This picture shows how ice was harvested in Joe's Pond years ago. Courtesy Jane Larrabee.
(Click on photo to enlarge.)

Happy March!

This is just a reminder that spring is just around the corner (hard to imagine this morning as the thermometer hovers barely above zero and the wind chill is well below zero), but there are only four weeks and a few days until April 1 when the Ice-Out Contest at Joe's Pond will close. If you don't have Ice-Out tickets yet, or if you have them but simply haven't turned them in (with $1.00 for each, please), it's definitely time to start your selection process. Tickets are available now, but they are beginning to go fast, so be sure not to wait until the last minute. Ask any Joe's Pond Association member and they'll tell you tickets can become scarce as hen's teeth along about the last week of March.

Tips on how to choose a date and time: During these last weeks before the contest closes, serious contestants take into account factors such as recent weather patterns, daily temperature readings, snowmobile traffic, ice-fishing activity, snow depth (hardly any!), wind velocity, global positioning and alignment of the stars, or sometimes personal birthdays or anniversaries. Another aid in your choice of day and time is on the Joe's Pond web site where you'll find a complete list of official dates the ice went out from the beginning of the contest in 1988. Click on "Ice-Out Contest" on the bar at the top of the home page and scroll down for that list. You may discover there's a pattern beginning to show after all these years. Caution: Some of you folks who aren't familiar with Vermont winters may have chosen a date that's already gone by, like March 1st or February 28. In that case, you'll want to fill out another ticket right away and send it with your $1.00 to: JPA, PO Box 111, West Danville VT 05873. Or better yet, cover more possibilities and submit a bunch of tickets for different times and dates. Remember, the more tickets sold, the bigger your check will be if you're the winner!

Ice-Out Contest tickets are available at Hasting's Store (see link on our web site) or Joe's Pond Country Store in West Danville, Marty's 1st Stop in Danville, Barre Optical or Dente's Market in Barre, any member of the Joe's Pond Association, or contact me, janebrown@pivot.net and I'll see that you get however many you need.

Tickets must be in by April 1, so it's time to get serious!

P.S. - If you are interested in how the contest in Goshen, MA is progressing, go to their web site, www.egoshen.com. I've just received an interesting newsletter from Bob Labrie about their "2006 Meltdown", and if you'd like to see it, contact him at bslabrie@msn.com.