The Monadnock Shopper News

The Monadnock Shopper News has a circulation of 42,507 with a CVC-audited 79% market penetration, making it one of the highest market penetrations nationwide.

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Are You Up For The Indie Challenge? #IndependentsWeek2014

Twenty-four dedicated Monadnock Region citizens have accepted the 2014 Indie Challenge. Their mission: To fulfill all of their needs at locally owned and independent businesses during Independents Week, July 1st to 7th.

While Independence Day is a time to celebrate our freedom, Independents Week is a time to reflect on our inter-connectedness. Monadnock Buy Local and other local business alliances throughout the nation are celebrating the positive impacts independent Are You Up For The Indie Challenge? and locally owned businesses have on our communities. We ask you to take some time next week to acknowledge each independent business owner’s spirit of entrepreneurism, individuality, and character; the way they give back to our community with their time, talent, goods, and services; and how their offerings fulfill your needs. Show your appreciation and thank a locally owned business owner during Independents Week.

Taking the Indie Challenge, by making all of your purchases at independents, is a great way to celebrate. Sign on to the Indie Challenge at monadnocklocal.org/indie-challenge. We hope you’ll keep us posted on how it’s going; e-mail us at [email protected]. If you get stumped, use our 2414 Facebook Fans (and your friends and neighbors) to help brainstorm possibilities. Another great resource for finding independent businesses is the online directory, listing 258 locally owned businesses in the Monadnock Region.

The Keene Downtown Group plans to celebrate Independents Week. Stay tuned for how businesses on Main Street in Keene are marking the week. Traveling during Independents Week? Ask locals who their favorites are and look for networks like Monadnock Buy Local in the areas you’re visiting.

Another fun way to celebrate Independents Week is to participate in local events sponsored by our locally owned businesses and the community.

Start off Independents Week at Orchard Hill Breadworks Pizza Night in Alstead on Tuesday, July 1st, from 5 to 7 p.m. Bring your own pizza toppings, drinks, picnic blanket, dinnerware, and $7 per crust. Orchard Hill Breadworks provides the pizza crusts, cheese, and sauce, and will cook your pizza in their new outdoor oven. Call 603-835-7845.

On Tuesday, July 2nd, the Rindge Chamber of Commerce hosts their annual Family Festival and Fireworks at the common starting at 5 p.m. Fireworks start at 9 p.m. 

The fireworks continue on Wednesday, July 3rd. The Keene Swamp Bats offer fireworks at their game against North Adams at the Alumni Field in Keene. The game starts at 6:30 p.m. and the fireworks show follows.

On the fourth of July, relax under the stars at the Northfield Drive-In for a double feature movie. See more at northfielddrivein.com.

On Saturday, July 5th at 10 a.m., Walpole Valley Farms invite you to a tour of their farm. Cost is $5; kids under 12 are free. Learn more at walpolevalleyfarms.com/events.

The evening of July 5th comes alive with music. Keene Music Festival’s Sumner Knight Series brings Ljova and The Kontraband to the chapel at the Woodland Cemetery from 7 to 9 p.m. The suggested donation is $10 with profits going towards the renovation of the chapel. Bring a canned good for the local food pantry for a discount. The Fitzwilliam Inn hosts Northern Stone from 8:30 to 11 p.m. ($5 cover); and starting at 9:30 p.m. at Harlow’s Pub in Peterborough the Ghost Dinner Band performs ($8 cover). Check out monadnotes.com for more music events.

On Sunday, July 6 from 2 to 4 p.m., there’s an Ice Cream Social at the Sheridan House Museum in Ashuelot – a kick-off event for their 150th Anniversary of Covered Bridge #1. Learn more at winchesternhhistoricalsociety.org.

Round out Independents Week with a round of dancing at the Monday Night Contra Dance on Monday, July 6th at 8 p.m. to midnight at Heberton Hall in Keene (Cost is $3). Visit www.monadnockfolk.org for more details.

                                                                                           -By Jen Risley

Monadnock Buy Local works to encourage more people to “think local first” to help local communities and local economy grow: monadnocklocal.org. To read other columns published in The Monadnock Shopper News go to www.shoppernews.com or flip through the copy of the MSN delivered to your door each week.

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You'll want to get your mail as soon as you get home today! The 9th annual "Best of Monadnock" Readers' Choice Awards will be waiting for you in this weeks edition of The Monadnock Shopper News.

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"Meet The Coywolf" Green Monadnock by Richard Popovic (Featured Column of the Week)

A few columns ago I talked about my new trail camera, specifically about my failure in capturing pictures of the resident bobcat. Luckily the bobcat came in for a close-up and I got some great shots with my point-and-shoot, but I was still anxious to see what else was out there in the woods around my house. In the trail camera’s original location, on a hillside just above my house, I managed to get a few good pictures of a red fox, but that was it, besides a lot of squirrels and wind-blown leaves. I decided to take it deeper into the woods, up an old logging road and off onto a little spur trail.

Shortly after turning onto the trail I saw a large mound of scat which contained hair, so I felt good about my choice. Through reading and personal experience I have learned that animals tend to use paths and trails, probably for the same reason humans do—it makes getting from point A to B in a forest much easier. I guess there is a universal dislike of getting whipped in the eyes by branches and tripping over roots while bushwhacking.

Finding the right spot for the camera is key to avoiding a lot of frustration later on. The tree it is strapped to has to be big enough to not sway with the wind, and having the sun predominantly behind the camera is preferable. You do not want too many small saplings with leaves in the shot, because these will quiver and shake with the slightest breeze, setting off the shutter and leaving you with pictures of nothing. And you obviously want to be aiming at a probable spot where animals will walk by.

Finally, you do not want it so deep into the woods that you either cannot find it later on or lose the motivation to check it because a four mile hike one way is not in the cards. I found a spot that met most of these criteria, set up the camera, camouflaged it a bit with some branches, and headed home.

A week later I pulled the memory card to see how lucky I got. The camera had taken over one hundred pictures. The very first shot was a nice one of the bobcat! I took that for a good omen and continued to quickly scroll through. A lot of blowing leaves, some squirrels, a few nice shots of a lone turkey, and one big gray fox. Really big--wait, that is not a fox. It looks sort of like…a German Shepherd? I showed it to my neighbor, who immediately tagged it as a coyote. In my mind’s eye coyotes are small, low to the ground, sandy-colored mutts. The word I used to describe this canine was ‘majestic’. I posted a picture of it on Facebook, and another neighbor pointed me to a recent PBS program which made things much clearer. I was not looking at a simple coyote—it was a coy wolf.

In a nutshell, after wolves had been essentially run out of the eastern United States through hunting and loss of habitat, opportunistic coyotes from the west moved in. Sometime in the early 1900’s, they mated with wolves in Canada, and over time developed into what some scientists are calling a distinct new species, the coywolf. More wolf-like in attitude, size and appearance, they are quite a bit different from their forbears in the west. The Eastern Coyote can weigh up to fifty pounds and grow to be five feet long! I had no idea these large predators were out there in our forests.

To learn more about the coywolf, check out the excellent documentary at www.pbs.org. It is a truly fascinating tale about adaptation, survival and animal intelligence.

Richard Popovic is a musician and freelance writer who lives in Nelson in an efficient little house he built in 2007 where he spends most of his time attempting to convert run-on sentences into a viable source of clean energy. To read more by Richard Popovic or other columns published in The Monadnock Shopper News go to www.shoppernews.com or flip through the copy of the MSN delivered to your door each week.

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Fotos On Foot Begins New Season May 31st

Take photos, have fun, and learn about Keene's history all at once with "Fotos On Foot". Lead by historian Meg Kupiec and photo-guy Steve Hooper, tours are from May to October and start at 6pm on Fridays and 10:30am on Saturdays. For more info email: [email protected] (Hooper) or [email protected] (Kupiec).