At Home in the Huddle 2012

IT'S RECYCLABLES DAY

50 degrees and misty at 6:00 a.m.

The Forecast from WKTV: "A push of warm air begins to arrive today. Early low clouds and fog will eventually clear away for some breaks of afternoon sunshine. Highs in the mid to upper 60s.

Clouds and sprinkles tonight with lows in the 50s.

Clouds and sunshine tomorrow with the chance of a passing shower. Highs in the low to mid 70s. Warm and humid Friday with scattered thunderstorms. Highs near 80. Cooler weather returns for the weekend, with early showers on Saturday. Sunshine on Sunday."

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IN THE NEWS

"Regulations for Farm Child Labor are Withdrawn." from the Daily Freeman-Journal.

FRONT PAGE HEADLINES

from The Waterville Times.

"Revving Up In Talladega "

"Wireless Project Approved"

"Beauty On The Towpath - Photos"

"Snow Days In May Set"

"Fund Drive Will Help Cemetery"

"Waterville Nurse Joins Utica Office
"Augusta Cleans Up"

(To read more, please click HERE)

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Yesterday's Views

Although it was pleasantly warm yesterday afternoon, and walkers and runners were out in impressive numbers, ......

................... the hilltops were, literally, up in the clouds .............

............... and even familiar scenes were hard to pick out.

Down at village-level, however, everything was clear, and I had to do a quick

"stop-and-back-up" to take a second look at a tree I'd never noticed before:

It's a real Flowering Dogwood at the Williams' Farm on Brothertown Road! It must be the only one in this area except for those in the Hemlock Enclosure at Root Glen!

This time I made a U-turn on Route 20 in to make sure that I'd really seen what I thought I had seen: two Alpacas in a newly-fenced area at George and Cecile Nechwort's place in Sangerfield.

I'll try and get a better picture of them, later today.

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IN THE MAIL

A reminder from Christine Goux of:

the MPS Marching Band Annual Bake Sale
Friday May 4th, 6:30pm in the MPS Cafeteria.

(That's the evening of the Annual MPS Musical!)

Help us purchase our t-shirts!

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From Bob Gray:

The Waterville High School National Honor Society

will be sponsoring a

Blood Drive on Friday May 11th from 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM

in the high school gymnasium.

This is open to the public .

Call Bob Gray at 841-3823 to register.

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An E-note from Les Bohner Risley, who was reminded of real Crabapple Trees and Crabapple Jelly by some recent pictures I had posted of the ornamental sort:

"My mother used to get 'real' crabapples for jelly at Brainard's on Putnam St. They had many trees and my parents were friends. I remember the hours with the jelly making....ugh, not my favorite jelly.
Just wondering if the property still has the trees on it..........twas SO many years ago........"

So - I went to see if I could see any crab apples trees still there. The recently-added garage blocks the view of the back yard, but I sort-of snuck around (is "snuck" a word?) but couldn't see any apple trees of any variety.

"The Brainard House"

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I received an E-note from John Brouillette, a few days ago, reminding me to watch Cornell's webcams at the Great Blue Heron Nest in Sapsucker Woods.

Unfortunately, I've lost John's original note, but he remarked that one avid bird-watcher had written that during the most recent snow storm, the male parent stayed on the nest, protecting the eggs, for 22.5 hours! (Thank you, Jack!)

When I first clicked on the site, about five minutes ago, the father was standing up and I could see four chicks but now "Dad" has settled back down.

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Back in Waterville, be sure to read the

Updated Sign in the Park