I would like to wish you a great Holiday Season and the very best New Year. I have enjoyed another excellent year, met a lot of new folks and spent time with old friends. With more time fishing and boating than I could have ever dreamed and several weeks in northern Maine bird hunting with a couple of good dogs. I am the first to admit to being spoiled.
The weather as always provided a constant source of interest from a wet spring right through to a wet fall. We now have enough snow on the ground to make all of the Christmas decorations look great and tease the winter sports enthusiasts, but not enough to actually ski on. Winter is here there can be no doubt about it, with a strong northwest wind last week and temperatures near zero for a couple of days. The new woodstove that I have been wondering about is really doing the job. I still am learning to operate it, but it really puts out the heat on those cold days. I have seen the physics of why stoves burn so much better when it is cold explained more than once but I am still amazed at the increase in performance. I was struggling to get heat out of a stove that now will make it much to hot to be in the same room with it while burning a similar amount of wood. One thing that I notice is that it takes quite a while longer to heat this stove up in the morning, the double wall must make things get hot more slowly. Of course on the other end it cools down more slowly as well.
I am enjoying my work as the lobbyist for the Maine Bowhunters Association and am delighted to be a part of wildlife conservation issues in Maine again. The Bowhunters are a good group with lots of potential for increasing their impact in the future which makes the work even more exciting. The next small business seminar for guides that I offer is filling fast and is also attracting some great folks to share their expertise. The seminar will be offered at the Maine Principal's Association in Augusta, ME on January 21, 2006 from 9 to 3, and is limited to 15 participants. From the way that reservations are coming in I expect this one to fill completely.
For those of you who still need last minute gifts may I suggest a gift certificate for a fishing trip? The recipient and I can work out the details this winter and you will be remembered as the person who made an excellent adventure possible. Certificates can be purchased in the online store and I can e-mail you a file of the certificate to print out and give on the big day.
Thank you for signing up for this newsletter and I hope that you find it useful and entertaining.
Happy Holidays!
Don Kleiner
Master Maine Guide
