Bangor

Literacy tutor training

In response to United Way and Clear Channel of Maine’s focus on literacy during the month of March, Literacy Volunteers of Bangor offers Basic Literacy Tutor Training for volunteers interested in helping adults learn to read or improve their reading.

In eastern Maine, one in three people have low literacy and read at a fifth-grade level, or never learned to read.

Tutoring an adult in reading only takes a few hours and week, though the positive effects last a lifetime.

The next tutor training series is 6-9 p.m. Wednesdays, April 5, 12, 26 and May 3, at United Technologies Center, Hogan Road. Those interested in volunteering must call the Literacy Volunteers of Bangor office at 947-8451 to register by Monday, April 3. Course materials cost $20 and scholarships are available for those who can’t afford the fee.

Orono

Maple sugaring time

The University of Maine Page Farm and Home Museum in Orono will celebrate maple syrup season with a public field trip to a sugaring operation on Friday, March 31.

This year’s spring field trip will travel to Breakneck Ridge Farm near Monson to see the family-run sugaring operation and its buffalo and deer herds.

Call 581-4100 for reservations before March 29 or for further details. Participants should plan to dress warmly and wear appropriate shoes, as some walking will be required.

The motor coach from Cyr Bus Tours leaves at 8 a.m. from the museum and will return to the Orono campus by 4 p.m., said museum director Patricia Henner. The coach is fully equipped with comfortable seating and restroom facilities. The cost is $35 and includes transportation and a light lunch in a Guilford eatery. Participants also will visit Griff’s Blacksmith Shop near Guilford to watch a demonstration.

Breakneck Ridge Farm will offer demonstrations of its maple syrup operations and a tour of the farm’s sugar bush. In the “sugar bush,” sugar maple trees feed sweet sap, often through plastic tubing, to the sugar house, where it is simmered into syrup, maple sugar or caramelized for candy.

Both Breakneck Ridge Farm and Griff’s will open its gift shops for visitors.

With Maine being one of the biggest producers of pure maple syrup in the world, Henner said the museum looks forward to the annual visit to farms and sugaring operations.

Sugaring is one of New England’s oldest agricultural enterprises and is traditionally the first harvest of the year following winter, Henner said. Syrup season is one of the first cheerful harbingers of spring.

Sugaring was first practiced by American Indians, and learned by colonists and settlers in New England. Settlers referred to maple syrup as Indian sugar or Indian molasses. For information about Page Farm and Home Museum, visit www.ume.maine.edu/~pfhm