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LINCOLNVILLE — We live a mile from the shore, close enough that our house is often enveloped in a cooling afternoon sea breeze on days when the rest of town is roasting, close enough to hear the foghorn on certain days when conditions are just right. Other than that, we might as well be anywhere else in Lincolnville, the places that have no resemblance to a coastal town.

Except that Wally and I have a unique job, one we’ve done for the town since the early 90’s: we pick up the Beach and parking lot every morning May through October — cigarette butts, candy wrappers, dog poo, spat out gum, empty wine bottles, the occasional diaper and certain other unmentionables, as well as emptying the five trash cans lined up along the sea wall. Every single morning we drive down Beach hill into the sun rising on the horizon, or else to the thick fog blocking out the Ferry pier.

He tends to the trash barrels while I, toy plastic bucket in hand, begin my daily circuit of seawall, sand beach, and parking lot, bending over for every scrap of foreign matter, i.e. not naturally occurring. So crumpled up bits of gum wrapper, plastic cigar tips, toothpicks, butts (as a former smoker I consider this penance for the eleven years I heedlessly tossed mine without a twinge), credit card slips, potato chip bags, rubber lobster bands all go into my pail. There’s the occasional odd bit – once a metal tag from a crematorium (guess where that came from), a smashed bottle on the asphalt, and Styrofoam peanuts (I dread a tsunami of these). Once school’s out, the beach season gets really underway, and we’re picking up shoes and socks, underwear and beach towels, bathing suits, flip flops, sunglasses. You have to wonder how you get your kid into the car without his shoes, often really expensive brands.

We’ve seen the Beach area transformed from an undefined dusty, gravel parking lot with a small row of business buildings and a couple of restaurants – barely any reason to slow down while barreling up or down Route 1 – to a real village street, complete with curbs and sidewalks, granite and brick, street lights, and roadside plantings.

 Some seven or eight years ago the shabby, nondescript Beach area was transformed by Maine Department of Transportation into the beautifully landscaped and carefully thought out public area it is today. Working with the town’s Route One Advisory Committee to slow down traffic and bring notice to the village’s business community, MDOT incorporated traffic calming elements – curbs, entrances and exits to the parking lot, 11’ travel lanes and narrow shoulders, rebuilt sidewalks, as well as bump outs and crosswalks – all designed to make the traveler hit the brakes and slow down.

Join us down at Beach some morning; take a walk on the sidewalks, sniff the sea air and listen to the loons, which fly down from their inland ponds to the shore for breakfast every day. This is part of your town too!

Congratulations to all the Lincolnville graduates of CHRHS last week. Special notice goes to the recipients of local scholarships: Isaac Young and Carrie Milner received L.I.A. scholarships. Carrie also won the Women’s Club Hazel Peabody Memorial Scholarship. And finally, Max Geffken won the Lincolnville Business Group’s scholarship. Isaac is the son of Jennifer Jardine and Isaac Young Sr., Max is the son of Cindy Gerry and Bruce Geffken, and Carrie is the daughter of Alvin and Cheryl Milner. These students worked hard throughout their school years, while the organizations put in many hours raising money for their scholarhips.

The polls will be open tomorrow, Tuesday, June 10, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Lynx gym at LCS. In addition to town officers (we’ll be electing two Selectmen, three LCS School Committee members, three Budget Committee members and one CSD School Committee member) and primary contests for Congress, the Consumer Fireworks Ordinance will be decided, for or against.

Read the proposed ordinance.

Karen Good, a member of the committee that drafted it says “people who have camps on the lakes will be the most affected, especially those that rent.  Last year people on one of the lakes lost their renter two days into the week because of the endless noise for two nights.  They were very upset with the income loss .… complaints [about fireworks] included [in addition to] the loss of renters because of nightly fireworks noise, concerns about nesting water fowl, disturbance to domestic animals and concerns for the heavy metals introduced into the water. I actually think that enforcement will be minimal, as it is with the jet ski law. People get the idea about neighborly consideration and it’s only an occasional incident that needs addressing.”

In a recent letter to the editor, Cathy Hardy, a candidate for Selectmen, says “this unnecessary 3-page ordinance would place an additional regulatory burden on the town, and would require an authorized agent of the town to provide enforcement. The state fireworks law as written, is sufficient. Lincolnville does not need its own town ordinance that cannot be enforced anyway. …. And when you do enjoy your fireworks this summer, please be considerate of your neighbors and use basic common courtesy. We don't need an ordinance for that.”

There you have it. Come out Tuesday and vote it up or down.

Annual Town Meeting is this week, Thursday, June 12, 6 p.m. in Lynx Gym, LCS. After many years of holding Town Meeting on Saturday, the Selectmen decided to go back to an evening meeting to see if attendance would improve.

The Annual Town Report is out and available at the Beach Store, Mike’s Align and Repair, Western Auto, Drake’s Corner Store, the Lincolnville Community Library and the Town Office. This year’s Report is dedicated to Jim and Cindy Dunham for their outstanding job organizing the transformation of the Center Schoolhouse into the Lincolnville Community Library, Open Air Museum and the park-like grounds which will surround them. Work has begun on the landscaping this spring. There are still a couple of much simpler and smaller construction projects for this summer, so if you couldn’t help last summer, but can/want to this year, contact Jim at 789-5233. Equal opportunity of course!

Tony Oppersdorff of Coleman Pond sent along a photo (see photo to the right) and writes “On May 28 the Department of Marine Fisheries brought the first of four planned yearly deliveries of alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) into Coleman Pond. Twelve hundred eleven (1,211) fish captured that morning from the fish elevator on the Androscoggin were dumped into our pond. It’s our understanding that these fish will spawn this year in the pond, then return to the sea. Their offspring will out-migrate later in the season then return in three to four years, after which Coleman is expected to have it’s own, resident population. 

Alewives are predated by just about everything: bass, pickerel, otter, raccoon, heron, cormorant, loons, salmon, seals, etc. They are said to provide some cover to the out-migrating salmon in the Ducktrap. Because the alewives eat vegetation, we are told that they reduce the amount of phosphorus in the pond. The returning fish, as well as those leaving the pond this year, will be benefitted by the new fishway at the head of Andrew’s Brook.”

Barbara Hatch, on Townhouse Road, says she hasn’t had any bobolinks in her field for two years, until last week. “Previously, when [the grass] was short enough for the blooming dandelions they enjoy, it would be full of them. Bobolinks appear to be wearing a bright yellow cap, so when they bend their heads, that’s the color that’s most prominent. If they are disturbed and take flight at the same time, at first it looks like many of the yellow flowers taking to the sky.”

Meanwhile, over on Beach Road Dianne Stevenson has been watching the birds, too. She says that around May 20 bird sightings there “were at an unbelievable peak.  Apparently my house was on this year's migration itinerary …. a deluge of red birds.  There were three Scarlet Tanagers at the feeder at the same time, at least one a female …  also both male and female red breasted grosbeaks, male and female red bellied wood peckers, male and female cardinals, and a large number of male and female ruby throated humming birds strutting their stuff.  To top it all off there was a female Baltimore oriole.” Dianne uses a regular Kodak camera with “not too many whistles and bells, … snapping photos thru the kitchen window.”

Now for the dark side of bird watching: Ed O’Brien isn’t impressed by reports of cardinals, etc. A manic male cardinal has taken to attacking Ed’s little red car, perhaps seeing it as competition. Apparently there’s a good deal of bird poop involved. Picky picky. I’d just be happy to have a cardinal show up here once in a while.

A couple of food notes: first of all, last week’s recipe for rhubarb bread pudding is strictly that: rhubarb and bread. No eggs or milk. I guess Librarian Sheila Polson got an inquiry from a puzzled reader, wondering if I’d left out those usual ingredients.

And if you like yogurt, the best I’ve ever tasted is sold at Dolce Vita Farm – Milkhouse Yogurt, Greek and regular. It’s made by Andy Smith and Caitlin Frame, dairy suppliers for two years to the Lincolnville Farmers’ Market.

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.