Monday, January 02, 2017

I hope everyone had a fun, safe New Year's celebration.  I heard some fireworks early in the evening that seemed to be coming from down on the pond, but I didn't happen to see any of them.

We heard from Evelyn Richer a week ago that her mom, Doris Demick, who had an apartment over their garage when they lived on Sandy Beach Road, had fallen on Christmas Eve and broke her hip.  She was residing at St. Johnsbury Health and Rehabilitation Center.  She was operated on the day after Christmas.  Today I received word from Evelyn that her mom passed away on New Year's Eve.  She had survived the operation on her hip, but then had a heart attack.  She was 95.

I had known Doris for a long time, having worked with her at the St. Johnsbury School System in the 1970's.  She and her late husband, George, lived in Woodsville, N.H. at that time and then moved for a short time to St. Johnsbury.  Doris was curriculum coordinator for the school system when Ted Sargent was superintendent; I was her secretary.  It was she who took a chance on hiring me when I needed to get back into the workforce after ten years as a homemaker.  It was often confusing for people because of the close similarity of our names - only the spelling was different.  She spelled her name Demick, mine was Dimick.  As far as I know there was no direct relationship between our husbands' families.  Those were good years, we had a close-knit group of teachers, administrators and staff that continued to get together long after some of us moved on or retired.  Doris always loved a party, and cherished her friendships.  We'll miss her.   Our sincere sympathy goes to the Richers and their family.

Our weather today has been absolutely beautiful.  The bright sunshine and 30ish temperature was so welcome I didn't even mind trudging up Jamie and Marie's hill this noon.  Fred did his usual runs up the hill, and he couldn't resist going back out to get some snow pictures this afternoon.  I was busy here at my computer focusing on dealing with a pesky e-mail problem - I've been getting messages showing names of people I know from a website called Zorpia - the Chinese version of FaceBook. The messages aren't real, it's just to get me to sign onto the site. I have neither signed up for nor want to be part of that site.  Fred got a notice that I'd sent him a message (I didn't) and Jack LaGue got a similar one that I also didn't send, so apparently this website somehow got into my gmail address book.  I have no idea how many others got a "message" from me that I didn't send.  I can only guess that it happened when I imported addresses from Fairpoint to my new gmail account.  I HAVE NOT joined Zorpia, so no legitimate messages will come from me to anyone from that address.  There is a place to click if you don't want further messages from that source.  Here's more information about the site:   Zorpia.   It isn't a virus, just an irritating social network that will clutter inboxes with junk. 


Here are some of the pictures Fred took this afternoon.  You can see we have a fair amount of snow - about 18 inches on the level - and snowbanks are building up.  Jamie is ready with "The Peach" on the right and his "new" tractor on the left.  Fred does a nice with the snow blower keeping the banks neat and the driveways wide,  but when the snow gets too deep or the banks have to be pushed back, it's great to be able to call in "The Peach" or the tractor.  The last two pictures are Jamie and Marie's driveway that we run/walk up almost every day.  I don't know the exact pitch of this roadway, but it's steep!  I am still wary of the ice that I know is under the snow pack, especially when I'm coming down that hill.  I wear my creepers, but sometimes when conditions are just right, they can be very much like skates.  Oops!!!

The weather is going to change tonight and there will be a messy rain/snow mix starting late tomorrow into Wednesday.  It may be more snow than rain in the West Danville/Walden area, and lots of folks hope that's the case and we don't lose too much of the snow cover we have.  We've seen a few snowmobiles (even though they aren't supposed to be on this road!)  I think the trails must be in pretty good shape with the snow we have now.  There is a crust under three or four inches of snow and there was a single turkey track across our lawn this morning. The turkeys had been having a hard time in the deep snow before we got a little rain a few days ago and the crust formed.  Now it's easy for them to get around, but harder to find food under the layer of crust.  There were a couple of turkeys still hanging out here, but now just this one; perhaps it was this one's mate that something killed and Marie saw by the brook last week.  We haven't seen the big flock for a while.  We heard some crows making quite a rumpus today on our walk.  Perhaps they are in competition with the turkeys for food.






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