The first day of spring, 2016, has been pretty nice here at Joe's Pond.  There is no snow, but plenty of ice on the pond, very little mud (but that could still change!), we had lots of sun but chilly temperatures.  Considering that it's still March, we can't complain.  I finally have daffodils poking through the leaves I mulched them with last fall.  Some were up five or six inches, but others haven't shown up at all yet.  I was going to take in my snow measuring pole from the back yard, but Fred warned me we might still have snow to measure, so I left it.  The deepest the snow got all winter at the measuring pole was eight inches and that was on Jan. 18.  I remember one year I'd only marked off the inches up to four feet and I think we may have topped that.  I now have the pole marked to five feet - like we'll ever see that much snow again with global warming!

We didn't walk up Jamie and Marie's hill today; instead, we walked on the road.  I think in some ways that's more of a workout than climbing the hill.  Even though we only went to Deeper Ruts Road, I was still glad to get back home.  We were actually looking for pussywillows, but didn't find any that were easy to reach on the roadside.  We have some by our mailbox and I'll cut some of them in a day or so.  I like to have a few each year.  They are such a nice sign of spring.

Another sign of spring was our neighbor working on his driveway, smoothing out the ruts and ridges left from winter driving and plowing.  His horses were intent on watching him and paid no attention to us at all.

 
The little brook that crosses under West Shore Road a little before Deeper Ruts Road was running much lower than usual for this time of year.  There is still some ice, but I was surprised there was so little water.  With no snow to melt, we may actually find water levels down everywhere this summer unless we get some soaking rain.  The storm that is headed for some of the coastal areas of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine is going to miss us, according to the forecast we saw tonight.  I don't think we'll throw away our snow shovels just yet, but if this kind of weather repeats itself next winter, we might have to say goodbye to lots of winter sports.

The ice is holding up pretty well.  We're thinking it will hold until after April 1st after all, but that's still just a guess.  There are still some folks who are skeptical.  The only thing we know for sure is that there's nothing "normal" about this year so we have to be prepared for anything.  Happy Spring!