In 2000, the census return rate for Trumansburg was 80 percent.

“Eat 6 wings in 5 minutes + wait 5 minutes + no napkins = Free pitcher of beer. Being the talk of the town Priceless!”

You can see the talk of the town for yourself in this video:

As someone who tried, and failed, to sell his home last year, I offer my sincere best wishes to anyone who is trying to sell a house these days. Those wishes come with a big dose of skepticism, however.

It will take more than a video gimmick to sell a house in current economic conditions. The following YouTube video has been online for four days, and in all that time, it’s had only one visitor – and that visitor was me.

I’ll say this in favor of the house on Cayuga Street: Trumansburg is a great place to live, and the people on Cayuga Street are great neighbors. Buying that house, you’ll be getting a heck of a lot more than the “simple country pleasures” promised in the video. Perhaps if the video connected the house to the considerable strengths of Trumansburg’s community, it might be more successful.

Please go and vote for our Farmers market. We may not have a population as large as Ithaca or other nearby cities, but we’ve got a big number of dedicated people here in Tburg. So far, the Trumansburg Farmers Market has eight votes. I know that the market has many more supporters than that.

Here’s what I wrote along with my vote:

“Here in Trumansburg, we’ve lost the supermarket in our downtown village area, and so, without the Trumansburg Farmer’s Market, we wouldn’t have a walkable source of fruits and vegetables. Once a week, people from Trumansburg wander on down to the park, and they do more than just shop. They meet and talk with each other in a common space where their kids can play and enjoy live music. The Trumansburg Farmers Market doesn’t just give Trumansburg a source of healthy food. It also gives us a tool for building a healthy community.”

Peter McCracken wrote:

“The Tburg market is simply the best. Great food from Simply Red, live music from local artists, all kinds of different foodstuffs — honey, goat, cinnamon buns, fruits and veggies — plus crafts, neighbors, and all kinds of other wonderfulness. I love it. My son always sees friends he knows (as do I, for that matter), and it’s just a great environment. It’s a great place to see new businesses forming, and watch others grow. And this year there’s both wine and ice cream! Can’t beat that.”

Margaret Shepard wrote:

“The market is small enough to have a true community feel, but big on diversity and quality of farm produce, baked goods, crafts, diner vendors, and musicians. I began selling produce at the Trumansburg Market two years ago and feel at home: the vendors are cooperative rather than competitive, and there’s always a lively two-way exchange of information with customers, many of them serious gardeners. Quite a few kids know good food: they recognize habaneros and serranos, Araucana and Welsumer eggs. How encouraging for the future of local foods!”

Please, add your thoughts.

My favorite Grassroots conversation from this year:

“Hey, man, I’m a friendly guy. I can get you really high.”

“We’re going to have to handcuff you.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m a cool cat.”

Until Monday, Grassrootsters will remain offline, unable to upload. So, for now, the only video footage of Grassroots we have is from the outside, of an ambulance rushing in – an aspect of Grassroots that isn’t so groovy.

If you want to fly, now you know where to look.

Upon looking for information about the village government on the official site, we see that Mayor Petrovic’s photograph is still “coming soon”, two years after he was first elected. The site informs us that Petrovic’s current term expires in 2008.

There hasn’t been anything listed on the Village calendar of “events and meetings” since May 9. Any residents looking for information about upcoming activities of their local government will find nothing, for the rest of the year’s calendar.

Minutes of the meetings of the Board of Trustees have not been updated since November 2007.

According to the Tompkins County Board of Elections, there isn’t a single Village position up for election this year. It shows.

The cushion is getting thin.

That’s all well and good. I would think that a smart inkeeper would be friendly to all sorts of people, regardless of exactly they might prefer to do under a quilt on an old oak frame bed.

But, what about the other Bed and Breakfast Inns in Trumansburg? Are we to believe that they are not gay and lesbian friendly? There’s one other B&B from Trumansburg recently listed in the BnBFinder, and though I’ve never asked specifically, I have no reason to think that it’s an unreceptive to gays and lesbians. For that matter, I can’t think of a B&B in Trumansburg that would be. As small villages go, we’re a fairly GLBT friendly place.

This oddly-selective listing makes me wonder how useful sites like BnBFinder really are for finding a place that’s going to meet specific needs. How did the Halsey House get listed in that category, when other Bread and Breakfasts weren’t? Did it just have to claim to be gay and lesbian friendly, or was it put to the test?

It all seems rather arbitrary, and in the arena of searching for a place to stay for the night in an unfamiliar town, arbitrary is not a good thing. If BnBFinder is going to have a category like Gay and Lesbian Friendly Accomodations, it ought to be sure that its people have comprehensively studied the towns it claims to be familiar with, and actually know which ones are friendly and which ones are unfriendly. Otherwise, it’s little more than an online version of the Yellow Pages, where people don’t even expect the information to be reliable.

It’s easy making friends here in Trumansburg.
The party never ends here in Trumansburg.
There’s very little work, and lots of time to play,
so we all hang around and play happy all day.