Runaway Raft

Anyone lost a swimming raft? One showed up mysteriously this week and is lodged about in front of Frank Dolan's on Old Homestead Road. It is not far from Karen Morris's place -

sort of in in the cove between Karen's and the Cobb-Gruggel place on Narrows Drive. Karen Cobb sent a picture. The pond has been rough today - lots of wind. It was probably a combination of high water and strong wind that released it from wherever it belongs and sent it tossing on the high seas until it finally caught on something. With the nice weekend ahead, you'll want it back in place, so that is where you'll find it. Good luck retrieving it. Towing it back to wherever it belongs will be a chore.

If some of you have been waiting for a nice weekend to visit the pond, this could be just the ticket. Beginning tomorrow we're starting to warm up and dry out. By Friday night, things should be looking good and it will be a great weekend! Promises are for temperatures in the 70s and even possibly the 80s! It's about time, too.

I noticed in the Caledonian Record there's a new policy at the public beach in West Danville - no trash receptacles this year. The bears found them last year and not only made a mess, their presence posed a danger, so the West Danville Community Club (WDCC) made the decision to remove the trash bins and ask people to carry out whatever they carry in to the park area at the beach. This makes perfect sense. It's food scraps that attract the bears - someone was telling me bears can catch a scent from a carcass as far away as twenty miles, and when they are hungry, they don't mind the walk to wherever their nose tells them there is lunch. I don't suppose they could smell popcorn or french fries that far away, but there are plenty of the critters much closer than that to the beach. Anyway, when you go to the beach, don't leave your garbage or other litter there. Take it with you and dispose of it properly in your recycling at home.