I caught the moon coming over the hills across the pond tonight - but it was only a little while before it was obscured by cloud cover. I guess we're in for a stretch of wet (and colder) weather.

Fred has a new link on the web site under "Recent Stories." He titled it "Unique Solar System in Plainfield" but when I went in I was surprised to see it is apparently the on-line edition of the Washington Electric Co-Op Currents. Interesting story, though. We've been interested in alternative power for some time - we have investigated wind power, but apparently our location is border-line for good wind (we should have had them test it in February or March!) and startup costs are really high. Personally, I like the idea of solar. There's a guy I went to school with in Cabot years ago who lives on the Rt. 2 side of Whittier Hill, on Thistle Hill Road, who has had solar power for a long time. I'm not sure how efficient it is, but when I saw his setup back in 1999 (I interviewed him for the Cabot Oral History book), the basement of his house had banks of really big storage batteries lined up. I didn't get into the details of his solar power then - that would have taken way too long and he had more important information I needed for the book. But I was interested in the fact he was off the grid and had been for some time.

I guess everyone knows Daylight Savings time is right around the corner - a week later than usual this year. I'm not sure how much of anything that will save - or maybe that wasn't the intent of making the change later. I'd just as soon not have to change the clocks and adjust my sleeping and waking habits; either way we still have the same hours of daylight and darkness to deal with.

Did you know that Cabot produced a math genius back in the early 1800's? His name was Zerah Colburn, born in 1804. His family lived on a farm on what we now call Danville Hill Road. Back then it was known as "the Peacham road." When his father realized his son had this special talent to solve math problems, he took him to several large cities here and eventually to Europe, exhibiting him to anyone who had an interest from the the time Zerah was six until his father died when Zerah was about 18. Zerah returned to Cabot and later wrote his memoirs, published in 1833. We recently had a copy of his book donated to the Historical Society. It was in quite fragile condition and I have just finished repairing it. It will probably be on display next summer when the Cabot Historical Society is open again. The strange powers Zerah Colburn had as a child diminished as he grew older, and in order to support his family, he opened a school in Cabot. That lasted only a short time until he was offered a position teaching French in Burlington. He later taught languages at Dartmouth until his death in 1840. Zerah actually had no formal education until he was taken to Europe by his father. Eventually, through the kindness and generosity of some gentlemen in England, he became educated. He wrote in his memoirs that except for mathematics, he was not an exceptional student. If you are interested, you can Google Zerah - there's some information about him on the web.