Rewilding saves money and time while also increasing biodiversity

By Abby Wilson

As we look forward to the long days of summer, you might be thinking that your backyard needs restoration. But what if you don’t have the time or funds to address it? Or perhaps you’re interested in rewilding – a hands-off approach to increase biodiversity that creates habitat for native species like plants, pollinators, and birds.

Turning an 'ego-system' into an ecosystem happens by
reducing your lawn and expanding the space into a
biodiversity garden filled with native plants and
species all while requiring less maintenance.
PHOTO BY DEBORAH PERKINS  

Well, the good news is, you can do less work in your yard while doing more for the entire ecology of it.

“A pollinator garden is a bird garden is a biodiversity garden,” says Deborah Perkins, the owner of First Light Wildlife Habitats.

Perkins has provided recommendations, plans, and designs for over 14,000 acres of habitat since 2010. She is known as “The Personal Ecologist” because she works closely with her clients to co-create biodiversity, beauty, and thriving habitats – from gardens to forestlands.

Plants and insects are the foundation of an ecosystem. Many insects, plants, and wildlife species have been in the same place at the same time for so long that they co-evolved.

Monarch butterflies cannot reproduce without their host plant milkweed because the caterpillars evolve to consume their foliage and now rely on it to complete their life cycle.

Building healthy food webs starts with native plants. Native plants feed insects and then insects feed birds and other wildlife. Insects also need leaf litter, native perennials and shrubs for food and shelter.

Unfortunately, the typical yard is turfgrass.

“It’s just habitat for people” says Perkins.

Thousands of blades of one species of grass where there could be many species is a serious example of lack of biodiversity.

In fact, one of the first steps for turning your ‘ego-system’ into an ecosystem is to reduce your lawn.

“See what grows,” says Perkins. You might just find that a highbush blueberry was waiting to show itself.

Step two is to identify and replace invasive species with native plants. Invasive species reduce biodiversity because they out-compete with the native ones. Those co-evolved native insects will not be able to use them as food or shelter.

Burning bush foliage turns a bright pinkish red which is strikingly beautiful. Once popular horticultural shrub, it is now illegal to sell. It is invasive and outcompetes the native species. Native wildlife does not derive the appropriate nutrition needed from its berries.

Replace your burning bushes with something equally as beautiful yet much more beneficial for birds and insects. Native Red chokeberry is a great substitute with its bright fall foliage.

“It will also be part of the food web,” says Perkins.

Another efficient way to grow biodiversity in your backyard is to stop using chemicals and pesticides.

While mosquitos and ticks are a nuisance to humans, the chemicals that remove them from our yards are detrimental to many other insects too.

“Getting rid of mosquitos and ticks require substances and most of those are broad spectrum,” says Perkins. “They are not killing just mosquitoes and ticks, but everything else, too.”

Lastly, Perkins suggests planting a native tree. You don’t have to buy a tree. You can simply let an acorn germinate in your lawn or yard.

Trees capture carbon, reducing CO2 in the atmosphere but also provide shelter for wildlife. Tree roots store water to reduce runoff and erosion. The benefits are endless.

“It does not have to be expensive,” says Perkins.

Increasing biodiversity can reduce your landscaping budget. Save by cutting back on gas for the grass cutter, line for your weed whacker, or chemicals for insect treatment.

You’re also saving time by allowing nature to rewild your yard. The major theme of rewilding is doing less and letting nature regenerate.

“Having a lighter touch … leaving trees to die and fall,” says Perkins.

Woodpeckers nest in standing dead trees and mammals live in fallen logs. Insects nourish themselves in the detritus allowing for balanced soil through the nitrogen cycle.

“We are part of nature. We’ve been removed from it for a long time, but we are part of nature,” says Perkins. “Our conventional cookie-cutter lawns are based on a very old standard that goes back to Victorian times when only the rich had lawns and opens spaces. Today we can use our open spaces for good.”

Of course, we might still care about public image and opinion. If you’re looking to rewild your property but don’t want others to think you’re cutting back on expenses or be viewed as a lazy landowner, there are ways to make rewilding look intentional.

You can place a bench or add small paths of turf grass along your wildflowers and growing areas. You can include “Do not mow” or “Pollinator habitat” signage to edges of your property so that neighbors can acknowledge what you’re doing.

Reach out to neighbors directly or contact your neighborhood association. Educate others on the beauty and benefits of rewilding. It can cost less – for you and the environment. But it’s all voluntary. You must educate yourself before beginning the process.

“The first step is connecting to nature. If you don’t have an emotional relationship to something, you won’t reap the full rewards, like seeing Monarch butterflies, fireflies, and flocks of birds using your landscape,” says Perkins.

Perkins offers many educational opportunities as “The Personal Ecologist”, from generational walks on family farms to consulting services and presentations.

You can access Perkins’ blog with information on rewilding your property at: www.firstlighthabitats.com. <

Earth Day activities show concern for environment

By Elle Curtis

With Earth Day approaching on April 22, it’s a day when the community comes together through engaging activities to raise awareness and demonstrate support for the environment.

To help preserve the natural environment, ensure safe passage for outdoor enthusiasts, and help maintain the overall quality of the ecosystem, the newly founded JAR Co. Eco team will be doing their first clean-up on Earth Day at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 22 and again at 2 p.m. that same day. Participants will be cleaning the side of Route 302 and the trail that leads up to Storm Drive.

“Clean-ups provide a tangible way for residents to come together and work toward a common objective,” said JAR Co store manager Maci Libby. “Seeing the positive impact of a clean-up brings pride and develops a sense of belonging.”

Through its clean-up activity, JAR Co. strives to lead by example by prioritizing environmental sustainability and making small changes with hopes of leaving a lasting impact.

“We hope to foster social bonds, encourage participation, promote environmental awareness, and increase a sense of pride in our community,” said Libby.

Community engagement supports both short and long-term efforts to protect the environment in addition to providing an opportunity for individuals with a passion for the outdoors to come together and get younger members of the community excited about Earth Day.

This year Windham Primary School had a team of First Grade classes reach out to EcoMaine and coordinated a visit from them to the school to talk about the importance of caring for our planet and discuss with students the differences between recyclables and trash. Later this spring, WPS First Grade teacher Crystal Turner plans to take her students on a nature walk on the trails behind the school to enjoy the beautiful nature that surrounds us.

Engaging in new and unique activities assists in growing the interest to learn. After a previous clean-up around Windham Primary last year, students were eager to take part in the project again this year.

Through reading stories like “If Polar Bears Disappeared” and “Give Bees a Chance,” WPS Second Grade teacher Evanthia Daukopulos said that she strives to encourage and foster the love of all living and breathing things. In her classroom, plants and animals are talked about, prompting discussions about activities students can complete in the community and best practices at home to reduce, reuse, and recycle. On Earth Day, students will talk about what it means to make compost, how greenhouse gases warm the planet and how this affects our ecosystems.

“We have discussions around the idea "it only takes one person,” said Daukopulos. “The idea here is it takes one person to spread the message, practice the steps, and prolong our communities. Then that one person gives another person the knowledge and resources to combat climate change, then soon, many ‘one’ of us, becomes a whole community.”

She said there is much positivity to be seen in how students want to learn and want to help protect this extraordinary planet we call home as they explore the effects of just one location or population, and how that then in turn affects other populations from around the world.

Earth Day is a day to raise global awareness on environmental issues while bringing the community together to make changes through opportunities to learn about and appreciate our planet, Daukopulos said. <

In Ye Olden Times: The Steamer Fawn

By Mike Davis
Special to The Windham Eagle

Howdy Neighbor!

My name is Mike Davis, the history columnist for the Bridgton News, and today I’m so pleased the Editor of The Windham Eagle has given me room as a guest this week to tell you all about the Steamer Fawn, the first steamboat ever to run on Sebago Lake, built at North Bridgton in 1847.

That spring the Fawn was built by the Sebago and Long Pond Steam Navigation Company. Since the 1830s there had been efforts considered to launch an inland steamer upon the Sebago Lakes Route, running from Bridgton down Long Lake, Brandy Pond and the Songo River to Sebago Lake, but it was not until 1846 that a company of Bridgton and Harrison men organized and began selling stock to residents up and down the lakes as far as Standish.

The S&LPSN Co. sold some $10,000 in stock at $25 a share, raising funds sufficient enough to lay the keel in late March of 1847. They had hired the New York boatbuilding firm Lawrence & Sneden to build for them a sidewheel steamboat, 25 feet wide and 90 long – just narrow enough to pass within the 26-foot wide Songo Lock, and theoretically short enough to negotiate the Songo’s many meandering gooseneck turns; twenty-seven turns in only six miles!

She was launched on June 5, 1847, captained by C.C.W Sampson of Harrison, and ran a thrice-weekly route, which became daily by 1849, from her terminus at Harrison Village down the lakes to Standish, stopping at North Bridgton, Plummers Landing, and Naples along the way.

At Standish she docked at the wharf opposite Chadbourne’s Lake House, which stood almost exactly at the terminus of what are now Routes 35 and 237 on Standish Neck, where the Portland Water District pumping station now stands. Here passengers were served by a line of stagecoaches running south to Portland, the southern half of the Portland to Waterford stage line which, from Harrison, took travelers off the boat up to Waterford and beyond.

The company had invested in this stage line, and it also bought out another running from Bridgton through Fryeburg to the White Mountains. This was the key to the Fawn’s financial success, for in those days before railroads any tourist up from Boston looking to access the White Mountains, landing at the wharf in Portland, had to take a bumpy, uncomfortable stagecoach ride over several days all the way to Conway New Hampshire.

But with the steamer Fawn running upon the lakes, they could instead ride inland as far as Standish, zip up the picturesque lakes route to Bridgton in less than four hours, and then go by stage as far as Fryeburg border by nightfall, to stay at the Pleasant Mountain House. From there they could strike off the next morning by stage and reach Conway faster, in far greater comfort and having enjoyed far better scenery, than anything the old stage line up the Saco River Valley could provide.

With the opportunities clearly shown, the eager tourist public of antebellum America responded. The Fawn ran for almost a decade, until 1856, and in that time, she attracted the patronage of some of the most famous tourists to come to Maine in this era. Among her many noteworthy passengers in this time we may count John Jacob Astor, the first American multi-millionaire; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who surely needs no introduction here, and famed Transcendentalist Mary Emerson, aunt and tutor of Ralph Waldo Emerson. So many are the humorous and fascinating stories of this time, so many the difficulties whose solutions proved novel or exciting, that I could well serialize the Fawn’s history across ten dozen newspaper columns – but in this I will spare you, for it will make a better book, and I do intend to properly publish this story sometime soon.

Initially the Fawn was a success, but ultimately the same driving forces that led to her creation, those of technological innovation and the eager tourist market, are the same which led to her collapse. Eventually steam-power was turned to locomotion, and the coming of the railroads at once robbed the Fawn of her twin advantages of speed and comfort.

While still just as beautiful, the prospect of reaching the White Mountains in a matter of hours by rail from Portland cut out nearly all her tourist traffic by 1853 – struggling on until 1854, she was put up for auction in 1855 and eventually sold to George Pierce of Otisfield. He kept her going a few years more in a highly diminished capacity until 1856, but in 1857 she was torn to pieces at North Bridgton, her boiler and engine works sold to steamboat builders in Greenville, Maine, and her wooden hull left to rot on the shore of the lake.

There are no photographs of the Fawn, there are no known engravings, and while it appears she was once painted, I have yet to find any copy of the portrait. I’m told she was once pictured on the china plates of the Lake House hotel on Standish Neck, which continued to exist until the early 1900s, but that hotel burned long ago and no one now living can tell me if even a single plate survived. If any Readers out there have seen any pictures of her, please write in and contact me via oldentimesmike@gmail.com.

Thanks, and until next time! <

Library displays Windham model maker's tiny trucks

By Kaysa Jalbert

Some hobbies keep us busy in the present, some prepare us for a challenge in the future, others are like creating a time machine to bring us into the past. Since 1988, Raymond Philpot of Windham has been restoring miniature metal trucks as a collector’s item, and from now until the end of April, four of Philpot’s model trucks are on display at the Windham Public Library.

Miniature trucks created by Raymond Philpot of Windham
reflecting Windham's past and history are on display on the
second floor of the Windham Public Library through the 
end of April. COURTESY PHOTO

What makes this display especially interesting for locals is that each of the items exhibited are replicas of vehicles that would have been seen in Windham's past. There’s a red snowplow from ML Rogers circa 1950s to 1980s, a vintage blue snowplow circa 1930s, a mustard-yellow Jim Rogers septic tank truck, and a blue George Emerson & Sons Enviropac trash truck from the 1980s.

“It has been great to hear from locals who recognize the vehicles, kids who love the bright shiny trucks, and adults who recognize the amount of work that went into the miniatures,” said Sally Bannon from the Windham Public Library. “I was thrilled when Mr. Philpot agreed to exhibit this collection. Library staff and patrons have always enjoyed his past displays, so I knew this one would be another winner.”

Philpot built each vehicle from scraps and pieces of metal toys such as Tonka and Buddy L and many of the pieces he finds are either on their way to the dump, available at a valid price at an antique shop or on eBay or given to him.

“I’m not really a collector, so I don’t buy things, but I collect them because I don’t want mother nature to take care of it,” says Philpot.

What he has come to find over the years is many of the trucks have already been collected, and what’s left are parts and pieces of “what looks like junk, broken old toys” that can be salvaged, he said.

What led Philpot to picking up on this hobby is his experience both as an auto mechanic and a Windham historian. From 1975 to about 2000, Philpot operated J & R auto body shop in Windham. Many of his regular customers were the ones to give him miniature parts. Additionally, Philpot has been part of the Windham Historical Society for much of his life.

“I’ve been involved with race cars, trucks, body repair and paint jobs. Always been automotive oriented since Day 1,” Philpot said, but in a way, he meant it.

Since his high school days in the 1960s, Philpot’s been involved with this type of work.

It was also in school, eighth grade to be exact, that Philpot became immersed in history and not global or U.S. history.

“I hated history, it was the worst thing that could have happened to me, that is, until I took a class on Windham history and that was it, I was hooked,” he said.

Philpot has been searching Windham History ever since. He’s had displays at the library in the past and at the Windham Historical Society. Additionally, his collection of old fire trucks has been put on display at the Windham Fire Department during the Fire Apparatus Day there.

Back around 1990, there was a Windham High School teacher who tried to start a hobby collectors show at Windham High School and Philpot had his trucks displayed there for the school year, but the show did not last as an annual event.

He says that he was inspired to start this hobby back in the late 1980s from a friend that was fixing up miniature automobiles that represented old trucks from across the U.S. and selling them at truck shows. The friend was copying the names of vehicles he’d seen back in the day instead of turning them into modern ones, so Philpot caught onto that and decided to restore them to look like cars from New England.

“I make them, I collect them, and occasionally I give them away to someone it has a meaning to,” he said.

Some of his miniatures have been given to the family of a late friend, and he said they are always greatly appreciated.

In total, Philpot has about 75 to 100 miniature trucks and gets to work on a new one maybe once or twice a year.

“The parts are scarce now, a lot of people are collecting them and selling them on eBay,” he said. “Some people think they are like gold and set a high price, but I’m not a collector, I just want to keep them from being put into the earth.”

Philpot’s model trucks are now on display on the second floor of the Windham Public Library through April 30. <