The Cabot school 8th graders are hosting a bottle drop at the O'Connor's across from the Gym where the sandwich board is on Saturday, September 10th from 9-12. Please bring your returnable bottles and support their trip to Washington DC. If you are not able to make it at that time please call Laurie Coolbeth at 563-3011 to arrange for pick up. Thank you for your support.

Laurie Coolbeth

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We were in Cabot today at the town offices. We parked in back of Willey Memorial Hall, and as we got out of the car, we could hear the water rushing in the brook that flows through a large culvert (above) under Cookson's Garage. Back in May, a flash flood washed out around the garage, took much of the main street out and made a terrible mess of Main Street, Harry's Hardware, and the grocery store next door. The water also took out the road between Cookson's Garage and Willey Hall. Now all that is repaired and although the brook was a bit high, it was nowhere near flood stage. Fred got pictures of the brook, repaired culvert and the Harry's Hardware, (right) now all good as new, as far as we can tell. It looks as if the garage still has some damage, and we could see sand bags still in place. "Irene" didn't do any damage, but the village was better prepared this time.

Up the street at the school, there is a project in progress to establish drainage around the school building. there was a pipe that was running water from underground at the foundation of the school into a manhole. Fred wondered what that was about, and without thinking, I told him, "They are trying to drain the swamp." I wasn't being funny; I was remembering that an old codger wondered in the 1800's why the town fathers decided to move from the Center of Town, high above the present village on what is now Danville Hill Road, into "the swamp." For many years, what is now the Village Common was wet and filled with alders, and according to the Vermont Historical Gazetteer, teams frequently became mired in muck on Main Street. Consequently, the school "campus" is frequently plagued by water problems, especially after a summer such as this has been.

I measured 1.57 inches of rain in my gauge this morning. Tonight we'll no doubt get more, and through tomorrow, at least. If this trend continues into winter, we may be snowbound a lot of the time - but skiing and snowmobiling should be great. In the meantime, the colors are showing up in the maple trees, and a few are already brilliant. I think it may be a very nice foliage season, and with towns getting their roads and bridges repaired quickly and getting businesses up and running, it seems as if we'll be ready for visitors as usual.

By the way, it looks like Bill Rossi's suggestion about using GPS could be the solution to Jamie's problem finding Sunken Island. Jack LaGue let Jamie know he has a GPS and has looked up the coordinates; Jamie is hoping he and Jack can get together and give it a try. We'll keep you posted.