The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools PTA Council will hold an informational session on the transfer tax ballot issue on April 23 at 7 p.m. in the media center at Smith Middle School.

The session will include a presentation by county representatives, a question-and-answer session, information regarding how the tax might benefit schools and discussion among participants.

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Margaret Ellen Barrett, age 60, died Friday April 11. She was born on February 15, 1948 in the old Watts Hospital in Durham. She grew up in Chapel Hill and graduated from the Chapel Hill high School in the last class to graduate from the old high school downtown. She attended Brandeis University and later UNC-CH, obtaining first the B.A. and later the M.A.T. degrees. She had a variety of different employments over the years. When the Chapel Hill bus system was begun, she was one of the first bus drivers. Later, she worked as a pastry chef after first training as an apprentice in a small bakery in Lyon, France. For a time, she ran a sewing enterprise with a friend. For the last 20 years, she was employed as a teacher in the English as a Second Language program of the Burlington School System, in the course of which she became very attached to her students and their families.

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Where can you ride the Eggmobile or the Mulchmobile; buy fresh produce, meat and cheese; learn about sustainable farming; or see cows, fainting goats, ducks, llamas, donkeys, sheep and even UNC mascot Rameses? The answer, of course, is the 13th annual Piedmont Farm Tour, sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), on Saturday, April 19, and Sunday, April 20.

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A crew from Moldenhauer Landscaping lowers a cistern into the ground. Photo by Giles Blunden.

By Giles Blunden
Special to The Citizen

As the drought lingers on in North Carolina, there is much discussion about how to more effectively use our water. The reality is that even in a drought year, the Piedmont still got 32 inches of rain. In many parts of the country, this would be considered a huge amount. Los Angeles, for instance, averages about eight inches of rain per year and in a drought year gets four.

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Carolina Brewery took home a few awards from the Hickory Hops Beer Festival in Hickory, North Carolina. The Carolinas Championship of Beer included 120 entries from 30 breweries in the Southeast. Carolina Brewery’s Alter Ego Altbier brew took second place overall. The brewers also snagged gold awards for Alter Ego Altbier and Flagship IPA, silver for Sky Blue Ale and bronze for Copperline Amber Ale and To Hell ‘n’ Bock. The Alter Ego Altbier is described as the “alter ego” of most pale German beers because of its rich and fruity taste.

Carolina Brewery brews its beers at its Franklin Street location and at its new location in Pittsboro.

Here at The Citizen, we often extol the value of a good walk in the woods.

Occasionally the rewards offered by such an endeavor are pleasing to the palate as well, evidenced, we hope, by the lovely bowl of morels pictured at right.

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LAKE LEVELS
University Lake: 0’ 1.25” below full
Cane Creek Reservoir: 7’ 5.5” below full

PRECIPITATION THIS MONTH
Jones Ferry Water Treatment Plant:  2.94”
Cane Creek Reservoir: 2.70”

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