This has been a snowy day. We had received 9 in. of snow by 3 p.m. and we've had a little more since, although it is now mainly blowing around.

Our neighbor's son, Michael, was supposed to be arriving in Burlington at noon from Alaska, so Fred went with her to pick him up - but even though he took off from Denver at around 10:30 a.m. our time, he ended up back in Denver because of the weather. I guess they'll try again tomorrow if he can get another flight. I think if the weather isn't a whole lot better they'd better not leave here until they get word from him he's on the ground in Burlington.

Fred said the driving was not good. It took them at least twice as long as normal to get home. In the meantime, I had heard from Bill Rossi how bad the road was between here and Montpelier this morning when he went there for an appointment; then I got an e-mail from Terry Powers after I'd let him know I wouldn't be dropping off Ice-Out tickets for him today at Hastings as promised. Terry said he left Williston, where he has a Natural Foods store, early and was on Rt. 2 traveling at about 30 m.p.h. because he'd heard conditions on the through way, especially in the Bolton Flats area were terrible. I didn't begin to worry as I knew Fred is an excellent driver and would be careful. Conditions were bad all over, but fortunately not too many serious accidents as far as I can tell now.

Bill said it was one of those days when everything ahead looked white and you really couldn't tell where the road was and I talked with son, Jamie, this afternoon and he said he followed a truck this morning that was a real hazard because the whole back of it was snow covered, including the tail lights and it was visibly lost in the snow. Fred said his worst trouble was the windshield wipers couldn't keep up with the snow and visibility was really poor, but he was really impressed with the performance of her all-wheel-drive Ford sedan.

He took some pictures along the way - or maybe Elizabeth did - and I've made a short slide show. It starts off as he's waiting for her at the end of our driveway at 10 a.m. this morning, then Rt 2 to Montpelier and the intersection by with Rt. 302, on to I-91. That's Elizabeth, probably about the time she learned Michael, her son, was back in Detroit and she would likely be making the trip all over again tomorrow or whenever he can get a flight. The last shot was on the way home late this afternoon and the storm had let up considerably. Slide Show

Woody and I were very comfortable here and spent the day mostly in my office, me at the computer and Woody mostly snoozing on the desk beside me. A couple of times he got up, stretched and walked across my desk to block my view of the computer screen. That does get my attention, if that's what he's trying to do. He's sometimes a handful this time of year when he can't be outside.

I went outside at about 3 p.m., when the storm had lessened, and measured the snow so I could make a report. We had gotten 9 inches between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. It was still snowing lightly last time I looked out, and the wind was blowing it around, too. There are some pretty good drifts around the house tonight. Snow is plastered on the clapboards and along windowsills and up doorways. It's a chore keeping doors and walks shoveled. I made a shovel-width path to get to the mailbox and so Fred could get up the driveway without wading through the drifts - and about an hour later, Jamie came with "The Peach" - his jeep with a plow - and plowed the driveway for us. It was fun being out in the storm, though, since I was dressed warmly and didn't HAVE to be there. It's nice to be retired.

I've had lots of communications on the computer today. One I think lots of local folks will be interested in is about Jesse Larocque, known for his super abilities for diagnosing and fixing computer problems and also his expert basket weaving skills. Jesse is an Abenaki Indian and makes traditional baskets. He has also made lots of friends here, having lived on Brickett's Crossing Road for quite a while before moving to Danville and now St. Johnsbury. Andy Rudin sent me this link to an interview done with him a while ago: www.abenakination.org/interview", and another to his web site: www.abenakibaskets.com His baskets are the real deal and beautiful - but the point of my story is that we recently heard that Jesse had been seriously ill, and we were concerned. Andy Rudin, a Joe's Ponder from way back, and a good friend of Jesse's, confirmed Jesse had been ill. I then contacted Jesse to let him know his Joe's Pond friends had been inquiring about him.

Jesse assured me he's making good progress after a bout with first pneumonia and then a stroke which landed him in the Veterans' Hospital in White River Junction. Here's what Jesse wrote in an e-mail this morning:

It has been quite a ride .. these last few months for me. I did have a stroke last month and spent a few days at the Veterans Hospital in White River. I am on the mend now thankfully.

I am not driving any great distance for a while. I can walk a couple blocks before I get tired. Typing is even a challenge .. but I am slowly getting better each day.

It means a lot to me to have friends who care and are concerned. I do want to thank you and please let all the folks up by the Pond know I am back in the saddle .. almost.

Thanks again,

Jesse

We are very happy Jesse is doing better. Perhaps some of you will get in touch with him - his e-mail address is on his web site.

Here's a schedule of coming events at the Cabot Library:

January 23 – 2pm Susannah Blachly and Patti Casey – In Concert at the Cabot Public Library!

Described as "a master composer and performer of many styles of music" by Robert Resnik (VPR) Susannah Blachly has been writing songs and playing the fiddle for nearly 10 years. During that time she's recorded four solo albums, two of which were named among the top ten albums of the year by Seven Days, Vermont's premier arts newspaper. The Times Argus described her newest recording, All The Colors, as her best recording yet. Her song "The Line Between" was chosen Song of the Year by Vermont Public Radio in '05. That same year, Sing Out! Magazine featured one of her songs in their summer issue. Two of Susannah's songs were featured on the score of the hit musical "Shout It Out!" and several Vermont musicians have recorded her songs on their own albums. Susannah is a member of the band Two Shoes Off. She currently works as a therapist in Barre and lives in Marshfield with her son, Adam, and husband Tom.

“Music that isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty on the backroads of life”—

Native Vermonter Patti Casey has been called ”...the voice of Vermont contemporary music” by the Times Argus. With a voice that’s strong and sweet, a catalog of timeless songs, and a history of penning classic songs that have found their way into the folk music world across the United States, Patti has become the vocal backbone for many of our region’s finest musical productions.

Her list of awards includes Kerrville Folk Festival Songwriting Contest winner, Chris Austin Song Writing Contest winner, South Florida Folk Festival Songwriting Competition finalist, A Prairie Home Companion “Talent From Towns Under 2000” winner, and Telluride Songwriting Competition Finalist. Patti has written and directed music for Burlington’s Vermont Stage Company, and has produced 5 independent label recordings of her music. http://www.patticasey.com

Vermont Reads

Together, the Cabot Public Library and the Cabot Public School applied for and were awarded 50 copies of Katherine Paterson’s new book, The Day of the Pelican, by the Vermont Humanities Council’s 2010 Vermont Reads program. Vermont Reads brings communities and people of diverse ages, abilities, and experiences together in reading and discussing a book of high quality and acclaim. The program promotes community building, open dialogue, intergenerational exchange, a focus on the humanities, and literacy.

Tuesday, January 18, 5:30-6:30 pm, at Cabot School Performing Arts Center (CSPAC), please join the Cabot Middle School students for an evening of dramatic performance exploring stories of human struggle and endurance surrounding the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Using this year’s Vermont Reads novel, The Day of the Pelican, students will share snapshots of the lives of young people during these turbulent times. For more information, please contact Kathleen Hoyne, at the Cabot Public Library.

Thursday January 27^th, 6:30-7:30pm, please join us at the Cabot Public Library for a showing of the film Parallel World. Following the film, there will be a student led discussion of The Day of the Pelican and how it relates to the film. There are several copies of The Day of the Pelican in the library available for reading in advance of this event.

And at Marshfield's Jaquith Library:

Mammoth book sale,
Jaquith Public Library,
School Street, Marshfield,
Saturday, January 22, from 9 to 1:30.
Thousands of books on every subject, priced from $2 down.
For further information call 426-3581.

We're waiting to see what the merging storms south and west of us will bring, and today we have very weak sunshine with some big, fluffy snowflakes floating down, zig-zagging through air currents to balance lightly atop the lacy snow covering our world. This morning I measured an inch of fairy flakes deposited on my snow board, but when I poured warm water over them in my pan, they vanished without resistance and when I measured for water content, there was none. So cold and so dry, this kind of snow is practically weightless and will probably mostly blow away before the heavier moisture-laden stuff begins to fall.

Our temperature was in the single numbers above zero last night, and has only reached 18 above on my office thermometer. The sun may have a little heat in it, but not much. Some weather person last night mentioned that January is known to be the coldest month here in Vermont, even though there is more sunlight. My theory is that the same dynamics are at work on the earth's surface as we know happens in other ways - like when the thermometer drops just as the sun is coming over the horizon, or your water pipes freeze on the day after it's been 30 below for a week. I think it's like freezing ice cream. I just know this stuff happens and maybe the earth responds the same only bigger. Oh, well, too much thinking this early in the day is not good, so I'll move on.

Fred is saying it's time to get outside and walk. He runs up Jamie's hill - I walk! I'm all for moderation - especially when it comes to exercise.

I sort of took the weekend off to catch up on some of the historical society work and got "lost" in a box of material I hadn't looked at except when it first came to me sometime last summer. I often go through a box of things and make notes to myself so I'll have some idea of how I want to proceed to preserve them and make them available in our collection, and I had done that with this box, but even so, there was one envelope of old documents that was a complete surprise. Perhaps I'd overlooked it originally - but it doesn't matter because these papers have been around since the very early 1800's and another few months of waiting to be presented for public scrutiny won't hurt anything.

These are mostly deeds of land being exchanged between the early settlers. Some of the local land owners did a lot of swapping and dealing, gathering abutting land or sometimes apparently just buying low and selling high. Some of the deeds are quit claims between family members, and one was a deed to a pew at the Congregational church. I'm reading and indexing as I put them into sleeves and will then arrange in chronological order for viewing. Sometimes we transcribe them, but most of this batch are written very legibly and I don't think it will be necessary.

This morning I left that project to work on the web site and add some lists of veterans of some of the wars I hadn't listed earlier. It had been several days since I'd worked on the historical society's site and today it did not go well at first. I worked on it most of the morning and by lunch time I was frustrated and about ready to have Fred come in to help, but after lunch it suddenly worked like magic, everything went into place and I got a lot done. I swear I did everything the same as I had earlier, but for some reason everything clicked and I moved ahead.

Speaking of moving ahead - Fred went to try to help Bill Rossi get his snow blower unstuck this morning. I thought it would probably be that Bill had gotten into an icy spot on the driveway and all it would take would be for Fred to give him a push, but it turned out to be more than that. The Kubota was hung up on a granite property line marker. After assessing the situation, they called for Mike Cookson's wrecker. I wish Fred had had the camera, but maybe you can picture it: the snow blower had to be picked up by the wrecker and set back on the driveway. No damage done. I don't think Bill was in it during the rescue, but he was glad to be back in business and both he and Fred though the young man operating the wrecker really knew his stuff. I won't say the operation collected a crowd, but Ray Richer stopped by and I bet more than a few passers-by wondered what the heck was going on.

Bill and Diane had us at their house Saturday evening for Fred's birthday dinner. Diane had made a scrumptious chicken pie and a fabulous chocolate cake. I'd heard about the cake - the recipe is somewhat famous among Joe's Ponders, apparently, and it was even better than advertised. Very rich with an added bonus of chocolate chips in it. We had a great time and Fred is still talking about the cake. He's very partial to desserts, especially chocolate ones.

We got another 3.5 in. of new snow in the night, although the wind blew so hard it was difficult to measure. I took a measurement of the total snow on the ground this morning, too, and reported 10 inches. Again, it was really hard to tell because there were places where it was over a foot deep and other spots it was more like 7 or 8 inches. So I took several measurements in a fairly large area and averaged it. The folks at CoCoRaHS are asking that we measure snow on the ground every Monday, so I'll try to do that regularly from now on. Not always easy, especially when I have to take a core sample and report total precipitation level. The gauge is only about 14 in. tall, so when the snow gets deeper than that I have to take extra samples to get down to the ground. The weather people say it is important for their calculations about spring runoff and the amount of water that will be in rivers.

I must get back to work. I'll be watching the news on WCAX at 11 p.m. tonight to find out more about the Cabot School bus that was involved in a crash with a Jeep this afternoon. From what I know now, there were no injuries, but I'll try to get more details of who was involved and how it happened. I didn't have my scanner on at all today, so I messed knowing about it when it happened.

The following came from Liz (Pearl) Sargent about the new babe in the Pearl family, named for her great grandmother who passed away on December 12, 2010:
Lucia Katherine Pearl born December 29th. Peg and I are thrilled to have another Lucia in the family and end the year on a happier note. Lucia joins brother, Axel (17 months). Parents are Isaac and Logan Pearl! Wouldn't great grandmother Lucia Pearl and great, great grandmother Lucia Johnson be ever so thrilled?!

That's very nice that this sweet baby girl is named for two very strong, loving and gracious ladies. There's a lot to live up to, but I'm sure she'll do the name proud. Our best wishes to parents Isaac and Logan, big brother Axel, and aunts Liz and Peg. I can see baby Lucia is going to carry on another Pearl family tradition - beautiful red hair! Thanks, Liz for the picture. She's a sweetheart.

FREE COMMUNITY DINNER

Mon. January 10^th & 24^th

5 – 7pm

Join Faith In Action for a free Community Dinner at our main office (in the Masonic Hall), 3339 Main St. in Cabot Village. Enjoy a hot meal and good company!!!

For more information call:

(802) 563-3322

Owing to fire laws we can only sit 50 people at a time so will stagger servings to see that everyone has a chance to enjoy this meal. The seating restriction will be lifted once a second egress is installed.

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Senior Lunch & Laughter

Faith In Action is starting off the New Year with an exciting new program.

Join us on January 13^th, 18^th, 20^th, and/or 25^th for our new Senior Lunch & Laughter program; starting at 10:30am and going through lunch.

Enjoy old & new comedy clips & movies on our new 61” screen to be followed by a hot, nutritious meal!!!

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Marshfield, Sunday, February 13 at 2 p.m. – Sprightly Steps: Vermont ’s Contra and Square Dancing Tradition. Join Adam Boyce for this combination of live fiddling and lecture. Although early settlers frowned upon the merriment of dancing and fiddle playing as the “works of the devil”’ the tradition found its way to the Green Mountains . At fancy balls and cotillions, or kitchen junkets or “tunks”, people of all ages and backgrounds fell victim to the strains of the fiddle upon their souls. Changes in culture and music have made old time music nearly extinct, but a few practitioners are keeping the old styles alive. At the Jaquith Public Library in the Old Schoolhouse Common, 122 School St . For more info. Call 802-426-3581 or e-mail: jaquithpubliclibrary@hotmail.com, or visit our web site at www.marshfield.lib.vt.u

The Library has corrected the earlier information to SUNDAY

Here's a funny/scary article: Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know
I hate to think precious things such as holding an actual book or writing a note in flowing, legible cursive to a friend will be lost forever. If what's written in that article is truly the future for the next generation, identities will be lost, privacy stolen, personalities invented at will and all with such efficiency humans will become a homogenized society of (probably rude) robots.

Think of all the new laws, rules, regulations that will be needed and how many "big brothers" will be needed to keep some semblance of order in the chaos. Even now I'm amazed at how much information is available on nearly everyone - it's just a matter of knowing where to look; and marvel that people seem to enjoy being always "available" anywhere, anytime.

Whatever happened to wanting to "get away from it all" to a quiet spot with no TV, radios or phones? I guess if there aren't any actual books to take with you, there would be no point in being there - and one wouldn't go there to write a poem or book if it had to be done on actual paper with a pencil, in legible cursive without Spellcheck or Infospace.

In our real world, it's snowing lightly, temperature is up to 22 from around 12 early this morning, we're looking forward to wishing Fred "Happy Birthday" at the Rossi's this evening, and I need to get back to work that's all about preserving the past so perhaps someone, somewhere years in the future will find it on their mini-gadget communicator and pass it on to a thousand or so of their closest friends - IF they find something interesting.

We went to Concord to watch our granddaughter, Jo-Ann, play basketball. Actually, we went to Waterford first because on their web site the game was posted as a "home" game. (We later found out there was a glitch in posting a last-minute change in the schedule.) Our first clue something was amiss was that the parking lot at the gym was empty except for two or three cars - but a quick check with an accommodating fellow, probably a janitor, who came to the door to meet Fred got us off again in the right direction, heading east on Rt. 2 to Concord. We were only a few minutes late but the score was already 0 to 6 in Waterford's favor. By the end of the game, those roughneck little 5th and 6th grade girls had racked up a good score. That's Jo-Ann in the center of the top picture - she's number 31.

We didn't have the camera on the correct setting so all the action shots are fuzzy, so I won't bother to post them. Those girls were really moving. The gym at Concord is quite a bit larger than the Waterford gym - really quite nice. We did have a little problem finding it, though. I knew the general direction, but neither of us had actually been there before. I guess by the time basketball season is over, we'll know where a lot of local gyms are.

Most of the Waterford team had been skiing this afternoon, so it's a wonder they had any energy left at all to play; and tomorrow they play St. Johnsbury. It's amazing how much energy kids that age have. We can see an improvement in how they are playing, so I think they must have some really good coaches.

I've been sorting through some of the newspaper clippings I scanned a year or so ago, looking for information to respond to a couple of recent requests I've had, but no luck so far. Since there are literally hundreds stored on my computer and none indexed, it's a nearly impossible job. They are in some of the albums that are at the Main Street historical building, but since we don't go in there once the cold weather comes and the door begins to operate poorly, they may have to wait until spring for answers.

The snow we were expecting hasn't materialized - in fact, there was clear sky in the St. Johnsbury area. Not quite as clear up here, though. Sometimes we are a lot like the character in the Li'l Abner comic strip - remember Joe Btfspik? I found this picture on the web site - www.lil-abner.com I can't pronounce his name, it's kind of like spitting over your chin, but I often think of him when we are approaching Joe's Pond, especially from St. Johnsbury and we look ahead and we can see weather - clouds, snow, fog, rain waiting, lurking over West Danville and the pond. Like tonight. When we left here there was a thin slice of moon showing fuzzy through a haze of clouds or maybe ice crystals or snow - who knows. Ten miles down the road we saw a sparkling clear moon and there were even stars twinkling!

I just looked out now to see what the weather looks like and while the moon is probably too low on the horizon for me to see from here, I can see the sky is now clear as a bell and the stars are twinkling, just like they were in St. Johnsbury only a little brighter. So much for Joe Btfspik!

It's 10 degrees and dropping - not typically snow weather, but by morning it could change. A lot.