Here's something interesting - I have no idea where they'll direct you, but I'm pretty sure there are some interesting and beautiful gardens around Cabot. And it's for the benefit of the public library. Even if you don't want to buy the tour guide, there will be some interesting items on sale at the library. The Cabot library is really a very nice facility for a small town, so if you aren't familiar with our library, check it out. The library is in Willey Hall, across the street from Harry's Hardware where you can get all the garden supplies you might need - PLUS a good cup of coffee and lunch! Owners Walt and Julie Ackermann have got it covered. (Click to make the poster larger.)

I had a call from Kate Chatot this afternoon. Kate was excited about a new "kid-friendly" restaurant in Burlington. She directed me to the web site: www.skyburgersvt.com, and sure enough, it looks really interesting. The menu has enough variety so if you don't want red meat, there are other choices. I'm still not partial to sweet potato fries, though. I like regular spuds, nice and golden brown with just a touch of salt; and sometimes mayonnaise on the side. Sometime when we are in Burlington, we'll find SkyBurgers and give it a try.

I don't know if you've checked the Camps For Sale selection on the web site lately, but there are several on there now. Makes one wonder why the sudden desire to flee the north country. On the other hand, taking care of two homes, which is generally the case, gets to be a real chore as the years go by and sometimes circumstances just prevent people from utilizing their cottage to the fullest extent. So it makes sense sometimes to go in some other direction. We always hate to say goodbye, though. Fred has been updating the rental pages so there's an availability chart that will save time and effort for everyone.

There are some updated events listed, too. We're just beginning to get new listings for the summer - we've had to remind some folks to let us know when they are planning a community event, so if you are involved with something taking place locally and want to get the word out, send us an e-mail and we'll either put something on the blog and if we know a little ahead, we'll put it on the Local Events page, too.

We took a turn around our lower lawn today and everything is flourishing. There are spots where we've trimmed bushes away within the past couple of years that have now grown in completely. It doesn't take long for things to get out of control. I think this fall we may need to limb trees and do some bushwhacking down there. We found we have three lovely little blue spruce trees coming along. They were sent to us several years ago as tiny seedlings when we belonged to the Arbor Foundation. We were getting seedlings every year - seven or eight at a time - and it was overwhelming. I felt obliged to plant whatever they sent (witness the row of maples, each a different variety, up our drive!) and now have a couple of hybrid hazelnut bushes (that we've had for a dozen years or so and they've never produced a nut), a couple young lilac trees (both purple, darn it!) a couple of ornamental crab apple trees, and three blue spruces. We had way more than that sent to us, but some didn't survive. Finally I stopped renewing our membership, but I still occasionally get a newsletter with offers of wonderful looking trees and shrubs that are hard to resist.

We've found that the trees that do best are the ones that pop up in unexpected and sometimes inconvenient places, like a couple of young oaks we discovered a few years ago that we have watched over carefully. Oaks aren't prevalent in this area, so we are particularly fond of these. We suspect my parents may have spread some acorns around years ago. Oaks don't grow quickly, so that might explain why we didn't notice them right away.

One of the maples that came from the Arbor Foundation is the scraggliest thing I've ever seen. The closest it comes to any maple around here is when one gets cut or broken and a dozen or more shoots spring up out of the stump. I can't imagine what it will look like if it ever reaches maturity. And it's the last one to get leaves in the spring, but has more leaves than all the others put together once it gets going. A real oddity. I don't really like it so we're going to move it out of sight this fall. I don't want anything to happen to it, I just don't want to have to look at it all the time. We'll replace it with a nice native sugar maple.