Want to work off your Christmas dinner? Join Mid-Coast Audubon's annual Christmas Bird Count! The three count areas are each 15 miles in diameter with a fixed center. The most pertinent for Edgecomb birdwatchers, the Pemaquid-Dam-ariscotta count, down the River Road to East Boothbay and ultimately, Muscongus Bay, will be on Saturday, December 29. Contact Joe Gray at 563-3578 to participate. You don't need to be an Audubon member to join them. If you can't go out on the field count, you can spend an hour or so counting the birds at your feeder in the count area on the count day. Ask Mr. Gray how this works.

An interesting spin on the venerable Nutcracker will be presented Sunday, Dec. 16. The Flip, Fly and Tumble gymnasts of the Wiscasset Community Center will perform it twice that day, at 2 p.m. and again at 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $6; children under five are free. Please purchase tickets in advance at the WCC, last week's newspapers said by Tuesday, but call Murielle Corwin, gymnastics instructor at the WCC, 882-8230, to see if you can still squeeze in!

Thursday, December 20, is the date for the Edgecomb Eddy School's Winter Concert! 6:30 p.m. is the time! Let's all be there to hear our kids belt out Christmas music hot and cool, traditional and mellow, hip hop and raucous! Warm your adult throats, get them flexible to join the happy chorus!

Remember, the Town offices will be closed from December 24, 2007 to January 3, 2008. Please get your important town business done before then! Nor will the Selectmen be meeting during that period. You can always e-mail them about issues that concern you: selectpeo ple@edgecomb.org.

A moment of silence for the passing of James W. Hand, Jr., a pioneer environmentalist responsible for establishing the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, the first to be federally designated as such. He had lived in Edgecomb since 1972. Any memorial gifts should be made to the Bowdoin College Alumni Fund, 4100 College Station, Brunswick, ME 04011-8432; or to the Boothbay Region Humane Society/Lincoln County Animal Shelter, 45 Montgomery Road, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538.

The Board of Trustees of Lincoln Academy has announced the new Horizon Scholarship to help students seeking educational and enrichment experiences outside of their Lincoln Academy schooling (excluding sports camps or programs). Freshmen, sophomores and juniors may apply for this partial financial assistance twice a year, application deadlines December 15

and May 15. The scholarship amount will vary according to the cost and type of experience sought, and is intended to be a help; it will not fully pay for any program. For more information, contact Kevin Dowling at 563-3596, ext. 40 or dowling@lincolnacademy.org.

Kudos Corner: Congratulations to young Mel Geisler on Salt Cove Road who has advanced to the Yellow Belt Green Stripe status at his Tao Martial Arts program in Newcastle! Call 563-3037 and speak to Chief Instructor Hal Pierce if interested in this program for your own

kids. And in far-off Northford Conn., my grandson Ben Klemme has advanced to his Purple Belt! Just in time to celebrate his 10th birthday!

Bestowing grandmotherly beams and smiles on everyone from 234 River Road, 633-2978, jocam@ midcoast.com.

This column appears in the Boothbay Register, The Lincoln County News, the Wiscasset News-paper, and at www.Edgecomb.org.