rain, rain, go away

It hardly seemed necessary to check the weather forecast during the month of June. A glance out the window almost invariably indicated that it was rainy, drizzly, cloudy, foggy or a combination of all four.

“We have an abundance of rainfall this month. Everybody knows that. It’s pretty amazing,” said meteorologist Butch Roberts, of the National Weather Service.

As of June 28, 5.15 inches of rain had fallen in Concord during the month of June, and there had been 19 foggy days. Average rainfall for the first 28 days of June is 2.88 inches in Concord—2.27 less than this year. Last year’s rainfall was also above average, with 4.70 inches falling by June 28.

list of properties that could be sold or leased includes several nearby sites

With gentle waves rolling over its sandy expanse in Rye, Jenness State Beach is a popular destination for local residents and out-of-state visitors. But it’s not popular enough to suit the government stewards who currently own it.

When the N.H. Division of Parks and Recreation released a draft of its 10-year strategic and capital improvement plan on June 8, one particular item caused public distress. The report indicated that a number of state recreation areas—27, to be exact—do not meet the core criteria to qualify as state parks. Parks and Recreation is now considering options to sell, lease, transfer or decommission those locations.
Several Seacoast parks are on the list, including Jenness State Beach in Rye, North Hampton State Beach, Kingston State Park and White Island at the Isles of Shoals. All four of those sites were identified as underperforming park system properties that are surplus to the state’s needs.

Even if the state opts to get rid of the properties, however, it doesn’t mean they’ll go away completely. The state will explore possibilities for giving the parks to conservation groups or engaging in public-private partnerships to maintain them. Selling the properties to private developers is a possibility, but it’s not the preferred one.

For those who visit, live or work on the Seacoast, Portsmouth’s Prescott Park has long been a destination for all sorts of daytime activities, from a game of checkers on the bench, to a stroll along the flowerbeds, to unwrapping a sandwich on the pier. Now every Tuesday at noon, from June through August, Prescott Park also provides an opportunity to gather around the fountain and practice some yoga.

On a recent Tuesday, under blue skies dotted with stray clouds, students arrived for the first class of the summer. They unfurled yoga mats and beach towels of yellow, bright pink and orange floral in a semi-circle. Most were dressed in typical gym garb of shorts and tank tops. One student, having dashed from the office, simply rolled up her pant legs and loosely tied a button-down shirt at her waist. In the center of the circle, instructor Deborah Levine, of Yogarising, led a series of postures focusing on core strength, with an emphasis on breath and fluid movements. She welcomed students of all ages and abilities.

“Instructors are able to adapt postures based upon the abilities of their students,” Levine said.

seeking cyclists for charity

The Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Exeter Kids Ride from 9 a.m. to noon on Sunday, June 14, will be one of 40 PMC Kids Rides held throughout New England.

Nearly 7,000 cyclists between the ages of 2 and 15 will ride up to 26 miles in mini bike-a-thons to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The Exeter Kids Ride will begin at Timberland Industrial Park at 200 Domain Drive in Stratham. Children ages 3 to 13 can ride either the short or longer loop. A party afterward will include a DJ, refreshments, face painting and raffles.

We were swinging around Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse when we spotted a frenzy of activity between two clusters of rock by Great Island Common. Several dozen terns were hovering over the water and making sporadic dives, crazed by the sight of small bait fish near the surface. With birds feasting from above, it was safe to infer that striped bass would be feeding on the same prized victuals below. 
“Oh wow, they’re striking hard,” remarked Exeter native Graham Waleryszak as the boat motored shoreward.

Newmarket resident Bryant Bickford steered his 20-foot Hewes Light Tackle closer to the rocks as Graham picked up a pole and cast a large, double-hooked lure into the water. “Got one,” he said within seconds. Bryant leaned over the edge of the boat as Graham reeled in the fish, a silvery 20-inch striper.

There are plenty of great places to connect with Great Bay. There are parks at Adams Point and Hilton Point, and various sandy boat launches around the region. But there’s only one interpretive center along the shores of the area’s most remarkable natural resources, and it’s celebrating a big anniversary this year.

This year is Great Bay Discovery Center’s 20th anniversary of being designated a National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of 27 in the country. 

lighthouse open house

Visitors can enjoy panoramic views from the top of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse during an open house on Saturday, May 30, from 1 to 5 p.m. The event kicks off a new season of lighthouse tours that will continue during those same hours every Tuesday afternoon from June 2 to Sept. 1.

Owned by Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse, the 48-foot, cast-iron structure is located at the Coast Guard station in New Castle off Route 1B, adjacent to Fort Constitution. It consists of 44 stairs to the watch room and a seven-rung ladder to the lantern room, where its glowing green light gleams.

Never before has the public had so much access to Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse, which is now more than 130 years old. Volunteers at the open house will tell visitors about the light station’s history, likely including tales about former lighthouse keeper Joshua Card, whose ghost is rumored to haunt the tower.

“We don’t tend to see the area from the water. We tend to see it from the land,” said Barbara Maurer, education director for the Gundalow Company. But that wasn’t always the case. Before the age of automobiles and paved streets, “The rivers were the roads,” Maurer said.

Thus, instead of transporting cargo in massive 18-wheelers barreling down superhighways, industries of yore relied largely on gundalows for their deliveries. The simple, flat-bottomed, wooden sailing boats would transport towering loads of brick or lumber, servicing the Seacoast’s many active brickyards and mills through a network of natural waterways.

“They would carry whatever needed to be carried,” Maurer said. “They’re the equivalent of today’s tractor-trailers.”

May means stellar birding on the Seacoast

The low sun silhouettes the outline of a bird on the outer reach of a tree branch overhanging a trail at Fort Foster in Kittery, Maine. It chatters wildly and bobs its head, whistling like a free jazz flutist taking an indulgent solo.

Linda Gurtman lifts a pair of binoculars to her eyes for a better look. A mockingbird, she surmises. But no—upon closer inspection she arrives at a positive identification. “It’s a catbird showing off,” she says, “trying to find a girlfriend.”

That’s exactly what a myriad of bird species are trying to do in southern New Hampshire and Maine this time of year, as migratory birds returning from the south search for suitable mates. Some of these birds will settle here through the summer and into the fall, while others are just making a pit stop on their way to Canada.

fifth annual N.H. Renaissance Faire storms Kingston

There will be knights engaged in live steel combat. Pirates. Privateers. Belly dancers. Cannons. Thieves. Need a wench or a strapping young lad? Both will be auctioned at the fifth annual New Hampshire Renaissance Faire on Saturday and Sunday, May 16 and 17. Held at Three Maples Art & Nature Camp in Kingston, the weekend fair will raise money for OdysseyNH and the NHSPCA.

The event will be filled with activities and games, as well as local artwork and educational demonstrations. The Corr Theives will teach viewers the art of cheating, while members of Neville and Companye don suits of armor and cross swords in battle. Black Rose II will offer gunpowder demos with historically accurate firearms, and the Historic Highlanders will replicate Scottish life from centuries past.

And, of course, Wolfe Argent will portray “members of the Second Chambre of the Third Escadre of the Tenth Company of the Ordonnances of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, their families, and the support personnel of the company.”

Fair founder Shannon McCracken-Barber admitted that she is not an expert on the European Renaissance period spanning the 14th to 17th centuries. But many of the featured acts at the fair are.

Star Island cruises are back

After a four-year hiatus, the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company will again offer cruises to Star Island aboard the M/V Thomas Laighton this summer. The Steamship Company recently announced that it has renewed its contract with the Star Island Corporation and will resume the cruises beginning on Sunday, June 7.

The Star Island Stopover Tour will be available every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday throughout the summer. The company’s steamship leaves Portsmouth Harbor at 10 a.m. en route to Star Island, one of the nine land masses comprising the Isles of Shoals. Passengers can spend several hours on the island before the M/V Thomas Laighton picks them up again at 3 p.m., returning to the harbor around 4:45.

benefit roller derby bout raises money for Seacoast Outright

The arena at Roller Skate Newington resonated not only with the familiar scrape of wheels on the evening of April 26, but also with the sharp slap of bodies against the floor. Women fiercely knocked each other to the ground and often toppled over one another, creating pileups of heavily padded skaters, like multi-vehicle accidents on a highway.

The ManchVegas Roller Girls, based in Manchester, brought two teams to Newington for a charity bout between Pandora’s Pinups and the Stark Raving Loonachicks. Proceeds from ticket sales and raffles went to Seacoast Outright, a Portsmouth-based support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youths.

green companies help trees grow in Portsmouth

Portsmouth Mayor Tom Ferrini read an Arbor Day proclamation during a brief ceremony on the morning of April 24 in Haven Park, where local companies had already begun volunteer tree-trimming as part of the national observance on the last Friday of April.

Tree maintenance at the grassy park on Pleasant Street began before 8 a.m. and continued throughout the day. Workers trimmed trees from bucket trucks nearly 65 feet high to remove dead and diseased wood from some of the oldest trees in Portsmouth.

The first focus was on deadwood over walkways, benches and throughout the park. Removing deadwood prevents decay from spreading through the tree and hollowing it out, said Chris Kemp, of Suntree Corporation. It also keeps limbs from falling and causing injury to people or damage to property, he said.

Dover holds Local Gardening and Energy Fair

The average meal travels about 1,500 miles before it lands on a Seacoast resident’s plate. All that transportation equates to loads of fuel, packaging and carbon emissions, leaving a nasty footprint on the environment.

But that kind of waste is largely unnecessary. Area residents can grow much of their own food in backyard gardens or buy it from local farms. The first ever Local Gardening and Energy Fair in Dover will teach guests how to grow healthy foods and reduce energy consumption. The fair takes place on Saturday, April 18, at the McConnell Center at 61 Locust St.

Sponsored by Dover’s Cassily Community Garden and the Dover Energy Advisory Committee, along with Seacoast Eat Local, the fair will feature a number of workshops on gardening and energy efficiency from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. University of New Hampshire professor of natural resources John Carroll will deliver a keynote talk on the connection between energy and agriculture at noon. 

N.H. snowboarders Scotty Lago and Chas Guldemond head to the U.S. Open

Snowboarding today is all about going big and going west, but, for many, the popular sport started out small, here on the East Coast. The U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships is one of the reasons snowboarding got to where it is now. The history of the annual contest in Vermont, currently in its 27th year, parallels the development of better riders, better boards and better terrain.   

Again this year, New Hampshire will be represented in the men’s slopestyle and halfpipe competitions by Seabrook resident Scotty Lago and Laconia native Chas Guldemond. Both of them, like most pro snowboarders, travel the world to compete, film videos and shoot photos in the best conditions possible, but Lago still calls the Seacoast home, while Guldemond now has a house in the Tahoe area.

In all, 13 snowboarders from New Hampshire, both professional and amateur athletes, are competing at the annual competition at Stratton Mountain Resort from March 20 through 22.

Durham debates the fate of the Oyster River Dam and Mill Pond

It was the Oyster River’s promise of hydropower that first brought settlers to Durham some 350 years ago. Workers built mills along the river and set up a series of timber dams to harness water power, one of which created Mill Pond around 1740. The town took ownership of the Oyster River Dam in 1913, and many of its residents have cherished the pond’s recreational and viewing opportunities ever since.

Today, however, the dam no longer serves any industrial purpose. It has not been repaired since 1974 and is in dire need of costly renovations. And, according to officials from the N.H. Department of Environmental Services and N.H. Fish and Game, the structure is depleting the river’s ecological health.

Durham is in the midst of a debate over what to do about the Oyster River Dam. The debate boils down to three main options: The town could rehabilitate the historic dam, replace it with a new structure, or remove it altogether. The latter option is the cheapest, but it would mean the end of Mill Pond.

The Victory Gardens that were prevalent in World War II are growing again. These plots reduce food transportation miles, counteract rising food costs and encourage sustainability by providing local, organically-grown food in season.

Kittery Adult Education is holding a series of 10 workshops at Traip Academy in Kittery, Maine, to help people start their own backyard or community “New Victory Garden.” Each course is $8 for Kittery residents or $10 for nonresidents.

The first course is on Thursday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 p.m. John Forti, curator of historic gardens and landscapes at Strawbery Banke Museum, will lead a historical look at the evolution of Victory Gardens from war gardens of the 20th century to backyard gardens for peace in the 21st century.

25th annual expo returns to Manchester

A winter standard since 1984, the 25th annual New Hampshire Farm & Forest Exposition will take place on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 6 and 7, at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester. The public event begins on both days at 9 a.m. and continues until 8 p.m. on Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.

Tori Berube, manager of the N.H. Farm and Fores Expo, says the event has a dual purpose. Those in the forestry and farming industries come together and share ideas, and the Expo gives these two industries a venue to showcase what they’re doing to the public. The Expo is like a cross between a business conference and a town fair, with opportunities for networking between agencies and interactive appeal for the public.

nearing endangerment, bunnies receive big bucks

It seems unbelievable that rabbits, a species known for its rapid reproduction, can be approaching endangered status, but the New England cottontail rabbit population is drastically declining. Unique to the northeastern United States, this species used to inhabit much of the land east of the Hudson River but today occupies a mere 24 percent of its historic range.

Jackass stars hit Rye Airfield

Famed skateboarders Bam Margera and Brandon Novak are scheduled to skate and film at Rye Airfield on Saturday, Jan. 17 from 12 to 4 p.m. The tour promotes Margera’s new film, “Minghags,” and Novak’s book, “Dreamseller.”
Margera, whose first name is Brandon but was nicknamed Bam for running into walls as a toddler, first became known as a pro skater for his unique street style and stupid stunts.

As a teenager, he created the CKY video series, which showed skating, shocking pranks and dangerous stunts with a sense of humor. The grassroots success of the video series led to the hit MTV show “Jackass,” which initially aired footage from CKY.
Then came the “Jackass” movie, grossing over $100 million in ticket sales, as well as the MTV five-season series “Viva La Bam” and other spin-offs. Margera also directs music videos, hosts the show “Radio Bam” on Sirius Satellite Radio and started “Viva La Bands,” a music and movie series and tour.

Can you imagine the outrage that would erupt on the streets of Portsmouth if the city imposed a bicycle ban? It is hard to even consider the idea without snickering at the improbability. Why then, does the city’s long-time expulsion of skateboarding, another popular Seacoast sport, seem so acceptable?

The skateboarding ban perplexes City Council member Laura Pantelakos, who wonders why the city allows bicycles, scooters, Segways, inline skates and roller-skates, but prohibits skateboards. “I feel it is discrimination against skateboards,” Pantelakos said. “It’s not right.”

During last month’s council meeting, Pantelakos asked fellow councilors to review the current city ordinance that makes skateboarding illegal everywhere in Portsmouth, with the exception of the Greenleaf skatepark and Rye Airfield.

Skiers can get fired up for the winter season with a video premiere and live music at the Redhook Brewery in Portsmouth on Saturday, Oct. 18, organized by Fire on the Mountain Ski Shop in Dover.
Matchstick Productions presents a film that pokes fun at the company and the industry as a whole, “CLAIM, The Greatest Ski Movie…EVER!”

Highlights from the film include a speed riding session from Chamonix, France, where skiers go down mountain faces with the aid of a small paraglider. Matchstick captured this new sport with a camera mounted on a helicopter. The film is shot in high-definition on location in Whistler, Chamonix, Courmayer, Valdez, Aspen, Chatter Creek and other destinations worldwide.

get acquainted with wildlife habitats in Rochester

When you think of municipal garbage, you probably don’t hear birds singing. But in fact, one of the region’s most beautiful sysems of trails is supported by Waste Management of New Hampshire. In partnership with environmental groups, they’ll hold a free family event, “Get Wild about Water and Wildlife,” in Rochester on Saturday, Oct. 11 from noon to 4 p.m., at the Gonic Trails, near its facility on Rochester Neck Road.

The event will offer interactive activities for learning and will highlight the company’s wildlife and land sustainability programs, as well as its state-of-the-art Eco-Park, the Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprises facility in Rochester.

Wells Reserve publishes a field guide to local waters

Did you know that the first fish to swim in space were of the same species that is most abundant in salt marshes here on the Seacoast?

Two juvenile Mummichogs were taken on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973 to study how they maintain balance. This “point of interest” and more can be found in the new book “Coastal Fish of Southern Maine and New Hampshire.” The book was released this year by the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, a research station of protected salt marshes in Wells, Maine.