It is really an interesting scene to live at the end of the Cabot Parade route.

People started showing up at 10 and kept coming for an hour.  They blew the fire siren once for the start of the parade.  Steph and I were cleaning house and working, the girls were off playing and Errol was puttering around entertaining himself.  When I heard the parade arriving Errol and I walked out and watched.

First came the color guard with a drummer.  They kept a brisk pace and marched straight through town.  Two Walden fire trucks followed them.  The passenger was throwing candy and came right up the line towards Errol but the road curved and she didn’t throw candy at only us.  Throwing candy for kids during parades is quite a strange thing.

The next group was Bread and Puppet and they are S L O W.  They weren’t even half way here from the green.  Errol and I came back inside and went back to what we were doing.  Eventually I heard them coming and we went back out.

This year they have a ‘ship’, a large wrap that could contain about 150 people. Today they had about 40.  At Hardwick’s parade they had only eight!  Errol and I got there for the die-in.  Soon they got up and came past.  Meredith played trumpet in the band.  Errol was quite rapt with their stuff.

Meredith Kate and Paul were there handing out plants. We saw tractors and fire trucks and Errol was very pleased.  After the parade when the hordes of people were streaming up the road to the rec field we went back in for a while.

It was almost 12 noon!  We had to deliver the cupcakes!  I went over and found Audrey and we went and got the cupcakes and took them over.  Ours wound up being first in line and they were the best decorated.

About an hour later I went to retrieve our baking sheets and there was only one left. And in the time it took for me to talk to them, the last one disappeared!  I saw Erik M-H, and Clara and Karen, later I saw Tim.  Erik has been too busy to be on the radio.

I went back and got Errol and we went out I thought he’d be interested in the Fire Engine, Ambulance and Rescue Truck, but no, the mini bounce house with slide was all he really wanted.  Lars was operating the bounce event so we talked while Errol ran in circles: climbing into the bounce, making it through the obstacle course and finally to what he was there for, the slide.  He was a happy dude.

I tried the hammer bell and made it to 1600.  Errol played with the boat game.  We walked across the way to see the saw and axe exhibit.  Last year it was a drag of tractors.  We went home and got in #9 pond.  The water was clear and clean, cold at first but warming quickly.

At about 4 PM, right when they were getting the last of the stuff off the field, the thunderstorm hit.  It rained a large volume for about 45 minutes and the creek filled up all the way across.  The fast running brown water smelled like earthen clay.  Steph had the last blueberry nestled in an eddy in the creek and I told her to leave it.  Well the water rose so much it got swept away.  The last of our $100 blueberries.