Summer’s Last Hurrah

I’m not sure you can truly appreciate a late September weekend like the one we just had, unless you’ve lived through a couple of interminable winters similar to last year’s. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Erica's Seafood--the best lobster roll in Maine? Quite possibly.

Erica’s Seafood–the best lobster roll in Maine? Quite possibly.

A hasty, last minute decision to conclude our 2014 lobster roll campaign resulted in a 25-mile Sunday drive down the South Harpswell side of the peninsula, and a final tasting of succulent lobster meat, stuffed into a buttered roll at Erica’s Seafood. Continue reading

This Week in Moxie

Moxie can

I drove through Lisbon Falls over the weekend. One week out from the town’s crowning celebration, the place looked like a ghost town. Save for a couple of banners strung up over Route 196, Lisbon Falls looked nothing like a place where 20,000+ people will flock to in order to celebrate a distinctly different New England soft drink called Moxie.

Moxie’s been on my mind the past few weeks as it often is during July, when Lisbon Falls again assumes its place as the epicenter of the Moxie universe for one weekend. Then, it will go back to being a community in obvious decline, much like it has for the past 30 years that Moxie’s been connected to the place. Continue reading

Blueberry Baron

Last year for Father’s Day, Mark, our son visited and brought three small blueberry bushes. He thought his dad needed some blueberries to tend.

Mark used the landscaping skills acquired during his college stint working for Anderson Landscaping.  He dug out the holes, planted three plants, and added some compost from our bin. Continue reading

Making it in Maine

Maine logo

Maine might be open for business, but too often, the business being discussed and the deals cut by our fearless leaders in Augusta bypass Main Street for the malls and retail models better suited for a “Happy Motoring” utopia running on borrowed time. That belief sadly still holds sway, along with the presumption that excess consumption can be maintained into perpetuity.

Don’t get me wrong—consumerism will continue to drive our economy for the next decade at least, but true sustainability and local and regional economies built for the long haul are going to have to be led by locally-owned storefronts and production rooted in Maine, not corporate big boxes. Continue reading