[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] The meeting is from last month's meeting on July 8th.
[15:00] And it would be a way to get people interested in coming to the resource fair, even if they've been in the past because there's something new and different to do. So, anyway, so I threw that idea out and they like the idea and I believe they are going to go forward with it, at least as of last month. I attended their meeting and they're working on it right now. They have another meeting coming up this Friday, which I will be attending.
[15:28] and so I hope to help them fine tune in the details of executing this great plan.
[15:37] But if all goes to plan T's for their category in jeopardy,
[15:43] and that includes us because we are going to attend community resource fair.
[15:47] So it is incumbent on us to come up with questions.
[15:50] So I can certainly like come up with a bunch of questions on my own,
[15:53] but I would prefer if you guys could come up with a question.
[15:57] At least five, I don't know if we'll have double jeopardy, double jeopardy doesn't have a question, but I think like different people will be like cycling through, so we'll need like a bunch of questions because it wouldn't happen in one time.
[16:13] Still like one, two, three, six different departments?
[16:17] Yes.
[16:18] In each one we have five questions.
[16:20] And I'd be like, 30 questions.
[16:23] Right.
[16:24] But like, I'm just like viewing this as like a head-to-head,
[16:29] like one person versus another person.
[16:31] And they just like run the board, you know?
[16:33] And then like another couple of people step up,
[16:36] something like that.
[16:37] Anyway, I just thought we should come up with a bunch
[16:39] of questions and have them ready to go.
[16:59] How much money has the conservation commission raised in their community action grant?
[17:09] Because it is a lot of money.
[17:12] And I think people realize that.
[17:15] Are we assuming people will know the answers?
[17:18] Or the idea is to have these questions.
[17:21] I think we should phrase them in a way
[17:22] that it's possible for an above average engaged person
[17:29] to be able to get involved.
[17:30] Because I'm not sure.
[17:32] Is there anybody here that could talk to you?
[17:36] five dollars a billion six dollars and then whatever the actual figure is
[17:44] and it's a hundred and twenty five dollars and that's it's over a hundred dollars.
[17:52] Or it could be something like what was the money spent on?
[17:58] Well, I mean, it could be how long has the Conservation Commission been doing water
[18:05] testing?
[18:06] Yeah, yeah.
[18:06] That's cool.
[18:07] I might have had to, you know, plunge pawn or been doing the school thing, you know, test
[18:13] or kids.
[18:14] I'm in rail too.
[18:15] How long have we been doing that?
[18:17] Or, like, what water testing program has been, you know, it's been in the last 20 years,
[18:26] you know.
[18:26] Yeah, but that type of line question, you know, it's been 20 years. So I'm spring. Yeah, so I'm
[18:35] Suggesting that you guys just email me. Okay, I will collate them and
[18:39] I meant to look this up before the meeting. I think we will meet before the community resource fair
[18:47] There was a question that I had because
[18:51] You had said the 12th, but in the
[18:54] So I quarterly it said the fit but that didn't make sense because that's yeah oh did it say that in the quarterly?
[19:11] I think it's supposed to be the 12.
[19:14] Well it doesn't make sense because that's the way we can.
[19:19] If they want to get more people, that's not going to be
[19:29] under a calendar on the bad page.
[19:34] Good idea.
[19:35] Or it's still right.
[19:38] Nope.
[19:40] It's not.
[19:40] Is that out of the calendar?
[19:42] No.
[19:44] I can't remember.
[19:45] It says mark your calendar for Saturday, September 5th, when healthy aging in the morning will hold their annual resource fair.
[19:54] I have both dates in my calendar for some reason.
[19:58] I wonder if they changed it.
[20:01] Well, email iris and links and everybody.
[20:07] Yeah, well, at least that I'm going to their meeting this Friday.
[20:10] Oh, okay.
[20:11] Sort it out.
[20:11] But one way or another, before that happens, we should gather up some questions that can be used.
[20:19] Yeah, let us know.
[20:21] So I'm going to ask Carter.
[20:23] And for those of you who are not intimately familiar with jeopardy, the questions go from
[20:28] easy to hard. So try and come up with some easy ones and, you know, harder ones. All
[20:34] right, moving on. We have the coastal cleanup coming up in September, so there's going to be
[20:41] a very busy month.
[20:43] Some of you were not at the meeting last week, but just a recap. Oh, I have
[20:49] I have visual aids. Where did I put it?
[20:51] Okay.
[20:52] So first order of business.
[20:56] Madison, I'm here to do a poster.
[20:58] And it's beautiful.
[21:00] So I was going to send this around.
[21:04] And if you guys are happy with it,
[21:05] I'm going to just put it up on the Bulletin Board tonight.
[21:07] If you have changes that you think should be made to it,
[21:10] this is your chance to make those suggestions.
[21:14] and so the idea that we came up with last meeting was that we would, we wanted to invite the public to participate but without going through the whole rigmarole of organized crews necessarily so we thought we would invite people to do their own individual cleanup and give them information to access the data entry form.
[21:44] online and that we should like accept all of the data entry forms that kind of tabulate
[21:50] them for the town to kind of so it feels a little bit collective but it's not the you know
[21:57] hassle of coordinating with the group and all that stuff. So everybody okay with this?
[22:06] So that was the idea behind contact this person to get information about
[22:13] doing a cleanup or it seemed like we should leave the option open. If you want to
[22:19] join a crew you can. So I have an organized cleanup submitted through the
[22:26] States website and Sabrina does also. I'm going to do the skillings river on
[22:34] September 19th and Sabrina's crew is going to do Jordan River on the 16th and so
[22:41] So those will be at low tide, on foot, on the shore.
[22:46] So if people contact me through the poster, which will also be posted on the Facebook
[22:53] page, town website, email, if they want to join a crew, those two cleanup days are options,
[23:01] otherwise I will give them the information about how to access the form and do an individual
[23:08] cleanup.
[23:10] I have also offered the opportunity for you guys, my colleagues, to join me with a water-based
[23:18] cleanup via kayak if you're interested, and I believe Madison, and did you also want to
[23:24] do that? Okay, well you don't have to. I just couldn't remember. Terry did respond also that she
[23:31] want to do so. So I figured out which days have extra high tide.
[23:36] Oh it's high tide. I'm done. It was a pretty nice paddling, not heavy current.
[23:43] Yeah, the partridge co-variant is pretty protected so it's not like, you know,
[23:47] it's going to get wet in the head.
[23:52] So that's the plan for the coast of cleanup.
[23:56] any questions? I was going to, if there were any changes to the poster, go ahead and post
[24:04] this on the town Facebook page now and then do a cut of a reminder post later on. Any
[24:13] other suggestions or discussion about that?
[24:16] All right, next item is planning for Get Wet, which also is coming up in September
[24:26] at the busy month.
[24:27] You've got the Blence Pond visit on the 14th and then the titration of the school in
[24:33] the 15th.
[24:34] Yep.
[24:35] Yep.
[24:35] And it sounded like you had enough volunteers lined up last time, so everything good to go?
[24:41] If I needed you, could you help?
[24:43] Yes.
[24:47] Oh,
[24:52] I'm sorry, I can't, my lovely husband has decided to take the family on a small trip down
[24:58] the street board, so I will talk about that for a few days.
[25:02] That family?
[25:02] Yes.
[25:07] We'll be okay, we'll be okay, unless we've had a slew of kids come in, it's only 14, so it's
[25:16] Me, Lisa, and Claire, and, of course, Tara will be there.
[25:25] So we'll be okay.
[25:27] I'll be Jeff and I used to do it just the two of us.
[25:30] Wait a second.
[25:31] What?
[25:31] I will be available in the 20 seconds.
[25:33] Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
[25:34] Okay.
[25:36] So everything sounds like it's pretty well in hand, but it might be.
[25:42] And I am going to email Dawn to see if I can come in next week, sometimes to get all the materials.
[25:54] Because I think I did look it up.
[25:58] I think they start the following week.
[26:01] Hard to believe.
[26:03] The weeks.
[26:04] Yeah, time flies.
[26:05] Yeah, okay, then let's move on to the Simon Tree ID walk, which is on set up for 20 seconds.
[26:17] I did hear Terry can help me with that, and so congenit McMullen, I think we're okay.
[26:24] I have one, two, three.
[26:32] What if anybody?
[26:32] Two groups, isn't it?
[26:34] It's 14, so again, I think we'll do three groups.
[26:38] Actually, if we did two groups, that's a great idea where I think we'll do two groups.
[26:46] Seven kids aren't too many.
[26:47] We have three adults per group.
[26:50] Thank you.
[26:52] Thank you.
[26:53] Thank you.
[27:02] Yeah.
[27:03] So let her say, should we?
[27:06] All right.
[27:07] Moving on to Mayer's monarch pledge.
[27:10] I don't have much to report this time.
[27:13] Other than after a slow start, the monarch population has seemed to be building.
[27:18] in our pollinator gardens. I didn't look on my way in, but last time I was here there were plenty of
[27:23] caterpillars over in the milkweed in the side yard, and the front planting beds look beautiful.
[27:29] As always, thanks to Iris Simon and Joanne Dodge. And everybody's super happy with the new hose,
[27:36] so thank you all for approving that expenditure.
[27:41] And the school garden is hanging over there.
[27:45] I mean I hardly watered it and just my little cooler water trying to keep the youngsters
[27:51] that they're and I planted at the beginning of the season alive but they're most of them
[27:56] a lot of them are surviving and the weeds are not going crazy so things are moving along.
[28:02] Moves is good. Yep. Moves is good. I wanted to ask you the white flowers against the building of those
[28:08] flocks, the white flowers, when we go out I can ask it because my flocks it's not doing
[28:17] just it was so dry and I didn't water it like the ship.
[28:23] I know they're getting watered at least once a week because when I drive by I see.
[28:27] Oh yeah.
[28:32] I was texted me yesterday, she said, how much rain did you get up there and do you think
[28:39] I need to water?
[28:41] Yes, I was.
[28:42] You need to water.
[28:45] That one was so sketchy, the one you have to water.
[28:48] Yesterday, I thought we were going to have tremendous amount, I mean it was great.
[28:53] Some places did, but some places didn't.
[28:55] And that's the, it avoids us, it's just a, I was on, I was on, I was on salt very cold
[29:03] technically and Melinda wrote text me, did you just get the ray?
[29:09] Nope.
[29:09] Didn't get nothing.
[29:10] Didn't get anything.
[29:11] Yeah.
[29:12] That's summer.
[29:13] And I mean, by the water, that's only three miles, not even three miles away.
[29:19] Looking at the radar, radar radar, it was really to the east of it in the eye.
[29:27] Yes
[29:29] No, it's dry. This could be happening. In fact Saturday morning when it rained I literally had tears in my eyes
[29:44] What is that stuff?
[29:47] Okay, so not much else to say on Mirrors Monarch Lodge the next item on the pollinator theme
[30:30] That's great. So I look forward to seeing it out there on the south side of the lawn. Oh my God, that's a little great. Oh, what do you call the, the burned, um, etching, uh, electrified one. Oh, okay. Oh, I thought she was going to do that. I don't think she has the electrify and. Well, Madison, Madison said, oh, maybe Madison, I didn't know that. I said she had.
[30:59] I don't know when she finds time to do this girl, I mean she's doing like two, she's working
[31:11] her full shift and she's picking up at least two weddings a week, but she said she likes
[31:19] the weddings, but that's true, but she said it's just so nice, oh it's so nice it's so different
[31:26] but it's it's a lot of work. But she does go straight from that right to
[31:33] yeah regular night. So when she gets there at 10 o'clock in the morning she's
[31:38] there until 10 o'clock at night.
[31:42] And it's hard work. Oh yeah. She's done it. I mean I
[31:47] don't want to say she's done it for so long. You build up that memory muscle memory
[31:52] everything and we're memory thing but still
[31:57] okay so adopt a highway anything to
[32:02] report Claire I'll be sending out emails and
[32:07] wood burning right what it's called
[32:11] wood burning yeah yeah which would burn but there's the old fashioned wood
[32:17] burning where you take the pen type thing and he's off and go some rights and
[32:23] stuff like that, as opposed to where you put a electrode on one side and the
[32:27] electrode the other and you send 10,000 or 60,000 volts up, throw it, and
[32:34] then you spray a little water on it to make it chase it. It's
[32:42] kind of dangerous.
[32:43] I was going to say that's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying.
[32:48] They take the original stat, which is micro wave transformers.
[32:57] People take it
[32:57] microwave transformers out of the microwaves and the news of them because they're so high
[33:01] current.
[33:02] So high voltage.
[33:04] It's a high voltage.
[33:08] So you can keep low current.
[33:10] But
[33:15] yeah.
[33:16] Right.
[33:23] It's a long time ago.
[33:25] Yes.
[33:26] Yep.
[33:27] Even for me.
[33:29] All right.
[33:30] Well, I don't have anything else on the agenda.
[33:32] Does anyone have anything new to bring to the group?
[33:35] This is just a fun fact.
[33:39] Carol Duffy emailed Iris and I that would want to talk last Monday, Tom Wessels, the
[33:48] Tawdard Antiochist far through the challenges, and so we went to this talk, which was terrific.
[33:58] And one of the things he told us, and we're going to tell the kids at the Shrewaw, Gray Squirrels
[34:07] And when they see an acorn, they pick it up and they shake it because if you look at an
[34:14] acorn and it has a hole, it's probably because an acorn weevil has gone in.
[34:24] And they don't know how or why, and I Google this too, they don't know if they're hearing
[34:29] the nut shaking and the weevil or the smell and whatever and what he said was they
[34:37] will eat the acorn right then and there because it will rot, they won't bury it for the
[34:54] But he's not that fascinating, he knows, and he's going to be, he now lives locally in Blue
[35:02] Hill, and he's giving a talk at Woodland, August 29th at 9 o'clock, so if you want to
[35:08] go, you can sign up for whatever. I make up. And what he does is he, when my son read a book
[35:14] that he wrote, he's written like six books on stone walls and new England. Oh, that's
[35:21] I haven't read it. I've heard about it. That's one of his expertise. But then he also does,
[35:28] he goes through the woods, like if there were woods behind my house, if there were farms,
[35:36] he could tell from the way the trees are growing that it was a farm or, you know, it was a great job.
[35:43] Now I can tell the difference between the property lines, between us and what is now Gordon Donald's property.
[35:49] Yeah, yeah, and in the in the spring I can tell right behind my house where there was once a path. Yep
[35:59] So he does that kind of stuff. Interesting. I love that squirrel thing and I think that kids will like it, too
[36:06] I think we'll do that at the very beginning rather than when we do the groups when we have them all together
[36:17] what about them? I've seen them. My 22 loves. Oh yeah. But my son, my son. You must
[36:37] So far I grew up in the house this year, and there's two more on my brother just told me.
[36:46] We used low caliber on my public, we didn't go on up there with my 30-30, it might be a little
[36:56] that's it. So does anybody know how how many black walnut trees are in the state of
[37:05] me? I heard that on the radio. Oh, did you? I haven't. Oh, I don't remember. Oh, I
[37:10] don't know about one in our town for sure. They were talking because it's not that
[37:15] many. And what was so funny is the only ones I've ever saw was on my grandmother in
[37:21] laws, property, and providence wrote out, and they were about, you know, a big
[37:26] around. And those are the only two I've ever saw. So I'm already in
[37:31] Gullsboro working, and I pull in, and I want to pack in the shade so I pull
[37:36] up next to a tree, and I look out, and here's this tree with these nuts on it.
[37:41] I'm looking at it. Well, they look kind of like a immature kiwi kind of tree,
[37:58] So you can get this 40 below kiwi up there so you can grow kiwi but they grow in a big
[38:05] head.
[38:05] They grow like grapes kind of.
[38:08] So I'm just, what the heck is he going to be stoned?
[38:13] So about two hours later, the homeowner comes up because she was going to go to work somewhere.
[38:19] What kind of tree is this?
[38:21] I don't know, I'd been here for three years, just bought the police three years ago, and I don't have a foggiest idea.
[38:28] But my phone does, I might as well ask it right now.
[38:32] Sir, Siri, what kind of tree is this that she posted up there?
[38:36] And it came back, it was a black walnut tree.
[38:38] Yeah, surprise you didn't notice I'll be walnuts on the ground.
[38:45] There wasn't any yet.
[38:47] The problem is, is the squirrels get them so fat.
[38:50] They'd pull them right off the tree before they really fall on the ground.
[38:54] So I went, um, so I said, um,
[38:58] Well, yeah, I've got a chestnut.
[39:00] I know chestnut trees.
[39:01] I've got a big horse.
[39:03] Why is not a true hook chestnut, though?
[39:05] It's a hush chestnut.
[39:07] It's not a true, there's areas that are different.
[39:09] There's five down on the Harris property chestnut trees.
[39:13] Two of them are fruit and ones,
[39:15] and the other and the other three are young and that haven't started yet but so like the last day
[39:24] where I was there I got you tell me towards the end of August these things just disappear and would
[39:31] you mind if I'm driving down by goalsboro can I stop it and grab a bunch of these so I can try to
[39:37] grow them because I want an order I've been wanting the order black a couple black one to get growing
[39:42] up without and it's gigantic so it's old no this one's fairly young it's I bet this one is
[39:53] it's only about that bigger round that's how big the one is but it she hasn't I didn't see it until
[39:58] a couple days later I saw another one down just around the corner from that's why it's fruit
[40:03] yeah because it's tall because I went I've got looking up into it now you get to have a couple
[40:11] Yeah, so that was fruit or it will just grow as a tree, but I just thought it was going to fly.
[40:17] I had never seen a young one so say, with the fruit right in front of your face ever.
[40:24] Wow, that's great, they're very common in the South.
[40:27] Yeah, they're very common in the South, but they're, I didn't think they were very common in
[40:32] being.
[40:33] I haven't worked back where our beach trees are, they were dying a lot because I don't
[40:41] always get a few beach nuts and take them on the walk and show kids.
[40:50] No, for sure.
[40:51] No, my Norway maple, my invasive Norway maple, that gigantic tree, and it's invasive so there's
[41:01] the leaves, just this week, are starting to curl up even green.
[41:06] A lot of things are green.
[41:08] What I've noticed is one of the storms of heavy wind,
[41:12] storm that we had a couple weeks ago.
[41:15] It was breaking poppels off at about eight feet high
[41:17] and the poppels trees were just snapping at half.
[41:21] Young ones that were about ten inches in diameter,
[41:25] all over the place.
[41:26] Where were you that day?
[41:27] I don't remember. Because handcuffs had a lot of big trees that came down.
[41:34] It was, I just noticed it. All of a sudden I seemed driving around on the side of the
[41:38] road. All these popples just popped, spooked 10-12 feet off the ground. They just snapped
[41:42] off and land on the ground. Now it was something recently and I, it's not going to be any
[41:47] wind. I've started noticing maples are losing, not leaves, limbs, big limbs that are coming
[41:56] off the side they just fallen down breaking off maples we've had seven on the property down the
[42:01] Harris's so you know I've seen it every other place it's like are they are they like today of
[42:09] the big wind I call it the day of the big thing I came home with 130 of this windy and that tree
[42:16] I opened the door and a big wind fell down but I noticed that limb was already dead but leaves were
[42:22] still on the limb. Yep. That's what I was thinking. I don't know what it was. It's becoming
[42:27] very weird. Look at that. Strip those. Like very weird gear on trees. Well, it's fine.
[42:34] We can't have drought weather. For this long. And year after year after year. Yeah. The trees
[42:41] are really stressed. My peach tree died. But then I heard. Did it really die or just not?
[42:50] No, no, we died.
[42:52] But I heard they only last about ten years in May, and that one was about ten years
[42:57] old.
[42:57] Well, the olives up here at the time, I was at like six, and then they would only grow fruit
[43:03] every other year.
[43:05] And then now they just died after a certain time.
[43:09] And last year there were, I think there were two peaches, Jensen and I shared.
[43:13] No.
[43:14] No.
[43:17] And it just didn't.
[43:20] But like I said, like you said, the maples, this is weird and it's not that they're changing
[43:28] color.
[43:29] Nope.
[43:29] They're just normal.
[43:30] Yep.
[43:31] It is weird.
[43:34] But I think, like you said, I think it's the drought is starting to, molecularly, somehow
[43:40] changing somethings and they just can't hold the weight on some of these larger limbs
[43:45] that are growing off the side that they just will come down after done.
[43:49] that's what I think. I'm seeing it a lot more and I know I've never used it.
[43:56] No, the drought would make those nests. The drought would make those nests fall.
[44:00] Yeah, it could. Yeah, they're not getting enough water.
[44:03] No, and
[44:14] how do you try to survive?
[44:16] The most
[44:23] depressing of it is the impacts of the drought.
[44:26] All right, well we can adjourn at 715. Thank you always always.