We've had rain since sometime in the night, as predicted. This morning my gauge read .75 inches, and that was a little more than some surrounding areas, but there were other stations that reported that much, as well. It has been fairly steady, but not a downpour, and right now, at 11:30, there's a fine, steady rain falling.

We checked the water level at Walter Ruf's yesterday. I wanted a benchmark to be able to keep track of how the water level is until we are certain the dam is working properly. I haven't heard from John Voyer whether it's fixed or not. Walter had said the normal level is about 5-6 inches below the top of his concrete retainer wall. When we measured in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, it was 4.5 in. from the top of the wall. I am guessing this is within "normal" range. We'll check it after this rain quits, whenever that may be. Hopefully we won't be doing it in a snow squall, but if that's the case, we will just accept that even volunteer reporters don't always have the best of conditions to work within.

I went through a pile of recent newspapers this morning. I have to do this about once a week to keep up with doing my clipping routine for my own files, Joe's Pond items, or Cabot Historical Society. There were some interesting things in the papers this past week. For instance, our hospital, NVRH, is finishing installing a new state-of-the-art landing pad for the DHART helicopters. Previously they have had to land in a nearby field and an ambulance would pick up the patient and drive the short distance to the waiting 'copter. Now the pad is near the emergency entrance (it seemed to be on a rooftop, but the article wasn't specific), it is 50' x 50' and has recessed lights, and special materials to help snow/ice melt, plus radiant heat if needed.

We see a helicopter going by our house frequently. I say "going by" because we are quite high on the hill overlooking Joe's Pond, and sometimes it feels as if we're really close to passing planes and birds. The helicopters seem to be flying north to south, and often after dark when I can watch them approaching from my chair in our corner windows. I often wonder if they can see me sitting there reading my paper or doing sudoku. Probably can.

I haven't seen any aircraft dropping bags of pot or anything else out, though. We aren't close enough to the border for that, I guess. That happens frequently in the Derby area - just this week several bags of pot were retrieved by authorities after someone called 9-1-1 when they saw them being dumped out of a plane into a field. I'd say whoever planned that scheme had likely already overindulged in the stuff not to realize doing a drop in broad daylight, from a helicopter, in a field during deer hunting season, would probably attract some attention . . . duh!

John Downs, well known local attorney who founded the prestigious law firm, Downs, Rachlin and Martin, celebrated his 90th birthday on November 12. John used to spend time at Joe's Pond and was in our sailboat races for a while. He was also a skier, part of a group from St. Johnsbury who skied together at Stowe for many years - Hugh McLean (McLean Electric), Johnny Bisson (Aime's Restaurant), attorney Harry Witters, and my former father-in-law, Bill Dimick. Hugh, Harry and Bill have gone to that great ski slope in the sky - they were the old timers who started one of the first rope tows around on Fairbank's Mountain. They used to take the train to Danville and ski back to St. Johnsbury. I'm not sure of the route they took, but it was apparently a good "ride" because they looked forward to it in the early years. Harry and Bill skied well into their 80's, I believe.

I read that Cabot artist, Janet Van Fleet and three others will be taking their art work that addresses "biodiversity" to an exhibit in Nagoya, Japan in January. For more information on that, you can visit Nagoya-Vermont

Another interesting web site to visit is that of woodworker/sculptor David Tanych and his artist wife, Meryl Lebowitz of Kirby (and Burlington). www.davidtanych.com