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By the way for Oct. 29

When we change the clocks early this coming Sunday morning you may wish to “Fall Forward” and get this year over with, but resist that temptation, “Fall Back” and set your clock back an hour before retiring for the night Saturday evening. Daylight Savings Time ends at 2 a.m. on Nov. 1. Enjoy the extra hour of sleep — you deserve it.
The Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh will be open weekends from Oct. 31 to Dec. 6. The museum’s regular season ended Oct. 25, with a closing reception for the seasonal exhibit “Mending Fences: New Works by Carol MacDonald.” However, with COVID-19 having prevented the museum from opening in May, Rokeby officials decided to keep the facility open on weekends a little later in the season. Visitors can view the current exhibit “Free & Safe,” tour the farm’s outbuildings, and explore trails on the 90-acre site. Admission to Rokeby is free for members. For non-members it is $10 for adults, $9 for seniors, $8 for students and children over 5, and free for children 4 and under. And here’s another neat way to support the museum: John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” is taking his show’s unusual collection of art on tour and the Rokeby Museum wants to host it. In addition to picking five museums to display their art, the show is offering $10,000 to the selected museums and $10,000 to a local food bank. If awarded, this donation will greatly benefit lost revenue due to COVID-19 in 2020 and will allow Rokeby Museum to have a strong start to the 2021 season. Nominate Rokeby by emailing [email protected]. In your email, please state why you feel Rokeby Museum is deserving of this honor.
You’re invited to participate in the Addison County Relocalization Network’s (ACORN) 2020 Local Food Survey, which will help the nonprofit better understand local food access trends in the Champlain Valley — particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your input will help ACORN build programs that support area farmers and food producers, and ensure access to healthy food for all members of the community. This survey is voluntary and confidential, and takes around five minutes to complete. The deadline to fill it out is end of day Monday, Nov. 2. Here’s the link: tinyurl.com/yy98qqs6.
Speaking of free, anonymous surveys of Addison County residents, a Middlebury College Biochemistry class is hoping to answer local questions on COVID-19 — how it works, how to avoid it, what you worry about … that kind of thing. Take the 5-minute survey at tinyurl.com/MiddleburyCOVIDsurvey.
Way to go, residents of the 5-Town Area. On Saturday, Oct. 24, the communities of Bristol, Lincoln, Monkton, New Haven and Starksboro answered the call and donated a whopping 5,924 pounds of food during the latest annual drive organized by their local fire departments. In addition to the food, donors contributed $3,175 to help neighbors finding it particularly tough to afford meals during the global pandemic. This year’s harvest represented an increase over last year, when 4,700 pounds of food and $2,100 in donations were collected.
For the most part, Middlebury College students are setting the gold standard for COVID-19 compliance, according to Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley. As of Oct. 27, around 10,000 COVID tests had been administered on campus, with no new cases of COVID (beyond the total of four that were recorded right after the institution reopened in September). Hanley noted Middlebury College is committed to avoiding the kind of outbreak that occurred recently at St. Michaels College, where 28 cases were recorded. At this point, 27 Middlebury students have been removed from campus for pandemic-related violations, according to Hanley. “In the St. Michael’s College case, it appears that the outbreak spread through normal, within-the-rules gatherings,” Hanley said. “Just an example of how easy the infection can spread.”
A state of Vermont grant program can help if you’ve fallen behind on your utility bills due to the pandemic. So far, about 5,000 Vermonters have received this free help in paying past due electricity, telephone, water and natural gas balances. The deadline to apply is Nov. 30, and the program is first come, first served — so if the money runs out, it will close even sooner. This grant program is for both business and residential customers. You can learn the details to see if you qualify for the Vermont COVID-19 Arrearage Assistance Program online at publicservice.vermont.gov. 
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department says hunters harvested 40 moose in this year’s regulated moose hunting seasons that were limited to Vermont’s Wildlife Management Unit E in the northeastern corner of the state. The season was intended to reduce the impact of winter ticks on the moose population. All six of the moose harvested in the Oct. 1-7 archery season were bulls. Twenty-nine of the moose harvested in the October 17-22 regular season were bulls, and five were cows. The overall hunter success rate was 73%, with 55% success during the archery season and 77% during the regular season. The Fish and Wildlife Department partnered with University of Vermont researchers to conduct a study of moose health and survival in WMU E. The results of this study, in which 126 moose (36 cows, 90 calves) were fitted with GPS tracking collars, showed that chronic high winter tick loads have caused the health of moose in that part of the state to be very poor. Survival of adult moose remained relatively good, but birth rates were very low, and less than half of the calves survived their first winter.
HBO Max on Thanksgiving will air the first three episodes of a miniseries based on Addison County author Chris Bohjalian’s 2018 novel “The Flight Attendant.” Per TV Line: “A story of how an entire life can change in one night, ‘The Flight Attendant’ follows ‘Big Bang Theory’ alum Kaley Cuoco’s titular Cassandra Bowden, who wakes up hungover in a Dubai hotel room … with a dead body next to her, and no idea what happened. Instead of informing the police, she joins her fellow crew members on a flight to New York City, where she is met by FBI agents with a few questions about her recent layover. Unable to piece together what happened, Cassandra begins to suspect that she might be the killer.” Find the trailer at: tinyurl.com/y6qwhhlh.

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