We are planning a large celebration here at the deWitt cottage on October 16th 2022. It will be our annual Fall Barbeque and Oyster Roast. In addition, we will be having a Back Bay Wildfowl Guild homecoming and reunion. The de Witt Cottage will be 127 years old. It will also be the 47th anniversary of the Back Bay Wildfowl Guild and the 27th anniversary of the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum.
The Museum has started its summer schedule and will now be open seven days a week, 10:00am – 5:00pm, Monday through Sunday. We have continued the Antique Decoy display, in our main gallery, on loan from Jimmy and Kelly Coppedge of Virginia Beach and Andrew Bynum of Bloxom, NC. Please come and visit with us!
The garden is just starting to bloom into its full glory. A lot of hard work has been put in by the members of the deWitt Cottage Garden Club. The gardens have been cleaned up, expanded, and had new plants added. If you have any desire to garden, please consider joining the deWitt Cottage Garden Club. It is an opportunity to learn how to garden in a hostile, saltwater environment from Master Gardeners. 
There is a new chainsaw carving addition to our grounds. A Great Horned Owl carved by Scott Kale of Virginia Beach. This item was carved at his Lexington, Virginia mountain cabin; then delivered to the cottage by Parke Atkinson and his “College Hunks”. Here you see Scott adding some finishing touches.
As we come to the end of our fiscal year, June 30, 2022, we anticipate that we will end the period with a little bit of a deficit this year. We were able to pay for and complete the construction of our new Gazebo and it is a direct result of the hard work your Board of Directors has invested. I would like to thank each one of them for their continued support.
If you have not paid your membership dues for 2022, please consider doing so soon. All memberships now run from the date you last paid your dues for 365 consecutive days. For example, if you paid your dues on January 6, 2022, then your dues for 2023 will not be due until January 30, 2023. I promise to help you stay current and in good standing.
