Elyse’s Country Journal – October 24, 2013 – HarneyRE – Salisbury, CT

Salisbury and the surrounding communities of northwestern Connecticut offer a wide range of unparalleled opportunities. Please enjoy Elyse’s Country Journal, published weekly on Wednesday. Elyse’s hope is that it will help open up a new perspective of our area.

• Paddle Day will be held at the Grove at Lakeville Lake in Lakeville on Saturday, October 26. Sign-in and registration are from 9 to 9:30 AM. Group lessons are from 9:30 to 11 AM. There will be an equipment review and paddle demo from 11 to 11:30 AM and exhibition matches beginning at 11:30 AM. At noon, there will be a free pizza lunch. There will be tournament players to help with lessons and to play in the exhibition matches. There will be equipment from Peter Becks Village Store for sale. Free and open to all.
• The 11th annual Kitchen Tour to benefit the Housatonic Musical Theater Society will be held Saturday, November 2, from 10 AM to 4 PM. This year’s tour will feature six tour sites in the towns of Kent and Cornwall. Kitchens on the tour will range in style and size to inspire a variety of approaches to the “Heart of the Home.” Proceeds will support the Housatonic Valley Regional High School spring 2014 production, under the direction of Michael Berkeley and Lori Belter. Local caterers and restaurants will offer a sampling of delicacies at each kitchen on the tour. There will also be raffle prizes. Advance ticket buyers will receive two complimentary raffle tickets for the raffle drawings. Tickets for the kitchen tour are $35 in advance and $40 the day of the tour. For information, go to www.hmts.org or call 860-364-6022.
• The Scoville Library in Salisbury and Oblong Books present author Simon Winchester and his newest work, “The Men Who United the States: America’s Explorers, inventors, eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible,” on Sunday, November 3 at 2 PM. Winchester, a resident of the Berkshires, examines America’s most essential explorers, thinkers and innovators, from Lewis and Clark to the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the states has succeeded, and to what degree.