Alexander/Crawford
Cassie Oakes
A community walk will take place on the Brown Family Memorial Forest in Alexander on Sunday, September 18th, 2016. The tour will start at 1 PM by the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM) gate south of the Airline and east of the Flat Road. Watch for sign!
The walk, led by John Dudley, will look primarily at human activities, road building, home sites, and stone walls dating from ca 1850 to the present. Some comments will also be made about logging, past and present. Walking distance will be about half a mile along a good gravel road. Maps will be available for those wishing for a longer walk.
Marie and John Dudley went to Pine Tree Camp on North Pond in Rome on Saturday for a SWOAM meeting. In the morning they enjoyed a tour of the camp. It started in the big dining hall and then went to “Nicholas’s Playground” where the young man who designed the play area and for whom the place is named was seen. Near there was a pirates’ ship. They toured one of five new cabins, Cabin 3 where Kate asked for Cassie (me)!
Next in the tour was the tree house, a huge place with a moose standing nearby. In the middle of Preston Woods is the overnight camping place with a great stone lined area with an oven and fire pit for cooking. There Jake and Amber said “Hi” to Cassie Oakes who goes to Pine Tree Camp each summer.
A Chicken BBQ with coleslaw, potato salad, rolls and cookies was for lunch in the dining room. The Sandy River Ramblers provided music. After lunch was a tour of the wood lot, that is the 2016 Maine Tree Farm. Among the things that interested John was a pre-cast concrete bridge over a stream. This costs less than a steel arch culvert, is faster to install, lasts years longer and allows easy fish passage.
Mark your calendars for September 18th when the Church of the Open Bible on Route 9 in Alexander will be having a “Cowboy Sunday”. The day will begin at 9:00 a.m. with a pancake breakfast, at 9:45 there will be a Sunday School Round Up. Morning worship will begin at 11:00 a.m. Then the day will wrap up at 6:00 p.m. with an evening Praise and Worship Service, followed by a family fellowship time.
The Alexander Grange met on Wednesday, September 7th. It was an eventful meeting with lots accomplished. On September 21st the Grange will be having a joint installation with other Granges in the area who would like to join them. The evening will begin at 6:00 p.m. with a pot luck supper and Meeting at 7:00 p.m. For more information about his event contact Barbara Webber or Helen Brooks. Plans were put into place for upcoming harvest lunches with the first being planned for October 10th Columbus Day. Other things discussed were providing concessions and getting permission to use the AES kitchen for the Ham Fest (for ham radio operators and those interested) that will take place on September 17th at AES. Along with regular business a lecturer’s program that included the Starfish Poem and a lovely lunch after the meeting with a green tomato spice cake provided by Debbie Hanson.
People’s United Methodist Church will begin their free family movie Nnight once again. This time it will be September 23rd and the movie will be Zootopia, free popcorn and a drink will be provided. Doors will open at 5:45 p.m. and the movie will start at 6:00 p.m. This will be the kick off for the beginning of Kid’s Club (Sunday School) beginning on Sunday, September 25th at 10:30 a.m.
There will be a Breakneck Mountain ATV Club meeting on September 28th beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the Clubhouse on the Cooper Road in Alexander.
The bear hunt is on. Randy’s Variety in Alexander has tagged 11 bears and McLeod’s Variety in Crawford has tagged 7 bears this season so far.
Lucky Loser at Randy’s Variety this week goes out to Mike Niles. If you would like to know how to become a Lucky Loser stop by Randy’s and ask Carl or Susan. For those of you who don’t know Audrey has moved on to another job and is now working for MAINE DOT (Department of Transportation) Audrey is missed at Randy’s Variety but everyone wishes her well.
Birthday wishes for the upcoming week go out to Ruth Sousa, Linda Wallace, Faith Johnson, Donna Timpe, Debra Malloch, Steve Clark, Yvonne Morrell, Brittany Hood, Mary White, Cory Farrands, Andrzej Korasadowicz, Ronnie Davis, Katrina Ayers and Gabe Hunnewell.
Anniversary wishes go out to Larry and Emma Hill, Wayne and Debbie Ayers and Jon and Carol (Snyder) Folsom.
Good thoughts are being sent out to Lynn Hill, Elwin Daley, Sandy Lyon, Jolene Thornton, Avis McIntyre, Trudy Poole, David Carson and Betty Gibbs.
It has been a very fun-filled and busy week at the Beckett Center. Some attended horses and went swimming at the Garcelon Center in St. Stephen. Also a few opted to play card games, like UNO and board games, such as Yahtzee. I was included in the trip to the new Giant Tiger store in St. Stephen. Thursday we had our annual Summer Bash. We ended the week with the Beckett Center Yard Sale, played Badminton and finished leftover pizza, chips and ice cream sundaes.
If you have any news for the column: You can email me at ptcfan@hotmail.com, message me on Facebook, or mail me at 1328 Airline Road, Alexander. 454-2344 or drop off news at Randy’s Variety!