Another day worthy of April.  The back roads are pretty messy right now because they are frozen solidly except during the warm days the frost begins to melt the top layer and it turns into nasty, slippery mud slime.  We had to go to Danville and West Danville this afternoon, and I had thought we might go over to Old Homestead Road to see how the new houses are progressing, but West Shore Road was muddy enough so we decided not to venture over there where the road was probably even muddier since it gets more sun.  Instead, we got a picture of the new places from across the pond.  The green one is the old Knowles cottage, north of Sherwood's, now owned by Erica Ferreira and Dr. James Rustad, children of Chris Knowles.  On the south side of Sherwood's is the Nicholson home.
 
On this side of the pond, Shelly Walker's is moving along quickly.  They were framing the second story today. 

In West Danville, the old Joe's Pond Country Store has been pretty much gutted, by the looks.  As you can see, the whole front of the store and lunch counter area is opened up and being re-done.  There is a new opening in the north end where there was a garage years ago, and there was a cement truck there a few days ago, so things are definitely happening.  I haven't talked to anyone to find out what the future holds for the place, but I'll try to find out soon.  Last spring owner Sara Stinson told me they hoped to be open by this fall.  I think their main effort was to get the upstairs apartment renovated so it could perhaps be rented.  At that time, Sara wasn't sure what kind of business would be downstairs, but by now decisions have probably been made and thus the work can move ahead.  Just having new windows makes the place look a whole lot better than when the Stinsons bought it, so I expect it will be a big improvement for downtown West Danville when it's finished.  Stay tuned for more on this project.

We have a new project going here at our house tonight.  Woody, dear cat and intrepid hunter, rapped to come in from the garage tonight and got by me with a live mouse.  Fred and I spent over an hour trying to chase down the little creature, but finally had to give up and leave it for Woody to do.  We will probably find only remnants tomorrow.  We haven't had to corral any wild things in the house for a long time, although Woody has brought them into the garage from outside any number of times, but we have been able to prevent him from getting past us at the door.  Tonight he just bolted past me and ran into the living room to drop the little critter and of course the mouse has plenty of places to hide where neither Woody nor we can reach him, like under sofas and chairs and in the baseboard heaters. We have had good luck in the past catching and releasing the critters, but that may not be possible this time. We know our cat gets very bored this time of year and we are sorry for him, but we aren't too happy that he decided to bring something alive home to play with.