Some of you probably know Emily Comstock, Dana and Joanne Comstock's daughter. The Comstocks have a cottage on North Shore Rd., not far from the JPA pavilion, and their home is in Barre. Emily's engagement to Nelson Elder, son of William and Khristine Elder of Ryegate was in the papers this week. Emily is a student at Lyndon State College and works at the Tamarack Grill and Pub at Burke Mountain. Nelson served in the Army Reserves with C-368th Combat Heavy Engineers, and has finished one tour of duty in Kuwait and Iraq. He works for the Ryegate Highway Department. Emily and Nelson plan a September, 2009 wedding. We wish them every happiness.

The weather was very nice all day today, and this morning the sun on our tamarack trees was beautiful. It seemed the sky couldn't get any brighter, and their bright yellow limbs were golden against the blue. It won't be long, though, before they will be bare, too. We lost quite a number of our tamaracks (larches) a couple years ago. We were told there was some kind of disease that hits them in cycles. We had a large larch (try saying that fast ten times!) out back that had to come down, and several others on our property as well as across the road were affected. I had planted some small ones that seemed to thrive, and I learned recently that tamaracks don't do well when crowded by other varieties, so now I wonder if the large cedars, spruce and fir trees in this particular area contributed to their demise. We found out the wood isn't great to burn, but the Indians used the bark for medicinal purposes, and because the wood is so strong and flexible, they used it to make snowshoes.

Today has been a pretty productive day for us. Fred finished stacking the wood that came this week - the tarps are on the stacks, all the summer stuff is now put away and the outside faucet has been turned off. We're ready for the snow whenever it comes. It was such a nice day, before he turned off the water, Fred even washed the car one more time.

We had lots of wind and rain last night, just as forecast. Our cat, Woody, went out while it was raining very hard. He generally comes in at least once during the evening to have a snack, but last night he stayed out. We called to him a few times, but weren't surprised we didn't get any response. After all, he's a cat not a dog, and is expert at ignoring us. We aren't sure when he came in his kitty door, but he was here this morning - still a little damp, but none the worse for having spent the night outside in the storm. We have no idea where he might have holed up, but we know water doesn't seem to bother him much. He often comes in drenched. He loves to have Fred or me towel him off, and usually hangs out with us only a few minutes and asks to go outside again - back into the rain and wet - we think because he enjoys the rubdowns so much, he sometimes seems to come in just for that. He was outside again hunting early this morning where Fred found him intent on some poor unsuspecting little critter. (See him in the picture above?) He finally crashed about ten o'clock, well out of everyone's way on top of the kitchen cabinets. He'll get back to the hunt as soon as it gets dark, though. It's a tough job, but he's up to it.

No rain tonight - the sky looks pretty clear, actually, but I think we're in for showers off and on most of the week, and gradually colder temperatures.