With widespread power outages expected to last a few days following the recent storm, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reminding residents how to safely use portable gas-powered generators and providing food safety tips.

The Living Nativity was installed November 5 for its 5th Christmas Season on the steps at Centre Street Congregational Church UCC in Machias. Installers this year were Harper Dean, Jim Jackson, Thornton Land,  Greg Maxwell,  Stuart Swain and Lin Warren. This annual gift from the church to the community is increasingly popular.  It will be “live” for 2 early evenings in December.  There will soon be a sign on the church and the Nativity which tell which dates it will be live.

It’s been an exciting week as groundwork for the new library has begun.  The land is being prepped for the next phase of the project.  Architectural plans for the library have been finalized and the land work can now begin.  The building which will be 4,000 sq. ft. in size will house the Whitneyville Public Library and the library’s Whatnot Craft Shop. Completion of the project will be sometime in spring/summer of 2018.

This past week I have not been out  much except to drive the bus. On the half day of school I got to visit with Hulda Peterson in Harrington; it was a nice visit and we almost got caught up on news in the area.

Everyone was out due to illness on Monday night’s genealogy class so I got the chance to visit the knitting class for a bit before returning home. It probably was a good thing as I was coming down with this cold that is going around. Both of us here have it, I just wish those kids of mine on the bus had not given it to me.

Lobster fishermen are taking in their traps now.  The season is coming to a close.  It was a fast season, not quite as good as last year.

Sincere condolences to the family of Louise Emerson.  She was a lovely lady and will be missed.

Wreath-making season is upon us. There have been many loads of brush being delivered to Worcester Wreath in town. Winter is not far behind.

Ron T. has been seeing deer in their fields. Andrea and Stan K. put up new posts and fencing around their garden of winter rye but they had a moose take down most of it when it walked through.

We took a ride into Chain Lake but had to pull a tree out of the road with a rope. 

The camps were fine but a tree came down by Blaisdell’s house and tore the electric box off the house. Our power just blinked off and on a couple of times. We were lucky.

Linda and I took Halloween candy to school for the kids’ party.

Steeplejacks were still working on the 100+year-old spire of Jonesport’s Sawyer Memorial Congregational Church last week, removing old wood before capping it for the winter. The bell is stored in a nearby barn. Last Saturday, church volunteers put on a craft fair and luncheon to boost the belfry fund.

The Beals and Jonesport school system took delivery of a new bus last week. Jonesporters approved a three-year, one percent loan of the purchase price of $83,873 from their surplus. The 77-passenger Thomas bus will be parked at Beals Elementary School, whose student body proudly posed with it on delivery day.  Photo courtesy of George Crawford

by Nancy Beal

Jonesport selectmen returned to the subject of taxing personal property at their Nov. 1 meeting. Last month, they had listened to a presentation by business tax exemption specialist Joe Salley from Bangor, who explained ways in which personal property — lobster traps, equipment and machinery — could be taxed without adverse financial effects on either taxpayers or the town. Currently, Jonesport does not tax personal property.

The new bridge to Beals began last week with work on the approaches. Here, earth was removed on the Beals side to replace the 90 degree turn off the old bridge with an angle much less acute for the many tractor trailer trucks that come from the mainland. On the Jonesport side, the old house that Eddie Hagan used as a wreath shop was torn down to widen Bridge Street and provide room for power lines.