If you have wondered why I haven't blogged for several days, it's because I've been reading through our entire manuscript - one last chance for the three of us, Patty, Dot and myself, to find errors and make corrections and adjustments before it goes to Randee, our graphic designer. This is not an easy task. We know we need to pare it down - it's nearly 500 pages, without photos (!) - but that is difficult because we all put in many hours researching to be sure we had correct background information for the times we were writing about, and then picked what we thought was important. In reading it now, some doesn't seem quite so important and of course we have no problem cutting; but there are other things that aren't so clearly unnecessary. There have been a few duplications that we can can get rid of; but facts that we feel are important for readers to know in order for them to better understand what those earlier years were like in West Danville are more difficult to part with. We will get it sorted out, and hopefully it will be a better book for our efforts.

In going through the book, I find myself checking dates, spellings, sources, and relationships - people a few generations ago (and perhaps even today) had a confusing habit of naming their children after their parents, grandparents, or sometimes even after a famous person and sorting out who's who or what generation they belonged to is difficult. I would be completely lost without Ancestry.com! It's really surprising what we can learn from that site - and also surprising how many errors there are on it! I found one in my own family - Ancestry.com had my grandfather married to his daughter-in-law, and I KNOW that didn't happen! As near as I can figure, whoever was filling out the papers at the town clerk's office had a brain freeze and knew Ray Bolton was the son of Aaron Bolton, and without thinking, put Aaron's name in as the name of the groom. The date was correct for Ray and Maidene's marriage, so it was just a clerical error. But wouldn't that be pretty hard for someone not familiar with the family to figure out? Like so much on the internet, you have to be careful and double fact check everything - there's altogether too much false information posted there. On the whole, though Ancestry.com is a wonderful, huge source of good information. Anyway, these are some of the things that have kept me pretty busy these last few days.

While I was working on the book, I decided I needed to do something about my over-grown, weed-infested flower gardens; so I enlisted the help of my neighbor, Anita Kelman, who is a professional gardener (both vegetables and flowers). She was great - dug out the weeds and cut everything back ready for the winter, and that is a huge load off my mind. I've neglected my flowers all summer and felt so guilty about it, but it just seemed like too big a job to tackle and my excuse was first black flies and ticks, then the heat and sun, and finally I realized I just wasn't going to get it done myself. The beds are in pretty good shape for the winter now - I'll add a little mulch and bundle up a couple of shrubs and then, let it snow!

So there you have it. Fred and I are still being very careful to avoid the Coronavirus, but we get out and about every few days - picking up groceries, going to regular doctor appointments, that sort of thing. We had lunch at McDonald's in Lyndonville the other day - don't do that very often, but I had a hankering for some fries (they are so good, especially if you haven't had them for a while!) We had intended to pick up lunch at Riley's Fish Shack in St. J., but it was a Tuesday and they weren't open. And I think they are closing for the season later this month. We're planning  to get pizza from Cabot General Store tomorrow . . . ! These simple pleasures and things like UPS or FedEx coming up our driveway to deliver something we ordered on line, or when a friend stopped by last week just to say "Hi" from the driveway (thank you, Howie!) or one of the boys stops by to check on us - these are the things that keep us from going bonkers during this pandemic. Everyone should be so lucky. Stay well, and be happy, my friends.