The slant of sunlight and the shadows created during the early and late hours of the day this time of year are often mesmerizing and calming. The lack of leaves on the trees allows many of us to see and enjoy the annual gift presented to us during the long nights of the cold winter season.

The Municipal Review Committee, a non-profit consortium that manages waste disposal for 115 Maine municipalities, held its annual meeting in mid-December, and still did not have the good news its members were hoping to hear. No projection was forthcoming for when, indeed if, the shuttered waste processing facility, Coastal Resources of Maine in Hampden, that the MRC helped create would reopen.

Surely an interesting name for a lady was that of “Silence” – Silence Oliver. We do not know her maiden name, but her husband, Jonathan Oliver Sr. was an early settler on East Neck, and served in the Revolutionary War. He enlisted on Dec. 31, 1765, and served until January 1777, when he was discharged at Peak’s Hill, N.Y. He served in Reed’s Co., Bailey’s Massachusetts Continental Line. He lived until 1837, to age 87, and is buried in the Oliver cemetery near the junction of East Neck Road and Vannah (formerly Butter and Egg) Road, on the old Oliver homestead.

This is a tale of the Mother Goose of Damariscotta Mills. I’m sure you remember the Mother Goose of children’s nursery rhymes. She’s often depicted as a kindly lady in bonnet and shawl riding on the back of a giant goose and bringing tales of wonder to little children.

Winter, nature’s quiet season, has begun. The farm pond is now frozen crystal. Its denizens of fish, frogs and turtles will burrow into its muddy depths to sleep and prepare for their spring multiplying that provides food for its special seasonal visitors like Henry, the Great Blue Heron.

I was on vacation between Christmas and the new year, and made time for a beach walk, one of my favorite winter things to do. I feel a bit traitorous writing about Popham in my Lincoln County News monthly column, but keep in mind, it was all Lincoln County once, and for a very long time, too.