You will see below a notice of a Special Town Meeting to be held on Thursday, May 14, at 7:00 p.m. This is to annul or cancel the request from the Cabot School for $50,999 - which voters passed at regular March meeting. The original school budget asking for $3,660,125 was passed, as was the $50,999. Now there has been a petition to rescind or repeal the vote for the extra $50,999.

In addition, Cabot voters are being asked to increase to 10% the number of voters that is required in order to request a special meeting. The requirement is now 5%.

Also to be considered at 7 p.m. will be whether to change the school meeting to 6 p.m. on the Monday preceding regular town meeting.

At 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 14, voters will be asked to consider the new budget presented by the Cabot Library Trustees. The new budget request is for $50,068.30 - a reduction of $3,600.02.

In addition at the 8:00 p.m. meeting, will be whether any group or organization asking for funds from the voters should be required to provide in the town report full disclosure of their activities as well as their budget for such funds.

The above are being warned as two separate meetings: the school issues at 7 p.m. and the library issues at 8 p.m. The library warning was posted here on the blog on April 22, if you wish to go back and read it. The warning for the school issues are posted below.

These special articles will be voted upon at the meeting on May 14 - NOT by ballot, so anyone wishing to vote MUST attend the meeting. If you have questions, please contact the Cabot Town Clerk, Tara Rogerson, at 563- 2279, or by e-mail at tcocabot@fairpoint.net

NOTICE

The legal voters of the Town School District of Cabot are hereby notified and warned to meet at the Cabot School Gymnasium, Cabot, Vermont on Thursday, May 14, A.D. 2009 at 7:00 p.m. to transact the following business:

Article 1. NOW COME the undersigned legal voters of the Cabot School District and petition under 17 VSA 2661 (a&b), requesting the rescission of Article 5 (school budget question #2) voted on at the 2009 school district meeting election on March 3, 2009

Article 5. (budget question #2) If question #1 is approved, Shall the Voters of the School District also approve additional education spending of $50,999?

Article 2. Shall the voters of the Town School District increase the percentage of voters required on a petition for reconsideration or rescission from five to 10 percent?

Article 3. Shall the Town School District of Cabot hold its annual meeting at 6 p.m on the Monday, preceding Town Meeting Day?

Article 4. To transact any other business that may legally come before this meeting.

Article 4. To adjourn.

Warning approved by the Cabot School Board on April 13, 2009.

Chris Tormey

Linda Gabrielson

Niall McCallum

Roman J. Kokodyniak

Ann Cookson

School Directors

Received and recorded by the Clerk before being posted

Attest, Tara Rogerson Town Clerk,

Dated: April 14, 2009

We had visitors early this morning. There were a couple of these guys in our back yard - clacking away, picking up seeds and bugs. Beautiful big hens.

Then, mid-morning, the road machine went by. This is very good news. Our roads haven't been muddy at all this year, but they have been rough with some good big pot holes. This should take care of them for a while. You can see that we don't have leaves and only the earliest flowers, but we're getting there. Last night as the rain began, we could hear peepers down below. They were very loud. Seems good to hear them, though.

Yesterday was very warm - too warm for this early, but today is much cooler and more comfortable to work outside. There's plenty to do, of course.

Homer reported he'd tied off the pallet for the Ice-Out Contest, and since nobody had their boat in the water yet, Fred and Bill Rossi went down and were able to pull everything ashore. This should make it easier for Ray Richer to get it and store it until next April. Another Ice-Out Contest is history.

This Thursday, April 30th, 5-7 pm
spagetti dinner/ fund raiser
for the 8th grade class trip to Washington D.C.
It's all you can eat, spagetti, garlic bread, salad, dessert, music and fun.
Adults $8.00, Students $5.00, under 5- free.
Take out is available!
There will be a silent auction for those interested. Please come out, have a fun and relaxing dinner, and help support the 8th graders. Thanks.
Contact Peter Stratman at Cabot School for more info. 563-2289 ext. 229
Tickets may be purchased in advance or at the door.

THE MONEY CLASS FOR THE REST OF US

The Health Center in Plainfield is sponsoring a free, four-week class on how to manage money,

Designed for people who don’t have much of it. Please join us.

Tuesday evenings, May 12, 19, 26, and June 2

6-8 p.m. at The Health Center, Rt. 2, Plainfield, Vermont

Are you tired of living on the edge financially? Do you want to find a way out of debt and into prosperity? Would you like to know how to use the money you have?

The Build Your Money Muscles Group can help you:

Improve your relationship with money

Increase your cash flow

Experience financial security

Call Barbara to register of for information – 454-8336 – The Health Center

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
Area events you won't want to miss!

Twin Valley Senior Center's Perennial Plant Sale, Saturday, May 9 from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, located on Route 2 across from Tim's Convenience Center in Plainfield. To donate to this cause, please contact Linda @ 454-1263 or Rita @ 454-7750.

Watch for details on the Grace Methodist Church's Annual Lawn Sale on May 23rd in Plainfield.

Spaghetti Dinner & Auction in Cabot . . . Click poster on right to enlarge!

If you missed the Channel 7 news from Lyndon State College this evening (Monday), we'll have a link on home page. It isn't there as I write this, but Fred will have it on tomorrow, for sure. It's about 21 minutes into the newscast, right after the weather and just before a piece on Anthony's Diner in St. Johnsbury. You'll see Tom Dente, president of Joe's Pond Association, presenting the award certificate and check to this year's Ice-Out Contest winner, Ash Desmond, on Friday afternoon at the state fishing access in West Danville. You've already seen our photos - so this is an added bit of news coverage. We thank the Lyndon State crews for doing such a nice job of covering our Ice-Out Contest this year.

Another great day here at the pond. Unusually warm - like summer, really. And tonight we still have our windows open and the air that's wafting in is cool and fresh and way warmer than usual for this time of year. My daffodils have all popped open - things are spring to life almost unfolding as we watch. Every day there are more buds on trees and plants appearing from under the winter mulch of my flower beds. In one spot I have Mayflowers - they come every year, but often have snow still covering some areas of the flower bed where they've established themselves for several years. It's a tangled bed with lots of lilies of the valley, bee balm, and an occasional poppy or Japanese lantern left over from other summers. I long ago gave up sorting out the wild from the cultivated plants, especially after I discovered the Mayflowers. I didn't want to disturb them.

Cloudy day today, but not cold. It was nice to have the windows open last night and hear the rain - didn't get much, but wet things down a bit - and today we've had a slow fire, but I think it's ranged in 60's all day. I've been under the weather today - I guess the quick change over to hot weather the last couple of days and being dumb enough to be outside working in the heat did me in. I should know better - I always have a hard time acclimating to hot weather, and never really get used to it. Wipes me out every time. I was glad today was cloudy and cooler - no urge whatsoever to get outside. Unfortunately, no energy for inside, either.

I had a chat with Sue LaGue this morning. She and Jack came to camp yesterday to catch the nice weather. Sue was disappointed today wasn't as nice as Saturday, but since she's sidelined with a broken ankle, she said she is more frustrated at not being able to get out to work in her flower beds than anything else. It's her right ankle, so she can't drive - more frustration. She fell in March, while skiing - well, actually, she said she wasn't skiing, just slipped when she was walking, carrying all her equipment. It can happen in an instant. I broke mine a number of years ago while loaded down with fishing equipment at the Champlain Fishing Derby. Had enough hardware in my ankle to make a wind chime the following year when I had it all removed. Sue said she isn't hurthing that much now, and is counting the days until she's able to toss the crutches.

Diane Rossi is doing well after her knee operation. It's been only a couple weeks, and she's getting around much better and feeling much better. Bill got their docks in this weekend, with the help of Joe Hebert and son. I even heard a motor boat yesterday - just like summer, motor boats and loons calling, and last night, either fireworks or shots popping down near the pond. We couldn't tell which, and then there were rolls of thunder, so our north country is awakening from the long winter literally with a bang!

Sorry I didn't get to post the awards ceremony pictures last night, but I think having such nice weather made everything begin moving at warp speed and I've been on the go until now. I had a Fall Foliage meeting this morning (!!) - our chairperson, Blanche Lamore needed me to fill in for her co-chair, Tara Rogerson, last minute. Now that's taken care of, here's the report on yesterday's presentation.

The weather was absolutely unbelievably beautiful yesterday, as predicted, so meeting at the fishing access was perfect. Tom and Camilla Dente were here to open camp, so Tom was on hand to make the presentation of an award certificate and the check. Ice-Out Contest reliables, iceologest Don Walker and keeper of the clock, Homer Fitts, were here, along with a nice number of Association members and friends, plus a few families who came to fish, but probably found so many people milling about distracting, so they watched us for a while and then left.

We were pleased that Cheryl and Bill Hamilton came to see Ash get his check. Cheryl sold him the winning ticket. Ash and Cheryl work together, and he said he actually had three entries in the contest. His choice of date and time on the winning ticket was made based on random associations with friends, he said. He told us he hadn't thought about how he'd spend the nearly $5,000, but said he'd probably take his girlfriend out for a really nice dinner, then pay some bills and perhaps student loans.

Channel 7 News will air their follow-up piece Monday evening at 5:30. If you don't receive Channel 7, the Lyndon State College news station, you can go to their web site, News 7 and find it there (left panel shows newscasts by date.) You can also see there the piece that ran on April 22 about our contest, if you haven't seen it on our link on home page. We will put a link to Monday's on our home page, as well.

Fred took lots of pictures, and I've made a slide show of them. We're using a new camera, so they may not look quite the same as usual. Here is my slide show:
Award Ceremony, Ice-Out 2009

On our way home, Fred and I stopped at Nate Drown's camp on W. Shore Rd. to see if any of the ice that piled onto his waterfront Monday night was still there. Here's how it looked. The pond is now free of ice except for a small skimming right at the fishing access. You can see it, I think, in a couple of the pictures in the slide show.


As we were finishing up at Nate's, a couple of loons swam by - obviously unimpressed with all the activity, but happy to be back at Joe's Pond.

We've had several people question us about exactly what happened to stop the clock but left the flag still up. We have had this situation in years past, so it is not unheard of, but here's what happened: Over last weekend, we'd had cold weather and winds out of the north that worked all the ice into the cove at the fishing access where the pallet and flag were. There was very little water showing and not much apparent melting going on. Every morning during the Ice-Out Contest, Homer looks out his window and observes whether the flag is there.

On Monday, the wind changed and was coming from the south and southeast most of the day, but still nothing seemed to be moving - the ice on the pond was white, and since it had been below freezing at night, nothing was melting. Things looked normal when Homer did his check just before dark.

Come Tuesday morning, when Homer looked out, he saw the flag, but it was not where it usually was - it was a lot further out that it had been, so he immediately checked the clock on his deck and found it had stopped at 10:21 p.m. The wind had blown hard enough to move the ice away from the shore, taking the pallet and flag with it, pulling the connection hard enough to disconnect and stop the clock. Evidence of how strong the wind was is the ice that piled up on Nate Drown's waterfront. I have posted pictures of that earlier here on the blog. It's fairly unusual to get wind out of that direction this time of year, but we've had south winds move the ice far enough down the shore to disconnect the clock.

The pallet and flag went down on Thursday, and on Friday all that was visible were the markers on the rope that's attached to the pallet so Ray Richer can haul everything out of the pond once he gets his boat in the water. It's not an easy chore, pulling that contraption up and getting it to shore for storage until the next contest, but Ray gets it done.

That's the story on how the clock got stopped this year.

Homer Fitts called this morning to let us know the Ice-Out flag is now down. Apparently the contraption sank during the night. You can see all that was left is a mark in the ice where the rope was. It's going to be hard to haul everything out, but Ray Richer told me he'll do it once his pontoon boat is in the water.

Fred took this photo of the water coming out of the pond this morning. We had rain most of yesterday and this morning. No downpours, but fairly steady, and as you can see by the picture of the hillside across from us above Rt. 15, there's hardly any snow left. All melted and running down Joe's Brook.

I have been busy letting reporters know about Ash Desmond being the winner of the contest - those that did stories earlier like to have a follow up. We're hoping at least some of them will come to the state fishing access tomorrow at 5 p.m. when we present the check to him. Any of you who would like to come are welcome. I think it will be a lovely warm day, and by then the whole pond may be free of ice, so you might enjoy the ride out to the pond.

Jeff Bonneau, Channel 7 News out of Lyndon State College, did a nice feature piece on our contest. It aired on Wednesday. Fred has put a link on home page of our web site so you can see that newscast. The bit about Joe's Pond is at 7:17, so you can fast forward if you don't want the whole news program. It takes a little time to load, so please be patient. Homer Fitts and Don Walker do a great job, and so does Ray Richer. They did the interview the day Ray was putting the flag out, and then waited for word from us that the ice had gone so they could tell people the rest of the story.

The Caledonian Record did an article yesterday: Caledonian Report
The Times-Argus did a short piece today: Argus Report

I just realized Ms. Cook from the Caledonian got the wind directions mixed up, but I'm sure those of you who know the pond understand it was a southeast wind that took the flag away from Homer's, while a north wind will always send the ice into the cove by the fishing access. It's all over, however, and we're happy to have a winner.

Gee, I just looked out my window and it was snowing, then it turned to driving hail. It only lasted for a few minutes, but was accompanied by a stiff wind out of the northwest. We've had a few spots of sunshine this afternoon, but it remains only about 40 degrees and right now there seems to be a duel between sun and snow. I can hardly believe it will be close to 70 degrees tomorrow - and even higher over the weekend. We'll probably pay for that later . . .

There was a comment yesterday from someone named Joy in New Jersey, asking if the wind really disconnected the clock and ended the contest. I hope she reads the reports on the blog - I have no way to communicate with her, but perhaps she will send a message to us at jpwebmaster@fairpoint.net. Thanks for commenting, Joy!

The Ice-Out Contest is officially over - all that remains is to present Mr. Desmond with his check. That will happen on Friday at 5 p.m. at the fishing access. Tom Dente, president of Joe's Pond Association, will do the honors, and we hope there will be at least a few TV folks or newspaper people there. If not, I'm sure Bill Rossi and Fred Brown will take plenty of pictures. I expect Ash Desmond has no idea how the clock gets stopped each year, so this will be an opportunity for us to show him how complex it was for him to beat the odds and win.

Now everything is over, I buckled down this morning and finished up the Spring Newsletter. It was ready to go except for the Ice-Out information. We will have it in the mail in about a week. In the meantime, those of you who have computers can access it from the web site now. It may load slowly - there are lots of pages with photos and such, so that makes the file bigger. Eventually we may need to put a text only version on for people who have dial-up or whose browser won't load it in a reasonable amount of time. To find it, go to "Joes Pond Assn" on the menu at the top of home page and you'll see "New Newsletter" on the dropdown menu. Give it some time to load. Let us know if it won't work for you.

I have a couple of notices for people in Cabot:

CABOT SPECIAL MEETING WARNING

The legal voters of the Town of Cabot are hereby notified and warned to meet at the Cabot School Gymnasium, Cabot, Vermont on Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. to transact the following business:

Article 1. Shall the Town vote to appropriate the sum of $50,068.32 to support the Cabot Library in addition to appropriations made at the March 3, 2009 Annual Town Meeting?

Article 2. Shall the voters of the Town of Cabot require that any group or organization requesting funding from the Town include in the Town Report a description of the organizations and summary of its activities including how funding will be used, and that any Cabot-based group or organization requesting money from the Town include in the Town Report a summary of its budget?

Article 3. To transact any other business that may legally come before this meeting.

Article 4. To adjourn.

Dated this 15^th day of April, 2009,

Attest: Tara Rogerson, Town Clerk

Selectboard: Caleb Pitkin, Larry Gochey, Ted Domey

Adopted and approved at a meeting of the Cabot Select Board held on April 15, 2009.

Received for record and recorded in the records of the Cabot Town Office, Cabot Vermont on Thursday, April 15, 2009

*****

To explain the above notice: At town meeting in March, Article 18 of the Warning requested $53,668.32 for the Cabot Library. Our tax payers did not pass this article. The library trustees have to come up with a new budget that is $3,600 less than the original, as shown in Article 1 above.

Article 2, requesting full disclosure by entities requesting money from the town, is self-explanatory.

Cabot supports two libraries: in the Willey Memorial Building, the public library whose trustees are asking for $50,068.32 (above); and the Cabot School library which is funded as part of the $3,660,125 school budget passed in March.

*****

At right is a handout from Cabot School. Click on it to enlarge it to read. It sounds as if these six youngsters have worked really hard to qualify for the Global Finals. We wish them lots of luck and will be anxious to hear how they do.

Fred just came home from St. Johnsbury where he and Bill Rossi did errands this afternoon. Fred took some pictures of the ice when they got back to the pond. Here they are. slides