May 2017
April 2013 masthead

Reserve Your Tickets Now for  
Paint for Preservation  Wet Paint Auction

 
Tickets are now available for CELT's 10th annual Paint for Preservation auction fundraiser on Sunday, July 9th.  Widely recognized as one of Maine's premiere art auctions, and CELT's biggest fundraiser, proceeds benefit the stewardship and permanent conservation of the shore lands and marshes, farmlands and woodlands that surround us. Please j oin us for what promises to be a beautiful evening, celebrating both human and natural artistry! Tickets are limited and reservations are required. Get yours before they're gone, either by visiting  our website or by  calling our office at 767-6054

Thirty accomplished and award-winning artists have been selected from a highly competitive field by a jury including Kelley Lehr and John Danos, new owners of Greenhut Galleries, and gallery founder Peggy Greenhut Golden. This year's slate is a mix of returning and new artists, from Maine and beyond: Joshua Adam, Jacalyn Beam, MJ Benson, Paul Bonneau, Catherine Breer, Ken DeWaard, Marsha H. Donahue, Cooper Dragonette, Erin McGee Ferrell, Margaret Gerding, Roy Germon, Lindsay Hancock, Alison Hill, Jill Hoy, Marguerite Lawler, Janet Ledoux, Nathaniel Meyer, Caren-Marie Michel, Colin Page, Edgar Reims, Matthew Russ, John Santoro, Lou Schellenberg, Caleb Stone, Janet Sutherland, Judy Taylor, Emily Trenholm, Michael E. Vermette, Graham Wood and Peter Yesis. View some of the artists' previous work  on our website .

Become a Member - or Renew - Before August 31st 
and Receive a $10 Farm Coupon  

New and renewing CELT members who join or renew between May 1st and August 31st, will receive a $10 gift coupon redeemable at local farm stands including: Alewive's Brook Farm, Fox Run Farm, Maxwell's Farm, Wm. H. Jordan Farm, and Green Spark Farm.  

We're excited to partner with the  Cape Farm Alliance on this delicious initiative again this year.  It's a terrific way to support both your land trust and your local farmers. Visit our website to join CELT or to renew your membership.

What's Happening with Those Trash Bags 
Around the CELT Office?

When you visit the CELT office between now and May 25th, you may notice trash bags decorating the trees and shrubs around the building. They're part of an experiment we're doing with the 2 nd grade to demonstrate the relationship between plant growth and light. 

Veteran teacher Julie Robbins reached out to Education Coordinator Linden Rayton last fall for help expanding their lesson unit on plants and incorporating new 
Next Generation Science Standards for Experimentation.

Linden and volunteers Beth Owens and Frances Derby visited classrooms to explore key concepts of experimentation, such as the words "hypothesis" and "control." Students came the next week to set up their experiments. With the help of these volunteers, their teachers, and many able parent volunteers (thank you, all!), each group measured the lengths of leaves on their experimental and control branches. They took "before" pictures with their iPads so they could compare the "after" color as well. They then bagged up the experimental branch. 

When they come back during the week of May 22nd, we'll see what's happened! 

Special Events We're Hosting this Spring - Join Us!

Little Explorers
May 25th, 9 - 10 a.m.
Join Lisa Gent on a gentle hike through Robinson Woods to search for birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and plant life. Lots of hands-on exploration and games included! 

Medicinal Herb Walk
May 30th, 6:30 - 8 p.m.
Mischa Schuler, owner of Wild Carrot Herbs, will guide a walk through Robinson Woods, to see the plants reawaken to spring. Our evening will be rich with herbal folklore. 

National Trails Day Cross-Town Walk
June 3rd, 8 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
CELT's Executive Director Cindy Krum, Jeremy Gabrielson from the town Conservation Committee, and past CELT board president Kathleen Janick, will lead us on the annual Spring Cross-Town Walk. Beginning at Fort Williams, we'll traverse seven miles of trails, highlighting Cape's diverse ecosystems, including Spurwink Marsh, Robinson Woods and Great Pond. The walk takes approximately three and one half hours and includes a picnic lunch provided by CELT at Kettle Cove. 

Good Night Cape Elizabeth: Butterflies
June 8th, 6 - 7 p.m.
Children ages 2-6 (with an adult) are invited to the CELT office to enjoy a bedtime hour about butterflies and their habitat in Maine. Join Children's Librarian Rachel Davis, author Melissa Kim and CELT volunteer Jill Darling for stories, a craft, and a brief visit outdoors to see what animal signs we might find. Come in your pajamas, and bring a snack! (Parents or guardians must be present.)

Please visit the events page on our website for more details and to register

CELT Grants Help Bring Nature Into the Classroom

Each year, CELT awards "mini-grants" to Cape teachers in support of environmental education in their classrooms. These grants are available to teachers at all grade levels for classroom materials, professional training, subscriptions and field trips. 

We're pleased to be awarding four mini-grants to Pond Cove Elementary School teachers this spring. These grants will allow:
  • the 1st grade to experience the Chewonki Tidepools traveling display, dipping their hands into the three zones of Maine's rocky intertidal ecosystem and touching some of the ocean's most magnificent species;
  • the 2nd grade to experience the Chewonki Biomes program, exploring three of the major biomes: forests, rain forests, and deserts;
  • the 4th grade to purchase a set of "Kids Discover - Ecology" magazines;
  • the school to purchase a full set of author Melissa Kim's books, written in partnership with Maine Audubon: A Snowy Owl Story, A Little Brown Bat Story, A Blanding's Turtle Story, and A Monarch Butterfly Story. All are based on real-life experiences and feature beautiful illustrations. They also serve as the inspirations for CELT's popular "Good Night, Cape Elizabeth" programs, and we agree they are great!
From grant funding provided to CELT, we're able to re-grant up to $4,000 annually. It's wonderful to support our schools in this way. These mini-grants are open to teachers from any Cape school, and you can find the short application on our Education page . 

PBS Highlights Maine Land Trusts This Month

Have you heard the buzz? There's a new documentary by Maine videographer Mark Ireland featuring four outstanding Maine land trusts. "Community Conservation: Finding the Balance Between Nature and Culture," was shot throughout four seasons, profiling four active land trusts, in different regions
of Maine: coastal, inland, western mountains and downeast.  Like CELT, each land trust featured works closely with their community to provide multi-purpose access to conserved lands. 

The beauty of Maine, from coast to mountains, farmland to deep forests, is richly captured in this documentary. Hikers, kayakers, immigrant farmers, kids, fishing guides, balsam tree-tippers, canoe-builders and more, tell the stories of local communities finding balance with nature. Mark your calendars for Thursday, May 25th, at 10 p.m., or Saturday, May 27th, at 11 a.m.,  and tell your friends and neighbors about this wonderful exploration into the fine work these organizations are doing to conserve Maine's wild places, protecting habitat for wildlife while making Maine an amazing place to live, work, exercise and have fun. 

CELT Joins Celebrations of Fun and Strawberries in June

Come see CELT at Cape's Family Fun Day June 17th and at the Strawberry Fest June 24th! 

Held at Fort Williams each year, Family Fun Day is filled with lots of games, great food, and music.  The Cape Farm Alliance's annual Strawberry Festival is also a wonderful celebration of local food, farming, art, music and more, at Maxwell's fields on Two Lights Rd. 

Children will enjoy nature-focused activities at our booth, while you buy your Paint for Preservation tickets and chat with our volunteers about how you and your family can make the most of our preserves and programming. We look forward to seeing you!

Thank You Kerry Kertes for Creating a New Teaching Tool

A large number of rock specimens, which were temporarily housed at CELT, are finding a new home in our schools, thanks to Kerry Kertes. Kertes is a well-known, long-time teacher and coach in Cape, who
Realgar
recently returned from a 4-year visit to China. Along with some help from his wife Kathleen, he has already spent close to 20 hours researching, classifying and labeling the 200 rocks, which were given to CELT by George Ford and the family of Shelton Smith. Some of the specimens are from Maine and other states; some were collected during the donors' travels around the world.

Kertes taught physical sciences and coached in Cape Elizabeth schools for 17 years, but also worked as an exploration geologist for major oil companies. He notes he is, "still an avid rock hound. I was tempted to see what the rock donations were and where it would lead. Now that the identification is completed, I'm in the next stage of detailing the collection.  The
Malachite and Azurite
plan is to take pictures of all the specimens, log them and create photo books and a little background on the minerals so when loaned out, the collection will stay intact and be 
informative."

Kerte s a ntic ipates sharing it with several grade levels. "Younger st udents will be wowed with the meteorites, fossil bones and aquatic life," he predicts, "and the colorful crystals such as amethyst, silver and gold. Older students can start seeing differences in mineral content, color associations and the more detailed chemical studies. The high school students can test for hardness, density, crystallography and other important crystal identification procedures."

We're extremely grateful for Kertes's generous donation of his time and expertise in turning this collection into a valuable teaching tool, which he expects can be shared with other schools as well as benefitting Cape students. 

Naturalist's Corner:  
Season of the Wildflowers

As you walk through the woods now, the leaf litter on the forest floor is hardly visible in places for all of the greenery pushing through. Most of this greenery is wildflowers, and over the next month they'll provide an incredible display of growth, beauty and seasonal timing. Right now, the overhead leaf canopy has not grown in yet, and plenty of sunlight is reaching the forest floor. The sunlight provides the energy necessary for these plants to germinate, grow, flower, get pollinated and produce seed - all in a matter of weeks! Here are three of the common Lily family wildflowers you'll see growing right now.

Canada Mayflower,  Maianthemum canadense  
("False Lily of the Valley") 
This is a low plant that covers the forest floor with its one or two shiny oval leaves, before its cluster of small white flowers blooms, topping out at 6". It is spread by rhizomes, root-like growing structures that spread underground. 

Trout Lily,  Erythronium umbilicatum ("Dimpled Trout Lily")
The mottled green-and-purple leaves of this flower are distinctive, as is its yellow flower. There are two leaves per plant, and they're usually 4-10 inches high. The whimsical flowers have the shape of a flared yellow skirt and each  flower also has noticeable purple-brown stamens where the pollen is located.

Clintonia Clintonia borealis
("Bluebead")
The Clintonia growing right now are less obvious than the flowers profiled above, but will be obvious when they attain their full 1-foot height. Right now, they're a gently curled shoot of several green-purple leaves just starting to spread. Eventually, they'll have a long stalk topped by several nodding yellow lilies that will produce blue, bead-like fruits. At the base of each stalk will be a group of 3-5 large, spreading oval leaves.      
                                                 -   Linden Rayton, Education Coordinator 
From Our  Executive  Director...

CELT Stewardship: Caring for our Lands

As we all welcome the new growth of spring, here at CELT we start making plans for stewarding (caring for) our conserved properties. From pruning bushes on the sides of trails and removing downed trees, to monitoring the borders of all of our preserves and creating management plans for new 
properties, there is always something to keep us busy. The great news is we have a lot of help from a very active volunteer Stewardship Committee as well as others in the community!

From May 30th to June 1st all Cape Elizabeth eighth graders will join us on a work project to create new boardwalks and trails at our recently acquired property, Great Pond Preserve II. Because of the extensive wetlands on the property, we have received a Resource Protection Permit from the town of Cape Elizabeth as well as a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection. Town Conservation Committee members have assisted with planning trail location and linkage to one of their abutting easement properties. The new trails should be ready for use by summer.  

From mid-June to mid-August, Aiden Black, a student at Colby College, will join us as a full-time stewardship intern. His position is funded through a grant from the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. We look forward to Aiden's help with mapping, signage and trail maintenance! 

As you enjoy the trails this spring and summer, please let us know if you see any work that needs to be done - and if you want to help, we can always use another set of hands! Join us by calling 767-6054 or emailing, patty@capelandtrust.org.

Cindy Krum
CELT Executive Director
Cape Elizabeth Land Trust


Cape Elizabeth Land Trust | 330 Ocean House Road | Cape Elizabeth | ME | 04107