Protecting Maine bee populations

Attend a free educational and networking event, “Maine Bees and New Gloucester Beekeepers,” from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, at the First Congregational Church Vestry, 19 Gloucester Hill Road, to learn about how to help bees in Maine.

Guest speaker Jennifer Lund, the state apiarist with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, will address why some bee species are in decline, what people can do to protect bee populations in Maine and other related subjects. To learn more, visit ngxchange.org.

Remember the pancakes

Royal River Orchards owners David and Leslee Clark will be hosting their renowned pancake breakfast on both Saturday, March 25, and Sunday, March 26, from 9 a.m. to noon or sellout. The menu includes made-from-scratch pancakes drenched in the Clarks’ own maple syrup, bacon and a choice of coffee or hot cocoa for $10 per person.

Their store will be open until 4 p.m. each day featuring their popular homemade granola, maple cookies, maple baked beans, canned applesauce, canned cranberry sauce, as well as various sizes of their own syrup. New this year will be cider donuts.

Guests are welcome to peek inside the sugar shed to observe sap boiling demonstrations. Note that breakfast is served outside in the orchard, so dress accordingly, although a warming fire pit is on the premises to ward off the chill. For more information, call 625-4756.

Women’s history talk

To celebrate Women’s History Month, author Anne B. Gass, independent historian and Gray resident, will speak at the New Gloucester Public Library at 7 p.m. Monday, March 27. She will share remarks and historic slides about her novel, a historical fiction titled “We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip,” based on a true story.

Four women leave San Francisco for Washington, D.C., in 1915 on a dangerous mission to demand an amendment to the U.S. Constitution enfranchising women. The story unfolds through the eyes of unsung heroes Ingeborg Kindstedt and Maria Kindberg, middle-aged Swedish immigrants who own the car, do all the driving and perform auto repairs.

Gass developed her passion for women’s rights history while composing a book about her activist great-grandmother. The book, “Voting Down the Rose: Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage,” was published in 2014. In 2015, the research for her next book led Gass on a cross-country journey, retracing the route suffrage activists had taken a century before to demand voting rights for women from Congress and the president. The result was “We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip,” published in 2021.

Property taxes due

The second payment of real estate and personal property tax bills for 2022-23 is due on April 6. Interest will begin to accrue on April 7 on any unpaid balances at a rate of 4% per annum.

Contact the Deputy Tax Collector at 926-4126, ext. 1, with any questions. For new service window hours, go to newgloucester.com.

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