New and improved: A new outdoors section on the horizon

It’s been a crazy last couple of weeks, trying to get out and enjoy the glimpses of summer that crack through the raindrops once every three days or so. In the meantime, we’ve been busy getting ready to bring you a brand new outdoors presence in our papers.

We’re teaming up with the Portland Press Herald under the Maine Today Media ownership group to bring you one jam-packed independent statewide outdoors section each and every Sunday. There will be stories, columns and even some new features on things like the latest and greatest in outdoors gear.

We’ll have some of the same voices you’ve come to rely on, people like Ken Allen and Herb Wilson,  but we’ll also give you some of the writers like Deirdre Fleming that you might not be as familiar with.

So you won’t see the usual outdoors journal in the paper on Wednesday. You’ll have to wait until Sunday.

If nothing else, it just gives you an excuse to stay in the woods or on the water for another half-hour or so Wednesday evening.

In the meantime...

* All 47 of Maine’s state parks and historic sites are open free of charge to Maine residents this Saturday, Aug. 1.

“These parks belong to the people of Maine -- they belong to you,” Maine Department of Conservation commissioner Pat McGowan said.

“I urge everyone to go to the Bureau of Parks and Lands website and find a place they would like to visit with their families on Maine Day.”

* Just a heads up for you:

The on-line any-deer permit application is due by Aug. 17 -- and mailed or paper copies must be received in the DIF&W headquarters by Monday, July 31.

TB