The Eastwick Press Newspaper

Eastern Rensselaer County's Community Newspaper

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April Events At The Grafton Library

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The Grafton Community Library announces its programs for the month of April. All programs are free and open to the public. For more information contact the Library at 518-279-0580 or email director@graftoncommunitylibrary.org. Stay up to date with everything that is happening at the library by visiting our online events calendar at www.graftoncommunitylibrary.org/whats-happening-at-your-library, and signing up for our email newsletter on our website www.graftoncommunitylibrary.org.

Native American Animal Spirits

Storyteller Gil Payette will present Native American Animal Spirits (all ages program) on Friday, April 18, at 6:30 pm. In this fun and informative program Payette will weave together his teaching and storytelling skills to give us a glimpse of how Native Americans understand spiritual and sacred animal power. Some Native American languages had no word for “animal.” These life forms were considered extended family – brothers, sisters, cousins – each one unique unto itself, a symbol of power, of the soul, a creative element with a spiritual purpose. Special prizes will be given!

Facts About Lyme Disease

The Facts about Lyme Disease will be presented by Jennifer Mahoney, Rensselaer County Health Department, on Tuesday, April 22, at 6:30 pm. Get ready to enjoy the great outdoors in a safe way this spring by finding out everything you need to know about Lyme disease in our area.This program will cover:

• information about the tick’s life cycle;

• awareness of Lyme disease and other tick borne diseases;

• recognizing basic signs and symptoms;

• knowing to seek early diagnosis and treatment;

• knowing if you live, work or play in an area that has infected ticks;

• practicing preventive actions, and

• knowing who to contact for more information.

Book Discussion Group

The Book Discussion Group will discuss The Secret History by Donna Tartt on Wednesday, April 30, at 12:30 pm. The Grafton Community Library’s book discussion group meets monthly. New participants are always welcome. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is the darkly engrossing debut by the author of last year’s acclaimed novel The Goldfinch. This tale of murder and intrigue at a small Vermont college was inspired by Tartt’s years in Bennington. Copies are available now at the Library.

Storytime

Weekly Storytime for Preschool Aged Children will take place on  Wednesday, April 23, at 10:30 am and Wednesday, April 30, at 10:30 am.

Coupon Clippers

The Grafton Clippers Coupon Group will meet on Monday, April 21, at 6 pm. Be part of a new social group where people gather to share knowledge of clipping coupons and finding ways to cut shopping trips by 90%. The Grafton Clippers will meet at the Library every other Monday at 6 pm. New members are always welcome. For more information email Donna atmoreoutoflife@gmail.com or Erin at Erin_469@yahoo.com.

Game Day At The Library

Game day is every Tuesday starting at 3:30 pm. Come to the Library to play your favorite board games with friends – Scrabble, Bananagrams, Scattergories and more. Use the Library’s games or bring your own.

Sit And Knit Needle Arts Group

Sit and Knit Needle Arts Group will meet Saturdays at 10 am. Come share your love of all the Needle Arts! Knitting, stitching, crocheting and more. All skill levels and abilities welcome.

New Art Exhibit At The 120gallery90 At The Armory

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Maggi Randall is a Bennington artist who works in a wide variety of mediums, including ceramics, wood, fabric, oil paint and pastels. She describes her work as “darkly humorous… an expression of how strange it feels to live in such tumultuous times.”

In exploring ideas like climate change, surveillance and the global arms market, she searches for the “balance between angst and humor.” Much of her work is in clay. She says it “connects me to one of the oldest artistic mediums.” In her figurative work, she creates both tension and harmony between believable anatomy and distortion to evoke a sense of “the forces tugging us through the universe without our volition.” She finds her imagery in her subconscious and childhood dreams. In all of her art, Randall visualizes a response to the world that is both critical and optimistic.

Maggi’s work has been exhibited in both group and one-woman shows in a number of galleries in and around New York City, including the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan. Her artwork can be found in private collections as well, including a wooden alter piece commissioned by an Episcopal Church in New York and a fabric creation purchased for the Fermi Labs Art Gallery in Chicago.

Hoosick Artist Guild Exhibiting “The Metamorphosis Of Seven Chairs”

Members of the Hoosick Artist Guild have taken seven matching chairs and transformed them in imaginative and creative ways. The artists have painted them and added things to them, deconstructed them and used the parts to create works of art unrelated to chairs or made a different kind of furniture out of it. Some hang from the ceiling or the wall, or sit on the floor or a pedestal. The show is a creative exploration of form and function, definitely a different kind of artistic experience.

The opening reception for both of these exhibitions is Friday, April 25, from 6 to 8 pm. Both the art show and the musical performance are free and open to the public.

At The Owls Nest

Performing live downstairs in The Owls Nest from 7 to 8 pm that same evening will be members of the Hoosick Falls High School Senior Chorus. Bill Brown will accompany them on keyboard and Martha von Schilgen will play the violin. HFCS Chorus Director, Ambigay Yudkoff, will conduct the group.

Earth Day At Dyken Pond

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The Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center is celebrating Earth Day on April 27 from 1 to 4 pm. Help us give back to the earth by doing trail maintenance and other outdoor work. Snacks and drinks will be provided to all volunteers. Pre-registration is encouraged to help with planning and can be done by contacting the Center at dykenpond@fairpoint.net or 518-658-2055. A complete list of programs can be found at www.dykenpond.org.

Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center, located at 475 Dyken Pond Road, Cropseyville, is a Rensselaer County Park open daily during daylight hours for hiking, fishing and non-motor boating. Canoes and kayaks are available for rent each day from 9 am until 3 pm after May 15. Call for more information and a complete schedule of our events.

Celebrate Spring And Order Your Trees

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The Rensselaer County Soil & Water Conservation District wants to help you celebrate Spring by planting a tree. The weather is finally breaking and the snow is going. Now is the time to plan for your spring plantings.

The Conservation District’s Annual Spring Arbor Green Tree and Shrub Program offers inexpensive bare-root stock for conservation plantings, wildlife habitat improvement, erosion control, Christmas trees, nature education and landscaping your environment. Trees available this year include Colorado blue spruce, redbud, Frasier fir, Norway spruce, Austrian pine, arborvitae (white cedar), white birch and more. Shrubs include American cranberry, high bush blueberry, red raspberries, lilac, forsythia, rose of Sharon and more! New this year are peach trees.

To get an order blank, call the Conservation District at 518-271-1740 or visit the Conservation Field Office at 61 State Street in Troy. Our Ag & Life Sciences Building is located just north of the Department of Motor Vehicles. You may also download an order blank by going to the Rensselaer County website, which is www.rensco.com, and follow the link to the “How To!…” box on the left hand side of the page, scroll down to the 43rd Annual Arbor Green Tree & Shrub Sale link, click and print it out.

Return your order and payment by May 2. Distribution will be Saturday, May 10, from 9 am to 12 noon at the Questar (BOCES) Center on Industrial Park Road in South Troy.

This program supports Soil & Water Conservation Programs in the County. You need not be a resident of Rensselaer County to participate in this program.

Daniel E. Williams

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Hoosick – Daniel E. “Bulldog” Williams, 51, passed away on Saturday, April 12, 2014, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Troy, NY. He had resided on Mountain View Way in Hoosick, NY, with his wife Kim (Mumley) Williams.

Born on April 3, 1963, in Bennington, VT, Dan was the son of Duane and Sally (Jones) Williams. He was educated at Hoosick Falls Central School. Dan was employed at Saint-Gobain in Hoosick Falls, NY, and as a school bus driver for Hoosick Falls Central School. He enjoyed the outdoors and was avid hunter, fisherman and archer. He also enjoyed playing golf.

Survivors, other than his wife Kim and parents Duane and Sally, include his children, Robert “RJ” Ruggles of Hoosick Falls and Stephanie Senecal and husband Eric of Bennington, his sister, Holly Grogan and husband Gary, and his brother, Matt Williams, both of Hoosick Falls, his grandson, Landon Senecal, and his nephews, Dillon and Blake Grogan.

Funeral services were Wednesday, April 16, at 11 am from the Mahar Funeral Home, 43 Main Street, Hoosick Falls, NY, 12090. Burial will be at the convenience of the family. Relatives and friends called at the funeral home on Tuesday from 4 to 7 pm. Memorial contributions may be made to the Rensselaer County Community Hospice through the funeral home.

The Life Of George Holcomb – Working On The Cheese House

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Wednesday, March 30, 1831: This morning I borrowed E. Pierce’s cheese press of Harry Wheeler to pattern after, and then I drew two loads of rails off the hill and it was quite a rainy day.

Thursday: This forenoon F. Buten came and sawed out the timber for my two cheese presses. This afternoon I went to Brother Wm to have him come and get measure to make irons to my cheese presses.

Friday, April 1: Today we tended to trying getting a cow up, she got cast calving.  I went and got Mr. Harry Wheeler to tend to said cow and other neighbors. I borrowed Barnum Clark’s ox slings, but we could not get said cow to stand. I got trusted to Henry Platt’s store 30 cts for cheese press rope.  Today said Buten and brother Sylvester worked for me at my cheese presses. At night I walked to Simeon Wylie’s to get him to turn me four pulley blocks for my cheese press.

Saturday: Today F. Buten and his hired man worked for me at my cheese presses. We tended to our cow today a-nursing her.

Sunday: On this evening I took the single wagon and went to Hancock on the Car Briggs farm after Cynthia Gardner to work for us. She came, she was contented as we were satisfied.

Monday: I tended to my lame cow and underpinned my cheese house. Today some rainy.

Thursday, April 7: I wagoned one load of boards home from E. Goodrich’s sawmill.  Today noon I bargained with Sylvester Swan to live with me one year and I am to school him four days in each week for four months, and I am to let him have July and August to work for himself and I am to pay him 20 dollars.

Saturday, April 9, 1831: I carried Brother Sylvester work bench to him. He moved out of my house on the sixth of the month into Henry Stanton’s house up Goodrich Hollow in Hancock

Sunday: I paid Cynthia Gardner for her week’s work 75 cts and I sent a boy home with her. On this day I walked up to  cousin Samuel Holcomb and I called up to Mr. Watson’s to see if I could hire a girl but I could not.  I called to Mr Dabolls to see if I could hire a girl but the Griffin girl was not there

Wednesday: This forenoon Peres Swan came to my house and took breakfast with us and then he helped make a windlass, and we sewed two bags together and we slung up our lame cow, but she could not stand, and we let her down again. I told said P. Swan the bargain I made with his son Sylvester and he consented to it and told me that I must pay him one-half of the boy’s wages.

Friday: Today we tried to raise our cow by digging a pit and a windlass but to no use.  This evening I went to my Rodgers barn to tend to my cows that was calving, and I called to Mr. Newton, he is failing fast.

The Village Of Hoosick Falls Adopts Budget With .5% Tax Increase

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by Bea Peterson

In addressing those attending the Village of Hoosick Falls Board meeting on Tuesday, April 8, Mayor David Borge said, “The 2014-2015 budget is a lean budget, but it is a fair budget.” He said, though details are not available, the Village, the Town and the County and the Associations of Towns and Counties are looking at ways to share services as a means to reduce costs. [Read more…] about The Village Of Hoosick Falls Adopts Budget With .5% Tax Increase

Berlin’s Elm Street Bridge Replacement Ready To Go

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by Kieron Kramer

Four resolutions relating to the project for the replacement of the bridge on County Road 38, Elm Street in Berlin, over the Little Hoosic River were passed unanimously at the regular meeting of the Rensselaer County Legislature on Tuesday. The bridge replacement is eligible for funding that calls for the apportionment of the costs to be borne at the ratio of eighty percent in Federal funds and twenty percent in non-Federal funds, in this case State funds. The appropriation for this project was authorized by the Legislature in 2011. Three of the resolutions Tuesday authorized payment for the work on the project, and one resolution authorized the arrangement for reimbursement to the County by the Town of Berlin for the substitution of a 10 inch water main across the bridge to replace the 6 inch main. Construction is expected to begin this June.

[Read more…] about Berlin’s Elm Street Bridge Replacement Ready To Go

New Lebanon Town Board Hears Defense Of School District

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by Thaddeus Flint

The monthly Board meeting at the Town Hall in New Lebanon was standing room only Tuesday night as a large group from New Lebanon High School came to defend their school’s reputation from what they felt were “outrageous rumors and comments” concerning the students of that District and heroin use.

[Read more…] about New Lebanon Town Board Hears Defense Of School District