The Nature of Phenology 7/23/22: Clouds

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
Guest written by Zabet NeuCollins

Thunderstorms come from cumulonimbus clouds, which are the giants of the cloud world. They are the only cloud that extends through all three cloud levels.
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 7/23/22: Astrology 101

This is your Cosmic Curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the zodiac for Saturday July 23rd as seen through the lens of vedic astrology.

Astrology has two essential building blocks.
First come the Planets.
The planets express a particular energy or consciousness.
Next are the signs, those 30 degree positions in the sky through which the planets express their energies.
Think of it like a musical instrument…

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

Coastal Conversations 7/22/22: Landscape of Change

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.

Today our show is about the Mount Desert Island-based project called a Landscape of Change. Landscape of Change is a collaborative project with the goal of compiling and publishing historical records of natural history observations on Mount Desert Island, dating back to the late 1800s, and comparing these with contemporary data to document change over time.
While the project focuses on the science of environmental change, it also explores how every-day people can collect meaningful scientific data, and how people might choose to respond to ecological change, as individuals, as artists, as natural resource managers, as activists or even as a society as a whole.

1. What are the historical records that provide the baseline from which your are able to document ecological change on Mount Desert Island?
2. What are the modern methods of data collection that citizens are involved in collecting?
3. What are the changes you have found in MDI’s natural environment in the past 100+ years
4. How can citizens and visitors become involved and learn more?

Guests:
Raney Bench, Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society
Johanna Blackman, Executive Director of A Climate to Thrive
Jennifer Steen Booher, Artist-in-residence with MDI Historical Society.
Seth Benz, Director of Bird Ecology at Schoodic Institute at Acadia Nation Park
Catherine Schmitt, science writer with Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park
Kyle Lima, Data Analyst, also with the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park

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 7/22/22: “Summer Patchwork”

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

Dawnland Signals 8/18/22: Wendy Newell Dyer’s Adoption Story

Producers/Hosts: Maria Girouard, Esther Anne
Jeffrey Hotchkiss, Zoom recording technician

This edition of Dawnland Signals did not air in July as intended, but will air on 8/18/22 at 4pm

Dawnland Signals highlights indigenous topics not immediately represented in mainstream media and is meant to share, inspire, and inform. Join co-hosts Maria Girouard and Esther Anne as they engage in critical conversations of truth, healing, and change in the Dawnland.

This month’s show features Wendy Newell Dyer from Jonesport, who shares her adoption story and journey of connecting to her Passamaquoddy roots and birth father, the late Wayne Newell, a revered elder, teacher and scholar.

– Life experience as an adoptee looking for her birth parents
– Learning of her Passamaquoddy origins and her famous father
– Transforming life trauma into belonging through teaching, writing, and culture

Guest: Wendy Newell Dyer, Passamaquoddy

Links:

Statement to the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Writings for Dawnland Voices:

Writings for Dawnland Voices:

5/1/2018
1/7/2019
7/30/2019

Esther Anne, is a Passamaquoddy from Sipayik who lives on Indian Island and serves on the Wabanaki REACH Board of Directors.

Maria Girouard, Penobscot from Indian Island, is Executive Director of Wabanaki REACH, a statewide organization working toward truth, healing, and change in the Dawnland. Maria is a tribal historian with a Master’s Degree in History from the University of Maine and a special interest in the Maine Indian Land Claims. Maria has devoted years to community organizing, environmental stewardship and activism, and growing food in tribal communities.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/21/22: Summer Encore 7 – Our Devices Watch Us

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Hmmm. A report from Common Sense Media with a subtitle of “Watching TV That Watches Us.” Wonder what that could be about? Strangely enough, it is about exactly what it’s title says. Here’s why…

Here are links to the reports mentioned in today’s program:
Privacy of Streaming Apps and Devices: Watching TV That Watches Us, Common Sense Media
iPhone and Android Privacy

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

Maine Currents Special 7/20/22- Sears Island: The Latest Threat

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Sears Island, located near Searsport, is a 940 acre island connected to the mainland since the late 80s by a causeway. Though it is near industrialized areas, it is mostly undeveloped and currently uninhabited by humans. Many people use the island recreationally, year ’round.
Over the decades, people who care about the island have protected it from one proposed development after another- and the island may be under threat again.
Today we’ll hear about the latest development proposed for the island- from some of the folks who have been involved over the years.

Guests:
Steve Miller of Islesboro Islands Trust
Susan White & Rolf Olsen of Friends of Sears Island
Becky Bartovics & Matthew Cannon of Sierra Club Maine

FMI (including reports referenced on the show)
Friends of Sears Island Offshore Wind Project Resources page

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download