A Vision for the North Woods?

From the Portland Press-Herald:

"A group called the Keeping Maine's Forests steering committee is working on a proposal to protect millions of acres of the working forest from further development. The committee is close to having a final plan and will deliver it to federal officials as early as this month."

Read the entire article here.

This could be a very big deal for those of us in and around the North Maine Woods. I think everyone who knows me knows how I feel about the woods. If done right, this deal could be very beneficial to the people of Northern Maine, and it could ensure that Deboullie retains its remote character well into the future.

I'll keep my eyes open for more information on this potential land deal, which is being negotiated only among a select few at this point, and I'll keep you posted. I'm optimistic with a healthy dose of skepticism at this point.

Natural Resource Inventory of the Northern Aroostook Region: Deboullie

Deboullie Township is, if I may say so, a darn cool place. The Bureau of Parks and Lands agrees- they put out a Natural Resources Inventory of the township in 2007. Take a look and check out some of the features around Red River that you probably never knew were there.

More bears!

I'm going to caveat this post by saying that I received this slideshow in an e-mail, and I haven't done any research into it at all. I don't know the folks, where the photos were taken, or if they weren't all Photoshopped.

That being said, enjoy!
A Bear's Den

~Jen

Scenes from SNOWpocalypse

I love snow. Growing up in Northern Maine, how could I not? Now that we live near Washington DC in the winter, though, I don't get to see a lot of the white stuff. Until now.

Enter stage left, a snowstorm of epic proportions for this area. I estimate we got between 26 and 30 inches at our house. The news has talked of nothing else for days. It's been hailed as SNOWpocalypse, SNOWmageddon, SNOWtorious B.I.G., and a Ten-Loafer (referring to the number of loaves of bread you should buy with your milk and toilet paper- just in case you lose power and get snowed in). I call it homey!

Joe and I went for a walk while it was still snowing. This next picture was taken at an intersection that I've never seen empty, even in the middle of the night.

It did take quite a bit of work to shovel out. I discovered one thing I hadn't had to think about before: living in a townhouse, there's not a lot of room to pile snow. It's not like Maine where you can just push it all to one side of the driveway and call it a day.

Our plan for tomorrow? Skiing, of course. Stay warm, everyone!

We'll be fine, really!

I love big dogs. German shepherds in particular, I think are beautiful and amazing animals, and it sure would be nice to have someone around Camp to ward off bears and all. However, in the winter, we live in a townhouse, and bringing a dog (especially a big one) into our home isn't feasible. Cats, yes. Dogs, no.

All isn't lost in terms of Camp, though. A few days ago, Caroline sent me a link to this video:


...and I thought, "Hmmm, that cat looks a lot like Bitty," our little tiger-striped girl. It got me thinking and doing a few more Google searches. Turns out that cats are pretty good at chasing off bears!

Another Cat and Bear Video


And this story from the BBC:

I love that photo. The cat just looks so matter-of-fact. Rawr.

So even if we won't be bringing a dog into our lives in the near future, I think we're safe. We have six pounds of hiss and spit on our side.

Rebuilding Denny (Part 1)

We've been looking at rebuilding Denny (the cabin up in the left corner of the hill) in recent years- you've probably noticed that it's been empty for almost a decade and has fallen into a bit of disrepair.

Enter stage left- a super crazy idea for a "log cabin" I found on the internet the other day. (Source, and more pictures: the Thomas Mayer Archive.)


It's not only a log cabin. It's a log pile cabin! The best part is the windows-


What do you think? Would you stay in a log pile in the woods?

If the Earth had rings...

One thing I've been wanting to pick up for Red River is a decent telescope. I've always been fascinated with the night sky, and we have such a good canvas for it in the North Maine Woods. (I'm sure you'll see a "dark sky" blog post from me at some point; the sky near D.C. is a perpetual orange. It makes me sad.)

At any rate, I recently came across this NPR article showing a video of an artist's rendering of what our sky might look like if the earth had rings like Saturn. The comments below the video do point out some potential problems with the idea, but it's more fun to suspend disbelief. (Some of humankind's best ideas came about because people suspended disbelief- I personally like living on a round planet!)



Enjoy!