I've been getting the 2017 Ice-Out tickets ready to distribute to our JPA members at the spring meeting, and worked on them this morning, counting them and stuffing envelopes.  As soon as I had finished labeling the envelopes so the box was nearly empty, Woody got up to investigate.  He stepped into the box and sat for quite a long time watching me work, but that apparently exhausted him, so somehow he got all his loose ends, including that tail,tucked in and went to sleep in the box.  He's a pretty big cat to fit in a standard envelope box, but somehow he made it happen!

We apparently have a pair of resident ducks at our house.  These two were in our driveway yesterday and this morning our daughter-in-law, Marie, spotted them on our lower lawn.  There isn't any open water around our house, so I'm surprised they are hanging out here; they seem to be looking for a place to build their nest.  It's a mystery to me why they'd pick here - we don't have any bird feeders out for them to raid or anything like that.  I hope they move on and find a more suitable spot.

Marie also found a large mound of bear skat in the middle of the road below our house.  She said the crows were having a picnic and when she came back a little later, it was well scattered.  We haven't seen any bears yet this spring, but apparently they're moving about. Now I wonder if it was the crows or the bear that left nothing but feathers from that unfortunate partridge that hit our window.  I found the feathers today when I was above our house on the woods path.  I was surprised there was nothing but feathers - I expected there might be more remnants, but probably animals other than crows found it, too.  All living things have to eat to live, and it's good that nature for the most part keeps things neat and tidy.  

I learned from Ray Rouleau yesterday that there has been some damage to waterfronts during the winter.  His took quite a beating, and he was re-doing the steps and will need some repairs to the wall the whole length of his lawn.  He said others on the west shore have had damage, too.  There was a large timber floating in the water in our boat house - I expect Jamie and Bob removed it today when they were working at camp, but if you are missing one, it may be at the Dimick camp.  Diane Rossi said they have some damage, too.  The ice must have moved more than we thought and caused the damage.  It's a little unusual to have wind force the ice onto that shore in the spring, but it does happen.  We haven't had enough snow or rain to create high water to do any damage, so it had to be the ice. 

I've just had a message from Helen Morrison, who volunteers at the Kingdom Animal Shelter in St. Johnsbury:
A huge thank you to all who attended Steve Cobb's Benefit Dinner at the Danville Inn for Kingdom Animal Shelter on April 24.   We took in $2100 for the kitties at the Shelter.

We are glad the dinner was such a success.