We had another two inches of snow this morning - so that makes just about a foot of snow out of this last storm. Yesterday's 3 inches and today's were light and fluffy, unlike the previous seven from the main storm. Now that we're into March, we can probably expect more crazy weather. March is usually a stormy month.

I discovered a really great picture in a collection of glass plates the Danville Historical Society recently acquired. It was a picture of the north section of Joe's Pond, taken from the northeast shore so it shows the hill where our house is now and some of the buildings on Cabot Plain. The really neat thing is, it shows my family farm (top near the center). It's a little hard to make out, but those were the only buildings in that location - ever. The farm at the far right is the old Fred Maynard farm, and just to the left of that is the Badger place. The school had not been built then, but the old school house shows just between the house and barn at the Maynard farm. It is still there - was later converted into a garage when the new school was built in 1927. This picture was probably taken in the very early 1900s. I have never seen the farm as it was back then, so I was delighted to get even this fuzzy glimpse into the past. I know a new, very large barn was raised in 1921 - Douglas Blackadar wrote in his diary that he went to the barn raising on June 9th. That barn burned in the summer of 1969. I also know that there were many "out buildings" where horses, chickens, turkeys and farm equipment were housed, and I believe the house had a large addition built in the early 1900s - the small one and one-half story building that was the original house was not adequate for my grandfather Bolton's growing family of twelve children. I was able to enlarge the original image in order to see the buildings better - and knowing the history and the lay of the land as I do, I've had a wonderful time imagining what life for that family was like back in those days. My grandfather married my grandmother in February, 1899 and their first child was born in the spring of 1900. For the next twenty years, she averaged a child every other year. She was strong an healthy - and only 15 years old when they were married. He was 30 and had two young children from his first marriage. His first wife, Mary Blodgett, had died in childbirth in 1896. This second photo shows some of the Bolton children - although I think the two little girls that are first in line are the Buffam twins who would have been nieces to the others in the line. One of my grandfather's two children with Mary was Carrie who married William Buffam. The Buffam children were only a little younger than my youngest uncle, Bob, who is next in line in the photo. So the children are Jean & Janice Buffam, Bob, Bill, Jack, Mabel and Harriet Bolton.

 This is a favorite picture of mine - eating watermelon from left to right: my uncle Bill, cousin Roger Dane, me sitting on the cement step, uncle Bob, and cousins Leslie "Buddy" and Richard Dane. That step I'm sitting on is the same one I would have hit if Uncle Bob hadn't caught me when I fell out of an upstairs window. I was one or two years old when that happened - Uncle Bob was ten years older than I, and we had a close bond ever after. He sprinted 50 or 60 yards from the barn to the house when he saw me teetering on the window ledge, and got there just in time to catch me. We both fell onto the ground, but I wasn't hurt and probably thought it was great fun. I don't remember it at all, of course. I don't know who I was with upstairs, but probably one of the older girls who was making beds or cleaning, but the windows were very low in that house and I was apparently shouting to Bob out at the barn and leaned out too far and lost my balance. That was only the beginning of my growing up on the farm. So many aunts, uncles and cousins - who needed siblings?