June 25, 1974
Dear Mom, Dad, Roberta, John, and Mary,
Hi! Thanks for your last letter. You left us in suspense as to what happened to Dad, John, and the truck.
We have had quite a bit of damp weather (in fact, it's raining right now) but we are making very slow progress on the house. It is taking quite a bit longer to get the forms ready for the foundation that we had thought. They are going to be four feet deep and 16" wide which is quite alot of cement so we want to make sure the forms are well braced. It would be quite a mess if the forms don't hold. We will be pouring it in two sections.
I probably mentioned in my last letter that David Stone [friend from college] is here. He is really a big help. If I were the only one helping X things would be moving even slower. We also have another friend here in Sanford who has been coming up one or two mornings a week and helping us.
We started a book sale at the library yesterday. We had about 1200 books which had been discarded during the past six months which we are trying to sell for 10¢ each. So far we've made almost $40.00 And for every 10 books you buy you get one free. Shall I save you some?
I read "Malabar Farm" [by Louis Bromfield written in 1940s about an organic farm in Ohio, Malabar Farm State Park is in Lucas, Ohio, SW of Wooster] I would have enjoyed going there. Have you read any of his novels? I think I read "The Green Bay Tree." The scene alternated in it between urban Ohio and Paris.
Did I tell you that Sanford has a new discount department store? It is where the Giant store used to be. Ames [company founded in 1959 in Connecticut, became defunct in 2002] is the name of it and it seems to be quite a bit nicer than Giant but perhaps that is an unfair comparison because we only saw Giant in its dying days. I have only been in Ames once briefly so I can't tell you if they have any Wells products. I'll try to make it a point to check the next time. I think they are centered in Massachusetts. I do know that this is their first store in Maine.
I made a new couch cover out of pieces of old towels cut into 12" squares. One of our puppies developed a real taste for the old cover and it was ruined before we were even aware what was going on. You can tell Grandma her sewing machine got a real work-out as it seemed to take me hours and hours to get it done. At least it helped to reduce our supply of old towels.
Alot of people do grow strawberries here. I know of two places where you can go and pay to pick them and there are plenty of wild ones. Last year I must have picked quite a few quarts of wild ones but this year for some reason I just haven't had time. The season here is just now beginning and will probably peak in another two weeks. And then comes the blueberry season which is real big thing. I don't think there is anything much better tasting than fresh blueberries and yogurt.
It's getting late and I'm going to have to get up early in the morning so as to wake everybody else up so we can go to work on those forms somemore [sic]. that is assuming that it quits raining by then.
Write again soon! I don't guarantee that you will too much from us during July but I'll do my best.
Love, Catherine & X
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