Your Scribe is not a joiner but I am thinking of getting involved in two groups that I encountered at the recent Commond Ground Fair: Maine Rivers and Small Woodlot Owners of Maine.

My cabin is on the Sandy River, and thus it is makes sense to join a group created to lobby for the health of the state's riverways.

I am intrigued by the year-old organization, at least based on its newsletter: Making Waves.

It appears that one of the group's goals is to (further) clean the Androscoggin River.

Good luck!

Your Scribe is wizened enough to remember the early '70s, when the federal government declared that the Androscoggin was one of the 10 filthiest rivers in the country.

Many Mainers were shocked, including then rising political star Sen. Ed Muskie (who earned national attention for his support of cleaning up the environment).

Shocked, that is, if they lived in Kennebunk, Portland or Camden.

If you lived in Lewiston, Rumford, Jay or Waterville, it was no revelation to hear that Maine's paper industry was fouling the rivers.

(The paper industry also threatened the rivers of northern Maine with their romantic but damaging log drives, and they were finally outlawed).

Evidently the Androscoggin is still receiving excessive effluent from the mills in Lewiston, and thus Maine Rivers is making an effort to foster stronger regulations.

I will check with my factotum to see if I have $25 in the til to send along. Address: Maine Rivers, 3 Wade St., Augusta, Maine, 04330.

The Small Woodlot Owners of Maine is an established organization to which I should also belong.

I am trying to thin out my 20 acres, but have been unable to get Bob the Woodsman off the dime.

Perhaps they know loggers willing to get to work this fall.

Also, they might have advice on how much to cut.

Bob is thinking of a 50 percent cut ("thinking" is the operative term) but that might be too much.

On second thought, I definitely should have someone advise me on cutting.

Stories abound about land owners being shocked when they see how much the loggers have actually taken.

I will seek advice - today.

Thoughts on the Common Ground Fair held in Unity over the weekend:

- The demonstration of sheepdogs at work with sheep and geese was informative and entertaining. The owners who ran the program made it fun.

- The signage to lead motorists to the fair rated between poor and non-existent. This should be addressed.

- Booths that provided information on housing and energy were well attended. Vendors promoting wood stoves were busy.

- There were several promotions of wind power, but Your Scribe is not a fan. The cost and logistics appear to be overwhelming. And how about those many days when it is not windy?

- The fair is a celebration of food but many booths had long lines, and inefficient serving teams. Full disclosure: I arrived at 2 p.m. and was hungry.

- The building housing blue-ribbon winners for vegetables was mobbed. Who thought that growing produce was a competitive activity, except that offering prizes for outstanding examples has been a staple of fairs for decades.

- Saturday was rainy, and hurt the fair's attendance. But the parking lots were not as full, and entry and exit were painless (if you could find the place).

- The fair hosted booths promoting environmental concerns in Maine. But it also had proponents of a pure Utah and a clean Alaska.

- Left-wingers had the opportunity to buy numerous stickers and buttons. One slogan that appeared popular: "Visualize impeachment."

- The Fair honors farmers but farming is a tough, exhausting business, if author and back-to-the-earth adherent E.B. White was a judge. In addition to suggesting (in 1940) that it was almost impossible to make a profit, he wrote that working a farm in "20 percent producing and 80 percent mending."

- The spinning and weaving booths were fascinating. And the colorful yarns were spectacular.

- I wish I had bought some apples.

Do you have questions about the proposed residential construction project at Moosehead Lake by the Plum Creek crowd?

Send them along.

Your Scribe plans to visit the area next month, and get a guided tour from the "developers."

Strangely, I am neutral on the project right now.

I am against raping the land, of course.

Plum Creek says they won't do that, but who knows once the backhoes swing into action.

But here are two thoughts:

Maine is a huge state, with more forest than any state east of the Mississippi.

It seems to me that the more stakeholders there are, the more people will want to preserve what we have.

I have enjoyed my cabin greatly; I am much more attuned to environmental issues now that I have trees and river water to protect.

To have several hundred cabin owners at Moosehead might be a positive thing. (OK, they are selling homes more grandiose than "cabins").

Secondly, people need jobs.

Your Scribe used to yawn at such an argument but no longer.

Maine's fishing industry is disappearing

Jobs related to logging are also in short supply.

Cities producing pulp and paper like Millinocket are threatened with economic disaster.

Communities like Waterville and Winslow are stagnant because corporations like Scott Paper have closed up shop.

(Sad aside: I bought a house in Waterville in 1991 for $106,000. I sold it SEVEN years later for the same price!)

And now MBNA, the tech-savvy financial services company, has been sold and new owners will close a half-dozen offices that were once a boon to Belfast, Rockland and Farmington.

Grim truth: The Maine economy has tourism and old people.

I recently read that the state has more elderly residents (proportionately) than any other.

(Don't bring up Florida, because a lot of young people go there looking for jobs. Few youthful workers have Maine in their sights).

So there you have it - Plum Creek would generate commerce.

Initially it would be in construction, and later in services.

I don't know if it is a good project but I plan to find out as much as I can.

Please send along questions that I can convey to project managers.

You can include them in the Comment section below.

Just when I thought my negotiation skills were a remarkable cross between those of Theo Epstein and King Solomon, it turns out that my woodcutting pact is dead.

Or at least inert.

To recap: I want the 20 acres of forest behind the cabin thinned by Bob the Woodsman.

He has promised to do so; he has vowed to send contracts and secure the blessing of the DEP.

According to our deal, Bob will take more than half of the gross proceeds.

But at least some revenue will come forth to Your Scribe - whose goal is to become a mini lumber-baron so I can write off cabin costs my taxes.

But in the eight weeks that we have been discussing the project, no work has been done.

I won't even go into the old saw of "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it . . etc."

No tree, no twig, no tittering titmouse has been disturbed in the least.

Today I sent Bob a letter. (That kind of assertive action should show him!)

I told him that if he is too busy for the project, I will get another logger.

We'll see where this "Walk softly, and carry a big roll of postage stamps" strategy gets us.

(Aside No. 1: I saw Garry the Logger cutting wood across the road, and he hinted that he'd like a job when his work is finished. But Gary's "portfolio" shows that he is a clear-cut type of guy, taking every tree except the ones that line the road. I want only a 50 percent thinning - if that).

(Aside No. 2: Is there a market for yellow perch, like in Asia somewhere? I caught a dozen this weekend including a few that were a foot long. They are so boney, though, that I throw them back.)

(Aside No. 3: I got "Poulan bicep" last weekend from trying to start my chainsaw. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but the 14-inch blade refused to engage despite dozens of pulls. Gary the Logger started it one one pull, though, so I am not ready to call the manufacturer - the Poulan Manufacturing Co. Kidding aside, my arm is really sore!)

"Food is our common ground, a universal experience."

These words were penned by James Beard, probably over a five-course meal complemented by several selections of fine wines.

He was a world-renowned cook and media luminary.

Curiously, his words have been adapted by those who run the Common Ground Fair.

This annual event will be held next weekend in Unity, about 20 minutes east of Waterville.

I say "curiously" because I have never equated the fair with food, per se.

(An aside: Clearly Your Scribe is a slow study. The event is run by the Maine Organic Farmers Association).

I think of the fair as a celebration of the earth, and the people who are trying to save it.

The event will be held for the 30th time, and Your Scribe plans to attend.

Though this is fair season throughout the state, the Common Ground event must be among the largest.

Organizers expect 50,000 visitors, who will be shepherded by 1,500 volunteers.

Last year I met one of my neighbors from New Sharon, who was a vendor selling Alaskan chainsaw systems.

(Aside No. 2: I am in the early evolution of my chainsaw career and am not ready for a "system").

I do not attend the fair because I want to learn more about raising food (though based on our yield this year that should be a motive).

At the cabin, we have only anemic corn that was planted late and pumpkins that appear to be infertile.

No, I go to appreciate the demonstrations that might help me at the cabin.

I will attend the Energy and Shelter exhibition, to learn more about how I can use solar power and the wood stove.

The presentation by the Maine Stoneworkers Guild is also on my list, as I want to build a stone wall in front of the cabin.

And I will visit the social and political action tents, which provide provocative information about various environmental assaults throughout the state that are not reported in detail by the mainstream press.

I will NOT be stopping by the Harry S. Truman Memorial Manure Toss. . . .

So there it is, one week and counting.

Conceding to the food theme, here's a quote from the organization's website: "Take rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop." Ovid

Down East, the real-estate journal for outsiders in the seven-figure crowd, recently had a feature story on irrestible trips in September.

Your Scribe has compiled his own list, made up of equally scenic trips but without the pretension.

Here they are:

Camden-Rockport, with a drive up Mount Battie - This rather obvious choice is a favorite of mine based on several great moments in the past. One was in late September, when I worked at the Samoset Hotel. Another was a trip to interview Chuck Kruger, a coast singer who released an album in early fall called "Windy and Warm."

Bethel - Though the area in the western Maine mountains is best known for the Sunday River ski resort, this region is glorious in the fall when there are few people. Of course, this year there are a great many more people around - law enforcement officials nosing around nearby Newry following that awful quadruple homicide.

Machias - OK, most people never get here even during the high season. But Your Scribe traveled to nearby Campobello several autumns ago, and found the chilled desolation to be most appealing. And no, I was not around when FDR was vacationing there.

Stonington - Those who attend the Haystack crafts seminars in late summer and early fall swear they have never seen such glorious sunrises and picturesque days. The light has inspired artists for decades, and a trip to this part of the coast is really worthwhile.

Unity - The Common Ground Fair is centered here in late September, and it is one of the great attractions for cabin-type people. It offers numerous booths seminars, and demonstrations on topics ranging from sheep shearing to wood burning. It is one weekend when people think about co-existing with the earth, not dominating it. Last year Your Scribe turned up in Union, not Unity, but I vow that such a catastrophe will not be repeated.

"It was on the 6th of September of 1759 that I reached by twelfth birthday."

That is the first line of one of the great books about the cabin country of Maine.

Your Scribe is referencing "Arundel," by Kenneth Roberts, written in 1930.

(An aside: The line is not as famous as "I once owned a farm in Africa," but "Arundel" was never made into a film with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.)

Arundel is about Benedict Arnold's plan in 1775 to travel from Brunswick to Quebec to capture that Canadian city from the French.

This was the "good" Arnold, a colonel in the colonial forces before he turned turncoat.

"Arundel" is considered an historical novel, and to me it is one of the most compelling for those interested in the outdoors.

Several hundred men from the colonies gathered near Merrymeeting Bay, built canoes, organized supplies and headed up the Kennebec River for one of the longest paddle-and-portage expeditions in New England history.

Several thoughts on the trip, which is still memorialized by historical societies in Maine:

- The communities through which they traversed are well known today, including Gardiner, Hallowell, Fort Western (Augusta), Fort Halifax (Winslow), Norridgewock and Skowhegan.

- Arnold's group started in September, but hit cold weather fast. They approached Quebec in late December, which means they had at least eight weeks of real cold. Those guys were tough (or stupid).

- The book carries wonderful passages of canoeing, camping, portaging and hunting and fishing. That was real outdoor living, with starvation and hostile Indians adding (greatly) to the challenge.

- Author Roberts is adept at noting how skillful the Maine Indians were at living off the land, and how difficult it was for most colonists.

- On a personal note, "Arundel" is the first book that was read to me as a child (that I remember). There was no Goldbug or Dr. Seuss - I got the unvarnished tale of life in the woods, and this adventure story has always stuck with me. That first reader was my grandmother, Edith Carter, of Rochester and Canandaigua, N.Y. She eventually lost her eyesight, and moved to an assisted living home in Kennebunkport (now the Captain Lord Mansion, a popular guesthouse). So she finished her life very close to Arundel, the area after which the novel is named.

So there it is - no farm in Africa but a rambunctious adventure tale of central Maine.

Let them have Redford - we have Kenneth Roberts, one of the great historical novelists of his era or any other.

It appears that Bob the Woodsman is ready to cut, and that the sound of timberrrr might yet be heard on my property in cabin country.

My goal is to thin out the forest on my 20-acre parcel in New Sharon.

I have been talking to Bob about it for six months.

Initally he had domestic concerns (three funerals in one week), then he thought the woods was too wet.

But last weekend he announced it was dry enough to begin.

He seems to be following appropriate guidelines.

Bob is getting permission from the Road Commissioner to build a temporary gravel pathway over a culvert in order to get his equipment into the forest.

And he appears to be getting a permit from the Conservation Commission.

(An aside: Those who hope clearcutting is a thing of the past in Maine can be encouraged that every logger I have talked to is aware that someone from the Department of Environmental Protection will be checking their work regularly. So they go by the rules.)

Once he begins cutting, he will stand to make 50 percent of the gross revenue from softwood that goes to the mill in Jay.

And he will make 40 percent of the revenue from hardwood that will be cut up for firewood. (The guy who splits and delivers it will make about 30 percent, and I get about 30 percent).

(Aside No. 2: The price of wood rises in the fall, so perhaps it's better he isn't starting until September).

Bob took me on a tour of a parcel from which he took wood last year.

He took less than 50 percent of the standing trees, and the forest looks pretty darn good.

Bob said that parcel (perhaps four acres), yielded about $5,000 (gross).

The project on my land should equal that, he said.

So Bob starts this week with moving his equipment to the land.

Perhaps next week he will start knocking down trees.

I plan to travel to the woods to monitor the progress at the start of the cut.

My goal to become a Lumber Baron might yet be reached, but I don't want to earn that mantle as the result of an extemporaneous clearcut that took place without my knowledge.