The Wrack

The top 20 images from the 44th annual Nikon Small World photomicrography competition will hang in the Maine Coastal Ecology Center through mid July 2021.

A workshop about how to teach taught me about art. Block printing gave this naturalist a new way to see nature. 

To celebrate 2018's Year of the Bird, a new slideshow of beautiful and ingenious bird photos by the late Tony King plays in our Visitor Center all summer long

Can the Wells Reserve offer an antidote to the poison of war?

How can small little bits persist or have any effect?

Bad things can happen when we don't pay attention to what's happening in the world around us. Is there a good way to snap attention back to nature?

This week, July 20-24, Artist-in-Residence David Allen of Stone Point Studio will be creating various works of art throughout the Wells Reserve, as well as giving demonstrations and tutorials on stone balance and arch building.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 12/7/2014.

My family likes to takes walks, particularly in the fall and winter. Given the calories we’re consuming lately, and the long nights given over to reading and TV, we’re trying to grab every opportunity we can to stretch our legs and lungs outside.

While golf may be a great way to spoil a long walk, as the saying goes, fortunately there’s nothing like the scientific method to enhance a little wander through the woods. Proposing, testing, and analyzing hypotheses prevents hypothermia by keeping the brain warm, I tell my wife and kids. They roll their eyes… but then we find something to examine.

We enjoyed a fantastic 26th crafts festival. Take a look at these stats:

• 2nd largest attendance this century (~3,500)
• most crafters ever (109)
• largest gross profit ever (maybe net profit too — we're still counting)
• oodles of member renewals, new members, and rejoining-after-many-years members
• 219 high-fiving volunteers
• 30 businesses donating goods
• 104 raffle items donated, valued at $8,324

We tried something new this year — awarding three People's Choice awards based on the number of raffle tickets entered into each donated piece's box.

Congratulations to these inaugural winners:

Pumpkins and apples, those celebrated autumn fruits, have always been featured at Punkinfiddle. This year, a 900-pound pumpkin got two facelifts from Mr. Auger and his assistant, while four crates of apples went through the grinder and press. Not far away, two culinary carvers cut potatoes, eggplants, squashes, carrots, and other veggies to cook up some pretty silly sculptures.