As an animal lover, knowing that an animal wants to spend time near me feels like the equivalent of winning the lottery. I’m that person who will go to a party and hang out with the dog. I’m far more comfortable around animals than humans, so if an animal chooses to spend time with me as opposed to other nearby humans, well, I can’t think of any greater honor.

The town of Jefferson had a community cleanup/pickup weekend recently. This effort was coordinated by Joan Jackson. Many thanks are owed to her for her time and effort. Because of her dedication to this project, many people participated in making their town a more beautiful and healthier location.

“Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man …” starts the old nursery rhyme about a famous muffin baker in London. We do not know who he was and when he really lived, since the rhyme was first recorded in 1820 and muffins had been known long before that. Today they are a favorite breakfast food or snack and we usually think of them as a sweet treat. In Maine blueberry muffins are de rigeur, but other sweet flavors including chocolate chips abound.

Isaac Newton’s third law states that for every action (force) in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction (counterforce). In other words, if object A exerts a force on object B, then object B also exerts an equal and opposite force on object A. Indeed, violence begets violence. It also depletes trust and the moral energy reserves of society.

If I had to pick one local bird to symbolize the Damariscotta River and coastal Lincoln County, it would be the great blue heron. A denizen of local tidal areas and wetlands, these large birds make a primordial squawking. At night, the sound can be downright sinister. As a child, I remember my grandmother, Margo Kornahrens, relaying that great blue herons sounded like someone in distress in the dark. We would hear them late in the evening, hunting along the edges of the nearby shoreline in South Bristol.

Folks, this past week has been pretty eventful to say the least: a conviction for a senseless killing in Minneapolis, where it appears justice has prevailed, and another historic flight to the international space station.

There has been a fair amount written in this paper recently about the continued issue of littering. As we all notice (or perhaps pretend not to), there is an ever-growing amount of roadside and coastal trash in our area. And while we cannot solve this particular problem overnight, we can help on an individual and community level.

This spring I have been asked many questions about Cottrill’s Wharf here in Damariscotta and what businesses have been located on it over the past years.

Lately, walking outside in the early morning sounds like a perfectly orchestrated symphony brought to us by tiny feathered friends. The variety of bird calls is a reminder that spring is indeed here. Visiting our feeder are the usual cardinals and chickadees. But in addition to them we see a pair of bluebirds, goldfinches who are sporting their summer yellow, and a few nondescript brownish birds that sing like heaven.