Some of you may have heard about the backhoe that went through the ice at Peacham Pond on Feb. 12. If not, here's what happened: A couple of trucks got stuck in the slush on the ice. We've been hearing that there is a layer of slush on top of ice - the slush was covered with a layer of snow. When the trucks couldn't get out, a friend called Scott Abare, of Cabot, to help. Abare went with his backhoe, but got only about 150 ft. from shore when he went through the ice, "dropping like a stone," according to Todd Wellington, reporter for the Caledonian Record. Abare was fortunate he was able to get out through the open window of the skidder and suffered only minor cuts from ice, a really cold dunking, and no doubt the scare of his lifetime.

Some fishermen, Trevor Hall, Kevin Brown and Scott Phelps helped him out of the water, got him into a heated fishing shack and into dry clothes and gave him hot food. His $25,000 backhoe was under 20 feet of water. Undaunted, Abare went home briefly for dry clothes and came back with his skidder to finish the job. He set the skidder in place on the shore and attached a tow line, and with the help of his son and 25 or 30 members of the Christ Covenant Ministries in Marshfield, got the trucks safely off the ice. His advice:
". . .when there's water on the ice, it might be best to stay off it."

I don't know Scott Abare, but I think this is a really nice story - pretty typical of how friends and neighbors help each other out here in the Northeast Kingdom. Unfortunately, his backhoe is going to have to stay where it is until the ice is gone in the spring. Then I'm sure those guys whose trucks he got off the ice will show up to help him.

As for the members of the Covenant Ministries - they routinely do nice things like that. We're all fortunate to have good-hearted people like these in our Kingdom neighborhood.