Fred cut up the old maple that broke away from the remaining stump. He had it well underway before I got there with the camera, but I got some pictures. The old tree has lasted longer than we expected; now there's another really old one that we expect will come down in a storm sometime soon. You can see it in this picture, and it's a big one, too. This trunk was growing as part of another tree, and when that happens, if one isn't cut away when the trees are young so the other can grow as a single tree, they join together but are weakened and will eventually split apart. These were pasture trees so nobody pruned them properly. I don't know if either of these big maples had ever been tapped, but so far Fred hasn't run onto any signs of spouts or even barbed wire and I know there was a fence next to them, so probably at one time or another the wire was stapled onto their trunks.

When Fred got the fallen log separated from the stump, it looked pretty bad. The main stump is already decayed and has been home to woodpecker families and probably lots of other critters.

It was a beautiful day to work outside, and in the afternoon, Fred did the maintenance work on the pontoon boat motor so it's set for the winter. With that done, we can sit back and know we're well on the way to being ready for winter. We can take a breather tomorrow when we're expecting rain . . . again.

I worked outside this afternoon and it was very hot. On our back deck the thermometer outside my office window was reading 98 degrees in the sun. I'm noticing that the vegetable garden isn't getting nearly as much sun as it was even a week ago, so the growing season is really over and I need to think about getting things wrapped up for good. I'll pack the beds with leaves and throw a big tarp over the whole thing. I have parsnips in one corner, so I'll need to put markers there in order to find them under the snow in the spring, but everything else will be undisturbed until it's planting time again.

We have an appointment at the vet's for Woody, our cat, tomorrow. He's still gimpy and the leg and paw seem to be a bit swollen, so we want to find out what's going on. Maybe it wasn't that he got hurt doing something foolish as I'd thought. We have instructions not to feed him tonight, just in case he needs anesthesia tomorrow. That will be interesting. He's used to eating whenever he feels like it and eats small amounts often. He will often pester us if he can see the bottom of his dish even when there's still some food in it. After we refill it, he will turn away and ask to go outside again without touching it, apparently satisfied there will be ample food next time he comes in for a snack.

If you have been following the news story about Mrs. O'Hagen who disappeared about three weeks ago from her Sutton home, you know they found her body in a hunting camp way out in the wilds near Stannard, almost in Danville. Not much more information right now, but I imagine investigators know a lot more than they are telling the media. It would seem pretty likely whoever took her there knew the area, so one has to wonder if it was someone local. A chilling thought. I guess we all feel as though these awful things don't happen here, but now it has and it's horrible. It must be unimaginable pain for her friends and family. I hope there is a quick resolution and that this isn't one of those cases that is never solved.

While I was going through some old pictures today, I found one I thought was interesting. It's hard to see the writing on the truck, but it says "Rosedale Brand Creamy Popcorn Cheese." The year on the license place is 1931. Rosedale was Cabot Creamery's brand, and the "popcorn cheese" was of course, cottage cheese. When the cooperative creamery was founded in 1919, their main product was butter that was shipped to Boston. Some individual farmers had been making and shipping butter before that, but doing it on their own, in small batches, was not very profitable. Cabot Co-op began making hard cheese in 1930.

There was another large cheese-making operation in Cabot for a number of years. Roman Kurz operated a cheese factory during the 1940's, I remember. I don't know when the business was sold, but they made wonderful cottage cheese. Eva Kurz, Roman's second wife, was a Cerasoli from Barre, I believe.

I have no idea why these men were on the roof or what building this was. Bob Brimblecomb has a plumbing business in the building that is now our historical society museum. Bob Kurz was Roman's son and when he got out of the service, he worked with his father at the cheese plant, I believe. The uniform he's wearing may have been for cheese making, not his army uniform. I don't know if Bernard Barnett worked for Mr. Brimblecomb or Mr. Kurz.

Another short trip down memory lane. Now I'll need to dig through some of the files to find out more about the Kurz cheese plant. Mrs. Eva Kurz donated many artifacts to the Cabot Historical Society before she died in 1996. Mr. Kurz died in 1953.