Spring Awakens at Highland Green  

 

Residents have traded their snow shoes and cross-country ski poles for hiking shoes and golf clubs. Dynamic resident-driven activities shift from cozy potlucks and educational speakers inside the community center to lobster bakes outside, "Wednesday Walks" around Highland Green's spectacular campus and much more.

 

The few Highland Green snowbirds anxiously return to their nest of neighborly values and endless possibilities. Dee Dee and Dick Moore of Heron Drive send word from the south: "The best thing about spring is "coming home" to Highland Green. We take a three-month hiatus in the coldest months and can't wait to return.  We feel like we have missed so much fun and many folks who keep Highland Green hopping!"

 

The maintenance crew has traded its shovels and plows for rakes and mowers to manicure Highland Green's lush green grounds while residents tend to the sprouting flowers around their custom built homes. Says Karen Foley of Junco Drive, whose home abuts the Cathance River Nature Preserve: "my favorite part of spring is my bulbs emerging from the earth and opening their flowers, and hearing the spring songs of birds welcoming the season."

 

Highland Green's "still working" residents look forward to enjoying their fast approaching and well deserved Maine summer vacations without a lawnmower. "Never really retired" Highland Green residents  continue  to contribute their broad knowledge and experience to help ensure the financial strength and stability of the community now and into the future.

 

In the Heath Sanctuary, Highland Green bird watchers have witnessed the frozen ground give way to the buds of field cotton and maples that begin their cycle toward the fluffy white and fiery red contrast of autumn and attract a field manual's worth of returning bird life.  A short journey on the Preserve is rewarded by the sight of the Cathance River flush from the spring melt as it wends its way rowdily through rocky gorges, hairpin turns and wide gentler bends of Highland Green toward the head of tide and awaiting Merrymeeting Bay.

 

As spring awakens around Highland Green, friends gather, new residents are welcomed, and Highland Green residents go about their busy lives inside and outside of the community. While not everyone who lives at Highland Green participates in many organized activities, the neighborly values are conspicuous. "There's a feeling that you already know people and already fit in," says Linda Wilson of Honey Locust Drive, "Even though we've only been here at Highland Green a short time, we feel like we belong." Another Highland Green resident was overheard recently telling a Highland Green guest: "We come from all over the place, many having left places that we've been a long time but at Highland Green, we have truly become a family."