The Nature of Phenology 5/15/21: Moss

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

Even now as deciduous leaves are developing by the day, beginning as a pale spring green, I still find myself drawn to the deep greens that so many mosses provide. To understand mosses, it is important to understand the difference between vascular and non-vascular plants.

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

About the producers and host:

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]

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The Cosmic Curator 5/15/21: Weekly Astrology Outlook

Producer/Host: Tom Yaroschuk

This segment runs down the astrological lowdown for the planets for the week; and their celestial influence according to the interpretation of Vedic astrology, the astrology of India. This is a rich tradition aimed at achieving Self Knowledge based on sidereal planetary positions that guide an incarnate soul’s sojourn on the material plane.

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.

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Let’s Talk About It 5/14/21: Police Response

Producer/Host: Patrisha McLean
Production assistance: Tammy Oropesa
Music: Jackie Lee McLean

Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Survivors of Domestic Abuse

Guests:
Hannah, Mandy, Lori, and Sarah talk about police response to the domestic violence and how this impacted their safety as well as their children’s.

Topics include: 
Lax sentencing, mental illness.

About the host:
Patrisha McLean is the founder/president of Finding Our Voices, the grass roots survivor-powered non profit organization breaking the silence of domestic abuse one conversation and community at a time all across Maine.

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Awanadjo Almanack 5/14/21: “At Home in Nature”

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.

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Essential Rhythm 5/13/21: Osmoregulation Pros and Cons

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode introduces the concept of osmosis, briefly discussing how it is managed by marine invertebrates.

About the host:
Sarah O’Malley is an ecologist, naturalist and science communicator passionate about deepening her listeners’ experiences with the natural world. She teaches biology and sustainability at Maine Maritime Academy and is currently collaborating on a guide book to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/13/21: Cars Today and Tomorrow, Part 2

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

We’ve mentioned in the past that cars are more and more becoming computers on wheels. Here’s another way that will be happening in the near future – Driver Monitoring Systems. A proposed bill in Congress would make such systems mandatory on all cars made in the US from 2027 on. What are these systems (already being used by long haul trucking companies and now by Amazon delivery vehicles), how do they work, and what might they mean for our personal privacy when we are driving in our own cars? Good questions.

For an explanation of what these systems are and how they work:
What Is a Driver Monitoring System?
What Are the Levels of Automated Driving?
For a very instructive – and perhaps disquieting – video on how Amazon’s version of this tech works:
Amazon Netradyne Driver Information

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.

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Talk of the Towns 5/12/21: “Landscape of Change”

Producer/Host: Ron Beard

Landscape of Change (a collaboration between MDI Historical Society, Schoodic Institute, Acadia National Park, MDI Biological Laboratory, College of the Atlantic and A Climate to Thrive)

-What are we up against in terms of climate change? What are impacts we are already seeing here in Maine? What are the long-term trends?
-What is the story of The Champlain Society (Harvard students of natural history conducted research and kept logbooks from the summers of 1880-1882)?
-What do these logbooks tell us about what they observed and specifically about climate change? What other historical records are available to us to help us understand climate change?
-What are current ways in which first-hand observational data is being encouraged, collected, analyzed? How can maps using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) being used to share this information?
-What results do you hope for… what do you hope people will do with the information they gain from Landscape of Change? What might we learn about the “resilience” we will need to adapt to climate change?

How can listeners learn more and get involved?

Guests:
Catherine Schmidt, Schoodic Institute
Lawson Wulsin, A Climate to Thrive
Raney Bench, Mount Desert Island Historical Society

About the host:
Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.

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BoatTalk 5/11/21: Boatyard news & boating stuff

Producers/Hosts: Mike Joyce & Alan Sprague

About the hosts:

Alan Sprague a.k.a. Flounder of the Soul Show, has been a programmer at WERU since the glaciers receded. For thirty years at community radio he has worked his way from being an unpaid volunteer to being an unpaid volunteer today, and he says he’s worth every cent of it. In 2003 he and Mike Joyce started the monthly call-in show Boattalk which has become a boating related show without piers (pi). Mike and Alan met many years ago while both were working at the Hinckley Company. Alan was the head service carpenter at the Hinckley skunkworks called Bass Harbor Marine or sometimes Kibbee’s Kennels. He worked there for nearly thirty years and saw yachts of stories to tell yawl. As part of Boattalk they organize the annual WERU Boattalk Cruise in late June for a fun pot-luck trip up Somes Sound, America’s former fiord. Quite cunning Mike and Alan are to work a free scenic boat trip with fine food for themselves.

Mike Joyce bio to follow

Jon Johansen bio to follow

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