It’s easy to let the housework slide during summer months, and I do. Much better to pinch the petunias than sweep the floor, dust, etc. Much better.

Some knowing friends and family might say, what’s to let slide? Pay them no mind.

Any time of year, it’s more fun to poke about the River Valley than clean the house — not muck-raking exactly, but figuring out what’s going on here and there. A perfect example is what is going up or in on the eight acres where once we parked and watched movies. Rumor has it there’s mining for gravel and, still to come, a garage to shelter those big yellow trucks.

Then there’s the new fencing down around the old Puiia’s lot at the foot of Falls Hill. Are we going to see a new structure for a new use there? A restaurant maybe?

Rumford’s Code Enforcement Officer Rick Kent suggested the fencing might have to do with safety concerns, not a new enterprise. Shucks.

Speaking of enterprise, hard on the heels of the winter sand removal on our once-country road came the crew to patch frost heaves and other faults. Andy Russell told me that repairs to pavement are done with “cold patch.” Some people believe that the crew carries the cold patch in a strictly limited number of 2-pound coffee cans. Who knows how the crew decides which cracks and holes to fill?

Face it, in thee best of economic times, there are just so many coffee cans full of cold patch. You just can’t patch ’em all. Oh no, Andy Russell said. Don’t be too had on me!

Thank you, Leslie Skibitsky! Two weeks ago, Valley Voices reported that the town owns Hosmer Field in Rumford and the school district pays for its use. Not so in Dixfield, it read.

It read wrong. Leslie Skibitsky, husband of the Dixfield town manager and a former director of SAD 21, wrote in an email: “The school owns the field at the middle school and a practice field at the high school, as well as a new one behind the RSU offices. But Harlow Park (where they play soccer, football, baseball, and field hockey) and Marble Park (the softball field) are owned by the town.”

Andover Old Home Days

It’s hard to remember that Andover’s population is in the 100s when the crowds gather for the annual parade. And while the parade comes along, candy flying, firetrucks from all over the River Valley tooting their horns, and homegrown floats, it’s well nigh impossible to brood over drought and famine, wars, Congress. No, the Andover Old Home Days parade and the fried clams to follow is time off from trouble.

Linda Farr Macgregor is a freelance writer; contact her: [email protected]