Woodstock’s Mt. Tom: The Pogue

What is the Pogue, and how did it get its name?
The Pogue is a man-made 14-acre pond tucked into the hills of the Marsh-Billings- Rockefeller National Historic Park’s Mount Tom Forest. Naturally a spring-fed boggy area, it was created in the 1880s when an earthen dam was constructed. It is rumored to be bottomless! The origin of its name is still in question. One theory believes it is derived from an Abenaki word describing the area. Another theory holds that it is an old Scottish word and was given to the boggy area by an early settler to Woodstock.

NTN Playmaker

ntn, originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

NTN Trivia is my hobby. I have been playing over ten years. It is a free game played at over 2500 locations in the US and Canada (even other places I hear). I used to play almost every night but I have cut back now to only one or two nights per week. We have a pretty good group of regular players.

To find out more go to : www.buzztime.com

Looks like my Siamese cat Coco

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I had a Siamese cat named Coco from about 1989 until 1995. We got him when he was just a kitten about six weeks old. Coco was spayed and declawed. He was always trying to run out the door. He wanted to be outside. He was home alone all the time while I was at work. I had him flown down from Vermont to Florida when I moved. I finally decided to give him up for adoption. He was a nice cat and he liked to snuggle but I did not think he was happy being inside the apartment all the time alone.
 

picture from flickr originally uploaded by josh64.

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Source: Rolling Stone online article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted – enough to put John Kerry in the White House. 

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush — and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush’s victory as nut cases in ”tinfoil hats,” while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ”conspiracy theories,”(1) and The New York Times declared that ”there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.”(2)

Here’s the link for more http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Thurmond Knight: Vermont School of Violin Making

Thurmond Knight at his workbench

Thurmond Knight’s violin shop sits on 160 acres of woods and meadows in Glover, Vermont. Here, he builds violins, violas and cellos, all by hand. From 1992 until 2000, Thurmond was  German Master Maker Karl Roy’s teaching assistant at the Violin Craftsmanship Institute, University of New Hampshire, Durham. Thurmond takes a limited number of violinmaking students in his school each year on a full or part time basis. The violin making program, for full time students, consiste of two semesters of study coinciding with the regular school year. First semester begins the first week of September and ends about one week before Christmas. Second semester begins the second week of January and ends mid-May. A thanksgiving and Spring break will be taken at the appropriate times, and federal and Vermont holidays will be observed.

Link to Thurmond’s website for more info on the Vermont School of Violin Making:  http://www.violinviolacello.com/

Puffin and Daisies

originally uploaded by valentiatrim.

I love puffins. In 1973, Stephen Kress began a program to help re-establish a puffin colony on Eastern Egg Rock Island off mid-coast Maine. This program was sponsored by the National Audubon Society and the Canadian Wildlife Service.  The idea behind “Project Puffin” was to move puffin chicks from a large colony in Newfoundland and raise them on Eastern Egg Rock.  This was done so the puffins would think Egg Rock was their home and eventually return there to raise their own chicks.  From 1973 to 1981 a total of 954 downy chicks were transplanted into artificial burrows on Egg Rock.  Numbered bands were used to tag the chicks so they could be identified if they returned.  In 1977 decoy puffins were placed on the island to help attract returning birds.  The first puffins returned that summer.  In 1981, the first chick was reared on Egg Rock where puffins had been absent for over a century.  A similar project was completed at Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge where 950 puffin chicks were transplanted between 1984 – 1989.  Puffins recolonized Seal Island in 1992.

Source: http://www.audubon.org/bird/puffin/questions.html#1.

Ridgewood High School

Ridgewood High, originally uploaded by suzi_vt.

I am a Ridgewood High School graduate (1963). It was considered to be one of the best high schools in the US when I attended. I remember some of my teachers, Mrs Welliver, Mr Deeks, Mr Vaughan, Mr Thompson and Mr Whitlinger. We had a fire at the school when I was a junior. When we graduated, the girls wore long white gowns and carried bouquets of roses and the guys wore white dinner jackets. No caps and gowns at our graduation. I took four years of Latin. Went to Mt St Vincent Academy for 9th grade.

Problems with Voting in Maryland

Serious and widespread election day problems were evident in the Maryland election. There were machine breakdowns. Some are calling for a return to paper ballots as the only way to have a fair election. These concerns are recognized by the Governor of Maryland. We voters need to take these problems seriously. Our democracy depends on it!

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