Sunshine!

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It's BIG TRASH Day!

It's 21.9 degrees and crispy clear.

From WKTV: "Yesterday's rain and slush has frozen this morning. Watch out for a few slick spots on untreated surfaces. Sunshine comes back today, with high temperatures climbing back into the low 30s. Skies remain clear early tonight, before clouds return before daybreak.

March comes in like a lion on Wednesday. A cold front will drop in from the north tomorrow, bringing some snow showers early in the day along with wind. A west wind picks up during the afternoon, with gusts up to 40mph.

Cold, sunny weather on Thursday. Our weather turns warmer and unsettled as we head into the weekend."

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IN THE NEWS

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GIRLS BASKETBALL

"Semifinals set in Girls' Brackets." fr0m the O-D.

No. 2 Waterville (13-5) and No. 3 Mohawk (13-6) play at 6 p.m. Tuesday
at Clinton High School

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"Superintendents Pay Cap Proposal Raises Concerns Locally." from the O-D.

IN THE MAIL

More information about

Empire State Games Gold Medal Winner Marissa Cornelius.

"The daughter of Amy Doggett of Deansboro and Doug Cornelius of Deansboro, she just turned 15, and is in 9th grade at Clinton. She was selected in the 2009 US Luge slider search and eventually made the USA Luge development team. - the same kind of start that Erin Hamlin had."

Marissa at the end of her final run doing a fist pump as she saw the leader board post her time as 1st place.


The three medalists: Gracie Weinberg, of Middlebury, Vermont, Marissa, and Katherine Shelhamer, Cold Brook.



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REMEMBERING NORM ECKERSON'S SKI RUN

A blog reader, while wishing to remain anonymous, has written:

"Wow! it has been a long time since I heard anything about Norm Eckerson's dream.
Norm worked for the Waterville School District and, as others who worked there, had visions of what could be and how they could become more financially secure. This was one of them.

"No: the project never came to fruition, however a lot of time and hard work was spent on the project.
"I'm sure a few of those working on the project along with friends and neighbors probably tried skiing down the slope. Can you imagine how many small trees, stubs, etc. were removed to get to what you can see in this picture? Some of the much younger crowd, went sliding and tobogganing on the lower parts of this slope."

Thank you!

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TODAY AT THE LIBRARY
Sign Up at 841-4651

How To: Design a Webpage
Tuesday, March 1st at 7pm

For anyone who would like to start their own webpage.
Amanda Briggs will walk you through the steps of creating your own webpage for personal or business use.
We will be working with free web designing sites.

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YESTERDAY

It was a warm, melty, muddy and sloppy Spring day!


In the morning I spotted sap buckets out a Keyesbrook Farm on Route 12B.



Later in the day, I drove through Nine Mile Swamp on Loomis Road to see if the Sangerfield River was rising: yes!


Just Ducky!

The creek was high over near Oriskany Falls making these year-'round residents happy.

The one place where water was NOT rising was at the underpass, south of Waterville, on Route 12! Wonderful!

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Two hundred and nineteen years ago.............

"About the first of March, 1792, Minierva Hale and wife, and Nathan Gurney and wife and infant, moved into the town from New Hartford, where they had previously resided one or two years. The first day of their journey they reached the house of Simon Hubbard, who lived on the place now occupied by his son Marinus Hubbard, in the town of Marshall, where they remained over night. Their conveyances were ox teams and sleds. On the next morning, the snow being very deep, they made short yokes for their oxen, and using their bed cords for traces, they drove them tandem, and thus plowed their way to their new farms. The distance from Mr. Hubbard's was but about four miles, but such was the almost impassable state of their route (for road they had none), over hills and logs, across and through creeks, swamps, and thickets, overlaid with at least four feet of snow, that is was quite night before they reached its termination. Mr. Hale had purchased land adjoining the lot of Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Gurney had purchased lot No. 40, now in the village of Waterville, and a part of which is at present owned by Aaron Stafford, Esq., whose father, Ichabod Stafford, noticed as among the earliest settlers of Augusta, purchased of Gurney. They both, however, proceeded to the house of Mr. Phelps*, who had moved into it only two or three days previously, and here they remained until they built houses for themselves. The three men, their wives, and Gurney's child, all occupied the same room, and for the best of reasons, it was the only one in the house, or in the town." From Pomroy Jones' Annals of Oneida County, 1851.

* Probably next to the creek, near Beaver Creek Road, on land now the Sangerfield Golf Course.

March 1, 1992

In 1992 a bicentennial "re-enactment" took place on an appropriately cold and windy day and began on Daytonville Road. Riding in the wagon, pulled by "Duke" and Dan," twin oxen trained by the Hugh Healey family of Johnstown, were then-mayor David Upcraft and trustee Linda Nichols representing Nathan Gurney and his wife, and Kathy Langworthy, a descendant of two of the township's earliest settlers.

Photos courtesy of Jean Desany.

About thirty people followed the procession on foot while another hundred or so gathered in the St. Bernard's parking lot to take turns having wagon rides and refreshments.

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It's been years and years since teams of oxen were seen pulling plows or farm wagons. They, of course, have been replaced by tractors - many made by Case and John Deer. In this weather even they are rarely seen --- except in the form of mailboxes beside the road!

In Hanover.

On Route 315.

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FOR THE RECORD

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Seeing that, an old codger from New England wrote to suggest that it might be a good time for horses and oxen to make a comeback!

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HAVE A GOOD DAY, EVERYONE!