We're Open

Our first visitors of the season arrived 20 minutes before our 10 o'clock opening and quickly found Millie the milkable cow, part of our installation on the 10,000-plus-year history of agriculture and how farming has reshaped the planet.

Down East Maine is very…east. We’re almost far enough east to be in the Atlantic time zone. So around the summer solstice (officially 1:16 p.m. on Tuesday, June 21, this year), we watch the sun rise quite early. Today it appeared at 4:48 a.m., giving Pamelia and me five hours and 12 minutes of sunlight to finish preparing for our own change of season: The opening of season three at The Naturalist’s Notebook.

Things are flying in our astronomy room, which includes our own Hubble telescope (or perhaps I should say telly-scope) and a look at the creation in outer space of the chemical elements that make up our bodies.

Not that the Notebook is completely ready, mind you. We’ll continue to work on it all summer. We are already having fun finding mistakes and typos in the displays that ARE done, such as our 7-foot-tall history-of-farming board game. One of the game cards had this seemingly easy multiple-choice question:

What do farmers do with their sheep?
a) Shave off their wool
b) Buy them birthday gifts
c) Play golf with them

We discovered that we had listed the answer as c), which conjures an image of the sheep golfer, dressed in plus fours and a Titleist visor, pausing to chew down the tall grass around the ball he has just sliced into the rough.

We hope that over the summer, the number of visitors will keep climbing, particularly up our math staircase.

We’ve already had a botanist and biologist in the Notebook this morning, one of whom was brave enough to try on our mad scientist glasses and wig. As I write this, one of our team members is creating a giant green man out of paper to go with our installation on the makeup of the human body. We’re awaiting the delivery of two amazing, high-end insect art pieces created with old watch parts (and old insect parts too). It’s a fun opening day.

Spin the wheel and take your chances as you maneuver through our oversized, homemade board game. If you've ever golfed with your sheep, you get an extra wheel spin.

But it’s time to return to work. I hope we’ll get to see many of you here at the Notebook this summer. We’re open 10 to 5, seven days a week, and we have the first of our special events on Friday, June 24, when author Judy Paolini and photographer Nance Trueworthy will do a signing for their book The Inspired Garden, about the unique gardens created by 24 New England artists. They’ll be here from 4 to 7, and we’re turning the event into a season kickoff party, so come on down (or up) if you’re around. I’ll be telling you more about Judy and Nance soon.

Wooster spent a night at the Notebook with Millie during our final preparations.

Answer to the Last Puzzler
Match the state with its state fish:
Georgia: large-mouth bass
Maine: landlocked salmon
Maryland: striped bass
Minnesota: walleye

Today’s Puzzler:
Two new elements were added to the periodic table this month after three years of scientific. The elements are extremely radioactive and last for less than one second before they decay into other elements. The two don’t even have official names yet. What are their temporary names?
a) unbelievium and underwearium
b) ununquadium and ununhexium
c) unexpectoramus and unforseenium

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