Our once beautiful day is eroding, but the thermometer, even without the sun, is in the mid 60s on our back lawn. I've been doing some yard work - a little every day, and we're slowly getting rid of the winter debris. I didn't cut back as many of my flowers as usual last fall, so I'm having to take care of dry stocks now. Some are good as mulch, but there is also a lot that has to be discarded.

The season is progressing, no doubt. There are many more summer residents returning every day and some traffic on the pond - fishing boats, a pontoon boat or two - and in a couple of weeks everything will be in place, ready for another great summer.

The grader came and worked the road past our house to the Danville line at Barre Avenue today. It really needed work, but so do all the other roads in Cabot and every other town. It's been a banner year for mud and potholes. In many ways the mud wasn't as bad as we've seen some years, but I don't think I've ever witnessed such cradle holes. Seems like nearly every year some new and bothersome aspect of back roads and spring thawing crops up.

It was a good year for sugar making, though. Burr Morse in East Montpelier says they made more and had better quality than some years. The best syrup is made when the weather stays cold at night. We're still getting temperatures near or below freezing, but the buds have started on the trees and when that happens, sugarin' is over. Any syrup made after that is, to quote Burr, "putrid . . . the dregs." It's time for farmers to turn their energy to work in the fields.

We received this notice from Carol Borland, pastor at the West Danville church:

Time of Event: 7:00-9:00 p.m.; July 22, 2011
Name of Event: Mark Shelton Concert;
Mark Shelton, a performer of contemporary Christian and secular music, will present a concert at the West Danville United Methodist Church on July 22, 2011, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. A free-will offering will be received to support the "Imagine No Malaria"campaign of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Global Fund and the United Methodist Church.
"Imagine No Malaria" tackles this dreadful disease that kills a child in Africa every 45 seconds, through gifting bed mosquito nets, providing education about using nets and medicine for those who are already sickened, and by clearing stagnant pools of water where mosquitoes breed.

Bill and Diane Rossi took a river boat cruise back in April. They started off in New Orleans and went on the Mississippi and the Tombigbee-Lower Warrior Rivers, then the lower end of the Tenn-Tom Waterway through Jamie Whitten Lock and Wilson Lock in Tennessee, on to Lake Guntersville and the gorge section of the Tennessee River between the Appalachians and the Cumberland Plateau, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. They narrowly escaped severe tornado activity and their boat suffered some wind damage; at the airport in Chattanooga, they were delayed returning home because of tornado and severe electrical storms, but were able to take off within a half hour or so when the storms had left the area. Bill sent us these photos and I've put them together in a slide show: Rossi's River Boat Trip
I'm not sure of the sequence - they started in New Orleans - perhaps there are more pictures that Bill didn't send yet.