It’s Really a Bazaar

The final winter market brought many vendors and visitors to the high school’s Agriscience Center on February 9, and as usual the affair was more of a bazaar than a farm market. Only two farms were selling vegetables: Suffield’s Simpaug and Enfield’s Easy Pickin’s.

Power Outage Handled Well

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, January 29, a driver on Mountain Road dozed, ran his SUV off the road, and broke a utility pole just east of the entrance to Park View Glen, across from Suffield Middle School. He was injured and transported to a hospital.

Fitness Studio Relocates

Hits & Kicks, a Suffield physical fitness studio that specializes in boxing and kick-boxing, has moved to a new, more visible, location in the old CVS plaza between Zantos and Hair Unlimited. The vigorous training is provided by skilled instructors in scheduled, unisex classes.

Ice Harvest Demonstrated

Each year, when the weather permits, Dennis Picard holds a public demonstration of ice harvesting at the Noble & Cooley mill pond in Granville, just north of North Granby. This year the weather on February 2 was great, the ice was clear and over a foot thick, and appreciative visitors enjoyed the demonstration and explanations by Picard, a knowledgeable historian and former director of the Storrowton Village Museum at the Big E.

Many onlookers each year accept the invitation to take hold of one of Picard’s ice saws and learn how to cut the long slices of ice which can then be split into chunks, floated off, and lifted out with big iron tongs.

Library Work Enters Home Stretch

Interior painting at the library, which had begun with the new year, was completed in short order. Then the library rested for a few days with the external heaters removed and the new HVAC system operating normally, and on January 23, the required air quality tests were run.

Aces High Prepares

In mid-February, the enthusiastic team members of Aces High were spending most evenings in the Windsor Locks High School shop rooms, manufacturing and assembling the parts they have designed (and often redesigned) for the robot they plan to enter in FIRST Robotics Competition this year. As reported in last month’s Observer, they learned the details of this year’s game, called Deep Space, on January 5 and immediately began to plan their strategy and design their machine and its programming.

Roses Forced at SHS

Remember the Observer’s past story about turf being greened in February in one of Goodyear Nursery’s greenhouses? The turf was used in the annual Flower & Garden Show at the Connecticut Convention Center.

Activity on South Street

When a new building is constructed, it always seems to be a long wait after the exterior appears complete before the whole job is finished, and for two projects near the airport on South Street (Route 75) that has been the case. Now one of the buildings is actually in use, and construction on the other has resumed after a long period of inactivity.

Town Staff Returns, Town Hall Planning Continues

In early December, Finance Director Debbie Cerrato and her staff moved back to the Town Hall from their temporary quarters at 230 Mountain Road, the commercial office building that has been the home of several Town departments in anticipation that the old Town Hall would soon have to be emptied for renovation or demolition. The Finance staff were not the only returnees; the First Selectman and her staff, along with the Human Resources staff, had returned previously.

Another Highway Garage Proposal

At the December 12 selectmen’s meeting, Developer Mark O’Neill, of Hamlet Homes, presented another alternative for a possible relocation of the Town Highway Garage. As reported in the Observer’s December-January issue, three locations have already been considered for the garage, all involving a new or newer building, but most importantly, freeing Ffyler Place from what is considered an impediment to attracting advantageous commercial development there.