And suddenly it is September! The countdown to turning off the water is on, the week after Indigenous Peoples Day will come too soon.

A gathering in memory of Jack and Sara Angel was recently held at the Rittershaus cabin. The Angels’ daughter, Kristi Angel Patterson, and Jack and Sara’s caretaker, Annejeanette, who was visiting from North Carolina, enjoyed the stories and reminiscences told about her parents and their long history in Sprucewold on Bayberry Road. Give a toast of a Manhattan or a glass of white wine in their memory, they will be missed.

Several items of mutual interest came up at the Sprucewold Association annual meeting, one of which has already been addressed by the town. Our Crest Avenue potholes are fixed. That fix brings up another issue -- drivers not observing the speed limit of 25 miles per hour. The potholes worked as temporary speed bumps coming up the hill. Several cabin owners have trimmed the bushes overhanging the road to make it easier to walk along the side of the road. Walkers, please move to the side of the road instead of assuming that drivers are aware of you. Let’s all keep safe.

Another topic that came up at the annual meeting was dog poop along our roads. Sprucewold is a popular walking route for people from all over the region and we would like to keep it that way by encouraging all dog walkers to be responsible and pick up after your dog.

The Sprucewold book club read two Maine biographies this summer. After reading “Becoming Madame Secretary” by Stephanie Dray, the group traveled to Newcastle to the Frances Perkins Homestead National Monument at 478 River Road. Now part of the National Park Service, the house is not accessible because of the long time it takes to record and archive items. The barn has informational banners and videos about Frances and her early life in Maine with her grandmother when the property was a working farm all the way to Washington, D.C. where she was the first woman cabinet secretary under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Thank Frances Perkins for weekends, workplace safety practices, and Social Security among many other accomplishments that benefit us all. Volunteers were helpful and answered many questions. There is a lovely gift shop where I bought a bumper sticker. The grounds are beautiful and, if you like, there is a one mile round trip walk to the Damariscotta River. Don’t forget to get your National Parks stamp in your book.

The second book was “Finding Freedom” by Erin French, and a field trip to Freedom, Maine and the Lost Kitchen for lunch is planned for next week. Many of us send postcards in each spring to try for dinner at the Lost Kitchen but so far to no avail. There are 65,000 to 70,000 received each year and only 1,000 to 1,900 are pulled for dinner reservations. Lunch at the Little Lost Kitchen is first come first serve Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00-2:30. Erin’s newest cookbook, Seize the Supper, comes out in the fall, can’t wait!

There will be a cleanup of the shed on Linekin Green soon, more to come. We still have the huge heavy metal tennis court roller, it was Eric Fischer's job as a teenager to roll the old clay court. In case you are unaware, the tennis court is between the Giguere and Ortiz cabins on Crest/Bayberry. The Ortiz cabin was where the tennis pro lived in the summer when the Sprucewold Lodge was a working resort. After the fence failed, the tennis court was allowed to go wild. The Linekin Height Association now keeps it mowed. It's a great place for outdoor games like bocce, cornhole, croquet, and horseshoes as well as volleyball or badminton. We have all those games and a net in the shed. The tennis court and the pool (now Nahanada Park and owned by the Sprucewold Association) are still listed in the deeds of LHA members.

In the shed there is also a refrigerator from the 1960s which doesn’t work anymore among lots of flotsam and jetsam left behind from over the years. The Green’s pavilion and shed will be scraped and painted and trash will be hauled away this fall.

The raffle for the framed Villard poster was a success–earning $580 to offset the annual Chipping Day. The State of Maine no longer offers Firewise grants for chipping and the Sprucewold Association picked up the check. Chipping Day was a great success with all spaces taken and bigger than usual piles of brush and branches along the road. Thank you to all who participated in the drawing, Rebecca Hutchins of Sunset Road won the poster.

Please check the Sprucewold Interest Group site on Facebook for updates, lost pets, and other information. The 2026 Sprucewold directories have all been distributed and if you didn't get one please use the online directory.