Yesterday I asked to hear from people concerned about the beach closing due to high E-coli bacteria counts off and on this summer, and we've had several comments posted.  To see these, go to home page and click on "comments."  Instructions are there in case you wish to post a comment of your own.  

When I was at the post office in West Danville this morning, I glanced through the remaining envelopes of Ice-Out tickets Garey has been kind enough to let us leave at the store all summer.  These tickets are for Joe's Pond Association members to either buy themselves or sell to friends - which is designed to help us keep the Ice-Out Contest one of our biggest fund raisers for the Association.  Ice-Out tickets are a fun item to sell.  Talking about our contest is a great "ice-breaker"(pun intended!) and people everywhere are generally interested in what it's all about, and including one or two tickets in birthday cards, holiday greeting cards, or as gifts to co-workers or employees is an inexpensive and fun gesture.  We even have a neat PAID stamp we will use if you prepay and wish to use them as gifts.  

The point is - there are still a lot of envelopes with members' names left in the box.  Names of people I know have been here this summer or are still here, but for some reason didn't pick up their batch of 10 tickets.  There are still a few days left before I pick up the box on Saturday morning to take to the JPA final meeting (at 10 a.m. at the pavilion), so I'm hoping by that time lots of you will remember to grab yours so I don't have mail them to you.  

I had a nice note from our neighbor and fellow Joe's Ponder, Henretta Splain - many of you know Henretta because of the theme dinners for Pope Library in Danville - and also her daughter, Kelli Merrell, who you might have seen last night on WCAX-TV and who is our liaison with the Agency of Natural Resources.  Henretta has extended family in Italy, and on one of her visits sent me a wonderful picture of her family there.  She and Kelli went to Italy for the wedding of one of Henretta's cousins, and now that cousin's daughter, Giulia, is 15 and was a visiting student at Stamford University this summer.  Henretta wrote:

So my very favorite cousin's daughter was at Stanford this summer for a special program.   She is about 15 years old.   Her proud grandmother sent me this link showing me what Giulia was up to this summer.  She lives in Milan with her mom and dad and younger sister.   She is quite a remarkable young woman and you will see in the video she speaks english very well!

This is a wonderful project and a great experience for this youngster to be involved with such an effort.  

Today is bargain day for videos on the blog!  I have another one to show you, an interview on WCAX-TV with Sue Carpenter in Cabot.  Sue and her mother, Barbara, have an organic farm on the far west side of Cabot - a beautiful spot - and at one time Sue and her sister, Mary, owned and operated Hillcrest Nurseries in Cabot, so I'm sure Sue has beautiful flowers planted purposely for the benefit of migrating butterflies. 

I'm going to sign off with a picture Fred took of a very nice flicker on our lawn yesterday morning.  Not long after, the young buck with the crazy antlers came for breakfast under the apple tree, and while it may not have been the same bird, there was a flicker there for quite a while, too, but not paying much attention to the deer. 

Fortunately, Woody was out by the garden in back of the house so he didn't see the flicker - but he kept a close eye on the deer as it sauntered to the apple tree and munched apples.  I don't know what startled the deer, but he ran off before I could get a picture of him and the bird breakfasting together.

A friend wrote today that she is feeling a little depressed because "there is fall in the air."  It's interesting that each year there seems to be a distinct cut-off time when it's suddenly the end of summer.  From now on, no matter how warm the days may get, the nights will be cool and crisp, and in another week or two we'll be covering tomato plants to let the fruit ripen a few more days before we call it quits and settle for "fried green tomatoes."