My friend, the Tattooed Novelist Mom, called me in alarm (or it may have been amusement) to report that many extra-large dragonflies have been flying lately, much higher than usual, above her place on Coleman Pond.

"Maybe you could blog about this," she suggested.

In a pair of thought-provoking articles this week, Tux Turkel of the Portland Press Herald looked at how New Brunswick — our neighbor and near-twin to the east — is responding to the slow-burn demographic crisis of an aging workforce and shrinking tax base.

The state of Maine has lost 20 percent of its natural wetlands since the first European settlers arrived. That's a huge amount of territory in a state where wetlands comprise fully one-quarter of all land area. It's a loss of some 2,000 square miles, if my math is correct.

First the good news: my kitty showed up at the back door about the time I'd given her up for lost. I'd awakened in the night to the alarming sound of a screech owl just outside my window — so it sounded, anyway — and discovered the door was ajar. This door doesn't always close tightly and my kitty, being pesky by nature, has figured out how to jiggle it open with a claw. Usually she comes home when I call her, probably on the theory that yummy food is in the offing. That night she did not.