This has been a very nice day. The weather was a tad cool, but good for working outside, and I finally got everything finished so I'm ready for whatever Mother Nature throws at us in the next four or five months. I mulched the remainder of my flower gardens, staked the smaller trees that are in danger of getting seriously bent or broken under a heavy snow load, and wrapped up my rhododendron and holly. Now I can happily say, "Let it snow!"

Fred and I went to pick up the dinners at the Cabot church tonight - the ones we're saving to enjoy with our friends tomorrow evening. Fred took this picture from just above the Burtt farm. I always have trouble seeing when I'm driving down that stretch of road as the sun is setting. It hits the windshield at an angle that makes it very difficult to see - at least I always have a problem.









We got to the church at just about 5:30, and there were three very attentive young men manning the "take-out" table set up outside the kitchen door. There were several people getting take-out dinners, and the boys were running back and forth from the kitchen where Chef Hale and his student chefs were serving the dining room guests and putting together the take-out dinners. They did an excellent job getting the meals out, making sure we had the salads, rolls and desserts that went with the main course.

Pat and George Parizo from Joe's Pond were leaving as we were waiting for our order. They told us the cider braised pork was delicious, and George commented on the very generous serving size. The dining room was well filled. We chatted with several people, including Lorraine Macleod who used to live in East Cabot. Lorraine is a lot younger than I, but I knew the farm where she lived and knew she was a good farmer. She was neighbor to the Goodriches and the Whites near Molly's Pond. I was so pleased that she introduced herself. I learned from her that one of our neighbors, Jennie Ewen, worked for Frank O'Conner for a number of years. Jennie (I think I'm right about her name - she was Wilbur Ewen's wife and they lived on a farm where the Pupinos house is now. They owned all of what is now Sandy Beach Road - hayed it except for the swampy area close to the water, and we had to be very careful to stay close to the fence that ran from the road to the water's edge so we wouldn't trample down the hay before it was cut. If I knew Mrs. Ewen took care of Frank in his later years, I'd forgotten; and that is what was so neat about talking with Lorraine, because she knew people I knew a long time ago, but from a totally different perspective.

After we left the church, we stopped at the general store to pick up a couple of things we were running short of, and they were pretty busy. One gentleman came in to pick up a pizza - the have pizza available from Thurs. through Sunday night, I believe. I could tell for sure by looking at their ad in the last Joe's Pond newsletter. The newsletter is available on line, by the way - just a reminder.

Then we dropped off one of the meals to our neighbor, Louise, who won't be joining us tomorrow, but didn't want to miss out on the meal. She was having a small problem with her TV and a new phone, so we were able to help with that. That's one thing about technology gadgets - they change so fast, it's really hard for older folks to keep up. Every time you buy a new television or phone, you have to learn all over again where all the buttons are and how to access all the wonderful advantages there are. You can't buy a simple instrument with just an on/off switch any more. I don't know why things have to be so darned complicated. Even Louise's light - touch controlled. You have to pat the thing affectionately to get it bright enough to see the little gidgets on the telephone or the tiny icons on the TV. Mostly, the little pictures are too small to see if you don't have a bright light and magnifying glass - and you need to have the manual close by at all times in order to operate all the "functions." However, we think Louise now has the basics.

Now the dinners for tomorrow are in cold storage in a large cooler, and now all I have to do is set my clock back and hope my internal clock adapts better than most times when we "spring ahead and fall back." It usually takes me at least a week to get with the new schedule and I can't help wishing we could forget about fooling around with the clocks and just accept daylight and darkness as it changes normally with the seasons. What's so bad about that, anyway? At least we don't have months of darkness and then months of nothing but daytime. People even adapt to that - it's the tinkering with the natural sequence of things that gets my goat.