It has been a sad day at Joe's Pond. The body of Mr. John Sales of Danville was found this morning in the water by the bridge. There has been no indication of what happened or how he came to be in the water. Mr. Sales lived in Cabot a few years ago. Our thoughts are with his family - this must be a terrible blow to them. There are no details about the circumstances of his death yet, but there will no doubt be more about this after authorities have had a chance to complete their investigation. Click HERE for the brief report that was given out today.

I received this very nice picture from by Cynthia DuBois (Island Drive) taken on Saturday of the sunset over Joe's Pond. That is the big island silhouetted against the sky. Really nice colors. Click on the image to make it larger.

We have just had the windows in our basement replaced. Bill Jones (Jones Renovations, Route 15, West Danville) put them in last week and we are very pleased with how they came out. The windows are vinyl, so no more having to paint sash! They are also way more efficient than the old ones, and Bill was careful to be sure they were well sealed. Our house was built in the early 1960s and insulation then was very different than it is today. Actually, construction was different. We've insulated walls and foamed the foundation, and we replaced all the windows in the living area upstairs when we moved here, but we had not replaced the basement windows. It's a good thing we finally did it this year because when Bill took out the window on the south side he found there was considerable deterioration of the wood. That side of the house gets a lot of storm - driving rain and beating sun - and it had taken a toll. It's really nice to know everything is tight and ready for winter. The top picture is in my sewing area; the bottom one is in the laundry area. The larger windows are awning type like most of the other windows in our house. I particularly like them so I can have fresh air and not worry about rain coming in! Last year Bill did our deck - which we have enjoyed many days this summer! And this year we are happy he was able to do this job for us.

I've been looking through some of the notes I've kept over the years about Joe's Pond, and of course some will make it into the book we are writing. I was trying to match up the names of cottages from way back - 1906 and 1907 era - with present-day owners, and find it is nearly impossible. But it is still interesting. Many of the cottages were named, and some had dedication ceremonies - well, parties, actually.  The names got pretty creative - "Azuliket" for instance, "Tokumto", "Snugenough," and one I particular like, "Clark Gables" owned by a Clark family, of course. "Kant Keep Away" is the Willey camp on Barre Avenue, and next to it was "Sunset Camp," now Rubalcaba's. Dr. Watt's  cottage was "Lingerlonger," that burned down, but it was where Shelly Walker is now. One I have a name for but have not been able to locate is "Shiloh." I think I've mentioned that here before but nobody came up with the answer. Oh, well, there's still time - perhaps that piece of the puzzle will fall into place eventually.