Pemaquid Pond – Laurie Apgar Chandler

We’ve had an unprecedented stretch of blue-and-gold weather, perfect for getting outdoors, although the gardens are begging for rain. Or twice daily watering. Just so you know that I am not just running from lake to lake, counting them up (see my recent post A baptism), I did return to Webber Pond several more times, one time swimming with both a loon and bald eagle for company. The water is quickly warming up.

It’s almost cheating to count the next two lakes, my go-to favorites. On Friday, I strapped the canoe securely atop my RAV4, ready for new waters. It was late afternoon Saturday, with the brutal heat easing, before I got up the energy to pack a picnic supper and head for McCurdy Pond. This beauty is a little over half a mile from my home. I took my time, poking into the little coves, on the way to my usual swimming spot.

Canada geese

The lighting suited my mood, as I reunited with the curving shoreline that I know so well. A cluster of sheep laurel, with a backdrop of birch, drew me like a magnet. This member of the heath family is one of the showiest flowers found in our wetlands. The peaceful glow of soul and evening stayed with me through a leisurely swim and supper, for once just sitting and being.

Sheep laurel

Of course, I do not always go solo. In fact, for the past week, I have been surrounded with loving concern and care from the best of friends and family. I was supposed to have been on a much-anticipated visit to Pennsylvania and Virginia, until the shingles in my right eye flared up at a most inopportune moment. So, instead, I have been comforted here at home, most notably with a series of delicious meals.

I suppose I am now truly guilty of hopping from place to place. Yesterday after church found me with friends Bill, Mary, and Mary, paddling Biscay and Pemaquid ponds, which are connected by a tiny stretch of the Pemaquid River. In these COVID times, all of these waters seem busier than I ever remember them in June, and there were many fellow boaters to greet along the way.

Group gathering

Mary and Mary

After saying our good-byes, I swam from a tiny island in Biscay, which makes Lake #3 in my 2020 swimming quest. With the warmer water and some conditioning, I’m up to twenty minutes now. This lake is my oldest favorite, as evidenced by the photos below. Taken around a quarter of a century ago, they bring back a time of wonder, of discovering Maine through the eyes of my children, long before we lived here.

Biscay collage

Roberta Hill, from the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program, helped us sort and identify the aquatic plants we collected from Pemaquid Pond during our Invasive Plant Patrol workshop.

Back in 2009, a man named Dick Butterfield did what I did yesterday. He attended his first workshop with the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program (VLMP), to start learning to identify dangerous invasive aquatic plants. His thirst for knowledge, combined with concise, effective training, soon saved one of our local lakes.

No doubt armed with his mini waterproof identification key to the 11 most-unwanted suspects, he ventured out on his very first patrol, on nearby Damariscotta Lake. And found hydrilla, which the Maine DEP calls “the most problematic invasive plant in North America.” The lake is huge, with 45 miles of shoreline, but volunteers and experts sprang into action to contain the hydrilla in the tiny cove where Dick had found it. Dick caught it early, which is critically important in the fight against invasives.

Paired up with buddies, we went out into our assigned sectors to collect plant specimens in the littoral zone, the zone of richest diversity along the lake’s shoreline.

Our workshop was information-packed, but my message for you is simple. In Roberta’s words, “The work of citizen scientists [volunteers] on the the front line is the most important piece in this fight.” Training focuses on just those 11 likely culprits, which fall into three main structural categories. That means that some types of plants (like hairy, grass-like stuff) you see can just be ignored. To demonstrate how easy screening samples can be, VLMP recently set up a table at L.L. Bean and taught willing shoppers how to use the key. Their average time to key out a sample was just two minutes.

The sorting pan for one of the three broad categories that the eleven-most-unwanted invasive plants fall into. Although we were just learning, and made some mistakes, visible in the photo are some innocuous native milfoils and bladderworts that we collected on our plant patrol.

I was invited to yesterday’s workshop by the Pemaquid Watershed Association, which I’ve belonged to for many years. One of my resolutions for 2017 was to become a more active PWA volunteer. I’ve been writing some press releases and plan to volunteer for plant patrols on McCurdy Pond, where I often keep my canoe. If you’re interested in learning more, visit the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program or take a peek at the Key to the Eleven Most Unwanted Invasive Aquatic Plants.

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