A reasonable day weatherwise here. I covered the tomatoes last night, but apparently it wasn't necessary. There aren't many left to ripen, but I prefer to have as many as possible ripen on the vines rather than on the windowsill or in a paper bag. Besides, I'm looking for some nice weather for the next few days. We took this picture yesterday afternoon from in front of Walter Ruf's. We measured the water level and it was up only about an inch.

I reported another .17 in. of precipitation this morning. That makes a total for this month of 4.30 inches, which includes the almost 3 inches I reported on Oct. 1st. I reported 3.93 in. in July, 5.31 in. in August, and 3.37 for September. Those figures are way less than last year (July, 6.33 in.; Aug. 7.28 in.; and Sept. 3.59 in.), and last year we had snow on the 13th of October. While there were a few snowflakes on Mt. Mansfield and probably Camel's Hump and definitely Mt. Washington, we haven't had any here yet as far as I know. We used to count on getting snow the first week in October, and I mean snow that stayed a day or so.

There were no workmen at the Gagne's new house yesterday when we were there, but we could see progress. The top picture is seeing it from the road, the second picture is from the waterfront side. We are amazed at how deep that lot is - the house is quite far from the water and is nicely situated on higher ground which should be good insurance against high water incidences. I'm not sure if we'll get down there today or not, but perhaps this evening. We're invited to Bill and Diane Rossi's to share some Maine lobster - how great is that!!?? (Happy birthday to me!)

Thanks to all of you who have sent me birthday wishes. I really enjoy getting those e-mails with bits of information along with the greetings. The years get sweeter as we go along - and shorter, it seems. Time flies by exceedingly fast as we get older. It's hard to believe Fred and I have been living here at the pond year around for over 30 years! Anyway, I plan to enjoy today like I do every other day, and I hope the saying that we get wiser as we get older is true.

I heard from Liz Randall yesterday - she and John were here last week during the big rain storm. She said it took them a long time from L.I., and it was really rough going on the ferry. They were here to attend a wedding in N.H. and to work with oldest son, Jason on his new house. They stayed with Jason and Kerrin and had a nice turkey dinner before they left to go back to L.I. Liz updated us on their family (it was Liz and John's anniversary last week and they came to Vermont for a special one-night get-away and went to the Creamery for dinner - nice!) Here's some of what Liz wrote:

Didn't see any color as it was raining too hard in Cabot (Thurs and Friday) down in Franklin, NH [where Jason and Kerrin live] the colors were not that brilliant so it's a bust this year . . .

Matt passed his qualifying power point presentation for his masters . . . Lauren has decided to go back to school to pursue a degree in nursing. She needs two courses before applying to a nursing program . . .

You may be interested in this story, too. On-line friends who have bought property in North Danville were visiting last week so they could take in the foliage and especially Danville's Autumn on the Green. Here's what they wrote:

We wondered what all the action on our road was Monday morning-dozens of police and news crews, and come to find out it was down our road that they found Mrs O'Hagan. So sad.

When I checked the map after the location of Horn Road was noted in the newspapers, I knew it was close to the Danville town line, but hadn't realized it connected to the road these folks have bought a home on. They are still very enthusiastic about moving here permanently as soon as possible, but all of the horrible news must have been a shock to them. It has certainly stunned those of us already living here.

I have been stewing about the Times Argus no longer providing free on-line access, but this morning Fred told me the obituaries are still available for free. I guess we quickly became spoiled by all the free newspaper information on the web but after struggling with readership for years, newspapers are more now often asking a fee for their on-line articles. Only logical business practice, I guess. A lot of the news these days we could do without . . . like crimes and politics. Which reminds me, I looked in on CSI last night and had to turn it off. Way too gruesome for me, and I can't believe all the horror and violence so up close and graphic doesn't contribute to some of the awful things happening these days.

Now I'll get back to my hard working, rum drinking buddies of the late 1700's and early 1800's. Life was simpler and more ordered in those days. However, it was harsh and unbelievably labor intensive just to eke out a living in the wilderness that was Cabot and Danville and Peacham. It is no wonder most kept a good store of rum or whiskey on hand. It was considered good for whatever ailed them, and about the only "medicine" available.