Transcription of Hospitality for All Creatures, Great & Small #258
Speaker 1: You are listening to Love Maine Radio hosted by Dr. Lisa Belisle and recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a writer and physician who practices family medicine and acupuncture in Brunswick, Maine. Show summaries are available at lovemaineradio.com. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Dr. Belisle: The concept behind this was that with haddock fisheries being closed, now opened again, the cod fisheries being closed, Maine shrimp fisheries being closed. The fishermen with the management that was going on the Gulf of Maine were really being sKewezed and so it was really about how can we start expanding markets for fishermen by introducing under loved, under appreciated, lesser known seafood to people?
Speaker 3: When the monarchs, on their journey from Mexico, when they land in [inaudible 00:00:54], we welcome them as we would a hotel guest and they find plants that provide them with nectar and pollen. They provide milkweed to lay their eggs on and they find an environment safe, free from the overuse of pesticides, so they can feel safe, comfortable, and happy. Every year for the last three years, we’ve actually watched the females lay their eggs, watch the eggs hatch, the little caterpillars eat the milkweed down to almost nothing, make cocoons, and then move on.
Dr. Belisle: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 258. Hospitality for All Creatures Great and Small, airing for the first time on Sunday, August 28th, 2016. Maine provides a way station for a diversity of living creatures. Not only do we welcome human visitors to our estate, but we also post critters that fly, swim and scamper. Today we talk with Rauni Q and Derrick Daily of the Inn by the Sea, about their innovative offerings from Monarch butterfly, foster dogs and New England cottontail rabbits, all on the ground of a luxury hotel. Thank you for joining us.
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Curtis Memorial Library in New Brunswick features a uniKew interactive space called the Collaboratory, with rotating monthly themes for all ages and interests. Join us in September for the exhibit The Writer’s Life. On Wednesday September 14th 6:30 PM, when Doctor Lisa Belisle and writer Joan Dempsey, will continue a conversation begun earlier this year on the importance of writing space and Joan’s wonderful backyard writing shed, a former chicken coop. As well as the craft of lighting and Joan’s acquisition of a significant research grant to travel to Warsaw and Washington DC, for work on This is How it Begins. A novel in progress and more about The Writer’s Life. Please visit curtislibrary.com for more information, or call 207-725-5242, ext. 219.
Dr. Belisle: My next guest is an individual that I’ve known for quite a few years now. This is Rauni Kew and her background is in marketing and public relations. Currently working in hospitality. She manages public relations and green programs for Maine’s luxurious Inn by the Sea. The inn has achieved L-E-E-D Silver Maine D-E-P Leader certification. A legislative sentiment as an environmental leader and was selected preferred hotel groups, sustainability hotel of the year in 2014. Rauni served on the Maine Tourism Commission as the chair of the greater Portland Convention and Visitor Bureau and is the greater Portland regional representative for the Maine office of tourism regional committee. She freKewntly has published articles on sustainable hospitality and industry journals. We’re pretty privileged to have you here today.
Rauni Kew: Thank you very much for having me. I’m delighted to be here.
Dr. Belisle: I really love this topic. I love to travel and I love what’s going on in the state of Maine. Your someone is telling me that Maine is getting greener and tourism is getting green and the Inn by the Sea is right at the front there.
Rauni Kew: Absolutely. I’m going to go back a few years. After the war, when people started traveling a lot. Globally, it was about 1960, that people really started to think about sustainability and preserving and protecting the places that people liked to travel for future generations, which is really what sustainability is all about. It was a huge movement, but it didn’t get a lot of traction here. I think part of the reason that it didn’t get a lot of traction in the United States, is when you go back to the sixties and the seventies and you look at all of these conferences and bureaus that were set up to look at it. They were constantly talking about indigenous people. That kind of language and it was usually revolving around very sensitive Eco systems like the Galápagos, or a rain forest.
Nobody here really caught onto that concept. In 1992, an economist by the name of John Elkington, came up with a very simple catch phrase, for something that he and a bunch of other economists had been working on for business for ten years. We came up with the Triple Bottom Line. The Triple Bottom Line was such a simple roadmap for everybody to follow. What it said very simply, in simple terms, was that in this day and age, you were no longer profitable if you just considered the single bottom line. You also had to consider the environment and you also had to consider people.
A year later he coined another phrase, which was People, Planet, Profit. That roadmap was so simple, everybody got excited about this and tourism all over the world started looking at who they were and what they were doing and redefining themselves. You ended up with Eco tourism and cultural tourism and sustainable tourism. All of these different kinds of tourism that we all very niche oriented. At the center of every single one of them was this business plan, People, Planet, Profit. John Elkington was very precise about what people was. Planet is obvious. Reduce your carbon footprint. Do what you can for the environment. Profit is obvious. We all know we need to be profitable to stay in business.
The people he said, were what he called stakeholders. Not shareholders, but stakeholders. Those were the people that helped you be successful and be profitable in your business. It was your community and in our industry, it’s your growers, your planters, your vendors. The people in your community, you have to support, but you should support the other people that help you be profitable. That was a roadmap for tourism that was really easy to consider. In the early 2000’s it was a huge boom. All of a sudden we have over three hundred and fifty really good certification programs for tourism. Every single one of them was based around People, Planet, Profit and it really made it easy for the industry to start greening and they did.
Everybody started doing things. The Inn by the Sea was one of the leaders. We started down this path fifteen years ago. What most people did in the beginning, was they focused on reductions in water, waste, energy and chemicals. I think really the reason for that, was that the hospitality and the tourism industry discovered that if they reduced energy, or if they reduced water, if they did all of these things, they actually were saving money. That helped that profit piece.
The people piece has come a long slowly. After people have done as much they can with design features, people have now turned their attention to community, vendors, growers, producers and all that kind of thing. A lot of community collaboration is going on. Some of the things that we’ve done at the Inn by the Sea for the planet piece are, the design features that we put in. For instance we have solar panels that heat a desalinated pool. We have recycled sheet rock walls. We were the first hotel in New England to have duel flush toilets to save water. We have recycled cork floors in our spa area. We have recycled rubber floors in the cardio room.
Some of the things that help the hotel guests are, we have air to air heat exchanges all through the inn, which gives you fresh air, constantly being mixed with the cooled, or the heated air, but it gives you a very clean environment. Of course none of the guests really care about this. They want to come to green hotel. They don’t know about your design features. We want our guests to really have that quintessential Maine experience. We want to connect them to people here. We want to connect them to place. We have a lot of programs that bring the people in. Both our guests as well as our community. Some of the programs that we would do for hotel guests, to connect them to the greening that goes on at the inn, as we have a naturalist from the Cape Elizabeth land trust, that does ecology beach walks for our guests.
They take guests down to the beach and they talk about the importance of the sand dunes. They talk about endangered species, like the piping plovers. It really connects them to that Maine experience and gives them the feel of this wonderful, natural environment they’re in. We have something that Derrick will talk about, when he’s here to talk to you, our head gardener, who’s wonderful. Derrick Daily, he does something called The Bug’s Life program. This was going to be a program that we did for one summer and it’s just taken off and it really connects people to all the green design features that we have at the inn, when something like a writer comes in to write about it.
It humanizes it. It connects people. It makes them care. It’s a program for kids, where they create their own bug costumes and then they learn about Eco systems and predator and prey. They learn about the migration roots of the Monarch Butterfly. They look at the larvae, the in growing on milkweed. They go and pick blue berries. It connects them to the environment and they learn a lot about Eco systems. That’s another terrific program. Then on Tuesday evening, we do something called a Taste of Maine. We invite vendors to come in and talk to guests about what it’s like to do business in Maine. We’ve had lobster fishermen come in and have sampling of lobster. We have somebody like Cold River Vodka come in and we have tasting of vodka. Then they can tell us how they turn Maine potatoes into a wonderful vodka.
It really connects our guests, again to people, but also to place. Then one of the programs that we did years ago, that has just been an ongoing program for us, that really is the perfect sustainability program, in that it helps preserve and protect a traditional Maine industry and the resources for future generations, while using the resources now. We were on the steering committee for the Gulf of Maine researches out of the Blue program. That was one of the most amazing experience that I’ve ever had. There were three chefs. I don’t know why I was there, but anyway I was there. We had the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s research. We had Maine fisherman there telling us what was abundant and what was available in quantity. Then we had the chefs there, saying what it was that they’d like for seafood on their menus.
The concept behind this was that, with haddock fisheries being closed. Now open again, but cod fisheries being closed. Maine shrimp fisheries being closed. The fishermen with the management that was going on in the Gulf of Maine were really being sKewezed. It was really about how can we start expanding markets for fisherman, by introducing under loved, under appreciated, lesser known seafood to people. Since seventy percent of the seafood that’s consumed in the United States is actually consumed in restaurants. Chefs have an enormous part to play in introducing people to fish that are abundant, but under loved, or lesser known.
For the next about four or five years, we only served lobster and then what we were calling under utilized, but the lesser known seafood in Sea Glass. The way we came up with the five species that we served, was the fishermen would say, “These fish are abundant.” The chefs would say, “I don’t want to serve that. That’s not delectable.” The chefs would say, “What about this seafood. We really want to serve that.” The Gulf of Maine, research would look it up and say, “It’s being taken out at ninety percent at what’s allowed. We can’t expand markets for the fishermen.” Then the chefs would come up with another fish. The fishermen would say …
The fishermen were so knowledgeable about the environmental concerns, it was amazing. They’d say, “That fish actually has a thirty year life span. If we over fish it, it will never come back. That fish is so far out, it would cost us too much money to bring it in, or we have to de gill it and ice it and brine it, in order for you to use it, so we can’t.” We kept going back and forth, until we came up with the five species that were being brought in at maybe less than ten percent of what was allowed, so the markets could expand, that the chefs deemed delectable and that the fishermen said were abundant and could bring them in.
That was a great project. We’ve been very proud to be part of that and that’s part of our restaurant program. We of course work with local chefs, I mean with local farms and producers as much as we can. Actually have something right now that I’m crazy about. It’s teenie greenies. Do you know about teenie greenies?
Dr. Belisle: I do not know about teenie greenies.
Rauni Kew: Teenie greenies are amazing. These are challenged adults. They have green houses in Saco Maine and they create miniature farms. They’re about this big that come in and they’re micro greens. There are all kinds of micro greens. A million different flavors of micro greens. Every week they deliver these little tiny farms to the chefs at Sea Glass. All week long when they’re making salads, they pick micro greens. They couldn’t be fresher. They couldn’t be more local. These farmers are learning to farm sustainably and it gives them an economic path to independence. It’s just the most wonderful program, but it’s also a very delectable product. We love to be working with teenie greenies, they’re terrific. I recommend them to everybody.
Dr. Belisle: I’ll have to check them out.
Rauni Kew: Yeah absolutely.
Dr. Belisle: What are the five species of fish that you’re currently working with?
Rauni Kew: Mackerel, Silver Hanker Whiting, Pollock, Dogfish. Was that five? I think so.
Dr. Belisle: It might have been four, but we’ll let you stop there.
Rauni Kew: That’s great. Oh Red fish.
Dr. Belisle: Having as a vegetarian / pescatarian, I’ve eaten a lot of fish. I know the fish have very specific tastes to them. When you say that your chefs say these are delectable, what is it about them?
Rauni Kew: The Silver Hanker Whiting would be a flaky white fish that people could … Pollock is a flaky white fish too. For people who are used to eating Haddock or Cod, that wouldn’t be a problem. Red fish and Dogfish are definitely not as flaky. They’re denser. They have stronger flavors. Mackerel definitely has it’s own flavor. The Mackerel we usually served smoked. We would do amuses with them and mix them with other things, so that people would enjoy them and be interested in going further with that. I know that with the Dogfish we did a lot of Dogfish stew, that kind of thing. Getting it a lot of sauces and a different kind of taste. Trying to work with the fish that we had, the seafood that we had. That’s a great program.
Dr. Belisle: How are people responding to that?
Rauni Kew: People have really responded. We are no longer doing this, but for several years working with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, they were the spearhead of this program. They brought over information cards with pictures of the fish and you could get more information on the GMR website. We would talk to our service so that they knew. We would have ten day promotions, five times a year, really marketing these fish. You’d have the story on the fish. You’d have the story on the fishermen. When a guest, as you know sitting at Sea Glass restaurant. Looking out over the Atlantic and you can see the lobster boats bobbing on the horizon right there. When you explain to a guest why we weren’t serving Haddock or Cod, or something that they actually had requested. This is why we were serving this.
The chef used to come out if we had someone who was pushing back and he’d say, “Try it. If you don’t like it, I’m not going to charge you for your meal.” Of course they would eat it and it would be wonderful. They were always happy. In fact, when you told them the story about what it was that we were trying to accomplish and that it was actually a program that not only helped the bio mass of fish that were in decline. I’m not going to say over fish, because we’re never quite sure why. Why fish are in certain species, the bio mass goes down. Not only help the bio mass for certain fisheries, but also help sustainability for the Maine fishing industry and trying to expand markets for local fishermen.
They were thrilled to get onboard. It actually made their meal much more interesting and I think probably tasted better, because people just love to give back to the region that they visit. Another program that we have, that I think is terrific and really is almost a year long program. It’s really about the community support piece. It’s about the education piece. One of the things that Elkington did say in his People, Planet, Profit, was that it was a responsibility also to educate people on sustainability. The people that I think do that really well. He didn’t say People, Planet, Profit inspire, which is too bad, but our natural parks department did. They say preserve, protect and inspire. They are certainly sustainable in that they are preserving natural spaces for future generation, while allowing people to use them now.
The inspiration piece, I think is really important. That’s why we try and connect people to things like the beach ecology walks. We do a school program that I love. All through the month of December, anyone who comes to the Inn and makes a reservation. For every reservation made, we buy a school book for one of seven schools in south Portland off the reading list, of the local school librarians. We actually don’t buy the books, they do, because we wouldn’t want to guess what it is that they need. They all have wish lists for books that they need. They’re usually just reading books that they don’t have a budge for. This is a terrific program. Guests love it when they hear about this. Guests often will just give us a check to buy more books, because they love doing that.
The same kids in the school systems also help us with the Giving Tree. We have a Giving Tree in the lounge over the holidays. It has hand made ornaments from these students. The guests will exchange an ornament and bring back warm clothes for the food banks. We work with Project Grace on this. Project Grace distributes the warm cloths. We get stacks of warm clothes and hats and mittens and scarfs and wonderful things, to our local food banks all winter long. Then those students that help with the ornaments come back in January and we talk to them. I love this when we do this. We talk to them about thinking about a different business model. They’re usually fourth or fifth grade students.
They’ve all had business practice, in that they’ve sold a lot of painted rocks, or lemonade stands. Painted rocks are actually very big. We talk to them about, thinking about not just the profit that you get, but also doing something for the community and thinking about the environment. They’re very in tune with the environment and they have lots of great ideas. We show them that by creating these ornaments and by distributing this to the food bank, they’ve also helped their community. That’s one pillar of this. Then by helping us do this program, they’ve helped us with the profit piece, because it’s all part of being at the Inn by the Sea. Then they come back on Earth Day, or around Earth Day and we do a big beach clean up. That’s the Planet piece.
We move onto another class the next year. It’s a terrific program that involves the community in so many ways, but it also allows our guests to give back to the community that they love to visit in two ways. Either with a book purchase, or with purchasing warm clothes for less fortunate neighbors. I love that program. That’s a terrific program.
Dr. Belisle: One of the things that I love about Inn by the Sea and Sea Glass is that, there is a vegetarian option and I think also vegan.
Rauni Kew: There is, yeah.
Dr. Belisle: That for me is a big deal, because I eat more plant based meals and there are a lot of patients that I have, who I’m trying to encourage in a more plant based fashion. Sometimes it’s hard, because when you go out, there aren’t always other things to have. I really appreciate that about the Inn by the Sea and about Sea Glass and also your lounge area.
Rauni Kew: Good, I’m so glad. I think that is getting to be even stronger. Things are now marked. Gluten free, vegan, vegetarian. It’s getting more and more complicated to design a menu, but very important because so many people are into wellness and really appreciate doing this. We have a program that’s probably new, since you were last at the inn. I don’t know, one of the other connectors for being a green hotel, is that we also have a collaboration with the Animal Refuge League of greater Portland. We have a foster dog on site all the time. Sometimes they have their little vests that say adopt me, and sometimes they don’t. We take them off, because they look hot sometimes. Guests will come to the inn and they’ve left their dog at home, or they’re traveling without their dog, or they no longer have a dog. They enjoy walking the dog and we love feed and house these foster dogs. Then guests fall in love over the weekend and adopt them and take them home.
We’ve been doing this now for a little over a year. In the calendar year we had forty-six dogs adopted from the inn. Again it connects people to community, but it also is a great Segway into why do you do this? Well because we’re a green hotel. This is a community collaboration. It gets that conversation started on all the good things that we’ve got going on.
Dr. Belisle: I haven’t see the foster dog program. Makes me thing I need to go back and actually see what’s going on there. I do know that you are a pet friendly hotel and that’s one of the things that’s quite visible whenever we go to visit. There’s very happy looking dogs that are sitting at their owner’s feet, or taking walks on the property, or going to the beach.
Rauni Kew: This was and exactly, the inn has been dog friendly for twenty years, so it was a very natural transition to actually try and help the dog community, as well collaborate with somebody in our … We already had the infrastructure in place to be dog friendly, so that’s great. We have another pet that is another community collaboration. Not really a pet, because he’s in the wild and he’s free, but the rabita. That was another great and that would be part of the planet piece. The state park had become completely infested in front of the inn and adjacent to the inn. Many acres had been completely taken over by bamboo and bitter sweet. It was a sanctuary, a wild life sanctuary that really had no wild life in it anymore, because of this dense bamboo that had taken over.
In a very unusual I think collaboration, public, private collaboration, we’ve worked with the Department of Conservation. We took over the really running that piece of land for five years. We spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars, ripping out the bamboo and the bittersweet and then replanting with the perfect habit for New England cottontails. They woods off to the right run Crescent Beach State Park. Rachel Carson people, Fish and Wildlife people did a study a few years ago, picked up scat and discovered that we had sixty nine New England cottontails and they’re severely endangered. They think they’re only about four hundred and fifty, five hundred in Maine. A lot of them there. We’ve planted with the perfect habitat for New England cottontails and we hope they’ll thrive and do well.
We go rabbit tracking every winter with the Department of Conservation. Derrick and I, so it’s fun. I think the numbers are up, so it’s great.
Dr. Belisle: I was part of the Maine magazine 48 Hours, when we went to Cape Elizabeth. I stayed at Inn by the Sea. This was a few years ago now. In addition to all of the wonderful things you’re describing that are very planet and profit and people oriented in a bigger sense. You also have very comfortable place to be and a very wonderful place. I really enjoyed getting up and going running in the morning. Going up towards the light house. Going down to the beach. It’s a really special place that you have available for people and not only from out of the state, but within the state of Maine.
Rauni Kew: It is a wonderful place. Being on Crescent Beach. The beach is just wonderful. It’s an unspoiled beach. It’s just gorgeous and wonderful bird watching at Kettle Cove in the morning. The inn actually has fourteen JJ Autobahn engravings that are on the third and the fourth floor of the fourteen birds that you’re most likely see. If guests want to get up and walk Great Pond early, or go to Kettle Cove. They can take a look at the Autobahn to see what they should be looking for. It’s a fabulous location as you say and wonderful spa, which is silver lead certified.
Dr. Belisle: That’s true, I’ve been there too.
Rauni Kew: Sense of place treatments. Our favorite being the sea waves massage, which is done on an undulating bed with massage strokes that undulate with the ebb and flow of the ocean and marine based product and surf surround sound. You really get that Maine coast feeling when you’re in the spa as well. Lots of Maine mud and sea salt kinds of treatments.
Dr. Belisle: I’m planning to go back again there very soon, because I feel like there’s some things I’ve been missing. Now I need to catch up. We’ve been speaking with Rauni Kew, who manages public relations in green programs for Maine’s luxurious Inn by the Sea and clearly has done a lot of thinking and a lot of acting in the sustainability movement within tourism and hospitality. I appreciate all the work that you’re doing and your thoughtfulness and your willingness to come in and talk with us today.
Rauni Kew: Thank you Lisa it’s been great to be here.
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Dr. Belisle: Our next guest is Derrick Daily who is the head gardener at Inn by the Sea. Derrick is a southern Maine community college graduate of their plant and soil technology school. After graduation, he worked as an intern at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, before taking over the grounds of the inn more than fifteen years ago. Derrick also has private clients and last year, one of his gardens was featured in the Cape Elizabeth Garden Tour. Each year Derrick leads a group tour to a special garden for Cape Community Services. This year the tour went to the twenty acre Bedrock Gardens in Lee New Hampshire. Community members are invited to join Derrick every Thursday at 10:00 AM for complementary garden tours at the inn, all through the growing season.
Derrick also works with local schools, heading up the Community Earth Day beach clean up at Crescent Beach in the spring. Just last week, he had two school groups of young students studying entomology visit the inn for a hands on outdoor experience. Derrick has appeared on NECN and in People, Places and Plants magazine. Giving tips on gardening and sharing his passion for planting. Thanks for coming in.
Derrick Daily: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Belisle: I was looking at your Thursday at 10:00 AM garden tour thing, but you also give garden tours to little guys.
Derrick Daily: We do yeah, that just happened today actually. It’s called the Bugs Life Garden Tour. A child will come. We give them actually a blank paper bag. They transform that paper bag into an insect costume. We have paint, magic markers, crayon, tape. Your imagination just goes wild. You spend a half an hour on making your costume. You put on the costume and sometimes a headband with antennae too to mimic the Monarch Butterfly. We read them a story. It’s called the Monarchs of Astor way. It tells their whole life cycle. We tour the property and we highlight a nesting bird. A salamander, a frog and most importantly we highlight milkweed, which is the only plant the Monarch Butterfly can lay it’s eggs on.
Dr. Belisle: I was over at Inn by the Sea last week with my fifteen year old daughter and we were looking at a milkweed plant. The person who was leading the tour told me that you had a guest one time, that actually cut off a pod of butterfly and attempted to take it back home again. Somebody found out and said, “No, you can’t do that.” Then you went back through and you actually taped that pod and other ones that had been removed back onto the plants.
Derrick Daily: There is some crazy stories. That’s one thing that happened. One time I was leading a tour of children and just that morning, when the eggs hatch the larvae are very large, maybe the size of your average middle thing and they’re striped black, white and yellow, so they’re very easy to see. We had highlighted where all the larvae, the caterpillars of the Monarchs were. When it came time for the tour, we walked by and they were all missing. I was like, “Oh typical, they’re gone.” A boy who was staying in one of the room made kind of a crazy face. I said, “Do you know where these caterpillars are?” He had collected them all in a jar and had them under his bed in his hotel room. He didn’t know. He took them back outside. We saw them. We put them back on the milkweed and all was good. That’s one of the learning tools is, a child is just prone to collect everything.
Another quick funny story was, one time … They were long time guests at Vienna and they had three labs. Chocolate, yellow and black. Very rambunctious. They had those extended leashes. We went up to milkweed and it was a full of three beautiful caterpillars. We’re telling the whole story. Milkweed, Monarch butterflies, really getting into it. The dogs came running over to say hello to us. The owner yanked them back, but before she could yank them, the rope wrapped around the bottom of the milkweed. As she pulled the leash back, all the leaves, it went right up the stalk of the milkweed. The leaves went flying. The Monarchs, it was almost in slow motion. The caterpillars went flying up into the air and splat, splat, splat. It was just like, “Oh my God. The reality of nature really just hit you full on.”
The dog actually wrote a huge apology letter and it turned out to be okay. Three less Monarchs, but it’s just one of the crazy things that happens.
Dr. Belisle: It’s a big responsibility to take care of these butterflies?
Derrick Daily: It really is. It becomes more real every year. This year they had another horrible over wintering in Mexico. There’s many factors effecting the actual Monarch butterfly. Crazy temperature fluctuations that we have. The over use of Roundup, which is an herbicide. The lack of milkweed. People staying back in the day, I guess 1950, 1960, the early seventies. Milkweed just grew everywhere. On roadsides. There weren’t so many suburban subdivisions. There was just tons of it everywhere. No one even thought about it. Now, every year, with our population growing and more and more building, there’s less and less milkweed every year and less and less places for the Monarch to actually lay their eggs.
Dr. Belisle: You officially the Inn by the Sea is considered a Monarch weigh station, is that right?
Derrick Daily: Correct, we’ve been deemed a Monarch weigh station, which means we provide food and shelter for them. When the Monarchs, on their journey from Mexico, when they land in Cape Elizabeth, we welcome them as we would a hotel guest. They find plants that provide them with nectar and pollen. They provide milkweed to lay their eggs on. They find an environment safe, free from the over use of pesticides, so they can feel safe, comfortable and happy. Every year for the last three years, we’ve actually watched the females lay their eggs. Watched the eggs hatch. The little caterpillars eat the milkweed down to almost nothing. Make cocoons and then do on and move on.
Dr. Belisle: You were telling me that, it’s actually four generations before the butterflies go back to Mexico.
Derrick Daily: They over winter in Mexico and then early in February, they leave Mexico and go to Texas. That’s where the male and the female mate and they lay generation one. That male and the female pass and then their eggs hatch. They move further up the east coast, probably as far as North Carolina. Same deal. Mate and lay their eggs all along the way. Then the third generation is New Jersey, up state New York. Fourth generation mate in Canada. Yes it’s really involved life cycle.
Dr. Belisle: That must be part of the reason why it’s so important to actually provide weigh stations for Monarchs.
Derrick Daily: Very important. It’s something that’s very tangible, that an every day person … You don’t really even have to know anything about gardening can do, to help a species, like a Monarch Butterfly continue its life cycle. Their numbers are plummeting. If you were to just allow milkweed to grow into your yard, whether you lived in Maine, North Carolina, or Florida. You’re doing something very positive for the environment, by providing a place for a Monarch Butterfly to lay its eggs.
Dr. Belisle: I remember reading the book by Barbara Kingsolver a few years ago and it was about Monarchs. She’s a fiction writer, but she writes very environmentally aware pieces. I really was struck by the fact that Monarchs … They’re not just a pretty insect. They really are representative of a greater group of pollinators, that if they’re not doing well, there’s kind of something that’s not going on in the right way for the Eco system.
Derrick Daily: Great point and parallels the very existence of human beings, not to be dramatic. Pollinators in every aspect, butterfly and bee, are all not doing well, because the environment is becoming so overloaded with pesticides. A lot of different problems. The crazy weather patterns we’ve been having and lack of space for them to raise their young and diseases are effecting some of them too. You can think of it this way. The butterfly as goes the butterfly, so goes we as the bees as well, because they provide so much of our food. Every time you eat an apple, strawberry, cucumber, orange, it’s because of the bee. A bee has pollinated that, or a butterfly has and it’s thanks to them that we produce as much food as we do.
Dr. Belisle: We’ve been hearing more and more about bees. I don’t know if people have heard as much about Monarchs. What do you think?
Derrick Daily: That’s a good question. I never actually thought of the comparison of the two, as whether you’ve heard about them. I think if there are movies made about Monarchs today. President Obama made a huge effort last year, to preserve land for all pollinators. It’s definitely something that is much more talked about today in 2016, then I would say 1996, or 1986. Every year more and more people learn about them. Schools make a huge effort to teach children about them too.
Dr. Belisle: You’ve been doing the work with the Inn by the Sea, that you’ve been doing for more than fifteen years.
Derrick Daily: Yeah.
Dr. Belisle: You’ve seen this whole evolution form perhaps people being much less aware, or complete unaware of things like pollinators, to now having learned about it in school.
Derrick Daily: Yeah it was fascinating actually. I moved here to attend Southern Maine Technical College. My mom and dad retired here. I lived with my mom, I went back to school. I was thirty five at the time. Never had imagined myself living here for as long as I have, but time goes by so fast. Anyway, went to school. Started gardening there. That was right at the time, when I first started at the Inn by the Sea, there were hardly any gardens. The owner, inn keeper at the time was Marty McQuaid. She was a great woman. Very passionate and very empowering of an employee. I had all this knowledge from SMTC. I planted gardens. We specifically made them low pesticide and insect friendly. Gardening became a passion in the United States.
I credit Martha Stewart with it, because when she came and she made a fine English gardening accessible to the average person, with her magazine, her gardens, her programs, everything. Every person, gardening all of a sudden became a passion. So many people came to the Inn and that’s when we started Garden tours and we started showcasing the gardening we were doing there. We have a lot of feedback. A lot of give and take. The garden tours went into love the environment and respecting how our land, Crescent Beach Sate Park. Approximately five years ago, the new management of Inn by the Sea did a huge renovation. Part of that renovation was to make a rabbitat, which is for the endangered New England cottontail.
That is also helpful. Anytime you make one area more habitable for one species, they all benefit. That whole area and the whole native gardening, using native trees, plants and shrubs in your foundation, in your gardening has come full on. We’ve just paralleled society in a small way. Tours Eco, tours of the Great Pond, children’s garden tours, an awareness of our surroundings.
Dr. Belisle: Talk to me about the rabbitat. From what I understand the issue was that there were invasive species that were taking over from what the New England would normally live in. You tried to reintroduce plants that the New England cottontail would actually enjoy living in.
Derrick Daily: There’s a patch of land, right where our property ends and Crescent Beach begins. If you’ve ever taken the boardwalk from the hotel to the beach, you’ve actually walked right through it. Before it abuts a salt marsh. That whole area, which is approximately I would say six acres, was completely inundated with Japanese Knot weed. It’s an exotic invasive bamboo, that is literally impossible to remove. We’ve battling it tooth and nail for the last five years. We’re sort of winning, but it has a really thick white tap root. If you leave even the tiniest little chunk of root, it can rejuvenate itself and it pops up all over the place, where you haven’t seen it for years.
Long story short, the Japanese knot weed was removed. Honey Suckle was removed. Multi Flora Rose was removed and Bitter Sweet. The plants were removed. The soil was planted with five hundred native trees, plants and shrubs and that is to create a thicket, or a brier, where rabbits will feel comfortable. Coming out of the forest, living in the brier. The endangered New England Cottontail is food for everything. Owls, hawks, coyotes, foxes, you name it. He’s a crucial part of the whole food web. He’s very shy, he or she. They love to just eat clover and grass underneath shelter of a shrub. This whole area, this brier, thicket area was disappearing from our environment, due to the fact that our forest had to matured to a certain point and lawns usually went right up to the forest.
Well this is an area between lawn, or meadow and between the forest, where shrubbery just grows wild and the rabbit feels very comfortable.
Dr. Belisle: You’ve also created a space that’s very healthy for humans, if you’re not spraying as much and the kids are out playing on the lawns. Then they’re not rolling around in pesticides. From what I understand the pool, which is heated by solar panels is not chlorinated. It’s cleaned with I think bromide.
Derrick Daily: Yeah a type of salt.
Dr. Belisle: A type of salt. It seems like all of these things are working together, to try to create a healthier Eco system for really all levels of life.
Derrick Daily: Definitely yeah. Every department in the hotel, they call it a common sense approach to bring. We do everything from the recycling card boards. All of our food scraps are recycled and a company comes to pick them up. Our gardening, the weeds and the clippings too are all taken to … It’s compost and it’s all composted down into this beautiful black gold. The scraps go out and then it’s made into compost and people can use that compost to fertilize their yards.
Dr. Belisle: You grew up outside of Manhattan. How do you become a person that decides he’s so interested in gardens and soil and little critters, and big critters? How did that happen for you?
Derrick Daily: I just was living and working outside of … Living in New York City, grew up outside of New York City. Lived in the city for a while. Did a variety of different jobs. I would always read gardening magazines the night before I went to bed. I was fascinated with gardening. I never envisioned that I would myself be able to create a beautiful garden with perennials, flowering shrubs, annuals, and it was just something that I was always interested in, but it was just more of a hobby than a career. My parents retired here. My dad worked in Manhattan his whole life. My mom and dad moved to Cape Elizabeth. My brother was a graduate of Maine Maritime Academy. They started to vacationing on Peaks. When it was time to get out of the city so to speak, they moved to Cape Elizabeth.
They purchased a home and they said, “Derrick, this is your time, if you want to make a change in your life. Come live with us and go to SMTC and learn about horticulture. I didn’t bat an eye literally. I was vacationing with them, went home, gave my notice. Packed up a U haul. Came here. Went to SMTC. My first semester I took botany and I failed the math entrance exam, because it had been years since I’d done any type of fractions, or decimals, or anything. It was a great program. It was taught at the time by Doctor Richard Churchill. He’s the best. He started the whole plant and soil technology program at SMTC. Went to school. Loved every minute of it. Did an internship at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, which was just fascinating in itself.
Went through school. Loved, loved, loved it. A woman who was in the program, Brenda Santoro. She was the head gardener at Inn by the Sea at the time. Right as I graduated, it was her time to move on and I moved in and fast forward fifteen years ago. That was fifteen years ago. It blows my mind to say that. Every year they give you a certificate at the end. When mine comes up and this year it will say sixteen. I’m just like, “Oh my God. Yeah, that’s how it all happened and then I’m just still here.
Dr. Belisle: It’s interesting that you would have something that you were passionate about, but in your mind it’s just a hobby. Once you decided, all right, you know what? I’m going to go towards this thing that I feel so passionate about, even if it’s just what I read before I go to bed at night. Then it’s this whole second life for you.
Derrick Daily: Yeah. It was almost as if, the universe had a line to allow me to do this. Do you know what I mean? My mom heard about the program at SMTC. They happen to move here to retire. I was just so fed up. I was a waiter at TGI Friday in Hackensack New Jersey. I remember one day, a customer asked me for a glass of water. I went in the back and I was just like, “I can’t believe they’re drinking water.” A manager pulled me aside and said, “Derrick, you’re burnt out. You’ve just been waiting tables for too long. You’re great, we love you, but it’s time for a change.” That happened. I was like, “You’re right.” That happened right before I came to visit my mom and dad here in Maine. Flew up. They laid their whole plan on me. I was like, “This is genius, whatever, let’s do it.”
It was like something in the universe was aligned to make it happen. I was fed up with my job and my life in New Jersey. Came here. Loved SMTC. The real clincher for me was how I stayed in Maine. One winter I went to live in Jacksonville Florida. A friend of mine Amy Peterson owns Peterson and Then Productions. I lived there for a whole winter. It was fun, but Florida was just one gigantic highway. We went to a million different venues. Did all kinds of crazy things. It was super exciting and super fun. It wasn’t until I went to Florida, Jacksonville Florida for a winter. Then when I was driving back, I remember crossing over from New Hampshire into Maine and taking US Route 1, just to get off the highway for a while. It just hit me. I was like, you know what, I was meant to be here.
It took me seeing the life style in Florida to appreciate what I had right in front of my face the whole time. When I returned from Florida, my parents, that was an incredibly bad winter. They said, “We’re moving to Florida.” I said, “I’m staying here.”
Dr. Belisle: Somehow whatever it was, the alignments, or the energy, somehow you ended up getting put in the right place. It sounds like you’re doing the right thing at the time, at a place where people are a lot more interested and open to you rabita and pollinators and Monarch butterflies. What do you see happening next at the Inn by the Sea? It seems like you are continuing to progress the things that you offer people, your classes and the bugs life tours. What else do you have in that mind of yours?
Derrick Daily: Somewhere in the near future, I see us actually producing flowers, vegetables, that will be used in the kitchen and a beautiful garden of cut flowers that will be used for weddings, for banquets and stuff like that and to decorate the lobby. More towards, taking the amount, the X amount of acres we have now and using pockets all around the property, to actually produce things, that people use.
Dr. Belisle: Is it interesting to you, that you are directly next to Maxwell, where people do pick your own strawberries? Is it interesting that Inn by the Sea if right there?
Derrick Daily: Yeah definitely. It’s a real thrill for someone … I don’t know, if you could imagine living in Manhattan, or Washington DC, or Miami Florida. Then you wake up the next morning. You see the beautiful ocean in front of you, the salt marsh. Then you look to your left and you see people actually … There’s tons of people there today harvesting strawberries. It gives a real … Again, something real, something tangible, a hands on connection to the whole agricultural part of Maine.
Dr. Belisle: Do you think that there are more people going into soil science, gardening and getting the sort of the education that you got? What’s now SMCC, but what was SMTC when you went through?
Derrick Daily: Definitely. I don’t know if the whole ornamental end of it and salt perennials gardens. I maintain the property. My passion is a flowering garden. I always say, if I had to grow my own food, even though I know a ton about plants. I would have to have … I’m not a farmer so to speak, but the thing that excites me the most, is I see young people, more and more and more, getting into actual farming. Purchasing old farms. Rejuvenating them. Growing apples. Making hard cider from the apples, corn. That whole thing is a really fascinating aspect of horticulture.
Dr. Belisle: You draw an interesting distinction and I guess that I have heard that some people really like ornamental gardens and flowers and that things that are related to ornamental gardens. Some people, really it’s the food. What is it about the ornamental gardens that really draws you?
Derrick Daily: I guess it’s just a dream I had in my mind, when I would read gardening magazines. Before I would go to bed every night. I would read about beautiful gardens in England. Just breathtaking gardens in England. I would think, how could someone be so educated to know the whole timing of it? The perennial? The annual? The bi annual? The flowering shrub? The flowering trees? It’s almost like an artist uses paints to create a painting. You use flowers to make something beautiful. It’s your median to express yourself with. It’s fascinating, because you would never … Even if you lived for two hundred years learn every single thing and there’s always new introductions to the market place too. It’s something that keeps your mind always going. You’re always reading more about it, always learning more about it.
The greatest thing to do is go to someone else’s garden. I’ll give a shout out to the Cape Elizabeth Garden Tour. It’s amazing, coming up. You see what other people do with their property. It energizes you to come back and just do more with yours.
Dr. Belisle: I agree with you that the Cape Elizabeth Garden Tour is amazing. I think Maine home design has always been very interested in promoting the Cape Elizabeth Garden Tours and other types of garden tours. The landscape around the house can be just as important as the house itself. It’s the setting that we live in. I think about people who visit Inn by the Sea and wherever it is that they came from. They’re getting this little bit of respite from maybe a city, maybe a desert, whatever the landscape. Part of this is because of the work that you do.
Derrick Daily: Definitely yeah. I think of it as one giant outdoor room. Housekeeping works so hard. The restaurant works hard, the front desk is so amazing. Everyone does their part. My piece of the puzzle is providing an outdoor setting, where you’ll be a little wowed. Every gardener had a pride and they want … When you open the two back doors and you over look the property, you want someone to be like, “Wow.” We do get that reaction sometimes. That motivates you to work hard and my piece of the puzzle is the outdoor part of Inn by the Sea, is one giant room so to speak, where guests, children, dogs, anyone can enjoy themselves and give you something beautiful to look at and something to experience.
Dr. Belisle: Do you have any tips? Other than go visit Inn by the Sea, which I will encourage everybody to do, because they will want to see your beautiful work. Do you have any tips for people who are trying to make their own gardens healthy for pollinators, or maybe do other things that a little bit more Eco friendly?
Derrick Daily: Definitely. My greatest tip to gardeners is, as opposed to using chemical fertilizers, like your miracle grows. Before you even plant, use compost. We buy our compost from Jordan in Cape Elizabeth. It’s made of lobster shells, cow manure, oak leaves, branches, leaf clippings. All things deemed unusable by society and food scraps. They break down into what I call black gold, because it really is. You take the extra step by, you lay out your garden. You incorporate your compost. You plant in that compost and then subsequent years, you top dress with compost. What I’m saying is, compost is great and that’s my tip. Definitely check out compost and use compost in all your gardens.
Dr. Belisle: I’m a huge fan of compost. We did half a show on compost, not too long ago. We love compost here. I’m totally with you. Rock on compost. When I start my garden next year, I think I will be following that tip. I appreciate the time that you’re taking, I know it’s a busy season for you and all the work that you’re doing within the gardens, the education that you’re doing. We’ve been speaking with the head gardener at Inn by the Sea, Derrick Daily, who is an SMCC graduate of the plant and soil technology school and also has been an intern at Arnold Arboretum and for the past fifteen years, we’ve been luck to have him here in Maine at Inn by the Sea. I encourage people to go to Inn by the Sea. Maybe have a garden tour with you. If you have a small child, or a large child, do the bugs life tour, or really get to know what types of things Inn by the Sea is doing.
You can also read about the Inn by the Sea in an upcoming issue of Maine magazine. Thanks so much for coming today and talking with me today.
Derrick Daily: Yeah, definitely, it was great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Don’t miss the third Maine live event, taking place on September 22nd at the Portland Museum of Art. Presented by your friends at Maine Magazine. Take the day to be inspired by stories about creating a vibrant state from fifteen Maine speakers. Tickets are one hundred dollars and are sure to go fast. Fine out more at maineliveevent.com.
Curtis Memorial Library in New Brunswick, features a unique interactive space called the Collaboratory, with rotating monthly themes for all ages and interests. Join in September for the exhibit, The Writer’s Life. Wednesday September 14th, 6:30 PM when Doctor Lisa Belisle and writer Joan Dempsey will continue a conversation begun earlier this year on the importance of writing spaces and Joan’s wonderful backyard writing shed, a former chicken coop, as well as the craft of writing and Joan’s acquisition of a significant research grant to travel to Warsaw and Washington DC, for work on This is How It Begins. A novel in progress and more about The Writer’s Life. Please visit curtislibrary.com for more information, or call 207-725-5242, ext. 219.
Dr. Belisle: You’ve been listening to Love Maine Radio. Show number 258. Hospitality for all creatures great and small. Our guests have included Rauni Kew and Derrick Daily. For more information on our guest and studied in views, visit lovemaineradio.com, or read about the profile on Inn by the Sea in an upcoming Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on ITunes. For a preview of each week’s show. Sign up for our E Newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as Doctor Lisa, using my running travel, food and wellness photo as bountiful one on Instagram.
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This is Doctor Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our hospitality for all creatures great and small show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of Berlin City Honda. The Rooms by Harding Lee Smith. Maine Magazine. Portland Art Gallery and Art Collector Maine. Audio production and original music have been provided by Spencer Albee. Our editorial producer is Paul Koenig. Our assistant producer is Shelbi Wassick. Our community development manager if Casey Lovejoy. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti and Doctor Lisa Belisle. For more information on our host production team, Maine Magazine, or any of the guests featured here today, please visit us at lovemaineradio.com.