Page 6 — THE PORTLAND DAILY SUN, Thursday, June 16, 2011
‘It’s been kinda in between’ FARMERS from page one
Without sunshine, “the plants just sit there,” he said. “It’s been too cold during the day,” said Jodie Jordan, owner of Alewive’s Brook Farm in Cape Elizabeth. He said this spring has been “too cold, too wet, and too damp” for crops to take off, but said “the weatherman might disagree” that conditions have been all that abnormal. Indeed, data from the National Weather Service suggest this spring wasn’t all that bad. March was a degree colder than normal, but April and May were a degree warmer than average. May’s temperature averages, however, are somewhat misleading overall because May set a record for the warmest nighttime low temperatures, according to the weather service. The average low temperature was 47.4 degrees last month, while the average high was 61.4. Overall temperatures averaged out to 54.6 degrees. “It’s not as bad as it could be, but it hasn’t been an easy start,” said Daniel Price, of Freedom Farm, in Freedom. “It could always be worse,” he said, adding that “farmers always like to
complain about the weather.” To be sure, there is less to complain about this year than the past two seasons. Two years ago was colder and wetter than usual for much of the spring and early summer, creating ripe conditions for various molds and blights that affected tomatoes, cucumbers and other crops. And while last year’s growing season was much warmer than usual, it also brought extended periods of dry weather, which tested some farmers’ ability to water their crops. “It’s been kinda in between” the past two seasons, Farwell said of this year. And, even with the slower start to the season, most farmers aren’t all that concerned just yet. Jordan said his strawberries are coming along and should be ready next week, which is right about on time, and Farwell said “pretty much everything” at his 10-acre farm is doing well. “As long as we don’t get three weeks of rain and then three weeks of sun,” Farwell said, things should be OK. So what would type of weather conditions are ideal? “How about two days of rain and then five days of sun,” Farwell said.
Father's Day run to benefit prostate cancer research DAILY SUN STAFF REPORT The Portland Sea Dogs, in conjunction with the Maine Track Club and Maine Medical Partners Urology, will be hosting the fourth annual Father's Day 5K Road Race on Father's Day, Sunday, June 19, at 9:15 a.m. Proceeds from the event will benefit Maine Coalition to Fight Prostate Cancer. There will also be a Kid's Run, presented by Maine Running, beginning at 8:30 a.m. that is free of charge. A record field of 1,500-plus runners is expected for the race, making it one of the largest 5K road races in the state, organizers said. The Sea Dogs' Mother's Day 5K which draws 3,000 runners is the state's largest 5K. Slugger and his Dad lead the way on the flat 5K course which begins in front of the Portland Expo building, travels down Congress Street, turning down Stevens Avenue, and making a right onto Brighton Avenue back down Deering Avenue into Fitzpatrick Stadium. The race culminates with a unique finish inside
Hadlock Field in front of the third base dugout. The top overall male and female finishers will receive a trophy, a pair of 2011 Season Tickets for the remainder of the 2011 Sea Dogs season, and throw out the ceremonial first-pitch prior to a future Sea Dogs game. The top three male and female finishers in each age group will also be presented with awards. All participants of the race will receive a complimentary ticket to attend a future Sea Dogs game. The race is open to the public. Walkers and wheelchair racers are welcome as well. Registration is $19. The kid's race is free. Limited spots are still available; anyone who would like to run in the 5K may register online at www.seadogs.com or at the Maine Running Company located at 563 Forest Ave. in Portland on Friday, June 17 from noon to 6 p.m. or Saturday, June 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Additionally, if spots remain, runners may register the day of the race at Hadlock Field from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
‘Our hope ideally is to get every hiking trail in the state of Maine...’ TRAILS from page one
Internet-based trail locator, Cumming said. “The Internet is the first stop for most people these days,” Cumming said, noting the Portland trails group has completed its “first wave” of trail cataloguing for Maine Trail Finder.
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More will join the list, based on the ambitions of the site's creators. "Our hope ideally is to get every hiking trail in the state of Maine into the Maine Trail Finder," said Ken Gross, cartographer/GIS projects manager for the Center for Community GIS. The center is a dedicated mapping support center based in Farmington that joined in launching Maine Trail Finder with the Quebec-Labrador Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the rural communities and environment of eastern Canada and New England. "We have a ton of trails in Portland, and I know personally last week I went out with a GPS and captured even more," Gross said in a recent interview about the trails site. The center on May 31 published its 100th trail, Gross noted. Maine Trail Finder (www.mainetrailfinder.com) allows visitors to "browse interactive trail maps, trail descriptions, pictures and trip reports," according to the site. "It's an online trail guide, but it's a little more detailed than what you might find in a book or at other websites," Gross said. Global positioning system technology is essential to documenting trails, he noted. "At some point, somebody has gone out and recorded this line that makes up the trail and they
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will also record locations of other important sights, let's say picnic areas or the trailhead .. and what we do is superimpose that information on top of a standard Google map, and what we've done is put it together with a database in the background. ... We can put various other information onto this trail," Gross explained. In 2009, the Healthy Community Coalition of Greater Franklin County and the center through an Environmental Funders Network’s Quality of Place Initiative secured money for the Mapping Our Footsteps project. A year later, the center received additional funding from the Maine Department of Conservation Recreational Trails Program and Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, the center reported. "We can do large parts of the state with the funding we have now, and several of our benefactors are very generous with their money, including the Department of Conservation, they helped us put all their trails on," Gross said. State parks are in the process of being catalogued online. In partnership with Portland Trails, the center has catalogued Riverton Trolley Park, Back Cove, Eastern Prom and Baxter Woods; Evergreen Cemetery and Fore River Sanctuary are in the process of going online, as well as Westbrook River Walk, he said. Gilsland Farm, a Maine Audubon sanctuary in Falmouth, recently joined the list of catalogued "live" trail systems. Gross knows because he completed Gilsland himself. "While I was out there, I collected all kind of information, places where there are blinds so you can watch the birds there. ... I collected sites that have scenic overlooks over the lower Presumpscot River, the fact that there are bathrooms there, that's a really nice feature when you're out on a trail," Gross said. Every trail that is in the system has a link on the page to show where the geocaches are located, treasure hunting locators for fans of GPS treks. There are dozens of geocaches situated around the Back Cove, for example. "Our ultimate goal is to help people get out, be active, and explore our state’s well-known and see FINDER page 9