We're still in a deep-freeze. Last night the lowest Fred saw on our thermometers was -16 degrees. He was up a couple times to feed the wood stove - not a night for it to get too low. This morning it is still -10 degrees and I doubt it will go much higher today. No new snow, and there's 12 inches at the stake in our back yard. I no longer go out there to read it, but use the binoculars to read it from the bedroom window. I still have to go outside to get the new snow readings, but there was only a trace in the gauge this morning, and I suspect that had blown in with all the wind we had yesterday. At least we have bright sunshine and not much wind at all.

This came from Jenny Rafuse this morning:

West Danville United Methodist Church is having a Ham Dinner on February 12th at 5:30pm. Donations Welcome...
Call "Pete" Blackadar to reserve your spot! 802-563-2725

I got my newsletter from Burr Morse at Morse Farm Sugarworks yesterday. I went to the web site to try to establish a link so you could all read it, but it hasn't been posted there yet. I don't believe Burr would mind my posting it here. I am sure you'll find it interesting, like I did. There's a link to the Morse site on ours, and you should check it out and perhaps get on his mailing list for the newsletters. I enjoy them a lot - he has a very "homey" writing style. Here's the newsletter:

Burr Morse
Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks
Montpelier, VT
www.morsefarm.com

January 29, 2010

Hello again Maple People,

We've got our own version of "The Tortoise and the Hare" right here in the North Country. The race started eighty years ago. It wasn't a traditional race with two contestants and a finish line....no, it had to do with the life stories of two objects as varied as, say a tortoise and a hare. They were both born in 1929 and related in a round-a-bout way. Heck, most folks wouldn't even recognize it as a race but I do. In this race, the "hare" was a huge bridge made of hundreds of tons of steel and concrete, built strong enough to carry traffic across Lake Champlain way into the future. It should have won this race but was deemed unsafe to cross in October of 2009 and died two months later when a demolition company imploded it in a matter of seconds.

The "tortoise" was a simple idea that became a parade float. You see, the bridge was so big and important that many of the cities and towns around Vermont and New York State wanted to send floats for the gala parade that would open the bridge. The idea had risen from a group of Montpelier citizens quicker'n the tap of a speaker's gavel, a "capital" idea it was...Montpelier's float would be a replica of the Vermont Statehouse. The parade was held on a hot day in August of 1929. Thousands of excited folks lined the roads on both sides of the lake to welcome the bridge that would liven tourism and commerce in the North Country. Governors John Weeks of Vermont and Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York shook hands in the middle of the bridge and the gala parade made its opening official. Afterward the floats all returned to their villages, diminished to memories and photographs, except for one. The little statehouse lived on...chalk another one up for the tortoise.

It was built by carpenters of the A.K. Baird Company on a volunteer basis out of scraps of lumber from the jobs they were on. That was back in the days when law making was simpler and work ethic was strong. They immediately started with their hand tools working only during their noon hours. Even though it was only a parade float they were building, those guys "drove home" both quality and pride with every nail; after all, it was the statehouse they were building. Over the summer of 1929, the structure grew from its eight by twelve foot frame to include two Greek Revival porticoes and a gold leaf dome that would rival the real one. Well before the big day, they had applied the last of the ornate trim and placed a foot-tall Ceres, Roman Goddess of Agriculture atop the dome. When the big day arrived, it was placed on a platform farm truck for the trip to Addison.

After the parade, the little statehouse came back to Montpelier, appeared in a few other parades, and then rested in front of Toy Town, a group of roadside cabins on US Route 2 just down the street from the real statehouse. Many a Montpelier area resident of my vintage remember passing that little statehouse every time we went toward Burlington back in the days before Interstate 89. Ironically it was the opening of I-89 in the 1960s that both "drove" modern travel, including traffic over the Champlain Bridge, and hastened the decline of the little statehouse. Toy Town went out of business soon after the interstate highway opened, necessitating a change of home for the little structure. It went down Randolph way for a spell and then migrated over toward Burlington where it jumped from home to home. After its twenty-plus year spell at Toy Town, however, the little statehouse model never quite received the care and attention it needed. In the year 2000, Montpelier resident, Paul Guare located it out in back of a cement warehouse over in Williston. It was dilapidated almost to the point of no return.
Paul Guare's father-in-law was Nelson Paxman, one of the original carpenters, and Paul had always had a special place in his heart for the little statehouse. He arranged for the broken and rotting pieces to be picked up and trucked back to Montpelier where the Montpelier Historical Society took ownership. The minute those pieces arrived "back home", another group of carpenters reached for their tools, once again on a volunteer basis and a "shoestring" budget; those guys belonged to the Montpelier Kiwanis Club and, according to my Kiwanian friend, Fred Bushway, invested upwards of two thousand hours in bringing the local treasure back to life.

These days the model statehouse rests proudly right here at Morse Farm under a shelter that was built with Montpelier Historical Society funds. It'll never be out in the weather again, accept possibly on one of the occasions it's appearing in parades or at historical functions throughout Vermont. Yes, it's permanently mounted on a trailer so that it can be made available for all to enjoy. In a couple years, in fact, it'll be traveling to a very special place, Addison, Vermont for the opening of the new Champlain Bridge. It'll be a huge day for lots of folks, folks who have been seriously inconvenienced by the bridge's two year absence. There will be none more excited, however, than a large contingent from Montpelier who remember the history of it all...long live the little statehouse that could!

Maple season is fast approaching and we're scurrying to "win the race" with that one, too! Sometimes it really seems like a race, with the season only lasting four or five short weeks. During that time we truly need the "perfect storm" of weather, equipment and attitude to pull it off. We never have a problem with "attitude" because we Morses have sugarin' in our blood but the weather and equipment can provide surprises. Right now we're scrambling with sugarhouse repairs and installing that new evaporator and the weather is still doing its winter thing...whew...we've got more time! Although we've yet to make any 2010 maple syrup, there's still plenty left from 2009. How about racing to www.morsefarm.com to get some? We sure appreciate your orders an loyalty but most especially, your friendship!
Sweetly, Burr.

I want to share our beautiful evening view of the pond with you. It's already around 5 degrees below zero, and there's a wind (still) so it will be a very cold night, but we are enjoying the full moon from our living room window. Fred braved the cold one more time - he's been outside to snow blow, shovel our pathways, pick up the mail, and frequent visits to the wood pile in the garage during the day - to get this photo for me. Can you see the glistening crust along Rt. 15? Bet you wish you were here to enjoy the view!!

Votes are coming in on the end-of-year meeting of JPA. We'll be glad to hear from more of you, though, so if you haven't voted or left a comment, please do.

We have posted a copy of the Warning for the Cabot Town Meeting in March. Those of you who are eligible to vote will be interested in looking it over. There are also instructions about getting absentee voting ballots. You can access the Warning from the menu at the left of home page, or go directly there using this link: Cabot Warning

We also put a Joe's Pond cottage on the "For Sale" page. We have only one photo of that cottage right now, but have asked the present owners for more so perhaps we'll have those at a later date.

Just to keep you updated on the weather - we're suddenly in a blizzard. We've been getting increasing snowfall since about noon, and now there's lots of wind, the thermometer is beginning to drop, and snow is coming at us horizontally from all directions! A real squall. I took a couple of quick pictures from inside (I'm not going out in THAT!!) and could barely see a car that was going by. If you click on the first picture and look closely, you'll see a faint yellow spot just beyond the littlest spruce tree on our lawn. The other pictures is from our kitchen window looking across our driveway which is only 30 feet or so to the trees. The road crews I'm hearing on the scanner are reporting "it's really coming down and blowing about 100." They're expecting trucks to get stuck on some of the hills out there, so it may be a difficult commute home for lots of people tonight. Right now the squalls seems to have passed, but it's still snowing very hard and visibility is very poor.

We're tucked in for the night, hopefully. Well, I am. As I was writing this, Fred took off to take a run up Jamie's drive with the snow blower. Marie has 4-wheel drive on her Jeep, and she has already gone up, but we haven't seen Jamie yet. There is a tractor trailer hung up in Danville, jackknifed by the oak tree, so that will slow things down for a lot of people on Rt. 2, and he likely is one of them. No damage or injuries, the truck just can't move and apparently slid into a jackknife.

By the way, we've been monitoring the comments on the web site poll of JPA members and really appreciate the way responses and ideas are coming in. Thanks to those of you who have already weighed in, and we hope to hear from lots more.

There are a couple sad items to report today. First, we learned yesterday of the death of Nira Gherardi, JPA treasurer George Anderson's sister. There is a complete obituary in the Barre Times: Nira Gherardi

Also in the Barre Times is the obituary of Joseph Sancibrian, youngest brother of Frank Sancibrian. Here is that obituary: Joseph Sancibrian

My heartfelt sympathy goes to the families of both Mrs. Gherardi and Mr. Sancibrian.

Tucky Sancibrian, Frank's wife, contacted me several years ago after reading the blog, and through our correspondence we have become good friends although we have not met in person. She and Frank have strong ties to the Barre community and she has often helped me make connections to former Joe's Ponders, and I have sometimes been able to assist her as she researches Spaulding High School alumni. We share a passion for preserving history, although Tucky is a much better investigator than I.

Our day is best described as "blah" today. I measured just a skimming of new snow and the temperature is hanging out around 25 degrees. I have lots to do here at the "history desk" and will keep busy most of the day putting together material about the Bayley-Hazen Road, the historic Yellow House on Cabot Plain, and Injun Joe. All courtesy of Cabot's beloved late historian, Jennie (Smith) Donaldson. Jennie was a long-time teacher and saved many of the notes she used in teaching her students. When Jennie died in 2004, we lost a treasured resource for area history. Her papers and photos were donated to the historical society late this fall. I have been sorting and scanning them, and now have a treasure trove of material that I will record and make available for research.

This is a picture from her collection. As you can see, it is a horse-powered saw. There are two horses on treadmills that power the saw at the far right of the picture. You can see the wood pile in the foreground. This was probably taken at the Smith farm on Whittier Hill where Jennie grew up, in Cabot.

To Joe's Pond Association members: This afternoon I sent a message to all members for whom I have an e-mail address. It was to alert members about the poll we're conducting from home page on the web site to learn your wishes for the year-end meeting next summer. If you did not get the e-mail, sent from JPWebmaster.com, that means I don't have a good e-mail address for you, and in that case, I'd appreciate it if you would contact me so I can add your address to my address list. I promise I won't clutter your mail box with nonsense, and I won't give your address to anyone; I only use the list for important stuff like reminders of upcoming JPA events or urgent news - although I did send off seasonal greetings in December . . . !

Anyway, we hope you'll voice your opinion by making a selection or writing a comment on the form Fred put up for us. You can access it easily from home page - it's the pretty red ribbon, you can't miss it! Votes are already coming in and lots of comments and suggestions, too, so take a minute and add your voice.

Thank you, JPA Members. Keep warm, safe and smiling!

*****

Our weather is going to change radically in the next few days. It's going to be COLD - below zero again - an altogether too quick turn around from the above freezing weather of the past few days. We've had a little snow, but need more to cover the bare spots left by the rain. There are no bare spots on our side of the pond, but on the Rt. 15 hillsides we could see quite a bit of bare ground where the afternoon sun keeps the snow pack down.

I came upon a neat photo today in some of the Cabot Historical Society things I'm working with. I don't have a clue whose house it is or who the people are. Nothing written on it, but perhaps someone, sometime, will know. It is from an old stereoptic, but is actually pretty clear, considering it's well over 100 years old. Click on it to see it better. I'm not sure what they were doing - the man on the far right seems to have a scythe over his shoulder; the others may have shovels or sticks. Maybe they were just needed props literally, to prop themselves up since it sometimes took a long time for photographers to get their equipment set up to take a picture.

Today has been a much quieter weather day here. We are left with way less snow than we had a couple days ago - I reported 20 inches on the 21st, and a little less every day until Sunday when there was 17.t in. at my stake. This morning I measured 11.0 inches at the stake. There's a bit of a crust and some ice here and there. It's still not awfully cold - ranged around 32-34 degrees most of the day with a few snow showers off and on, but thankfully no wind.

I took this picture of the head of the pond where the channel appeared to be open. There was a good deal of flooding or at least water on top of the ice up there. This afternoon Fred went to investigate Bill Rossi's flag pole that Bill said got bent in the wind yesterday. Winds were very strong, in the 90 m.p.h. range on Mt. Mansfield, we heard. Fred measured 12 m.p.h. at our mailbox, and we knew that wasn't the strongest wind area, but in a driving rain, he didn't want to be out there any longer than necessary. He was just spreading some ashes so Jamie and Marie could make it up their driveway and I sent the wind gauge with him just out of curiosity.

There were many trees down in the area, some flooding in places, including some stores along the river in Montpelier. One of the fishing shacks took a hit and is on its side. The owner will have a hard time setting it upright if it freezes into the ice. In fact, all the shacks will be difficult to move when everything freezes up again, but this happens nearly every year, so I guess they all know how to handle it. The picture of the flag pole at Rossi's and the fishing shack were taken about the same time, and then Fred snapped one looking down the lake from Rossi's as the snow began again. That's the way it's been all day - we even had some sunshine for a few minutes early this morning and I think once during the afternoon. There were some scattered big flakes falling while the sun was out a couple times. Really strange weather, but I guess we've definitely had our January thaw. We can see lots of bare ground on the hillsides.

We've been hearing logging machinery on the hillside above us for the past few days. Fred went today to see what was going on and apparently Andy Leinoff is cutting off some of the timber on his lot that adjoins us. That has been cut off quite regularly over the past 50 years or so, but the soft wood comes back quickly. We believe that place is still for sale - about $1,240,000.00 last time I checked. It's a really large house, with lots of land, a very large barn that was once an oatmeal factory, some of you will remember. They also have a nice pond and a view that won't quit. They are at the very top of the land on Cabot Plain, with a 360 degree view. They can see the White mountains with Joe's Pond in the foreground, mountains in Canada to the north, and overlook the farms and flat of Cabot Plain to the west, with great sunsets, and uninterrupted forest south of them.

I know the land well - it is what we called "the night pasture hill" where as kids on the farm, my cousins and I had pitched a tent every summer and fought wars with Indians or pretended we were spies or sometimes war heroes fighting battles - and then it would be time to put away our wooden guns and tomahawks and go get the cows in one of the two adjoining pastures either side of the lane commonly known as the Bayley Hazen Road. The real Bayley Hazen Road is a few feet in front of the existing Leinoff house that overlooks Joe's Pond, somewhat east of the lane the settlers wisely established on higher ground - and we knew all about the military "building" the road there and could follow it in either direction through our grandfather's pastures. It's mostly worn away now, and it would be almost impossible to fine any evidence of that piece of local history. The logging operation in in the vicinity of the old road.

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Here's a mystery for you. I had an e-mail this morning with this photo and the following message attached:

Attached you find an architectural model by Andrew Thomas. This model was recently purchased at an antique store in Johnson, Vt by Steve Kinsella from Minnesota who was visiting his in-laws in Vermont.

This model was created by Andrew Thomas who was the architect for the Forest Hill Rockefeller Development in the late 1920's. Isn't it interesting that a model for a home that was built in Cleveland in the 1920's was found in Vermont in 2010. I sure would like to know the story of how the model came to be in Vermont.

I live in one of the Rockefeller Homes in the Forest Hill Development and I'm on the board for Forest Hill Historic Preservation Society. Steve Kinsella forwarded this photo of the model to FHHPS e-mail. For the past four years we have spent a week at Joe's Pond so I'm a regular reader of your blog and thought you might find this interesting.

I don't know the name of the antique shop Mr. Kinsella visited, but have suggested he might start there to find the connection to Vermont. If anyone has an idea of how the copper-clad model came to be in Johnson, let me know or post any thoughts as a comment here on the blog.

We're having a rainy day, temperature seems to be rising steadily and is now about 44 degrees. There is a strong wind which I suspect will do some damage. Our snow pack is settling rapidly, and of course there will be danger of flooding as the rain continues and runoff increases. Tomorrow is supposed to get colder and we will probably get some snow to build the depth back up. Back roads will be slippery in places as any sand gets washed off, and the paved highways could be icy when the temperature begins to drop. I'm hearing very little chatter on the scanner, although there was one report of a tree across the road in the Ryegate area, so everything seems to be under control for now.

It's been a pretty nice day, in the low 30's, some sunshine, but not a lot of melting going on. We're waiting for the rain, sleet, snow or whatever to get here. We're expecting some wind, too, and Fred's looking forward to that because he's just adjusted our old antenna and wants to see if it has helped reception when there's a strong wind. I guess he was getting some distortion on the over-air channels.

Don and Audrey Walker stopped by this morning and picked up 500 Ice-Out Tickets. Don says he wouldn't want to be out of them when someone needs them. Don always sells a heap of tickets for us. Both Don and Audrey seem well and chipper as usual, and it was good to see them. Don isn't scoring the basketball games this year, and I'm sure he misses that - he did it for many years. We're just glad he hasn't given up working on the Ice-Out Contest with us.

I received the following from a friend in No. Hero. She said it's been around a while, but I hadn't happened to see it. I can't vouch that it's factual, but it all sounds very logical and I thought you'd get a hoot out of it, as I did. (My friend is a school teacher . . . ! :)

Some History Lessons for you –

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery....if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor."
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot....they "didn't have a pot to piss in" (or a window to throw it out of) and were the lowest of the low.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell . . . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence, the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a "thresh hold."

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.... When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "the upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of "holding a wake."

England is old and small, and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins, and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside, and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground, and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night ("the graveyard shift.") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a "dead ringer..."

And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Another glorious day with lots of sunshine and moderate temperatures. We walked down W. Shore Road this afternoon, and although it was easier than being on snowshoes, there was a lot of traffic and it wasn't nearly as enjoyable. Many of the vehicles that passed us seemed to be going way too fast on snow packed/icy winter roads. We don't wonder they sometimes end up in a snowbank. We always go single file and get far out onto the shoulder, which is no easy feat since the road is now well humped up with frost. One has to be like a mountain goat to stay upright on the slippery shoulders where there's no salt or sand, and we just hope we can dodge 'em if the vehicle begins to go out of control. We saw a couple spots where someone had apparently gone into the snowbanks, and that doesn't inspire confidence one bit. It was nice, though and we got some photos.

The White Mountains were beautiful in the distance. The sun was hitting them just right for a nice picture looking past the narrows and over West Danville.

Along the way we noticed what looks like part of an iron bed across the road from Phil and Joyce Rogers' place. I expect it is there either as a gate or for some of Joyce's lovely flowers to climb on in the summer. And across the pond, lots of tracks of snowmobiles. There were hardly any there when we were by on Thursday, but the pond was quite active today.

There was a community of ice fishing shantys near the access area. Several seemed to have been set up today. It's trout fishing season, so everyone is out. There was also some activity on the eastern shore, but that seemed to be mostly snowmobiles. The photo on the left is near the access area and there were one or two shantys we couldn't fit into this one shot. The picture on the right is at the upper end of the pond where there were one or two fishermen and a couple of dogs romping. You can see that there has been a lot of snowmobile traffic in that area.

We also noticed the ledges above the Rogers' garage have yellow ice coating them. There are lots of springs all along the hillside above West Shore Road, and this is a result of that. There isn't a real waterfall there, just runoff with sediment from above sliding down over the ledges and making icicles in the cold.

As we were nearing home, and had been dodging traffic on the road, we noticed there were several trails of high altitude airplanes overhead. At one point there were three that seemed to be converging and we wondered just how far apart they really were. From our viewpoint, it looked as if they were all pretty much at the same altitude, headed north, east and west. They passed without incident, so I guess they knew where they were better than we did. Last night a helicopter went by our house very low, and we both rushed to the window to watch it. They often go over our house, but generally are quite a bit higher than this one. It was a clear night, probably a good night for flying.

Fred found a couple of interesting articles for me to post. Here's one about the Cabot Sock Company - Cabot Socks

Then there's this piece about a Danville artist Curtis Hale and Mary Azarian, a well known artist who used to live in Cabot. Artists

Which reminds me, we had a flyer in the mail today from the Cabot School Board thanking everyone for their suggestions and concerns regarding the school budget for 2010-2011, which will be voted upon on Monday, March 1st at 6:00 p.m. This letter states that the board has agreed upon a proposed budget that is $260,000 lower than this year's budget. If the budget is approved at town meeting, the result will be "a 2010 homestead property tax rate of $1.410 per $100 of assessed value, which is the same rate as last year's."

The letter goes on to say that changes will need to be made in the way the school operates to deliver the same quality education with a reduced budget, but they are asking the administrators to look carefully at way that can be accomplished.

Now it will be up to the voters to decide if they are willing to make some changes at Cabot School or if they are willing to endure higher costs for educating the children. It seems to me the School Board has done a good job of trying to keep the cost of education affordable in these difficult economic times, but we've seen strange things happen at our town meeting before, so it will be interesting.

We went into the woods on snowshoes this afternoon - our first time out this year. Conditions were nearly perfect and it was beautiful in the woods. We expected to see lots of trees down from the high winds we had a couple weeks ago, but there weren't as many as we'd feared, although we only did a short circle of our property. Jamie and Marie had more come down than we did, probably because their property is a bit higher than ours.

Fred broke trail, which is always nice for me! The snow is dry and powdery, and DEEP in the woods. Where it covers brush or logs, our snowshoes sometimes took nosedives, but over all, the going was pretty good. We found Marie's trail and followed it for a little way, which was much easier going, but we wanted to come back along the lower section of our lot to see if trees were down there, so left her trail. I always get really warm snowshoeing, and as usual, I had worn a heavier jacket than I needed, and had to shed that before we'd gone very far. I was bushed when we got back, but loved the scenery and the crisp fresh air. We made a short slide show to show you what it was like out there today. The last picture is our trail coming up across our lawn, taken from our living room window after I'd cooled off and dried off. Slides

The overnight fishermen have left. I think they were there around noon, but can't be sure. There will be quite a lot of activity on the ice this weekend, probably. There are several shantys near the fishing access at the south end of the lake.

A pretty day today - sunny, in the 20's. We're going to lose the sunshine later on, but I think it will be back tomorrow.

I need to clarify that yesterday the "budget" I said would be discussed and voted upon at the Monday, March 1, evening meeting before the regular town meeting in is the school budget. All other financial decisions will be made at the regular meeting on Tuesday, March 2.

This morning I had a comment on yesterday's slide show picture of wood pellets at St. Jay Hardware. Okanagan wood pellets come from British Columbia, Canada. I spoke with John Gebbie, owner of St. Jay Hardware, and he told me he buys them there for several reasons. He indicated Vermont producers aren't making the same quality product because they are new at it. The people at Okanagan have been at it long enough to have refined the process so the pellets burn hotter and cleaner than most, and therefore it's a superior product. John said he would prefer to buy locally, but until Vermont producers "know how to cook it" as well as Okanagan, he will still buy directly from Vancouver, and the price is right because they have a lot of raw material available.

I was surprised to learn that the best raw material for pellets is soft wood. When burning cord wood, hard wood such as maple, ash and birch are preferable because they give more heat. Soft wood not only give less btu's, it will also coat a chimney with residue which can lead to chimney fires. Fred rarely burns soft wood unless it's been cut and split a long time and is super dry, and then only mixed with hard wood. He also always burns a really hot fire in our stove at least once a day to be sure we get no buildup in the chimney.

So there you have it. Thanks for the comment, Tom. Here's a no-nonsense link to the company in Vancouver:
OkanaganPellets.com

We think the ice fishermen, if that's what they're doing, were there all night. The tent is still there and we can see them moving about from time to time. It was about five above last night around 11 o'clock when I last looked, so if they spent the night on the ice, it might have been cold for them. Today is sunny and in the 20's, so I'm sure they're fine. That's a compact little tent, and with two people in it, probably they were pretty cozy.