Another "off and on" day - some sun, some clouds. It was warm enough for me to finish up some painting I needed to do, the railing on our deck that I'd primed a few weeks ago but didn't get to put a final coat on. I was beginning to think I might not get a day warm and dry enough to do it. Fred was cleaning the chimney and stove pipes at camp, and I put the glass back in our storm doors here at home. Yep, we're getting ready for winter.

I found my snow measuring board today, too. I'd been wondering what I did with it when I brought it home from the CoCoRaHS training session last spring, and today I ran onto it by accident in the garage when I was hunting for a piece of plywood for a makeshift work bench while I re-potted some plants. I'm not sure where I'll put the snow board - it has to be away from buildings and trees so as not to skew the snow depth. Hopefully I'll be keeping track of not only the depth of snowfalls, but also the amount of precipitation in each sample.

I moved my rain gauge the other day to a position just off the edge of the pavement in our parking area out front. It had been about 20 ft. off the end of the pavement and this summer I would walk barefoot in the wet grass to take the reading each morning. Now it's too cold for going barefoot, thus the move. It'll be a totally different story in a few weeks, and soon enough I'll be wading in snow to wherever I place the snowboard.

I had just come into the house late this afternoon when I noticed the sun hitting just a band of trees beyond our house. I got this picture minutes before all the hillside above Route 15 caught the sun. I now have this as my desktop background. I never get tired of this view.

Some of you will remember that there was going to be road work done this year on Rt. 2 in the area of Molly's Pond and the dam above Marshfield. The latest news is that it is hung up in environmental court and the earliest possible date anything might happen is now 2011. That reminded me that the cell tower on the Sousa farm above us is still languishing in environmental court, too, as far as we know. It literally takes years to get a decision from environmental court.

The rail trail along the east side of the pond is now subject to Act 250 because some land owners along the way have issues. We had been told last summer that Act 250 didn't apply to the trail. So all is delayed there, too. I wonder if anyone really believed the rail trail would avoid the endless delays. We only need to recall all the years the 3/4 mile stretch on Rt. 2 through Danville has been in process - the state asked for ideas for that one back in the 1970's and nothing began to happen until 1999, and it's still stalled; and then there's the Circumferential Highway in the Burlington area that was in the initial planning stage in 1967 - still going nowhere. Maybe it's the weather - things here in the north country move at about the speed of cold molasses - or maybe it's the people. Lots of folks simply don't like change.

Did you see the news on WCAX tonight? Sharon has been featuring fall foliage, and tonight my cousin Marilyn "Lynn" Perrin and her husband, David, were on. They've canoed around ponds in every town in Vermont, and having accomplished that goal, now continue to canoe on their favorite lakes and ponds. They were on Number 10 in Calais/Woodbury area tonight, enjoying the foliage. Dave and Lynn are interested in lots of things, including history. A couple years ago they came across a quilt in North Dakota that had been made here in Cabot in the very early 1800's by friends of a young bride who was moving west with her husband. Names like Sophia Stone, Julia Dean, Harriet Grow and Flora Hooker were on the quilt and Lynn recognized them as possible Cabot women. They have been able to track and record the history of the quilt, most of the people who had worked on it and the quilt's owners right to its present home in a Dakota museum. Dave hopes to publish his findings soon.

Speaking of publishing - Bill Rossi's book will be coming out soon. We'll have an announcement here as soon as it's available. Stay tuned . . .