Another gorgeous day! Already it's at about 55 degrees on my shaded thermometer; however, it was a cold night and we saw "cat-ice" on the pond this morning in the shallows near Bill and Cheryl Hamilton's. When I checked the water level a few minutes ago at Walter Ruf's, there was ice still in the reeds between him and the Allens. The lake is like a mirror - absolutely beautiful.

It was easy to measure the water level this morning with the water so still. It was exactly 4.5 in. below the top of Walter's cement retaining wall. If they have been drawing it down, it hasn't had much effect on the level yet. This is the third day with no appreciable precipitation, and we aren't expecting any until perhaps Sunday.

We visited Doris Demick, Evelyn Richer's mother, this morning. A friend who also worked in the St. Johnsbury School system when Doris and I were there was going to go with me, but she wasn't feeling well, so Fred went instead. He had seen the apartment Ray and Evelyn built for Doris before it was finished, so it was interesting for him to see it today along with me. It is a beautiful space - perfect for Doris, with a great view, three-season sun porch, deck, fireplace - just about everything anyone could want. The landscaping is lovely, too.

We didn't take pictures - perhaps another time. We were busy catching up as we hadn't seen Doris all summer, and in fact, I hadn't seen much of Evelyn and Ray either, so it was really nice that they came over from their house next door to greet us, too.

From there we checked on the two new building projects. Both are coming along fine. Fred said if we took more pictures today it would border on boring, so we decided we'd wait until there was more visible progress to report. The biggest change we noticed in both places was that all the roof areas are covered now and at LaGues they were laying shingles. When they get the windows in, we'll provide more photos.

I caught "Woody" in a totally relaxed position napping in front of the fire this morning. He had been outside for quite a while and then came in, had a snack, and sat for a long time in the middle of the living room, apparently trying to decide where he wanted to take his nap. He looked a the bench in front of the window, but that was probably too sunny; the windowsill isn't quite wide enough for him to be comfortable except sitting to watch the birds and squirrels; I was sitting in my chair and he probably knew he would get moved right away because I'm not going to sit for long in the morning; it was too far to walk to either bedroom or his favorite rug in the bathtub, so he finally stretched out in front of the fire. I think his belly got too warm and this was his cooling-off position. He didn't have a clue I was taking his picture.

I wonder if he heard the rumpus in the wee hours of the night when something apparently caught an animal - probably a rabbit - and made off with it. I'd guess it was an owl or hawk as the screams continued several minutes gradually receding into the distance. Sometimes when something like that happens, Woody becomes very agitated and puffs up, not liking it at all. Perhaps when he was out in the wilds that summer before he came to live with us he had some close encounters . . .