One less Squirrel on the loose

Wednesday was particularly difficult.  We worked on the Monster Book late Tuesday afternoon and it took all of Wednesday to finish it off, one page at a time.  Doing Right / Left capture is no picnic and this book is 800 pages.  What was the court thinking doing an index with so many pages – covering so many years?  We start another county today and hopefully the books will fit under the cradle glass.  They look to be pretty big but we will see what will fit and what will not.

The cleaning crew set a live trap for the animals that live in this building and they caught a flying squirrel.  I did not know that they had flying squirrels here in Maine but apparently they do.  The squirrels that I see outside on the trees are regular squirrels so I do not know where they keep the flying variety – perhaps just in the ceiling of the Archives?

Anthony told us of a leak in his area that has damaged some books.  Of all the places that they keep paper stuff it is hard to believe that a leak occurred – but then we did have a tremendous amount of rain.  I went walking yesterday afternoon while Bill was at the YMCA and went down to the River.  It has gone down somewhat but it is still a raging torrent.  Even the slickest fish would have a hard time going upstream as yet.

David called up and was asking for stuff.  In particular he wanted me to send him some safety pins to make the weather shield for his Western Hat a little smaller since the elastic has given up the ghost and no longer keeps the shield on his hat.  He wanted me to go to a western store and buy a shield for him and he had a hard time understanding that we are in Maine, the most Eastern State of the USA and that Western stores are just not here.  He does not understand why this is so.  I told him that he could go buy the safety pins himself much cheaper than I could by getting them and then paying postage to get them to him.  He also told me that while they were at a job in Phoenix, doing yard work, that he picked up some paving stones that the people did not want so now he has paving stones as stepping stones in his garden.  I have no idea how big his garden is, but he is very happy and occupied with it right now.  He told us he has one strawberry plant, one yellow squash plant among others.  He is a happy camper and I hope that the Phoenix Sun does not scorch the plants this summer.   Well, you can hope that these tender plants will withstand 110 degree temperature!

Sara told us that Jacob was awarded the most prestigious Chemical award given by the School.  Last year he got scholarship money but this year he got this award for his contribution to the chemical research of UNL.  They still do not have phone service due to the tree branches smashing the phone line when they took the tree down.  You win some and you lose some.

The trees here are beginning to leaf out and the world is pretty and fluffy green everywhere you look.  The Kennebec Savings garden is spectacular with the Tulips all up and blooming.  While Bill was at the YMCA I walked over to the bank garden and admired the flowers.  Many trees are blooming as well and the world has been transformed from drab leafless skeletons, to the excellent finery of Spring.  Bring s hope that summer is near and warmer temperatures will be part of our lives again.

It is hard here in the East during the winter.  If you do not snowshoe, ski, skate or cross country, you are limited to exercise at the YMCA tiny track (21 ½ times around is one mile) or a DVD on your living room floor for exercise.  I am glad that we signed up for Western Line Dance – at least for two hours a week we got to hop around and do something aerobic.  We looked up the YMCA at Keene and see that it offers a wide range of classes, much like the YMCA in Prescott.  They even have ZUMBA at 4.30pm and for sure I can make that class time slot when we move there.  I really miss Zumba.  I wonder if they have Western Line Dance classes elsewhere in Keene that we do not know about?  I did a search on the net for such and apparently there is one about 45 miles away but I doubt if we will make that effort.  A class close to home is much more desirable.

It is 6am now and it is raining outside.  It has been raining all night and expected to rain all day today.  I must admit that it is not the driving rain that brought the flooding to the Kennebec River, but if it lasts long enough even a gentle rain over time will swell the little streamlets that are all over the place and feed into the river.