Things have become more interesting as the day has progressed. We are about out of the rain, we think (and hope!), but there's still a huge amount of water gushing into the pond from the hillsides. Sort of like spring some years when we've had lots of snow.

We're getting reports of high water around the pond. At around 12:30 this afternoon, Walter Ruf revised his report saying that the water was up at least 12 inches then. A little later, Homer called to tell us that big piece of real estate Walter had seen floating by became lodged in front of his (Homer's) pontoon boat. We were about to head down to our camp to check things out and then to the P.O. in West Danville, so stopped to take pictures along the way. Sure enough, at Homer's it looked like he'd parked his pontoon boat in a marsh . . . you'll see it on the slides.

Just before we left the house, Fred noticed something in the water in front of Swanson's on Island Drive, and took this picture - another big hunk of the marsh floating down the pond.

We've put together a short slide show starting with pictures at our cottage and Ned Hamilton's next door, and of the raging brook that comes down from Rt. 2 and is changing the shoreline between our place and Wards, creating beach as it deposits road gravel and silt into the pond.

I've been in touch with Tom and he's been communicating with the folks at Green Mountain Power who are in control of the dam. First thing this morning Tom wrote: "GMP is on top of the situation. Should work out OK. "

We surely hope it does, but my personal opinion is that there should be some leeway to let the water level down below the specified level this time of year - perhaps not as much as we used to 25 years or so ago, but at least enough to accommodate this kind of rainfall. It isn't unusual to have lots of rain in the fall and I can't believe it's worse to lower the water in the fall than it is to have big clumps of marsh detaching from the wetland area floating down the pond. Somehow it doesn't make good sense to continue ignoring the fact that no matter how sophisticated the control system is on the dam, it does not anticipate the weather, and even though the folks at GMP try very hard, there's no "fix" to the problem as long as they are held to the narrow water level margin dictated by the state.

We stopped to check the progress on Richard Hackett's new cottage. The picture at the far left was taken from W. Shore Rd., and the one on the right is the back side of the cottage. Looks like it's going to be a really nice place. Keach Builders are the contractors.

Here's a short slide show of the photos we took this afternoon: High Water, October 1, 2010

Suzi Swanson out on Island Drive sent this e-mail a few minutes ago:

When I was taking my dogs for a walk at 2:00 today down the rail trail, I noticed the marsh pond to the right was very high. When I reached Channel Drive, my suspicions were confirmed: water on either side of the rail trail is flooding across Channel Drive. To the right, towards Rt. 15, the water starts almost immediately and it is running across as far as I can see, into the channel. On the other side towards the Hamiltons, the water from the channel is flooding across into Joe's Pond as far as I can see. The channel is very high but it doesn't look like the bridge across is in any danger yet.

I feel terrible for the people on Channel Drive and only hope that their houses sit high enough to avoid the flooding waters. When I went back to our camp I noticed that the water is very high around the Sacuk's place as well. Up to the bottom trim of the house and the walk to their house from the trail is almost under water.

We stopped at the post office on our way home and found Jane fixing a display of her really cute "hare" helpers. They are towels made to look like bunnies, packaged for gift giving. She has a bunch of them, different colors, cute as a bunnie's rump.

Speaking of things to sell, Pam Hebert told me today there are very few Joe's Pond Cookbooks left. Some of you know that the committee got a few more to sell this summer because they'd had so many requests for them. If you want one to give for a Christmas gift, or for yourself, better not wait. You'll find them at the Joe's Pond Craft Shop or contact Pam at 802-684-3655.

Also, Jane told me the chicken pie supper at the church on Saturday evening is sold out, but you can still get take-outs - $12.00.