Another muggy day, and we've had a bit of everything. Some sun (not much) lots of clouds and humidity, then around 2 o'clock the Heavens opened up and we got well drenched. It looks as if we're going to continue to have showers for a while, but tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty nice day.

I had a call from Kevin Johnson letting me know some folks have run aground on Sunken Island. That's very strange, unless the buoy has moved. Sometimes people tie up to the buoy and the weight of a boat will drag the anchor holding the buoy off target. Sunken island normally has quite a bit of water covering the rocks there, and even 100 ft. away from the buoy should be fine except maybe with a sailboat. The shallow water extends north from the buoy a little way. However, that said, some boats draw more water than others and to be sure you don't hit, stay further away. With a kayak or canoe, you can easily see where the shallows are, and it's a good idea to take a look if you can before you speed anywhere close to buoys in the lake.

Smith's Point is a bit different because your prop can hit anywhere from the shore to the most outward buoy and runs in an east-west direction, so boats should never go between the buoys and the shore.

We think the people who hit their props were not familiar with the pond, but I've let Jamie Dimick know and he will check the buoy at Sunken Island as soon as he gets home from work tonight. I'll keep you posted.

Fred took a little side trip to East Hardwick today when he went to recycle in Wolcott. He came home with a couple of neat pictures. I didn't know about the miniature horse farm there - he said it's right next to the highway, so you can see them easily from the car.

He didn't find much else except typical small town Vermont landscapes, but I've made a short slide show for you, using Photo Bucket. I need to practice making slide shows with that. We heard back from a few people saying Photo Bucket seems to have a sharper picture, and that's because Flickr has a default setting that enlarges the pictures to fill the screen and that means they lose some sharpness. It's a trade-off - sharp or big.

There are several back roads you can take from East Hardwick, too. You can leave Rt. 16 in E. Hardwick and take Noyestar Road and come out in Walden; or you can take Hardwick Street and come out at Caspian Lake in Greensboro; or continue on Rt. 16 to Glover and Barton. It's best to have a map with you if you aren't familiar with the back roads, though. Here's the slide show: E.Hardwick

By the way, I didn't get the information on the Indian Joe book on the web site's Local Products page yet, but I'll do that right away.

I just had a call from Jamie about the Sunken Island buoy - it's where it should be. As near as he can figure out, the people who hit bottom were probably misjudging the distance they were from the buoy. We have maps of Joe's Pond available that show water depths and there is also a map that can be accessed from home page of the web site, www.joespondvermont.com.