I have a couple pictures for you. Fred and Bill Rossi car-pooled to Marty's for lawnmower gas yesterday, and Fred took these. I think that is the front of a state trooper's car you can see in front of the camper. Vehicles do speed through West Danville - sitting for a few minutes on the porch at Hasting's Store in the summer is a revelation. Not only do they speed through town, the noise of the trucks is deafening. Probably is a good place to watch for violators.

As for the two guys sitting on the bench, I guess they were just enjoying the moment. (Click to enlarge the photos.)

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Just a reminder that the Danville Farmers' Market opens tomorrow (Wednesday) - free plants! Find Amanda's display, then visit some of the other folks for fresh produce and baked goods. Also, St. Johnsbury has a Farmers' market on Saturday, Hardwick has one on Friday, and Cabot has theirs on Sunday. We've put information on our "Events" page - local events, not JPA events!

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A while ago I told you about Florence Taylor, a resident at Copley Woodlands Reitrement Complex in Stowe, who is writing about how she used our Ice-Out Contest to devise a "Snow Be-Gone Contest" to help while away the long snowy days during March. Fred and I have had several nice conversations with her because she was not able to get the Ice-Out pages on the web site. We think now she can access most of them to see the pictures and get some of the history of our contest, and in the process, we feel we've made a new friend. She is a delightful lady to talk with, and when I went to the Copley Woodlands web site, I found out she is a large part of their quarterly newsletter production. Here's a link in case you want to visit: (Go to "About Us" on the home page and then you'll see "Woodlands Reflections," the name of their newsletter listed just under that.) Copley Woodlands

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Most of you know I've been working for a long time now on preserving the paper collection at the Cabot Historical Society. I just finished collecting, scanning and arranging about 700 photographs - some old, some more recent, some we have identified and some we haven't. I've also been working with collecting vital information on births, deaths and marriages in Cabot from as many sources ask I can find. I'm putting this information on spread sheets and it will eventually be available on our computer at the Historical Society Research Corner - and hopefully one day on line for anyone to access. Some of you may know about the wonderful work Anne Kendall Smith and her husband, Stuart Smith have been doing extracting from the microfiche records of The Caledonian Record vital information on people from area towns. They have produced perhaps 24 books spanning the years from, if I have it correct from what Stuart recently told me, 1807 to 1919. I have 13 of those books which the historical society purchased some years ago, and have "extracted from the extractions" information pertaining to Cabot. We seem to be missing some of the books that were purchased when we were doing the Cabot oral history book, but we hope to locate them over time.

I've been through only about five of the 13 we have, but already have collected a heap of information. The books the Smiths have done are an index which gives only a minimum of information, but tells one exactly where to go in the volumes of microfiche stored at the St. Johnsbury Athanaeum for the articles. What a time saver. In years past, I've spent hours pouring through those records, taking a guess at what year I should be looking in. For people interested in genealogy, the Smiths' books will be a big assist. I expect you'll find them in most libraries, and by next week the Cabot Historical Society will have those I've finished - I'll still be working on some of them - and we are missing a few volumes that we hope to locate or replace. The historical society just purchased the latest volumes the Smith's have completed, so I'll be working on them this summer, too. If you wish to learn more about the books you can contact the Smiths who live on Rt. 15 in Walden, at 563-2630. The books are very reasonably priced.

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Fred is working on something new for the web site and I should be able to make that announcement shortly. In the meantime, we thank everyone for checking in on us from time to time, we appreciate your comments and want you to continue to let us know when we mess up or if you aren't able to access something on the site. Not all browsers work the same, and sometimes, like our friend Florence, you just can't get there from here, so when that happens let us know so Fred can tweak whatever and improve the site.

Stay tuned!