air exchange heat pump and a couple of auxiliary heaters, the installation of a solar array on the roof could make the electric bill come out “zero”.

Meanwhile, across town, Don Heald has seen two thirds of his electric bill whisked away each month thanks to the windmill he installed on the hill across from his house back in 1985. Most likely, you pass it frequently going to and from Belfast on Route 52. I’ve rarely seen its blades still. Don says it only needs greasing twice a year. Hmmmm. So who does that job? Don does, climbing the tower (it has a ladder built in, and he wears a harness) all the way up to the mechanism. From there he can see Knox Ridge, Belfast, Islesboro, even Owls Head. Better him than me. I got queasy just hearing about it!

Tristan Grant, son of Liz Hand and Richard Grant, graduated from Hampshire College where he studied sustainability technology.

And his LCS and CHRHS classmate Jessie Mathews graduated from Boston University with a degree in marine science. She’s the daughter of Annie McCormack and Reed Mathews.

Two weeks ago our family celebrated the graduation of our daughter-in-law, Hanji Chang, from Maine College of Art where she majored in New Media. Congratulations to all! I’d love to hear about other Lincolnville-related graduates.

Last Monday morning our chicks arrived at the post office, a box of cheeping, newly hatched fluffballs, some 75 of them. We’d ordered with our neighbor, so only 30 went home with us. Fifteen are Pearl White Leghorn pullets (future layers) and the rest are Cornish Crosses – meat birds. Though this second batch aren’t destined to live out the summer, they’ll have a good time until then, eating their fill, scratching for bugs, sleeping snug in their new house. That house is still a gleam in my eye, but I’ve only got about two weeks to get it built before they outgrow the brooder they’re now living in. With last summer’s building skills still fresh, it ought to be a snap.

  To be included in This Week in Lincolnville, contact Diane, ragrugs@midcoast.com with events, family milestones, wildlife sightings, anything to do with our town.