Coastal Enterprises, Inc. Rural Routes & Ventures Blog

Homebrewed music

Laura Buxbaum — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:24:00 GMT

This weekend there was a welcome break from the seemingly endless rain, just in time for Mother’s Day and my family’s annual spring party. The party was Saturday (conveniently scheduled so that if there was any cleanup still to do the next day, I’d have an out), and the weather was exactly as ordered.

We made five gallons of homebrewed beer and smoked the last of the turkeys we raised last year. I made a salad with early greens from the garden. Friends brought German chocolate cake, cheesecake, salads, crab claws – a delicious abundance. One friend brought a big bag of fiddleheads he’d picked along the – well, I can’t tell you where he picked them; sorry.

The food was tasty, the sunshine welcome, the drink plentiful, the black flies few. But the best part was the music.

Many of our friends are musicians, as are we. When we moved to the midcoast, we worried that it would be hard to meet people and hard to find other musicians to play with. There was no need to worry – we very quickly found ourselves surrounded by music-makers. If you throw a rock in my neighborhood, you’re pretty much guaranteed to hit a fiddle-player. (Not that you should.)

We started playing at three in the afternoon and some of us were still jamming at 11 at night. There’s a special thrill in finding just the right harmony with the voice of a friend – or a stranger – maybe in a song you haven’t heard before. It’s a collective endeavor – taking turns to lead a song, and working out the chords and accompaniment to others’ songs. Like the homebrew, it’s not always smooth or perfect, sometimes it’s a little flat or sharp, but the more you make it, the better it gets.

Politics and access

Laura Buxbaum — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:21:10 GMT

Senator Olympia Snowe’s bombshell announcement Tuesday that she would not run for re-election got me to thinking about politics in Maine and the remarkable access we Mainers have to our elected officials.

I moved here from Massachusetts, where I was involved in community development work for nearly 20 years; I certainly did my share of advocating for programs and resources and made plenty of calls to Congressional and Senate offices. In my former home state, those calls were to faceless staffers who politely recorded my opinions and went on with their daily work. I did know a couple of Congressmen well enough for them to remember who I was (or put up a good pretense), but I never met either of our Senators, nor did I know their staff. Of course, there are plenty of folks in Mass. who enjoy closer relationships and more direct access, but I think for the most part they are engaged in political work day-to-day – they’re part of that world.

Here in Maine, with a delegation of four, it’s commonplace to see our Representatives and Senators on an airplane, at any number of public events, even in the supermarket. And their staffers go out of their way to get to know constituents and representatives of agencies, organizations and businesses. I have Sen. Snowe’s housing staffer on speed dial and in my email contacts, because he’s knowledgeable, accessible, and always willing to listen. All of the members of Maine’s delegation have worked hard at various times for programs important to CEI and our constituents – and when they don’t agree or have concerns, they ask questions and they listen.

I’m a lifelong registered Democrat, but I think that Senator Snowe’s departure is a loss for Maine. I admire her balance, her openness and her courtesy, and it makes me sad to think that partisan gridlock is what drives her out of office. I’m certain, though, that at least here in Maine, our elected representatives – including whoever succeeds Senator Snowe – will maintain their open doors and open minds.

Garden resolutions

Laura Buxbaum — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:55:13 GMT

Another deep pleasure of winter comes when I give myself permission to open the seed catalogues and begin to plan for this year’s garden. I don’t make my New Year’s resolutions on December 31. I set my year’s intentions while taking inventory of last year’s leftover seeds and greedily browsing Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Fedco.

As I consider which seeds to buy, I plan my garden. It will, I resolve, be the best yet. This will be the year that my crop of melons grows large and sweet, and the sweet potatoes fat and plentiful. This year, my careful timing will make the hoop house work to produce greens all winter long. In 2012, I’ll keep excellent records; I’ll test the soil in all the different parts of the garden; I’ll get scientific about compost. I’ll produce a winter’s worth of squash, and I won’t let any of it freeze or rot. There will be a bumper crop of cauliflower, free of green worms and fungus.

I love to thumb through the pages and dream of my perfect garden. It’s a time of such hope and eagerness – long before the battle with the quack grass and the hornworms commences; months before the spores of late blight settle upon the tomatoes; a long season away from the inevitable failures and disappointments. Right now, I contemplate only the certain triumph: the juicy, sustaining and delicious bounty that will feed my family and friends all year long.

A season of snow

Laura Buxbaum — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:50:14 GMT

Just lifting my head after a long bout with a grant proposal, and I look around to find that winter has finally arrived. The Maine winter for me brings great outdoor pleasures, especially downhill skiing.

I spent the long weekend in Rangeley, skiing at Saddleback with my 13-year-old son. There’s a special pleasure in spending time with Jesse right now; who knows how much longer he’ll be willing to hang out with his Mom? As it is, I’ve had to work hard on my skiing skills - and my courage - just to keep up with him. It’s worth it beating my body against the mountain for three days to watch my boy zooming with such confidence and glee ahead of me.

Saddleback for me is one of many special places in Maine. To begin with, of course, Rangeley Lake and the whole mountainous region are spectacular in any season. Looking out over the lakes from anywhere on the mountain offers a broad sweep of land- and skyscape that puts our puniness in perspective. But as a human endeavor, Saddleback is also special – family-owned and unpretentious, the mountain offers every kind of terrain, from the easy, view-studded curves of Hudson Highway, to the terrifying, adrenaline-pumping headwall of Tight Line, to the challenge and beauty of skiing in the tree-studded glades. Saddleback’s owners are conscious of their footprint on the land, and are doing what they can to be green (the warming yurt they added at the base of the Kennebago Steeps a few years ago has composting toilets).

It’s been a tough winter for snow-lovers so far, but flakes were falling this morning and there will be more in the mountains this week. Enough, I hope, to blanket not only the mountain resorts, but also our home hill, the Camden Snow Bowl, just 25 minutes away and offering its own incomparable vista of the Camden Hills and the long, island-punctuated stretch of Penobscot Bay. Some may be longing for the end of winter; I’m hoping for just a little more.

Work and Hope

Sherrie Spaziano — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:31:28 GMT

These are dark days for many. These days the work of CEI and others trying to create jobs, provide housing and health care and save homes, can feel like pushing water uphill. With Congress focused on drastic budget cuts, the Supercommittee stalled, and foreclosure maintaining a steady creep across the housing landscape, it was hard to feel hope this Thanksgiving. It's tempting in the face of these challenges to just crawl into a comfortable hole and wait it out. So I'm moved and inspired by those who are refusing to hibernate through this economic winter. Here are some examples:

The Occupy Wall Street movement, and Occupy Maine. I admire those hardy souls who are camped out in the cold to broadcast their message about economic and political inequities that have brought this country to an unsustainable place. I'm heartened when I see the encampment in Portland - glad to know that activism is alive here, and in Augusta and Bangor. I'm hopeful that the energy generated from this movement can spread and grow in strength until all of us - workers and farmers, politicians and bankers - are moved to work for a change.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and his brainchild, Create Jobs for USA (http://www.createjobsforusa.org/). This initiative, a partnership with the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) provides a way for ordinary people to be part of our economic recovery. "Create Jobs for USA pools donations from Starbuck customers, partners (employees) and concerned citizens into a nationwide fund, held and managed by OFN, for community business lending. Donors who contribute $5 or more will receive a red, white, and blue wristband with the message 'Indivisible.' The wristbands are individually handmade in the U.S.A. and all component materials are manufactured by U.S. suppliers, so the effort is also helping support American manufacturing jobs."
Starbucks seeded the project with a $5 million contribution along with the pooled donations, is being channeled to community development lenders like CEI that invest directly in credit-strapped job-creating businesses. One hundred percent of these funds go directly into loans. I'm wearing my wristband with pride.
The foreclosure prevention counselors here at CEI, who worked with Bank of America to organize customer outreach days this Friday and Saturday (December 2 and 3) in Portland and Bangor, where borrowers facing financial difficulty can get direct, one-to-one assistance (click here for details).
The counselors at CEI and other counseling agencies are overwhelmed daily with a never-ending stream of Mainers in crisis, but they took the time and the initiative to urge Bank of America to come to Maine to resolve homeowners' financial issues in person. We expect as many as 500 participants. For many, this may be their best chance for an affordable loan modification or another solution to their crisis.

For the past couple of weeks, a lyric from Bob Franke's "Thanksgiving Eve" rang in my head: What can you do with your days but work & hope/Let your dreams bind your work to your play. If we can all just keep working and hoping--together--we will get through these dark days. Together, individuals, not-for-profits and mission-minded corporations can put people back to work and help to save their homes. Maybe we can even be part of a movement to create more sustainable economic systems and close the gap between the 1% and the 99%.

Food connections

Laura Buxbaum — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:23:37 GMT

Monday morning at 7 I’m out doing my farm chores – milking the goat, feeding the chickens, ducks and turkeys, in barn boots and pajama pants. On Tuesday I’m in a basement room, cleaned up and in business attire at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., with about 40 other people interested in promoting access to healthy foods for low-income people. We’re talking about financing strategies, the best ways to understand where the need is greatest, the need for supermarkets in some areas and farmers’ markets in others.

Traveling to D.C. makes me feel disconnected. I spent the weekend preserving the last of my fall vegetables – making sauerkraut and kim chee and stowing beets in the cellar – and making goat cheese and sourdough bread. Now I’m in a windowless room shuffling papers and a PowerPoint presentation, having arrived, as Wendell Berry puts it, “By a sustained explosion through the air/Burning the world in fact to rise much higher/Than we should go.” [*]

But the discussion is rich, and really, the connection is clear. CEI is part of a growing movement that views the links between the food we eat, where it is produced and by whom, and human and economic health, as inextricable. We’re lucky that, in this time of shrinking resources, the federal government has set aside some resources to strengthen these connections. I’m lucky to live in Maine, where many people are connected to their food. My friends and neighbors grow vegetables, meat, milk and eggs, or purchase them from farm stands and local Community Supported Agriculture programs. We can and preserve and pickle.

Not everyone is so fortunate, though – certainly in more urban states and in big cities, but even in Maine. According to the US Department of Agriculture, Maine ranks 9th in the nation in “food insecurity” – a measure of how certain residents are of their ability to afford their next meal. We have the highest per-capita use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (better-known as food stamps) in the country. Not everyone has the land, skills or time to plant their own food, and folks with little disposable income may not be able to afford a CSA share or fresh local vegetables from a farmer’s market. The sad truth is that, calorie for calorie, sugar-laden processed food and fast-food French fries are much cheaper than the healthier stuff.

CEI is part of a larger effort to redress the food balance. With a recent award from the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, CEI will be able to invest in small and medium-sized healthy food retail businesses, including groceries, general stores, farmers markets, CSAs and other farm retail businesses. A smaller portion of the award can be used to finance non-retail food businesses that help to connect farms with retail and institutional markets, or help to make healthy, local food affordable to people with low incomes.

Financing, of course, is only a small part of the picture. We need education for consumers and federal and state policies that provide incentives for healthy eating and local production of fresh, healthy foods. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has proposed some of these policies in a recent bill, and CEI will be working to support them. We’re committed to staying in this conversation and in this space. For me, it’s even worth leaving the farm once in awhile to be a small part of this movement.

[*] from A Speech to the Garden Club of America, poem published in The New Yorker; September 29, 2009.

Boldness along the Bold Coast

Steve Cole — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:16:44 GMT

It's an irony of community development that places with the leanest economy can produce the greatest innovation--extreme need equals immense boldness and creativity. An August trip through Washington County, Maine confirmed this principal. Along Rt. 1 in East Machias we noticed balloons, festivities and a newly renovated industrial building with a wind turbine and solar PV panels. We'd stumbled upon a celebration for the Downeast Salmon Federation's new home. Inside this "green" building alongside the East Machias River, endangered Atlantic salmon were being reared for return to these waters, their nascent home. High schoolers from Washington County Academy, just up the hill, were here too. The biology of salmon restoration is now part of their curriculum.

The hatchery also happens to border the Washington County Rail Trail and on this Friday afternoon in high summer, it, too, was humming. Cyclists sped past or pulled into an adjacent and busy convenience store/gas station. Also converging on the trail were ATV enthusiasts carrying tents and coolers, heading off for a weekend's exploration. In this scant acre was renewable energy, fish rearing, habitat restoration, commerce, recreation and ecotourism, one atop another. Who could have expected such a buzz of thinking and doing at a rural crossroads?

In Millinocket

Steve Cole — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:15:00 GMT

When I was last in Millinocket, Maine, it was in the company of two would-be outdoorsmen. There, at the gateway to the Golden Road and Baxter State Park, they stocked up on Swisher Sweets cigars and other North Woods staples before the fruits of civilization got thin. Maine towns on the edge of unbroken forest feel alike to me, there's a frontier quality whether you're in Rangeley,Greenville or Millinocket. You have the comfort of being "in town" mixed with the anticipation of wildlands and adventures they hold. In Millinocket, someone is always moving between these two worlds. The hiker coming off the Appalachian Trail (having started in Georgia in February) heads with quiet elation to the A.T. Lodge to SHOWER!, inhale some real food and crash.

The town itself is in transition between worlds. The mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket are quiet while negotiations are underway, yet again, to find new owners and the return of pulp and paper jobs. Others look for economic opportunity is different directions, banking on sportsmen, tourists, thru-hikers and a Maine Woods National Park to bring a new day to Millinocket. It is hard to know what shape the economic future will take here and impossible not to respect those who stay and improvise--despite the uncertainty--out of love for the place.

Hay que bregar: You have to struggle

Steve Cole — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:59:13 GMT

On the opening page of our website you'll find the heading CEI in the News and beneath it the newspaper story "Hand in Hand Apartments open doors in Milbridge." Coastal Enterprises, Inc. was more than pleased to provide financing to the non profit Mano en Mano for new affordable housing serving farm and fisheries workers in Washington County. The project took longer than expected to be realized. When first announced, it was embraced by some and disparaged by others who claimed it was a subsidy for Hispanics who competed with "native" Mainers for jobs and housing. Community conflict ensured. In time, it was resolved and now Hand in Hand Apartments is renting up with new and native Mainers whose common bond is the work they do and their need for a decent place to live.

Below is an excerpt from a talk by Ian Jaffe, director of Mano en Mano, to high school students. For me, it is an oblique reference to the effort involved in building Hand in Hand Apartments as well as a statement of what it takes to accomplish nearly anything of value.

To become successful leaders, hay que bregar, you have to struggle. You have to understand regulations and follow them (to a point), you have to study things you don't want to study, and you have to form relationships with people you can't stand. When it comes time to change the world, we have to decide when to fight and when to conform--understanding that conformity can be an act of subversion.

A Place to Watch

Steve Cole — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:49:56 GMT

It is fortuitous for Skowhegan, Maine that its Abenaki name literally means "a place to watch." Sitting astride the Kennebec River and with an immense power dam, Skowhegan was clearly a 19th and early 20th century industrial powerhouse. The decades since have been less kind to the town, though it is still blessed with the nearby SAPPI paper mill and New Balance's athletic shoe plant. There for the Maine Downtown Center's annual conference last week, I took the opportunity to get to know Skowhegan a bit. The conference breaks were catered by The Bankery, a newish bakery located in a historic bank building whose breads and pastries are good enough to be stored in safe deposit boxes. Needing a new watch band, I found my way to Russoff Jewelers, in business here since 1907, and offering the kind of friendly, down-to-earth service that customers so appreciate. At the conference lunch, our setting was the brick Masonic hall where we dined at long cloth-covered tables reminiscent of a church supper. But the food served was much more refined and catered by The Maine Meal, a start-up, chef-owned venture doing catering and selling a line of frozen meals with locally sourced ingredients. Maybe some of those tasty vegetables and meats come from Grassland Farm, who sell at Skowhegan's growing farmer's market. And, maybe soon the flour for breads and rolls will be sourced from the Somerset Grist Mill, on the verge of reviving local grain production and milling in central Maine. There is lots happening in this place that can't be observed from a car following the famous "S" traffic pattern in the downtown. Skowhegan really is a place to watch.

Handwork

Steve Cole — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:07:14 GMT

Escaping the drizzly gloom of another spring evening in Maine, I spent last night in a packed library room in Belfast. We'd all assembled to hear recollections of four veteran (female) workers who'd spent their days in the city's sardine and poultry plants. The talk was just what you'd expect--sharp, plain and direct with plenty of humor and not much irony. Some in the crowd were the workers' contemporaries, there to bask for a short while in the different world and community that the stories depicted. Otherwise, the audience was from away with professional backgrounds and hungering for tales of work that made you sweat. There was a time when Belfast claimed two poultry processors, a shoe shop (factory), a frozen foods plant and a sardine factory. This concentration of industry meant, according to the panel of women, "that you could always get a job...pick up something, even if it was seasonal or part time." Of this cluster, only the frozen food packer remains. There are "other" jobs to be had in Belfast, entailing back office work for health care and financial services companies. But the speakers before us regarded this work as distant and unfamiliar as language translation in Central Asia. Could you do it if you were just an ordinary person who needed work? Did it require special education? What did it produce, exactly? So many of us have been acculturated to service work. But to these folks, work meant tasks a regular person could do that produced something real and tangible. The evening pointed up how much we've lost in the decline of production work, for the manufacturing economy created a job safety net far broader than what we survive on today.

The Freebies

Steve Cole — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:48:26 GMT

You know these journals as well as I, the liberally distributed free newspapers stacked just inside the doorway at markets, restaurants and shops. In the age of internet journalism, they seem as resilient as ever, though many also have an electronic presence. If your business, like CEI's, is community development, then these papers make for a tremendous resource--a way to learn what's happening in your place expressed with more color and character than the traditional press can muster. Here are a few of my favorite rags from coastal Maine and a little about why I like them.

Because I live in small town Maine, I particularly prize Portland's the bollard (thebollard.com) for its urban attitude and whiff of debauchery. Journalism in Maine is polite, the bollard is less polite. There's always something simmering here. Favorites are: "That's My Dump", profiling abandoned city property and "One Maniac's Meat", reminiscences from Matinicus and Eastport that make E.B. White's essays sound like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

Island Institute publishes The Working Waterfront (workingwaterfront.com) a bright and balanced monthly compilation of news, reviews, ruminations, recipes and columns for natives, summer people and year-round summer people. The writing's intelligent, the mix is good and you always learn something--it's kind of like The New York Times on summer vacation.

Fishermen's Voice (fishermensvoice.com) is just that, marine journalism from the harvester's perspective and often in his/her voice. Reports (depressing) from fisheries management meetings, some natural and human history, interesting profiles of clammers and boatbuilders and the occasional obituary/rememberance fill its pages. Not to be missed are the Classifieds: a parade of lobster boats, tuna towers and shrimp gear that will have you checking your bank account. And the Fishermen's Voice isn't muted, even in the Classifieds. Here's a listing under Services: Captain For Hire. Previously captain on scallopers. Government put me out of business.

Last but not least, The Free Press (freepressonline.com). With its increasingly progressive voice--read its feature on homeless teens--this fat freebie from Rockland is heir to the dear, departed Maine Times. It does for the midcoast what Maine Times did for the state--knits it together, and makes you realize that for all Maine's troubles, there's an awful lot of good happening here.

You can see these papers online, but they're made to be picked up while scoring a gallon of milk or a six pack. Read them from front to back with the scent of paper and ink in the air and some smudge on your fingers. When you're done, the freebies work great for firing up the wood stove.

We're Still Here

Steve Cole — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:53:17 GMT

To our out-of-state friends and colleagues: Since the November election and the ensuing headlines from Maine, many of you may be wondering if the state has undergone some rapid top-to-bottom ideological shift, a climate change of the political sort, if you will. I'm here to tell you that the answer is a resounding NO and it's still steady as she goes in the home of George Mitchell, Edmund Muskie, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Don't believe me? Well, here are some examples.

While our governor disses the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), minorities now are 5% of Maine's citizens and our black population has grown by 128% this past decade.

The governor has joked that the only side effect of the chemical bisphenol-A in plastics might be facial hair on women, but the Republican-dominated Maine House of Representatives voted 145-3 to ban BPA in baby bottles, sippy cups and other baby products.

Terming it a one-sided depiction, the governor ordered a mural of Maine labor history removed from display at the Department of Labor and placed in storage. But the response from most Mainers has been that labor is a partnership of employers and employees, bosses and workers, and that the mural and the story it tells deserves to be seen.

So, no matter what the headlines are, remember that Maine is a fair-minded place. The majority of folks here are moderate in their views--open to giving all people and ideas a hearing and deciding their merit with an innate sense of public good. The way life should be.

Pandora's Box

Steve Cole — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:00:47 GMT

In my office sits a Geiger counter, a working relic from the era when the nuclear reactor at Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company in Wiscasset--just four miles from CEI--experienced operating difficulties. The State of Maine distributed the Geiger counters to interested parties locally, who monitored radiation levels daily and reported the results back to Augusta. Rather than repair the plant, Maine Yankee's owners chose to decommission it and the spent fuel rods stand, encased in steel and concrete, in a kind of bermed nuclear graveyard on site. On site, of course, because the United States has no national repository for waste nuclear fuel. There are dozens of these atomic Stonehenges scattered around the country, largely forgotten and looked after by electronic security and rent-a-cops. Many are no longer even the property of the former plant owners, having been shunted off to shell companies in a bid to keep any future liabilities at arm's length.

As vexing as our nuclear problems seem, they pale before the nightmare of Japan's quake-crippled reactors seeping radiation. The power source that is "too cheap to meter" is also, like Pandora's box, an evil impossible to contain or control once it is loose in the world. This is a legacy the Japanese will now carry with them for generations, seen in damaged food and water supplies, sickness and decline in the living and an uncertain future for the unborn.

At the Fisheries Times Square

Steve Cole — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:05:26 GMT

For the past 36 years, a few weeks before spring,the Maine Fishermen's Forum arrives. For three late winter days, the Samoset Resort on Penobscot Bay becomes a fisheries Times Square. Lobster and groundfishers, aquaculturists, bureaucrats (aka fishcrats), spouses, kids, suppliers, nonprofit types, and yes, politicians, show up to renew friendships or animosities, sound off, do deals and learn things. The Forum is both the public square and the public marketplace.

This year, Maine's new governor showed up and made his most pungent remarks off script. He wants the federal government to step back and allow Maine more scope in experiments to make commercial fishing a profitable, less regulation-bound venture. He got no objections on that score from the hundreds assembled. In response to a question about whale regulations, he responded, "I am the Governor of Maine's people, not the Governor of Maine's whales." To this listener, he seemed to say that it was his job to support fishermen--let the whales fend for themselves. It was a pronouncement, and having made it the Governor left.

Had the Governor stayed longer, he'd have heard a different pronouncement--from a fishermen. In a session on the collapse of inshore fishing grounds and what it will take to bring them back, a 50- year groundfisherman rose and pronounced, "They're not coming back." He went on to state emphatically that shoreline development--treatment plants, chlorine, polluted bottom, trophy homes, noise, lighting, etc. have relentlessly combined to ensure that "no self-respecting hen cod will ever lay eggs there again." What could you say to that? He saw the fisheries and its future from the waterside--and the tempering of growth needed to make a dependable fishery. The Governor saw the fisheries only from the landside--how to limit restraints so that more dollars come over the dock.

But fostering a healthy marine ecosystem and a healthy marine economy lies in the middle ground. It demands caring about the environment that whales, hen cod AND fishermen live or work in. What do you think?

Maine's Own Organic Milk

Steve Cole — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:04:38 GMT

One of the most emailed New York Times stories in recent weeks is titled: "Local, Organic Milk: Nice Idea, but Try Making a Profit." It and an accompanying video recount the continuing saga of a small, passionate band of Maine dairy farmers who, dropped by a major dairy, have launched their own brand--MOO Milk. Reading the article during Maine's deep midwinter leaves one both uplifted and chastened by their struggle to make a go of it--the optimist will see them as heroic, the pessimist as daft.

What the far-flung MOO dairymen are seeking is 6,000 customers who'll purchase a gallon of their flavorful, slow-pasteurized, organic milk each week. This is milk that tastes distinctive, not generic. A sip will put you in mind of the places and families it comes from: the Bells in Edmunds, the Chases in Mapleton....and others. We're willing to pay $3.39 or more for a gallon of gasoline imported from Libya, so how about $3.99 for a half gallon of milk made by hardworking folks you'd be happy to know? As CEI's Ron Phillips has said, "We're talking economic development here for lower-income communities, for rural areas, not just the product itself."

The promise of MOO milk puts us in mind of Sir Walter Scott's words about Britain's fishermen: "It's not fish you're buying, it's men's lives..."

The Snow Economy

Steve Cole — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:30:22 GMT

Just in from walking the dog in my snowshoes--since this morning, we've picked up a foot or more of dry, fluffy stuff. At times, the snowfall was so furious it looked as if there was an inch in the air alone. In coastal Maine, the snow economy wouldn't seem to amount to much compared with the ski areas and snowmobile trails of northern and western Maine.

But money changes hands regularly with each storm and here's how it works in my town. The beneficiary I think of first is my neighbor James--not Jim or Jimmy, but James--a native who stayed, inherited his mother's house, plays a mean game of chess and has made a career in odd jobs. In spring and summer, its washing windows for downtown merchants, cutting brush, making dump runs and mowing 40 some-odd lawns with a collection of push mowers. His is a low tech operation. In winter, then, it's shoveling-not plowing--clearing steps, walkways, sidewalks for those same merchants and residents who see him in summer. If you pass James on the street or at the market after a big, white storm he'll exclaim manically, "I love winter!"

And James employs a sly arbitrage with the fat rolls of bills acquired seasonally: he moves his savings regularly from one downtown bank to another, depending on which institution's interest rate is a mite higher. So there it is--a case study of the snow (micro)economy to be found in any Maine town.

Liberty and Abolition

Steve Cole — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:59:32 GMT

The Christmas holiday found us on the road, tracing the eastern seaboard along I-95 and thinking--strangely for the time of year--about civil liberties. Visiting in downtown Philadelphia, we wandered into the National Park Service's Liberty Bell exhibit. It's a long, narrow space designed to build in meaning until one reaches a crescendo--the Liberty Bell itself.

But the bell could not top the impact and irony of the exhibit's opening: visitors were required to present their purse, backpack or briefcase for inspection, then raise their coat and turn 360 degrees to ensure that they were not carrying a weapon or wired for explosives. Only then could they proceed to the Liberty Bell, struck in 1751 with the inscription, Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It was in the 1830s that Abolitionists seized on this quote in their quest to outlaw slavery and termed its source the "Liberty Bell."

Further along in our trip, nearing Washington, D.C., large electronic signs came into view asking SEE ANYTHING SUSPICIOUS? CALL 1-800.......... I suspect they were products of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency created in the wake of 9-11, now with 230,000 employees and a budget of 56.3 billion dollars. For me, the agency's title "Homeland Security" is as repugnant as the relentless growth of its staff and budget. It is a name laced with ethnic, nationalist connotations and history--the Soviet Union in the 1920s, Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. Even Peggy Noonan, the celebrated Republican speech writer found the name off-putting and hoped it would be changed.

In the beginning of the last decade, the carnage at the World Trade Center changed the uses of liberty and freedom. To protect these values, we've undermined them with new ones--protection and security. We are now slaves to national security, signaling the need for a new Abolition movement.

A Muted Little Christmas

Steve Cole — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:59:59 GMT

In the holiday season, the word muted is attached to the quality of sound--everything loud and jarring now muffled by snow. But this year as last year, muted describes the usually festive, gift giving time itself. Much is unacknowledged but continues on all around us: the heartlessly automated procedures of foreclosure that part families from homes, the bleak search for employment among millions for whom a last minute extension of unemployment benefits has become an ironic Christmas present.

Too young to have lived through the Great Depression, I've always wondered what that time was like. Just what was the balance between normalcy and despair that people experienced daily? How did they muster the courage to get through empty weeks and months, to comfort their children? Now, we can all know or remember how the Depression felt. Even those of us employed perform a kind of triage: do we support the food bank or the community energy fund? How much can we give to the local pantry and the toys for needy kids campaign? The needs are immense and constant and nearly overwhelm us.

On the up side, holiday retailing seems less manic, whether from consumer trepidation or a new remembrance of the old bumper sticker: The Best Things In Life Aren't Things. May we keep that thought foremost in our minds now and in the months ahead. Helping others to hang on until they can thrive again is the gift that keeps on giving.

Observing the Two Maines--Alfresco

Steve Cole — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:14:33 GMT

Even in coastal Maine, it's possible to enjoy an outdoor lunch in December if you choose a mild day and the perfect prospect. For me, that spot is a sheltered, hillside stone wall facing dead south in Wiscasset Village, a short walk from CEI's office. Gazing straight ahead my view is of Wiscasset Harbor and the tidal Sheepscot River.Turning to the left, I look back over the closely built town--wood frame buildings painted white, pale yellow or gray with gable, hip and saltbox roofs. It's a place now inhabited by antique shops and high-end purveyors of food, wine and gifts with a smattering of comfortable homes. Wiscasset Village is no longer the timeless and provincial place depicted in the photo book, Night Train at Wiscasset Station.

But returning to the harbor view, a different culture emerges. With the fishing season ended, a lobster boat heads to the pier at a stately pace with a load of traps for winter storage. Elsewhere, a skiff drifts to flats exposed by the receding tide and a figure in waders jumps out to dig bloodworms. His haul will end up in a bait shop somewhere on the Gulf Coast. And walking to this spot I passed a parked pickup and trailer, both crammed with trussed balsam firs and their whiff of Christmas. They too, are headed south where they'll fetch $75 apiece.

So, which is coastal Maine--the good bottle of Pinot Noir in an atmospheric shop or the wormer bent to his task? It is both and Maine has a long, complex history of relationships with monied people and places. What we want is to make a living but not change or be changed too much. So far, by dint of a little planning, physical distance and dumb luck, we've gotten by and kept life in balance.