The Nature of Phenology 9/24/22: American Pelecinid Wasps

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

With the build of an especially skinny wasp but with an intimidatingly long abdomen (or is it a stinger?), adult pelecinid wasps are easiest to find this time of year.

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com

About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Cosmic Curator 9/24/22

This is your Cosmic Curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for today Saturday September 24 and the days ahead.
Well folks…happy second day of fall. Here in the northern hemisphere, the days grow shorter and nature turns inward. Its time to rebalance, to adjust one’s diet, to change up one’s work routine and prepare for a new season. And as the season changes, we are in the window of a new moon. Right now in the sky, the moon is growing dark…

About the Host:
Tom Yaroschuk is a Vedic Astrologer. His intention is to help people understand their karma and the issues they may confront to cultivate more fulfilling lives. Tom is writing a memoir of the spiritual lessons derived from his work in a Homeless Day Center in between a career as an award winning television and documentary producer.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Earthwise 9/24/22: The Apple

Producer/Host: Anu Dudley

About the host:

Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Coastal Conversations 9/23/22: Three Contemporary Maine Writers Inspired by the Coast

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:

Maine’s coastline has inspired writers and artists for generations. On today’s Coastal Conversations we are thrilled to feature three contemporary Maine writers who each have a special connection with the coast of Maine and coastlines around the world. We’ll hear their stories about the role of writing and art in their lives and what inspires their work today. Each author will share some of their recent work, including some poetry, haiku and prose.

Our featured writers today include Linda Buckmaster, writer, teacher, and self-described wanderer from Belfast, Maine; Valerie Lawson, poet, publisher and teacher from Robbinston, Maine; and Kristen Lindquist, writer, poet, and naturalist from Camden, Maine.

Guest/s:

Linda Buckmaster. Writer, teacher, wanderer. Belfast, Maine.
Linda’s most recent book, Elemental: A Miscellany of Salt Cod and Islands, is available at bookstores from Blue Hill to Portland or from the author. Her work will be featured at the 17th annual Belfast Poetry Festival, October 15th 2022.

Valerie Lawson. Poet, publisher and teacher. Robbinston, Maine.
Valerie’s poems about conserved lands at Reversing Falls in Pembroke were recently featured in the Writing the Land: Maine project. Her work will be featured at Poetry Express at University of Maine at Fort Kent on September 21, 22, 2022. Contact UMFK for more information. UMFK’s Acadian Archives to host Poetry Express Sept. 21-22 in Fiddlehead Focus/St. John Valley Times

Kristen Lindquist. Writer, poet, naturalist. Camden, Maine.
Kristen’s recent award-winning haiku e-chapbook It Always Comes Back Kristen’s Daily Haiku Blog

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Awanadjo Almanack 9/23/22: “Invaders and Colliders”

Producer/Host: Rob McCall
Production Assistance: Rebecca McCall

About the host:

Rob McCall: Born in the Black Hills of South Dakota, grew up in Oregon and Illinois. Father was a Scots-Irish preacher, mother a Yankee Congregationalist tracing her ancestry back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Father taught him about Scripture, mother taught him about Nature.

Bachelor of arts in philosophy, bachelor of divinity in American religious history, graduate studies in education, doctor of ministry in congregational studies, certified in elementary education, tree fruits and entomology.

Worked as an elementary school teacher, tree and landscape contractor, church sexton, orchard manager, chimney sweep, ambulance driver, musician. Began second career as a preacher at age 40. Served as minister of the First Congregational Church of Blue Hill, Maine 1986 – 2014. He is currently chaplain of the Brooklin Fire Department.

Since 1992 has published the weekly Awanadjo Almanack which is broadcast to midcoast Maine and on the web at WERU-FM and appears in a number of publications. His writing has also appeared in Yankee, Down East, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, Island Journal and elsewhere.

His first book, Small Misty Mountain, was published in 2006 by Pushcart Press and distributed by W.W. Norton. Publisher’s Weekly called it “by turns inspiring and infuriating.” His second book, Great Speckled Bird, followed in 2012. His third book, Some Glad Morning, was released in October 2020.

Passions include wild plants and animals, and traditional fiddle tunes. Married for 53 years to Rebecca Haley, artist and singer. Father of two, grandfather of two.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

NextWave Radio Hour 9/22/22: Making a Home in Maine

Producer/Host: Pepin Mittelhauser (he/him)

Promo music by Zeke Sacaridiz. “Food and Medicine” by Sara Trunzo, featuring Darrell Scott, used by permission of the artist. All other music is royalty free.

NextWave Radio Hour is a new program featuring folks in their 20s and 30s, often referred to as Millennials, from all across Maine. In this program, host Pepin Mittelhauser will be discussing issues, news, and current events both locally and nationally, and featuring young creators who trailblaze their own paths in our modern political, economic, and social climate. We hope to provide unique perspectives of life from the next generation working to create the future they hope to lead. This project was made possible by the generous support of the Maine Community Foundation.

This month:
-Making a home in Maine
-Normalizing the long routes that ones life can take
-Trailblazing your own path

Guests:
Jon Stein, owner of Fogtown Brewing Company in Ellsworth
Colt Neidhardt, theater artist and the Executive Director of Schoodic Arts for All
Sara Trunzo, songwriter and community organizer. You can find her music in most places, like Spotify and Apple Music, and you can find more information on her instagram, @saratrunzomusic.

About the host:
Pepin Mittelhauser (he/him) is the Digital Media Associate to WERU Community Radio, and an avid gardener and farmer, musician and singer, and lover of nature and the outdoors. He graduated from College of the Atlantic in ’19 with focuses in sustainable agriculture, food systems, and live and recorded audio engineering and production.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Around Town 9/22/22: Maine “Clean Water Champions” Honored at Clean Water Act 50th Anniversary event

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: 100 Maine “Clean Water Champions” will be honored at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act on September 29th on the banks of the Androscoggin River in Lewiston— including one person whose voice you’ll recognize from WERU! Anya Fetcher, Federal Policy Advocate for the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), one of the event organizers, joins us with all the details.

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 9/22/22: September ’22 Headlines

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Have you heard the Amazon’s Ring Doorbell division is teaming up with Amazon’s MGM division to create a new TV series called “Ring Nation” hosted by comedian Wanda Sykes? What could possibly go wrong? Plenty.

About the host:
Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download