Winter on the Connecticut.

On the drive to work during the tail end of last week's snowstorm, I took the "long way" along the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River and took this shot across the water.


Several times along the drive, the evergreens which were hold so much of the sticky snow, reminded me of giant weathered men's faces with bushy white eyebrows and mustaches.

April ... Snow?

Woke up this morning to about seven inches of new wet snow. Not exactly the kind of weather we generally anticipate, but not unknown either.


Two other April snows come to my mind. The first was years ago growing up in Maine. It snowed enough that Mom and I went skiing up at Sugarloaf - I think on April 21st - and Mom broke her leg prompting a visit from Rod to take care of me while Dad finished up his trip!

Later in college, we were enjoying an early Spring and I was hosting a visit from Rod in early April when we got a huge snowstorm! The University was actually closed the next day while we shoveled out - the first time it had been closed in many years.

That won't happen today; off to work I go...

Baseball is back!

I left work early yesterday, picked up some normally forbidden fruits at the Co-Op (Hebrew National All Beef Franks) and got home in time to watch the Red Sox start the season in Kansas City. It's great to see baseball again but I'm pretty behind on all the roster moves and had a lot of catching up to do. The Sox did their best to delight the local Kansas City crowd by offering no offense and very marginal pitching by our ace Curt Shilling, ending up losing badly in boring fashion - though I liked the nifty double play we turned in the middle innings. Defense is always fun to watch.

And so it beings. I didn't sleep well because the damn Yankees won and we lost. And we don't play today so we don't even have a chance to do anything about it.

The long haul that is the baseball season is back! Even with an opening day loss (and the Sox are not known for opening day), that is a fine thing in the turbulent times.

Twenty Seven Years...

Yesterday, Meg and I had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend of mine. Rob was my roommate for the two years that I spent at the University of Georgia in 1979 and 1980. We attended the National Science Foundation Student Science Training program at UGA in Athens for about eight weeks both summers and during that time formed a strong friendship.

Several weeks into the program in 1979, we switched roommates in order to room together. We had a fine time, combing the local records stores, playing basketball, competing in "name that song" and yes studying. After the summer ended, Rob and another friend Cindy drove up to Gilman Pond for a very quick surprise visit.

The second year was even more fun. I returned as the junior counselor for the boys and Rob returned to continue research from the previous year. The group that second year included a number of wonderful characters who became close friends. The highlight of that summer was attending a Who concert at the Omni in Atlanta with Rob and another friend from the program. We had so much fun that year that parting ways was a joyful and tearful affair.

These of course were formative teen years, with the prospect of college and the real world lurking ahead. We were away from home, actually a long way from home, and we were living amongst our peers from all over the country. Oh and there were girls there.

I got to know a number of kids in the program quite well, but none so well as Rob. I learned that despite the fact I had grown up in the wilds of Maine and he on Long Island, we were more similar than not. In fact, we found not only our interests but our values to be remarkably similar. Realizing this gave me confidence and changed the way I looked at the world. It also served as the bedrock for our friendship.

Rob and I kept in touch as we started college, me at the University of Maine, he at Amherst. I visited him on Long Island and he visited me at UMO. We wrote letters in those days and I have a cache of them describing some of the details of the day - the new band we'd discovered, concert we'd attended or college course we liked or hated.

After visiting Rob in January of 1984, our contact diminished until I realized a couple of years ago that I didn't have a current address or phone number for him. Some internet research and probing emails remedied that and we re-established contact. I learned that his parents retired to this area and that he had a brother that had actually lived in Thetford! Rob and his family periodically traveled up to see his parents so getting together should be easy!

It actually turned out to be a bit challenging as we missed each other twice due to a schedule conflicts. But yesterday, Meg and I traveled down to Quechee and met Rob, his wife Sande and children Ben and Hannah for lunch. We're not the same shape we were twenty eight years ago and neither of us have as much hair but I immediately remembered Rob's easy nature, his openness, and his honesty. His values are reflected in his family, who relate to each other with obvious love along with a bit of New Jersey bite. We spent lunch relating stories from Georgia and learning more about the intervening years.

After lunch we all traveled over to Rob's parents home where we were warmly welcomed and spent time reviewing Rob's photos from Georgia and more catching up. When we finally left, it was with a warm feeling that we would be seeing each other again. Friendships such as this are not to be taken lightly.

More Snow!

Well winter hasn't given up on us yet. Vermont is scheduled to get between 10"-20" of snow over the course of the day. I don't think we'll get too much (we've got about 6" so far) as the snow is very heavy and coming down more like sleet at this point.

All this after we had started to see patches of grass poking through the snow and just the first hint of that Spring smell that makes you go outside and breathe deeply. As Dad says, despite what happens today, the back of Winter has been broken and Spring is inevitable now.

I'm just about ready for that.

Time Out!

We just returned from a week on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. It was a fantastic time-out for us in a beautiful setting. This is the view from the cottage we enjoyed last week.

The trip underscored the need to get away periodically. We both came back with slightly different perspectives on so many things and some energy and ideas. All this from mostly doing nothing for a week!

Actually we did snorkel almost every day and it was unbelievable. For those of us who are used to the grey colors you see snorkeling in New England lakes, this was a wonderland. We saw a huge variety of fish, several huge schools of fish, and colors like you see in National Geographic.

One bit of wildlife we did not anticipate was the tarantula that we discovered upon returning to our cottage one evening. We came into the room looking for geckos that sometimes would show up high on the walls and instead found this fellow. Though we determined that tarantulas are not common in these parts, we scanned the room carefully thereafter!

Finally Winter!

It has been a seriously strange winter so far. All the way through December we experienced really warm weather - green grass in December here is unheard of. January started the same way but then trailed off to some seriously cold weather. Finally we got a real honest to goodness snowstorm though even then it didn't accumulate too much.

Late Summer...

Here is a late summer shot of our house, complete with the new granite blocks lining the driveway.


And another late summer project putting in another garden in the back yard in an effort to hide the oh-no-so-handsome vent in the lawn. We're actually very much looking forward to this garden next year. Before the summer was out, this area had become a haven for butterflies.

Better Late than Never...

Or that's what I'm telling myself.

Here are a couple shots from this past summer's vacation in New Harbor, ME. The first one is actually a sunset in Round Pond, just up the road from New Harbor.

This one is from our cottage later that evening. We had a beautiful moon to watch from the front deck.
And a few hours later it seemed, we awakened to the lobster boats collecting traps in the first rays of the morning sun. These are just three of the reasons we'll return next August for another week.

Big Top Balloons.

Meg took this picture of a big top tent found on our lawn. These webs are absolutely amazing creations and there must be tens of thousands of them in the single field by our home. The rise and fall of the web reminds me of a circus tent.

Yesterday evening was a beautiful, hot, Vermont summer evening which is perfect for ballooning. We saw a familiar sight on the horizon while grilling some dinner. For a bit, I thought they might be coming to dinner!

New Harbor & Gilman Pond

We took a quick get-away to New Harbor and Gilman Pond this past weekend. We stayed overnight and spent some time looking around New Harbor on a rainy overcast morning. Here's a shot of the harbor there.

We headed up to Gilman Pond Saturday for a wonderful if quick visit with Mom and Dad. While we were there, we saw a moose swimming across Gilman Pond and on our canoe ride, we got a wonderful view of the bald eagle that lives across the pond.

Saturday night when we arrived, the sky was swirling with clouds and Meg found this brand new persective on a familiar skyline.

Happy Friday!

Some Fridays just call out for a picture of a hippo and her baby. This is one of those Fridays.

No sign of Zach. We are struggling.

Zach.

Our cat Zach is missing.

Zach went out early last Thursday morning and has not been seen since. Meg and I have scoured the woods and field around our house to no avail. It seems doubtful at this point that I’ll ever see him again.

My friend Chris asked me if Zach was the first cat I ever had. My first answer was “no” until I realized that Zach was the first cat that I ever had, by myself, as an adult. Meg gave Zach to me during the summer of 1994 as he was not getting along with Kitty, one of Meg’s other cats. Furthermore, I had spent quite a bit of time with Zach and it was clear that we got along very well.

Those years were spent on the bank of Lake Fairlee, where Zach would roam among the cornstalks of the nearby garden and along the bank of the lake. I remember calling Zach at night and hearing his little grunts and seeing his two eyes reflecting in the light of the outdoor light before the rest of him trotted into view and into the safety of the small cabin.

This was when I learned from Meg how dangerous it is for cats in Vermont to be ‘outside’ cats. It’s a lesson I should have learned growing up in Maine where of course the same is true (my first cat Susie conducted epics battles with raccoons upon her arrival in the Maine wilderness), but because Zach was my responsibility now, I gained a deeper understanding of it.

Meg kept her cats inside as much as possible; in fact she had had to break Kitty to make her an indoor cat. Kitty passed away a bit over a year ago at the age of eighteen.

So I learned some element of responsibility with Zach. When I moved into my first home on Barker Road, I was careful about letting Zach outside for fear that he would wonder off disoriented. I took some of the first pictures with my new camera of Zach exploring the area around the Barker Road house. He became very comfortable there, though I remember one episode early on where he stayed away too long. I was brewing beer in those days and I named a batch for Zachy’s return.

Then of course came the move to Santa Cruz. This was a turbulent time for me personally, changing jobs, moving across the country, and stressing my relationship with Meg to the hilt. Zach was the constant companion through all of that and he put up with a lot. He accompanied Dad and I as we drove across the country. He rode well but his pent up energy would come out at night, scratching endlessly in his litter box and doing whatever else he could do to exercise his cat energy.

We arrived in Santa Cruz to a flea infested rental house so Zach came to work (totally forbidden) at E-Mu one day while the property managers had the house treated. And he would lie on top of me on my chest when I lay down to sleep at night, purring loudly and demanding to be stroked. He was my buddy and stuck by me during a very stressful transition.

He learned something about California. I remember in the early days there finding him staring out the window and chattering one night. I took a flashlight and shined it out the window and found an armadillo, something Zach never encountered as a Vermont cat. He also met raccoons, armies of them, at the first place in Santa Cruz. Unlike Susie, he did not do battle; he let them go about their business, sitting up on the railing and preserving his good nature and his health.

He did run into some battles in California however. The first foe was a long piece of grass, which got stuck (somehow!) in his nasal cavity and made him sneeze and cough terribly. This is apparently not uncommon in California and required that he be anesthetized so that the grass could be removed. When I picked up Zach, the vet had the piece of grass for me to see. I swear it was six inches long if it was an inch. This episode, combined with the undeniable fact that Zach was blessed with a nose of considerable stature, led to an unending stream of comments and jokes between Meg and I.

Zach’s second foe was a giant cat with one eye (Max?) that roamed around our condo on Frederick Street. Zach would see him outside the window and started to tremble and mew. One evening when we left Zach outside during the working day, I arrived home to find Zach’s collar on our front stoop. After looking around and finding Zach, the neighbor came out of the house to tell me that Zach and Max had such a terrible catfight that the neighbors ended up throwing water on them to break it up. Zach emerged without significant injuries from that battle.

Then of course it was time to come back to Vermont. Zach accompanied Kitty and Spud on the cross-country journey that took Meg and I through Death Valley, Bryce and Zion, the endless plains of Kansas and eventually back home to Barker Road. Zach was again a model citizen during the long hours in the car, but was a real tiger at night. We tried putting a harness and leash on him and walking him at night to ‘wear him out’. That didn’t work too well, but helped wear us out anyway.

The years at Barker Road were good ones, though Zach returned to his early morning ways, especially in the Spring and Summer where he would do anything he could to wake me up and let him out in the middle of the night. I developed the habit of acquiescing to his demands and then keeping the window above my head open so I could hear his quiet meow when he would return before dawn.

One Spring morning I heard a sound I had never heard before and went outside to see Zach trotting down the driveway towards me, pursued by three small fox kits. Though there was no immediate danger to Zach (I’m quite sure he outweighed them), the message was sinister nonetheless. With no dog establishing territory around the house, foxes were close by and plentiful.

Zach also met an owl during that time. While raking the leaves one fall day, I saw a pair of owls fly across the yard. One lit on a tree branch along the driveway. Incredibly, Zach and I were able to walk over to stand directly underneath this owl and stare up at him. The owl looked at Zach and made an extremely threatening sound. Zach stared at the owl and made an equally threatening sound. I pointed out to Zach that the owl was considerably bigger than he was. The owl dropped off the branch and glided silently through the woods.

In recent years, Zach moved here to Asa Burton Road. He did not take the move well. He was getting older and getting used to a new home – with new (actually old) companions – was a big change. We had one episode where he stayed away from the house for a while; Meg and I found him in the woods behind the house and Zach didn’t seem to understand that we were trying to take him home.

He also acted out a bit. We talked to the vet about it and she wondered if perhaps he saw creatures outside that threatened him. We realized this was probably the case as we had seen foxes in the neighborhood. Over time however, Zach developed the same habits, though he seemed more content to stay close to the house and rarely stayed out overnight.

Last Thursday morning, he woke me up very early, as has often been the case. I got up and let him about 3:15AM. When I got up and fed the cats, he was nowhere to be seen; a bit odd but not terribly so. Since then we have seen no trace of him. We’ve searched everywhere we can think of. There is talk of coyotes being sited in the area. We fear the worst and hope for a miracle.

I’m devastated. I can barely go to work and function. I thought I knew how much Zach means to me, but I was wrong. I didn’t understand that the day started with Zach waking me up, was punctuated by his routine (usually revolving around sleeping), and concluded when he curled up in the crook of my left arm as I lay down to sleep. He is the backbone of my day and without him I feel lost.

Please Zachy. One more time.

Spring!

As Meg and I started out for a late afternoon walk yesterday, we noticed that the top of our newly green lawn was covered with the work of little spiders.

Morning Sun.

The winter so far this year has been either warm and wet or cold and dry. It did afford us a nice view recently one morning as the sun emerged from behind us to warmly illuminate the hills to our North and West.

Snowballs

Hydranga at night...

Winter Rainbow

We were blessed with this amazing rainbow recently during this very strange winter...

Christmas!

Jaipur.

Our sightseeing in Jaipur started at the City Palace. It is a large palace in the heart of the city and is currently inhabited by the son of the last Maharaja. It's also home to part of the Maharaja Sawai Mansingh II Museum which contains an amazing collection of carpets, paintings, photos, books and other crafts.

On entrance to the palace, we encountered a couple of cobras, which we gave a wide berth!


Belowis a picture of the Mubarak Mahal or Welcome Palace. It's a covered open area built for receiving and entertaining dignitaries.



Near the City Palace is the Hawa Mahar (Wind Palace). It is five stories high and only one room deep; a true facade. The rooms are designed to allow the ladies of the harem to observe the happenings down in the street without being seen. We took this picture the evening we pulled into Jaipur.

Qutb Minar.

On our trip to Jaipur, our first stop was just outside Delhi at a place called Qutb Minar. It's a World Heritage Monument site containing, among other things, the highest tower in India. This tower, built as a symbol of military might, was constructed in 1196 AD (!!) and rises 237 feet above the ground. The grounds contain a number of ancient structures including several mosques but it's the tower that your eyes continually return to. For better or worse, the interior of the tower is closed to visitors so we had to admire it from the ground.

India!

Meg and I just returned from a trip to India. She was there for two full weeks on business while I followed a bit later for pleasure. While there, we stayed in Noida outside New Delhi, we visited the Pink City of Jaipur by car, and we flew to Hyderabad (and it's high tech suburb HiTec City) in Southern India.

It was my first trip to India and it's safe to say I was overwhelmed. The vast numbers of very colorful people, the crazy roadways filled with everything from water buffalo and camels to modern SUVs, the extreme poverty of the streets juxtaposed with the extravagance of the temples and Hyderabad's High Tech City (Cyberabad), and of course the broad variety of wonderful food are but a few examples of the new experiences I had.

We were the recipients of tremendous hospitality from our hosts and without that, our experiences would not have been the same. Our thanks go out to all of them.

I’ll try to post more from the trip before long but right now I’m still trying to adjust from the long trip home and I think I need to take a nap. In the interim, I’ve included a picture from my first day of sightseeing in Delhi: the amazing Lotus Temple near sunset.

Fox Alert.

Sunday morning I woke up to see a beautiful bushy tailed fox in the back yard doing some hunting. I had time to shoot a bunch of pix, but he never got close enough for a real good one. Now I know why Zach is not interested in going outside some mornings!

Snow in October.

Yesterday was one of the stranger weather days we've seen here in Vermont. It was raining again in the morning when we went to work. I don't know the rainfall totals here for October but it must be about 12" or 14" of rain. However, mid-morning it started turning to snow and snowed fairly steadily through the afternoon. We traveled East to Canaan after work and there was even more snow there (we had to wait for a flatlander to give up trying to climb a hill into town - glad we had the Ranger!).

The trip home from Canaan is over a road we fondly call the Canaan Turnpike. It's a stretch through the woods between Lyme and Canaan that is ... very lightly traveled. This night, we met nobody on the Turnpike after leaving Canaan proper and for the next 8 miles or so we trundled through 2" to 4" of extremely wet snow. The snow bent the young trees on either side of the road - especially maples - down forming gentle arches over the road and trailing still vibrant fall leaves over the car like the dancing scrubbers of an automated car wash. Luckily no big trees were down and we were able to get all the way through to Lyme Center and back home where ... wonder of wonders... there was absolutely no snow on the ground.

The Aliens have landed.

We found these two off to the side of our driveway plotting an attack on the main homestead. Luckily, we caught them in time and robbed them of their essence via the newly discovered T5 diopter lens.

BTW: Tyler Kepner - who reported so accurately on the Sox decimation of the Yankees last year - had this to say about Sunday's game: "They bludgeoned the Yankees, 10-1, with homers from Bill Mueller, Manny Ramirez and Doug Mirabelli and six strong innings from Curt Schilling."

On to Chicago...

Foggy Mornings

We continue to have beautiful Indian Summer type days here in Vermont. The "new" house is only a mile or so from the Connecticut River though and that, combined with the cool nights have been producing some very foggy mornings. This shot looks down Asa Burton Road from the end of our driveway.

Cheers to the Sox for thumping the Yankees 10-1 yesterday and clinching the Wild Card spot!

No Excuses Now.

After much deliberation, I took the plunge this afternoon and purchased my first digital SLR camera. It's a Nikon D70, recommended by my friend Jerry and I'm looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship!

This is a basic auto everything shot of our late summer Dalia which barely survived hibernation last winter but thrived in the Vermont sun this summer.

Dad's "new" PA-11

I just returned from an all too quick trip up to Skowhegan to see Mom and Dad. We took a trip out to the airport on Tuesday morning and I got to see Dad's new sport plane in the flesh. It's of course very reminiscent of Dad's PA-18 which he recently relunctantly parted with. The new PA-11 is newly restored and just gorgeous!

Well that's done.

My time with Microsoft came to a close this past Friday. I'll be starting work at TeleAtlas North America on September 19th.

Ghent!

Meg took this picture on her recent journey to Ghent, Belgium. A rainbox (actually a double rainbow) over the "Toreken", a guild hall built in 1483.

Vacation's End

Our week in New Harbor flew by just as you would guess it would. We spent time with Stu, Bogusia, Robert and Konrad during the first part of the week, fit in a dinner with Meg's family friends Vic and Midge Hart, and then enjoyed a visit from Rod and Val during the last part of the week. We fit in visits to Pemaquid Beach, day trip to Monhegan Island as well, and a wonderful emotional return to the Bradley Inn for dinner.

All that said, my favorite part of the week was the quiet time that Meg and I had together. It took some time to slow down and get used to just 'doing nothing', especially given the modern amenities of our 'getaway cottage' including broadband wireless and cable television. But we did get used to it. We spent more time reading than we have in a long time. We watched a couple old movies late into the night. We biked around McFarland Shore, New Harbor and Pemaquid Point and of course we sampled the Shaw's raw bar together.

The need to get away - to break from the daily routine and to get new perspectives on your own life and the rest of the world - is so easy to underestimate. We've taken alot of wonderful "busy" vacations - the marathon trip to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic comes to mind - but I think these get away vacations are equally important in a different way. We're already working on booking a cottage for next year - and thinking of an off season visit as well.

The picture was taken one morning from the deck at Sail Away. The mornings would start with the bright sunlight streaming in from the ocean and the sound of lobster boats moving through the sea of traps. The picture below is also from the front deck.

New Harbor Maine

We are blessed with being on vacation this week in New Harbor Maine. We arrived Saturday evening to find our rental house - which we had taken sight unseen - to be even more than we had hoped for. Since then we've been delighted to awake to gulls and the occasional lobster boat in the morning with a beautiful oceanfront view the rest of the time. Truly a delight. The week is already speeding by... perhaps two weeks next time...

Another K-Man

Meg got this shot of Konrad at the door of Louise's screened in porch this past weekend. He's a cruel combination of cute that reminds me of another young K-Man.

A Work of Art

We found this wonder of nature on one of our potted plants this morning. One of billions of such wonders that get created and destroyed every day.

Tuned In.

This fellow showed up at the house the other day. Meg noticed him on the front porch as she was watering the plants. He agreed to stick around for a photo op.

Congratulations to Sean and Jess!!

Jessica and Sean have a new baby girl!! Mia arrived this afternoon weighing 7.11 lbs and by all reports looking great!! Mom and baby are both doing well I hear. I can't wait to hear more news tomorrow! Rest well all of you.

Tropical

Boy it's been steamy the last several days. And there is not alot of hope in sight as it appears it will continue through the week.

It has made for some beautiful evenings. Meg took this shot last night of the setting sun - truly a big red ball in the sky.

Fawn 2005!

We were fortunate this morning to have a deer wander quietly up the treeline on the NorthEast side of the house while we were having morning coffee. She kept coming nearer and it was a real delight to see her up close. Meg was going through some magazines and held up an issue of Vermont Life with a beautiful deer and fawn on the cover. Not two minutes later, I realized that the deer we were watching *had* a fawn with her, previously obscured by the tall grass!

This fawn was new! It was nursing much of the time and Momma was licking the little shaver every chance she got. Long story short, they wandered up closer to the house, actually coming out on the lawn and we took about a billion pictures. Here are a couple.

Champs!!

[AKA Marty's victory dousing!]

Marty and the boys went to Burlington and delivered big time again, beating Northfield 3-2 in a tense but strangely familiar South Royalton victory to become Division III Vermont State Champions!!

Though Northfield scored first, there was a feeling of inevitability about the ability of the Royals to come back and do what they needed to do. They did just that when Justin Densmore slapped a ball through the right side of the infield, scoring SoRo's third run. That was all Nevin Fulcher needed as he, and the SoRo defense (led by catcher David Manning's pitiless putouts at second base the only times Northfield was foolish enough to attempt stealing) held Northfield scoreless over the last six innings. Nevin worked hard all day, but owned Northfield in the seventh; once he threw the first pitch of the inning, we knew the game was over. And indeed it was as shortstop Paul Manning gunned down the last Northfield batter to give the Royals the State Championship.

These kids have had an amazing year, ending the year 19-0, going to and fro on a luxurious bus paid for by the royal fans of South Royalton who bought hamburgers at the SoRo "Cook Shack" run by Marty's Mom, buying 50-50 tickets all summer, giving TV interviews, dousing their coach after the game, and many of them graduating tomorrow. Tonight South Royalton was to celebrate with fire engines carrying the young heroes threw town. Now that's support.

It's been such great fun to watch these kids - a reminder of the intensity of high school emotions, as well as a poignant illustration of the greatest and most beautiful of sports. I thank my friend Marty for leading these champions and allowing me to vicariously participate in a very special slice of life that I might have missed had I stuck to delighting our customers with world class software solutions.

Northfield's futile waving at Nevin's pitches.

It was a beautiful day for baseball at Centennial Field at UVM.

South Royalton goes to the State Championship!

The boys from South Royalton did it!

They beat BFA-Fairfax (the team that bounced them from the playoffs last year) 3-2 in a wonderful pitchers duel in South Royalton this afternoon. As usual, Marty's boys put a couple runs on the board early, but unlike previous games they were unable to extend their lead. The good news was that Paul Manning, ostensibly their #2 pitcher had his game of the year, striking out 12 and walking nobody, taking a three run lead into the seventh inning. Despite BFA-Fairfax pushing 2 runs across that inning, Paul struck out the last batter of the game (above) to preserve the 3-2 victory and catapult the Royals into the Division III State Championship game at Centennial Field at the University of Vermont, either Friday or Saturday afternoon.

It was a great game and a great way to go to 18-0. One more little item to take care of...

Royals Prevail

Marty's South Royalton gang worked a tough win yesterday in the second round of the 16 team playoffs, beating Green Mountain 7-5. It was the best high school baseball game I've see to date and was only over when the Royals first baseman made a diving over the shoulder catch of a foul pop-up with the bases loaded in the top of the seventh, after Green Mountain had already brought a run across to draw within two.

The Division III playoffs are down to four teams and SoRo will play Tuesday afternoon at home against - I think - BFA Fairfax, to whom they lost in the playoffs last year.

It was a gorgeous but HOT day for baseball - several of the players were visibly worn down by the heat.

Go SoRo!

Marty's South Royalton Royals took an easy win against their first round Playoff opponents 10-4. The game was not nearly as close as that as Marty put in the subs in the third inning after gaining a nine run advantage, starting his second string pitcher.

It's interesting to watch all this. Marty's team is from a town not any bigger than the SAD 74 Carrabec Cobras for whom I gave my all twenty five years ago. He has a bunch of very talented farm boys who, when in the right frame of mind, are almost unbeatable. Much remains to be seen, but Marty's team is very definitely a contender for the state title. The apex of my high school career was pitching in the Carrabec's losing effort against Jay in the first round of the state championships in 1980. I felt for Williamston today as they really played quite valiantly.

The South Royalton Royals go again Saturday at 4:30PM again at home and against an undoubtedly tougher opponent (not yet clear who it is). They will throw their ace Nevin Fulcher, who while passable doesn't have my fastball (ha!) and I feel for the competition as Nevin is a pitcher with stuff like location and selection. Hmmm. Interesting notion.

Anyway, I got this nice shot of a beautiful June afternoon in Vermont with Marty overseeing the whuppin'. Fenway has absolutely nothing on a beautiful afternoon in South Royalton!