Jill-of-all-Trades

Hardware and how-to

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The other day, a friend said to me, “I know this might sound silly, but could you teach me how to attach two boards together?” She wants to build a bookshelf eventually, but needs to start at the beginning. I started to answer quickly and then stopped, recognizing that it wasn’t a silly question at all and I needed to think through how I would teach what exactly goes into attaching one board to another. I can do it without thinking on my own, but I’m fluent in hardware. Her question asked me to go back to the nuts and bolts of building.

Animal Talk

Heartworm prevention is a must

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In my last column, I covered the many options for flea and tick prevention. Heartworm disease is becoming more common in New England. We are not only seeing a lot of dogs coming from the southern US, where heartworms are endemic, but we also see many home-grown heartworm cases. Annual prevention is a fraction of the cost of treatment—and treatment is painful and can be dangerous in certain cases.

People

End of an era as director of public works retires

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You can’t be much more of a native than to be born in a town and to live there all your life, but that is the case for retiring Director of Public Works Kirk Severance. His childhood education, grades 1–12, was right here, as were many of his early jobs. For the rest of his education, he never got far from home, taking classes at the University of Connecticut Transportation Institute and engineering and management classes at the University of Hartford.