By Lula Anderson
Last week I wrote a little blip about the dog poo in the Ashland Park, then I had lunch with Jackie K and realized what I said was not strong enough. Whether the Windham Path or the Ashland Path, the towns have worked long hours and put in tons of money to make safe walking paths. Ashland put in a beautiful gazebo, a play yard for children and a doggie park. Jackie tries to walk every day, she has her dog on a leash, and has bags ready for picking up. Then she tries to deposit it in the proper receptacle, only to have to sidestep poop to get to the trash. Seriously? You let your dog poop IN FRONT of the refuse station and don't have the courtesy to grab a free bag and put it in. The children's playground is a mine field. The path itself is an obstacle course. I've had people tell me it's natural, it'll decompose. Oh, we're in the country and with so much land around, I don't have to worry about cleaning up after my pet. WRONG! Judy has been working in her gardens and has seen people open their car doors to let their dog out to go—right in front of her. She makes them clean up while she watches. One person actually let her horse make a deposit in the post office parking lot then ride away, twice. When confronted, she said it was a public building and she could do what she wanted—including riding her horse on the lawn. As a pet owner, you have many responsibilities, including cleaning up after them. Whether you are a year-round resident, part time resident, or just a visitor, your responsibility is the same. It's on the ground, you pick it up.
WAJPL Golden Agers are keeping busy. Last Monday around 15 ladies came together to paint Easter Eggs . While cleaning, I found a case of the largest eggs, bigger than a typical goose egg, and already blown out and ready to go. These gave an excellent medium for painting. We had a lot of fun, too. If you have a crafty idea that you would like to try, let us know. Right now, I'm looking for someone to teach us how to make wooden bird houses and feeders. In April we resume our twice monthly meetings. Remember, the first and third Mondays at 1PM.
There will be an ALL YOU CAN EAT BREAKFAST at the Ashland Town Hall 12094 State Rt 23 , on Saturday April 6th to benefit Greene County EMS Week. Eggs cooked to order, bacon, sausage, pancakes, potatoes, toast, juice coffee breakfast sandwiches for $12 adults and $6 for kids. Eat in or takeout. Delivery available within a 10 mile radius. Call 518-734-3636 to place your order. Take a tour of our Mountain top ambulances. Stretcher demo and equipment demo. Check out the Greene County EMS Fly Car. Come out and add your support.
Prayers for Bob Exum, Craig Benjamin and Billy Matthews.
If you have any news or dates for this column, I have to know at least two weeks prior to publication. I used to be able to put in news up until Wednesday, but I now have to have it in no later than Tuesday early to get it published. I had a change in last week's column and it was too late for the Windham Weekly when I sent it in on Wednesday morning. That's why there were two different versions.
AS I REMEMBER IT
The old adage If you don't like the weather here, wait 15 minutes and it'll change, is definitely the order of the day today, Sunday. When I went to church it was raining, and by the time I was driving home, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was beautiful. I got home, called Judy, and during that conversation, it started snowing so hard we couldn't see out the window. I got thinking about the fickleness of the weather. When I worked for Ma Bell, Ivan DeHoff was the repair man. There were no cell phones then, only way to contact him was via walkie talkie. When the March winds blew, many times he had to don snowshoes and walk through the woods to find the downed wire. Now, they have ATVs to go through the woods and I have even seen helicopters flying over the wires to check them out.
This is Maple Weekend in the area, and there are many demonstrations on making syrup from sap. Tours of the modern sap house show stainless steel pots and vats with controlled heating and boiling. Plastic lines are set up in the bush and the sap is pumped directly into a holding tank which is connected to the evaporator. All clean and tidy. Back in the day, the men had a special sled for sapping. If there was snow on the ground (hopefully), the horses would be hitched up and off they'd go into the woods. All the equipment needed was on this sled. The men would drill the hole using a hand auger, then a spiel would be inserted, a bucket would be hung, and a cover put on it. This happened at each tree. The next day, a large vat would be put on the sled and the men would stop, remove the cover, take the bucket off the tree and pour the sap into the vat, return the bucket to the hook, cover it and go to the next. On a good running day, this would be repeated twice daily. Back in the sap house, someone was waiting and feeding the fire underneath the boiler. The sap would be dumped into the boiler and had to be watched as there were different chambers in the evaporator. when it got to a certain point, the valve would be opened, and the sap would be moved to the next chamber and new sap would be added to the first chamber.
This went on all night until the last chamber produced the perfect consistency of maple syrup. Until the sap stopped running, there was always at least one man in the sap house boiling and testing while the rest of the crew went out daily to collect more sap. At the end of the season, all of the buckets, covers and spiels had to be collected, washed, dried and put away until next year. A far cry from today when the biggest problem is squirrels chewing the plastic lines.
Cell phones, pipelines, ATVs, what a change in our environment. This year there was no snow, while out west had snow in places where they've never had it before. But it's only March, 10 years ago we had a huge storm in March. I remember 40 years ago we had a big one at the end of April. We take what we get, and when someone asks what the weather is like, I tell them to look out the window.
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