Presidents’ Message. The duly appointed Nominating Committee (Kit Sullivan, Anne Sayer and Rosi Holcombe) reported to the full Board at its meeting on April 25 with its recommendations for the soon-to-be vacant Board positions. The recommendations are as follows: Treasurer: Annie Adler; Secretary: Jeannie Dodson-Edgars; Special Events: Jean Dorcus; Membership: Marsha Beaudoin. The Board approved the recommendations and the approval of the entire membership will be sought at the Annual Meeting and Picnic presently set for Saturday, June 22 at Holly Ridge Golf Club.

We want to express our sincere appreciation to our retiring Board members (Treasurer: Jack Sample; Secretary: Marge Foster; and Special Events: Marie Luck). Annie Adler handled Membership the last two years, but, as above, she’s slated to stay on as our Treasurer. Their efforts made our jobs, not just much easier than otherwise might have been, but actually doable, and those efforts helped make SNN the vibrant entity that it truly is. Thank you.

HAPPY SPRING: Springtime, Yeah or not so Yeah so far!

Kit and Mike Sullivan

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: THE SNN KAYAK NAVY WILL ROW AGAIN

Ahoy, ahoy! We're planning kayak trips in and around the Cape's dazzling bays, harbors, ponds, streams and creeks. We want you to join us. Please let us know you want to be a part of the SNN Kayak Group. We send notices and reminders to those who sign up to participate, and we all enjoy the water and sunshine.

Please send me (Ed Houlihan, Kayak Capt., ebhouli@gmail.com, 5 Lost Meadow Road, East Sandwich MA 02537) your name, email address, and home phone for our list, to be included in the kayak 'Caucus."

MAY 2019

TUESDAY, MAY 7: Tip Toe Thru the Tulips CHANGE OF DATE

We will carpool to the Wicked Tulip Flower Farm in Johnston, Rhode Island (west of Providence) and enjoy many fields of colorful tulips to pick and bulbs for sale. There are 5 acres of tulips…. over 600,000 bulbs were planted last year.

RSVP to Candice Murphy at murphyrc6@comcast.net or 925-389-7233.

Participants will need to purchase their own tickets ONLINE!! Tickets sell out fast and are not available for purchase until one week before the visit. This is a rain or shine event and are not refundable.

As soon as the May 7th tickets are available, I will notify the people who have RSVP’d to purchase their tickets.

Weekday tickets for adults are $15 and include 10 U-pick tulips.

Please go to their website for more information: https://wickedtulips.com/pages/u-pick-event-sub-homepage

Lunch will be at The Black Whale in New Bedford on the way back. https://www.theblackwhale.com/

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TUESDAY, MAY 14: The book group will be reading and discussing Notorious RBG, the Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knishnik on Tuesday, May 14, 10:00 AM. We will meet at the home of Patty Williams, 9 Fleetwood Road, E. Sandwich. Please let Patty know if you will be coming, mpatty3@comcast.net .

 

Biking The sun will shine, and it will be getting warmer. Will you be ready? Get your bike out, dust it down, oil the chain and pump up the tires. I will let you know about the rides … soon!

Patty Williams

MAY 15: CHATHAM TOUR, LUNCH AND MORE:

Join us for a day out learning about the history of the town of Chatham and dining at one of the best restaurants on the Cape. Chatham is one of Cape Cod's oldest villages. Its more than 300 years of history includes seafarers, business and political leaders, literary luminaries and The guided tour ( See http://www.chathamwalks.com/) will meet at 10 a.m. at the Chatham Community Center on 702 Main Street. (Plenty of parking). Tour price is $10 per person

Following the tour, we will head over to Chatham Bars Inn for lunch on the beach (weather permitting). Later, at about 3:00 PM we will attend a free guided Coast Guard Tour of the Chatham Lighthouse. See https://www.capecodchamber.org/events/chatham-light-tours-may-4-and-may-18

Bring a bag of Cape Cod Potato Chips for a fun photo op! RSVP to Marie Luck, mallucky@hotmail.com Please include activities that you will attend. Let Marie know if you would like to carpool.

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MAY 18: WINE SOCIAL AT ED AND DEBI COLLUY'S HOME

Ed and Debi Collupy will host a Wine Social at 7:00 PM on Saturday evening, May 18. They live at 15 Scorton Marsh Road in East Sandwich. Please call or e-mail Debi to let her know you are coming and what you would like to bring (either an appetizer or dessert) to the party. Debi can be reached at 919-656-5342 or at dcollupy@aol.com.

MAY 21: Evening Speaker Event – Coast Guard History

Please join us at our Spring Speaker’s Gathering on Tuesday May 21st at the British Beer Company in Sandwich. We’ll gather at 6:30pm and the talk will begin at 7pm.

Greg Ketchen a retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain will join us. He is currently serving as the president of the Coast Guard Heritage Museum located in Barnstable’s Old Customs House. The museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the Coast Guard’s rich history, particularly here on Cape Cod. (https://www.coastguardheritagemuseum.org/)

During our time together Greg will talk about, among other things, the centennial anniversary of the NC-4’s Transatlantic Flight on May 27, 1919 and its ties to Cape Cod. The NC-4 was one of four NC (Navy-Curtiss) flying-boats, built during World War I, originally to provide patrol cover for American shipping in the Atlantic.

Coast Guard Heritage Museum 3353 Main Street (Route 6A) Barnstable, MA 02630

Judy Collins at the Tilden Arts Center in the 4Cs (Sunday, May 26 at 7:00 p. m.)

IN THE WORKS FOR 2019: PARTIAL June: The SNN Annual Meeting and Picnic at Holly Ridge Golf Club

Date: Saturday, June 22 (rain date Sunday, June 23)

Time: 4:00 pm - cocktails and games (croquet and 3-hole putting contests)

5:30 pm – Buffet dinner including: The Fairway – 2018 Best Sandwich at SandwichFest Pulled Pork Sliders Swedish Meatballs Chicken Potstickers Broccoli Slaw and Ice Cream Sundaes for dessert Cost: $10 per person __________________

July 10th: Cape Cod Baseball League vs Falmouth at Cotuit.

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July 27: The Annual SNN Beach Party _______________________________________________________________

A NOTE FROM THE MEN OF POKER

NEWCOMERS Men's Poker Game is still seeking new players Games are evenings on Tuesdays, 7 pm to 11 pm $.25 - $.50 bet limit, 3 raises per card Texas Hold'em; Five Card and Seven Card Stud; high only or high low split, Omaha high - Low Split No wild cards... Friendly, Fun Game... members rotate hosting at homes Call or email: Henry Jablecki 508= 833-1077; or Jim Doherty gumperjg1@comcast.net, \ or wade Sayer 774 413 5242

LAST MONTH’S ACTIVITIES

The Sandwich Newcomers & Neighbors attended a FREE DISCOUNTED SHOPPING SPREE at the Seaside Boutique, 1 Jarves Street, with refreshments, scarf creativity, and more! Alas, no one brought a camera.

AND A NOTE FROM ANNIE ADLER REGARDING MEMBERSHIP

DUES DUE. Please send your dues checks for $25/person for the calendar year July 1, 2019 - July 1, 2020. Mail checks (payable to SNN) to Annie Adler 7 Inkberry Circle, Sandwich MA 02563

WINE SOCIAL AT THE MORRISONS

Prentice Adler, Lesley Zicko, Marie Luck. Kit Sullivan, Catherine Morrison

Anne Sayer, Joe Fattori Gary Luck, Marsha Beaudoin, Patti Fattori

Annie Adler, Patty Williams, Jean Dorcus. Wade Sayer, Marie Luck, Tom Morrison

VISIT TO THE CAHOON MUSEUM

RON, PETE, MIKE, CAROL, PATTI. Robert Cardinal’s Three Boats at the Cahoon

Some of the art work on display

Lunch after the tour

PROFILE, ED HOULIHAN

Growing up in Schenectady, New York, the youngest of four children, Ed learned to share. That training stayed with him these many years later. Ed has a strong sense of community and of helping others. He's a veteran of 15 years of Sandwich Newcomers, and trustee of the Thornton Burgess Society. He is the lead volunteer of the crew which manages the East Sandwich Game Farm for

Fisheries and Wildlife where he has worked since retiring to the Cape 17 years ago. Ed also coordinates the Kayak group within the Newcomers Club. He and Beth (50 years and counting) have hosted many picnics and Newcomer parties over the years. Stay tuned. Ed served in the Army for three years in Korea and Turkey, and then completed his bachelors and masters degrees at the State University of New York at Albany. As others have found, his time (or perhaps "Time Out”) in the Service helped him to focus and take advantage of higher education. It also helped him to pay for it. He then began a long and satisfying career at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., teaching a variety of courses in the behavioral sciences, principally Sociology. He was active in representing the interests of his faculty colleagues, serving as president of the Faculty Association for several years, and as the vice president of the statewide Associated Community College Faculties. Marrying Beth in 1968, they raised two sons who now live in the Boston area. His involvement with the Thornton Burgess Society stems from his concern for the environment and our place in nature. He was among the early volunteers that helped to convert the East Sandwich Game Farm from the State bird-raising operation to a general nature study area where salt marshes, uplands and fresh water ponds can be observed. If you download the Uniguide app. to your phone, you can even hear Ed give you a guided tour of the eastern portion of the property. Ed was appointed to the Burgess Board of Trustees executive committee in '08. As TWB merges with the CC Museum of Natural History he will be on the joint board. His fascination with the natural world and the outdoors led him to kayaking and exploring the Cape. He and Beth scout out trips and coordinate these adventures for the Newcomers.

As conservationist, the Houlihan’s, favor energy from Heaven (solar, wind), and less so for energy from...well, you know. Their photo-voltaic array installed in '13 has provided over 80% of their electricity in the last 6+ years. As an update to his newsletter profile, Ed responded that " he was NOT nominated for a Nobel this year, and that he has NEVER lost a professional boxing match". Not bad for a boy from Schenectady. Wade Sayer

MEMORIES

Jeannie Dodson-Edgars: My Garden Life: Clear a field, Build a Garden

Gardens just don’t happen overnight or even in one season. Our Santa Fe garden began just like our Cape Cod garden – clearing the field. Each garden has its own nemesis.

In the southwest, the Russians did us no favors. The Russian thistle attached to its more common names of wind witch or tumbleweed, invaded the arid and alkaline eco system and flourished. Tumbleweeds were first reported in the United States around 1877 in Bon Homme County, South Dakota. Apparently, it stowed away with flax seed imported by Ukrainian farmers.

By 1900, tumbleweed had reached the Pacific Coast, as well as New Mexico. This wily wind witch threatens native plant habitat and reduces fodder for the four-legged fauna. Upon maturity, it detaches from the root systems and tumbles to scatter its 250,000 seeds with the help of the infamous New Mexico wind. Thank you, Russia.

In the northeast, we have the English to thank for preserving and honoring poison ivy. It started in the 17th century by honorable and not so honorable history makers. John Smith published the first written account of poison ivy from the unpublished writings of Nathaniel Butler, an English privateer who learned about the plant while governor of Bermuda. Smith’s summarized the plant’s appearance and irritant effects: “The poisoned weed is much in shape like our English Ivy, but being touched, causes redness, itching, and lastly blisters.”

Ignorance is bliss continued into the 18th century. In 1784 Philadelphia horticulturalist William Bartram wrote out a list of 220 “American Trees, Shrubs, & herbs” in his admirable handwriting. His purpose was to pack up the New World seeds and young plants to send back to Europe for their gardening pleasure. Collectors eagerly swept up the plants including “Rhus vernix” and “Rhus radicans,” known to us today as poison sumac and poison ivy.

Empress Joséphine Bonaparte was an avid amateur botanist and plant collector and she cultivated this “New World” ornamental. Not surprising as it does not take an amateur or established botanist to cultivate this lovely poison. The English royal gardens at Kew became another home for this glossy three leaved vine. Anyone for a walk through the gardens?

The 20th century finally announced a waning of love for the native poison ivy. The 20th century botanists began to reclassify the poisonous plants. By the 1930s botanists often separated the irritating plants from the other sumacs, assigning them to the appropriately named genus Toxicodendron (Greek for “poison tree”). This process established its botanical name as Toxicodendron radicans.

I gaze at the “gone wild” growth in our backyard and see a future of steady, deliberate eradication of this noxious poisonous plant. Not an easy task and not recommended by a Cape Cod conservationist. Upon donating to a conservation trust, I chatted with the trust’s contact about removing this nasty vine along the paths in our conservation areas to make it more human accessible and friendly, he paused and stated with devout earnestness “You know, that poison ivy is a Native Plant.” He apparently worships at the church of it does not make sense and whose intention appears to be inaction when it comes to helping humans enjoy the conservation’s sacred land. Of course, I am now reminded that the prime vector of planet death springs from Homo sapiens. Our gun laws and hateful epitaphs tweeted and proclaimed by insatiable politicians are addressing the eradication of that group.

The first year we cut the hairy vines that climbed the trees and mowed the ones on the ground. Then applied a solution that is obnoxious to the new glossy leaves. Now we wait for spring and new growth.

Each place I have lived presents its own version of the seasons. I have awarded Massachusetts an additional season. I call it “Spinter” as one day is spring with the hint of true warmth at 60 degrees with a calm, balmy breeze, and next day winter gifts us with 40 degrees and a blowing, frigid, and icy northeast wind.

Now onto Asian bittersweet.

“What beautiful berries,” folks proclaimed. We must have some. Due to ignorant demand, the Asian bittersweet was introduced to the United States around 1860. Today it riddles our Cape Cod forests and strangles the trees.

Another vining plant presents with thorns and is yet to be identified. “Lovely”, the gardener says. Time to order thick sheeted “rose” gloves.

With the poison ivy in temporary “check” and the bittersweet identified, it is now time to turn to the ornamentals that do not leave me with blisters and oozing sores. Onto another “Dendron.”

Our grouping of rhododendrons silently wait for a caring soul to rid it of bittersweet and prune its crossing and weak branching. The yellowing chlorotic leaves announce a chemical imbalance. The rule out diagnosis include high pH (alkaline soil), low iron or sulfur, or simply a lack of nitrogen. The rhodies called for the basic approach: clear invasive vines, prune for health and form and apply organic fertilizer.

The rhodies celebrate by yielding to the growling wind without rubbing each other raw. The buds begin to swell.

THE SANDWICH CROQUET CLUB

Some of our members have joined the Sandwich Croquet Club and find it quite enjoyable!! Some of the members of the Sandwich Croquet Club are now interested in joining the SNN (synergy)

People can sign up for the lessons by going to Sandwichcroquet@gmail.com or they can sign up at the Sandwich Senior Center, giving name, email address, and a phone number.  This is an activity for singles or couples and is a great sport for the summer. 

Activities

The Women’s Daytime Book Club meets 2nd Tuesday of each month at 10:00AM. New members are welcome. Coordinator is Patty Williams , (mpatty3@comcast.net)

Men’s Poker Group meets first and third Tuesdays of the month at 7:00 PM . Coordinators are Paul Pronovost (paulernest@comcast.net) and Henry Jablecki (hljablecki@comcast.net)

Girl’s Night Out: Ladies go to early movie, and then supper at local restaurant. Contact Anne Sayer, (asayer3@gmail.com)

Special Events (maybe with lunch or dinner): Contact Marie Luck with any of your ideas.(mallucky@hotmail.com)

Kayak Caucus: Sliding Quietly through the Cape’s bays, ponds, marshes and rivers. All levels of Kayaking welcome. Please email Coordinator Ed Houlihan at (ebhouli@gmail.com) to confirm you want to be included on the Kayak Caucus list. Please include your email address and the phone number where you can be reached on the day of the scheduled kayak trips.

Biking: Riding the pathways and the rail trails of the Cape, lunch at a local favorite. Patty Williams, Coordinator, (mparty3@comcast.net)

Gardening Club: Tom Clark has started a gardening club and is looking for suggestions/comments. The idea is to have a “roaming” meeting, meaning we would go to different members gardens and plant/work on each other’s . Also, we could all have access to each other for suggestions and help with problems, and for possible solutions. As Tom says: I am happy to offer my help and have offered to be a Coordinator. I have been gardening for over 40 years (not that I have all the answers; we can all learn from each other). So, that is the core idea behind this concept. Maybe it’s something that you’ve wanted to try, but never had the time or a support group. Gardening is very rewarding. So please, let’s get some suggestions and feedback.     Tom Clark. I can be reached at topcat426@gmail.com.

Guy’s Get Together: Guys meet for coffee-breakfast and discussion of issues, large and small. 2nd and 4th Wednesday every month at the Marshland Too . Coordinator: Wade Sayer, (wsayer@aol.com) or 774-413-5242 Next up: TBA by Wade. Stay tuned.

Walking/Hiking Group: Discover new walking trails in the streets and backroads of Sandwich. All levels of walkers welcome! So far, we have explored Shawme Pond, Boyden Farm Conservation, the Game Farm, Green Briar Nature Center, and

downtown Sandwich. Members who show up are encouraged to plan the next excursion. Currently we are walking at 9:30 am on Fridays, weather permitting. Emails to all members with planned routes are sent out weekly. Step away from that boring treadmill and enjoy the fun of socializing while exercising!

Coordinator Candice Murphy, contact Candice at murphyrc6@comcast.net

Board of Directors

Co-Presidents: Kit & Mike Sullivan. kit.g.sullivan@gmail.com mts51@aol.com

Vice President, Ed Collupy edcollupy@aol.com

Secretary, Marge Foster margefoster53@gmail.com,

Treasurer, Jack Sample jackgrace132@comcast.net

Publicity, Candice Murphy murphyrc6@comcast.net

Special Events, Marie Luck mallucky@hotmail.com

Membership, Annie Adler adleanni@gmail.com

Newsletter, Prentice Adler prentice.adler@gmail.com

Wine Socials, Anne Sayer asayer3@gmail.com