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 "Make hay when the sun shines" Photo submitted by Sally Giles of Garland on Sunday, July 12th, who said, "We thought we better take advantage of the sunshine and get some haying done. This is my husband, daughter, and both son-in-laws working hard to get-r-done!! " It is now
{Click for} WORD OF THE DAY
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By Dan MacLeod of the BDN: DEXTER, Maine — Two boys and a girl who were riding their bicycles along Route 23 on Monday found a dead body floating faceup in Main Stream. Maine State Police are investigating the cause of death of Timothy Sherwood, 23, of Guilford. Dexter Police Chief Jim Emerson said Tuesday that the three children were riding their bikes along Route 23, North Dexter Road, near Main Stream around 6:50 p.m. Monday when they spotted the body. “At first, his legs were actually on the dry ground,” one of the boys, a 9-year-old who lives nearby, said Tuesday. “Plus his mouth was open so I got real scared.” The boy’s father asked that neither he nor his son be identified. The boy said he and the two others had ridden their bikes past the scene earlier but didn’t see anything. About 20 minutes later they returned and saw the body in the stream. The boy ran home to call 911. He was in “emergency mode,” the father said, and was “on a mission” to call police. The father called Dexter police, then went down to the concrete bridge which runs 10 to 15 feet over the stream to see for himself. “He was floating faceup, the feet about a foot from the shore,” the father said of Sherwood. “Picture a swimmer doing a back float.” Dexter police Officer Gary Morin arrived shortly after the boy’s father called police, according to Emerson. Morin called state police because it was not clear whether foul play was involved. There were no obvious wounds or significant damage to the body, Emerson said. “We’re really not sure what happened yet,” he said. “After a preliminary exam, it didn’t look [suspicious]. There were no holes, knives, bad bruises.” Police found a backpack on a nearby rock, but it appeared to have been placed there and did not wash ashore, Emerson said. He added that no fishing gear or boat was found nearby. “I don’t want to say it looked suspicious, but something wasn’t right. There was no reason for the body to be where it was,” Emerson said. The body was recovered from the river by Dexter firefighters. “The gentleman was a big boy,” Emerson said. “There were four, five or six [firefighters] down there,” he added. Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said not enough is known about the cause of death to reach any definite conclusions about how Sherwood died. “Dexter police had asked for state police assistance with the aftermath after the body was found,” he said. “At this point, we’re not classifying the death as suspicious.” An autopsy of the body was completed Tuesday. Pending a toxicology screening, the final cause of death may not be known for four to six months, according to officials at the state medical examiner’s office. Dexter and state police said they know little about Sherwood. Emerson said Sherwood had not been reported missing. He lived in Dexter four or five years ago, was witness to a fight in 2004 and received a speeding ticket in 2006. Sherwood’s driver’s license had a Newport address, according to Emerson, but the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department indicated his residence was in Guilford. McCausland said the investigation is ongoing. “[The medical examiner’s office] will do testing on their part, we will continue to conduct interviews on our part,” said McCausland. “Hopefully, once both of these phases are complete, we will have a better idea of how he died.” The families of the other two children could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. "This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the Wednesday, July 15, 2009 edition of the Bangor Daily NEWS and is used here with permission." By Diana Bowley of the BDN Staff: DEXTER, Maine — Most Dexter property taxpayers will see no increase in their tax bills for 2009-10 as the Town Council voted Thursday to keep the current mill rate of $14.50 per $1,000 property valuation. It took much work to keep the same mill rate in the wake of declining revenues and higher fixed costs, according to Town Manager Dave Pearson. “I’m real proud we’ve been able to do this,” he told the council. “We basically put together a tight budget,” Pearson said. He praised the council and town employees for working hard to keep spending down. No wage increases are proposed, and almost every department except public works and the Fire Department had smaller expenditures than in the past year, he said. The spending plan of $7,987,218 adopted Thursday includes about $3.2 million for airport improvements that will be reimbursed through the stimulus program. If those funds were not included in the budget, the appropriations would represent about $200,000 less than last year’s budget, Pearson said. The town expects fewer revenues this year and has budgeted $4,727,830, which includes the airport improvement funds, according to Pearson. The budget includes funds for a plow truck, improvements for the Fire Department’s furnace, sidewalk improvements and about $150,000 to rebuild Jennings Hill Road, Pearson said. The road work will be done later because tons of fill are being trucked over the road from an Abbot pit to the airport for the runway expansion project, he said. A lengthy discussion was held during a public hearing on the condition of a Main Street home that was the scene of a fire more than a year ago. The council had been prepared to act on declaring the building dangerous based on complaints from neighbors. The owner, however, presented the council with a detailed plan and sketches of what he intended to do to renovate the old home. He said he already had removed the barn from the property. The homeowner had retained an inspector and his report also convinced the Town Council to drop the action. The inspector said the building was sound but said a portion of an ell needed to be removed. “I don’t think we have an issue with it, and if we do, we need to be looking at other places in town,” Councilor Sherman Leighton said.  Open Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday or by chance This week's Special: All Annuals 50% OFF By Sharon Kiley Mack of the BDN Staff: DEXTER, Maine — A group of organic farmers representing three different producers is calling for a nationwide boycott of all H.P. Hood branded products and Stonyfield Organic Milk, also produced by Hood, because of what they term unfair business practices. In February, Hood told eight Maine organic dairy farmers in Aroostook and Washington counties that their milk contracts would not be renewed. This spring the company gave two more farmers, one in Dexter and one in Clinton, the same message. “Let it start here, in Maine,” dairy farmer Mark McKusick said Friday at his farm in Dexter. “We are calling on all farmers and consumers in other states to join us.” McKusick said that at a recent meeting of the Maine Organic Milk Producers, a straw vote showed a majority of Maine producers support the boycott. “They represented farmers supplying milk to Horizon, Organic Valley, Hood and Stonyfield,” he said. “If enough farmers and consumers stick together it will have an effect,” Martin Lane of Shady Lane Farms in New Vineyard said. The movement comes just weeks before the first of the Maine organic dairy farmers’ contracts expires on Aug. 1. McKusick and Richard Lary, a Clinton organic dairy farmer, also were dropped by the company after they publicly criticized Hood. “They promised us the moon and then bailed on us,” said Cheryl McKusick, Mark McKusick’s wife. “When I asked Hood to meet with the producers, [a Hood official] told me I was confused. I feel Stonyfield is more concerned with cows passing gas than the farmers that supply them.” The McKusicks hired an attorney to try to hold Hood to its contract, but Hood refused to meet with the attorney, McKusick said. In a letter obtained by the Bangor Daily News from Paul C. Nightingale, senior vice president of H.P. Hood, to McKusick’s attorney, James Austin of Dexter, Nightingale defended Hood’s position. “It is true that at the time we began our organic milk program, Hood had high hopes of growing,” Nightingale wrote. He said that since the signing of McKusick’s contract, however, “a constellation of events has occurred that have all but eliminated the economic incentive for farmers to convert to organic production in Maine, and which make the contractual arrangements we had with your clients uneconomic.” Nightingale cited new regulations for organic certification, the Maine Milk Commission’s subsidy program, the emergence of megafarms that flood the market and the soft world economy as key reasons for the failed organic milk market. Nightingale denied that any false or misleading representations were made to those under Hood contracts. The farmers maintain otherwise. “Not so,” Cheryl McKusick said. “We were lied to. People are afraid to say anything because of what happens. Look at Richard and Mark and what happened when they spoke up. Hood dumped them.” “I don’t know how they expect us to sit back and be nice and kind when they are taking our livelihood away,” Lane said. The spokesperson for H.P. Hood was unavailable for comment Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, organic producers, the Maine Department of Agriculture and the Maine Farm Bureau continue to seek a solution for the failed organic milk market in Maine. This season’s rainy weather also is having a dire effect. “I don’t have one-quarter of my winter feed in,” Lary said. “I have 26 acres of corn all turned yellow. I just bought a new tractor, and I don’t know how I’m going to pay for it,” Lary said. The farmers said they are hoping a Maine boycott will be embraced across the country. “We need to have a nationwide boycott and drive this home: The federal milk system is broken,” McKusick said. Any farmer who wants to join the Maine boycott may contact farmgirl_67@hotmail.com, windyacres1177@yahoo.com or mckusickfarm@myfairpoint.net.
In Maine and the nation, economic strife in farming communities leads some to tragic ends By Sharon Kiley Mack of the BDN Staff: AUGUSTA, Maine — It's the one topic a lot of farmers are keenly aware of but won't talk about. They'll discuss weather, milk prices, the cost of equipment, cow genetics and bull semen, but they never talk to each other about suicide. Increased suicide among farmers is a national trend and Maine is not exempt. "They don't call it a depression for nothin'," one Maine farmer, who asked not to be identified, said recently. Earlier this year, a farmer in southern Maine hanged himself in his barn. Recently, two central Maine farmers in separate communities — one an organic milk producer — shot and killed themselves. Fellow farmers are blaming the economic crisis in agriculture — particularly in dairy — for the tragedies. Expansions were made, equipment purchased and loans taken out. Then the price farmers were paid for their milk crashed. Credit was cut off and some farmers just couldn't see a way out. Martin Lane of Shady Lane Farms in New Vineyard said he believes most farmers are struggling with depression but that they keep it to themselves. He said he has been on anti-depression medication for two years. "I have to get up in the morning and look my kids in the eye and know that I'll not be able to help them out like I said I would," Lane said. "It certainly is a problem when I can't come through on my promises to my children." Widespread problem The U.S. is not alone in this trend. In April 2009, 1,500 farmers in India committed suicide after their crops failed. Tomato farmers in Ghana and drought-ridden farmers in Australia are also taking their lives, according to news accounts. The problem is so severe that the National Farmers Union and others are lobbying federal officials to provide funding for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network, adopted by Congress last year, which mandates a national hot line network for farmers in serious trouble. "If you had time to go and visit, one on one, with every farmer in Maine, they'd all say the same thing. Farmers want to talk honestly about how bad it is but they are too full of pride," Lane said. Speaking reverently of one of the deceased Maine farmers, who are not being identified in this article out of respect for their families, Clinton dairy farmer Richard Lary said recently, "He milked 380 cows and has gone through a lot of expansion over the past couple of years." Lary said he knew the farmer well and that the man just couldn't take the volatility of the milk pricing market. "It just goes to show you, this economic pressure is hitting the big guys just as hard as the little ones," Lary said. "I am absolutely sick over this." Farmers aren't the only ones who know about the trend. "We are absolutely aware of these types of situations and they are a grave concern for us," state Agriculture Commissioner Seth Bradstreet said last month. "We had a conference call yesterday with the undersecretary of agriculture and other states' commissioners and, in fact, these tragedies are being reported elsewhere too. The New Hampshire commissioner said there were several [farmer suicides] over there this year." Collapsed economy Field representatives for dairy giant H.P. Hood have been talking to Maine's organic milk farmers over the past few weeks, trying to come up with a solution for an unprecedented oversupply of organic milk. The situation is being blamed on the economy. The demand for organic milk — which can cost twice as much as conventional milk in stores — has plummeted over the past year as consumers pinch pennies. In March, Hood told eight Maine organic dairy farms their milk contracts would not be renewed. There are 72 farms in Maine producing organic milk. Some sell in bulk to other processors such as Organic Valley and Horizon Cooperative. In its next move, Hood notified most of its remaining 14 organic milk producers in the state under contract to the company that they should cut their production this year by 15 percent. A Hood spokeswoman, Lynne Bohan, said the reduction plan fell flat. Not one farmer volunteered to cut production. The new proposal would establish an organic pay price, which would be adjusted month to month based on how much organic milk is sold. "We are, in effect, asking our farmers to share the cost," Bohan said. She said farmers would be paid a percentage of their yield at the higher organic price and a percentage of the balance at the lower conventional price. She said it is expected that a higher percentage of each milk check will reflect the higher price. "We have to work together with the farmers," Bohan said. "Sales continue to drop. There has been no increase. We have an unprecedented oversupply." Lary, however, said he does not believe there is an oversupply. "It's a power play," he said. "Hood knows they are the only market for us. We have no option but to accept their plan. But let me say, we farmers are a lot more than just upset." Lary said that he will be losing $3 per hundredweight of milk he produces, and he ships 10,400 pounds of milk every other day. "That means I will lose $4,680 a month," he said. In the retail market, organic milk can easily cost twice as much as conventional milk and, for the farmer, this translated into premiums and bonuses that lured many conventional dairy farmers in Maine to switch to organic, which they believed would be more profitable. Organic dairies grew by leaps and bounds throughout New England over the past 15 years. By 2006, organic dairy farming had become the fastest-growing agricultural sector in New England, and Maine had the highest percentage of organic dairy farms compared with conventional farms in the country — 16 percent. But it takes three years to switch from conventional to organic production and, for many of the Maine producers, the market took a drastic slide backward during that time. As the economy collapsed, so did consumers' shopping habits. Organic milk purchases plummeted; even conventional milk sales slipped. "The result is not just a loss of farms," Lary said. "Now it's a loss of farmers." For those who need assistance: The 24-hour Maine Suicide and Crisis Hotline is 888-568-1112, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800-273-TALK (8255).
DOVER-FOXCROFT - Summers provide Womancare a great opportunity to provide our advocate training in a somewhat unique format. This 36 hour training consists of 12 three hour sessions offered in a variety of formats through out the year. Womancare needs volunteer advocates to assist in answering our 24 hour helpline. During regular business hours calls are answered from our new office at 8 Mechanic Street in Dover-Foxcroft . Advocates staff the reception desk, meet and greet those coming into the building, take calls, and meet with anyone coming in for services related to domestic abuse. After hours, and on weekends and holidays, advocates carry a pager and respond to calls from their home phones. The first two weeks of August the training with be offered Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 8:30 to 3:00. Training dates are August 5, 6 & 7 and 12, 13 and 14. Two sessions will be offered each day with a half hour lunch break. Structuring the training this way allows you to complete the training in 6 days over a two week period of time. If this format appeals to you and fits your summer schedule please call Womancare at 564-8165 today for registration information. DOVER-FOXCROFT - Beginning Wed., Aug. 5 from 3:00 to 5 PM, Womancare will offer an opportunity for healing through several mediums of art. The group will run for 8 weeks, concluding on Sept. 23 and will meet at the new Womancare building in Dover-Foxcroft on 8 Mechanic Street. Child care will be provided if needed. Please call Womancare at 564-8165 for registration info.
DOVER-FOXCROFT - On Tuesday, July 28th, 2009, Dover-Foxcroft author Tom Lyford will be hosting a double book signing and reading at Dover-Foxcroft's Thompson Free Library from 6:00 to 7:00 pm. Two new books, both released this month, will be featured. Kilroy Was Here: Me Too! is a chapbook of Lyford's most recent poetry; and Work Aversion Trauma: A Lifetime of Suffering is his debut non-fiction memoir detailing a number of humorous or odd-ball on-the-job situations which occurred while he was employed as a paper delivery boy, gas station attendant, mill worker, National Guardsman, and high school English teacher. Tom is the author of half a dozen published poetry chapbooks, and has been published in Bangor Metro, Wolf Moon Journal, and Off the Coast. He's been a guest reader at Borders of Bangor, the Bangor Civic Center, the Schoodic Arts Festival in Winter Harbor, and several libraries, cafes, and school assemblies and workshops around the state og Maine. Admission and refreshments are free. For more information, contact the author at 564-8240 or Thompson Free Library at 564-3350. Lakeview Plantation, Maine –The Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District is pleased to announce that they will be holding a Gravel Road Maintenance Workshop on Thursday, August 6, 2009 from 8am to 1pm at the Boat Launch in Lake View Plantation, off the South Shore Road. This workshop is for municipalities, private road owners and road associations. During this workshop participants will learn about basic road building and maintenance techniques using a Front Runner. The Front Runner grader/rake is an attachment that fits on pick-up trucks utilizing a snowplow mount. It is used for road grading, maintenance, cleanup, landscaping, finish grading and snow removal on soft roads. Consisting of a row of heavy duty, flexible, spring steel tines bolted to a rugged welded steel frame, the attachment forms the configuration of a miniature road grader. Anyone who participates in the workshop can rent the Front Runner from the District. For more information or to register for this workshop please contact Shelia Richard or Lynn Lubas at (207) 564-2321 or e-mail us at: info@piscataquisswcd.org
DOVER-FOXCROFT - Thanks to the generosity of a Dover-Foxcroft couple the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District now owns 109 acres of land on Route 6 and 16. Stephen and Elaine Law have donated their family land to the PCSWCD. This 115-acre parcel has been owned by the Laws' family since 1945 and is the home of the Kids and Trees Growing Together program which the Laws began about eight years ago. Since the inception of Kids and Trees Growing Together, five-year-old students from many local schools have had the opportunity to plant a tree, care for it and harvest it for the holidays once the plant matured. It was hoped that more local schools would continue to participate, but to date that has not occurred. Lacking time to invest in growing the program further, The Laws began to search for an organization that would accept the gift of their land and carry on their goals of forestry and agricultural education After a great deal of collaboration, on June 30, the couple met with Steve Hobart, chairman of the district's board of directors, and Gordon Moore and Felix Blinn, district supervisors at the PCSWCD office in Pine Crest Business Park in Dover-Foxcroft to sign over the deed of their family lot to the district, for community use. The group discussed the educational potential of the land and district officials expressed gratitude to the Laws. Gordon Moore, district board member and forester of the Maine Forest Service says “The Maine Forest Service encourages it's foresters to be involved with the district's, like I am, in an effort to enhance situations like this. The forestry best management practices for water quality will be incorporated into the management plan for the property and administered under the watchful eye and helpful expertise of forestry professionals.” PCSWCD is planning to pass along a piece of history by illuminating a forested land that has been worked for many years by generations of the Law family. The district also has plans to create walking trails that wind through wildlife habitat for recreational enjoyment and many other hands-on educational opportunities lead by knowledgeable natural resource professionals. PCSWCD is in hopes that the local school districts will become involved in the management planning process, with students assisting in planting, pruning, trail making and natural science related structuring of the land. “This donation by the Laws was very generous, and the property will hopefully become a beehive of activity,” said Hobart. “This is a good fit for us, because the PCSWCD's mission is to be a leader in agriculture, forestry and other natural resource education, providing assistance and coordination of resources and information to promote practices that maintain our way of life in rural Piscataquis County.”
The Dexter Meals for ME dining room is located in the Dexter Town Hall Senior Center on Hall Street (across from the Abbott Memorial Library).  Have a Club, Church, Town and/or other Event??? Add your UPCOMING EVENT free of charge! Email Editor@TheDailyME.com Note: this is NOT the safest possible route to take, but it is a good service and much better than never running a virus check. To check your computer, go to housecall.antivirus.com Many people think that if they have a virus program on their system they are safe, BUT you are only as safe as your latest update. Yes, you do have to update your virus program frequently. (I do it everyday!) Download a FREE virus program that works well at www.grisoft.com The Daily ME is on-line only, non-profit newspaper and a one-woman operation with the help of contributing writers and photographers. If you would like to contribute to The Daily Me, we welcome press releases, contributing editor's young and old. Send your Upcoming local events, news, Town reports, club news, school news or other items that you have in mind. If you have pictures you would like to share with friends and relatives far and near, please contact The Daily Me. We encourage feedback and suggestions from our readers. I hope that The Daily ME gives you information that keeps you in touch with home! 
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