What is going on with this weather? We have gone from some rather cold temperatures last week to 60s and 70s this week. I am sort of regretting taking the boat out now. We ran out of propane at the cottage, where we are staying while our house is being built, and woke up to 41-degree temps inside last Tuesday. It did not take me long to call the company to find out why we weren’t filled automatically and to get the fireplace and cookstove roaring.

Evening grosbeaks have made their triumphant return to Lincoln County. Traveling in flocks, these finches have arrived in numbers not seen in decades. I had seen pictures of their invasion on Facebook, but a reader also tipped me off recently. John Kierstead, of Jefferson, wrote to let me know that he had not seen this level of grosbeak activity since the late 1970s or early 1980s. A group of 15-20 had descended on his feeders, generously sampling the food provided.

Veterans Day has always been a special day, going back to my childhood as a young boy. My mother’s brother, Perley Russel Bailey, was born on July 7, 1895 in South Jefferson and married Thelma Bosworth and they had seven children. Uncle Perley was a veteran who served in World War I and often talked of the long war. He died on March 24, 1981 at Togus Hospital at the age of 85. I have a shell head he gave me as a young boy that he brought back from France. He once told my mother that it was by the grace of God he came back in one piece.