The Bethel Library will honor Michelle Conroy for her 27 years as library director with an open house at the library on Saturday, May 14, from 10 to 11 a.m. Please stop by to enjoy some refreshments and wish Michelle well on her retirement!

Make sure that you have Greenwood’s annual Town Meeting marked on your calendar; it will be held on Saturday, May 21, at 9 a.m. at the American Legion Hall on the Gore Road. I hope to see many of you there.

The West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel will hold its annual Smile Fund Yard Sale on Saturday, May 14, from 9 a.m. until noon. All proceeds from the sale will help to purchase adult dentures for those in need. For more information and an application for dentures, contact Rev. Tim LeConey at 207-824-2688.

In Buck’s Ledge news, Jane Chandler of the Woodstock Conservation Commission reports that last Tuesday a group of energetic Telstar Middle School students, along with art teacher Melissa Prescott, worked to clear logging debris on a potential new trail, used blue paint to clearly mark the main Buck’s Ledge trail, moved a signpost, and created stone steps on one of the steeper sections of that trail. A culmination of the day was lunch on top of Buck’s Ledge and blowing giant bubbles. The Woodstock Conservation Commission thanks all those who helped out.

From Marta Clements: The First Universalist Church of West Paris is having a major fundraiser to raise $50,000 to restore some of the beautiful stained glass windows which were installed when the church was built in 1906. The Board of Management is excited to announce that Judith Clements Packer is generously offering up to $8,000 to match any individual donations between now and Sept. 1. Judy is doing this in memory of her brother, Nicholas Clements, who many will remember was a teacher at Woodstock and Telstar High School, and also from his work at the former Andrews Funeral Home in South Woodstock.

If you can donate any amount to help out this project, please make checks out to The First Universalist Church and mail to The First Universalist Church of West Paris, P.O. Box 36, West Paris, Maine 04289.

Contact Marta Clements at 674-2143 or mclements96894@roadrunner.com or Suzanne Dunham at 665-2967 or dunhamfarm@msn.com if you would like to know more.

Tony and I enjoyed good weather for the fifth Monday in a row, and went on our fifth weekly hike with Eli the Wonder Pup, this time to the lower, then upper, Sanborn River trails. This hike is always beautiful, but especially so at this time of year, when there is plenty of water in the river and the leaves and wildflowers are beginning to emerge.

Unfortunately, we also saw a few blackflies for the first time this season, and although they, too, seemed to be newly emerged and not yet biting, it won’t be long, especially with the warm weather predicted for the next week or so, before the hiking won’t be quite as enjoyable for a few weeks.

I’m turning in this column on Friday, a couple of days early, and heading off to Connecticut for the weekend with my lifelong best friend. It sounds like we won’t be having the perfect spring weather we were hoping for, as rain is predicted there, at least into Saturday. It will still be nice to see all the trees and flowers in bloom and, especially, to spend some time together and with her mom and dad, who have been like a spare set of parents to me since I was six years old.

If you have events you’d like listed here, or news to share, please contact me at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or call 207-890-4812.

“Spring is the time of plans and projects.” – Leo Tolstoy