From Joe's Pond in the North Country -

I had an e-mail this morning from one of our members living in Florida saying she'd heard we have lots of snow this year. Indeed we do. Not like some of the western states, but certainly what we've had this year tops anything we've had for a while, and it's still snowing lightly this afternoon. Fred is out snow blowing the driveways, but we know he'll have to be out there again in the morning because tonight the wind is going to pick up and there will no doubt be some drifts to get through.

Fred took some pictures this morning. I'm not sure why he took the one of the wood in storage in the garage - perhaps so we'll know in the spring how much we had around the end of February. I'll have to ask him about that. We still have March and probably a good bit of April to get through before we can begin to let the fire go out during the daytime, so we're glad to have plenty of wood. The pile out in the back hasn't seasoned yet, and besides, it's under four feet of snow . . . I think we have plenty to last through the winter, but Fred worries about it some.

I hadn't mentioned it before, but about two weeks ago, Fred mashed his left index finger with the splitting mall. Broke it, and there's a pretty good gash. He has a neat little cast on it, and it's coming along fine, the gash is nearly healed. It hasn't slowed him down at all, and so far he hasn't banged it again doing any of the chores around here - but he said he isn't splitting any more wood for a while, we'll burn it as is.

The other pictures are self-explanatory. Except the guy in the Jeep. That's our neighbor, John Randall, up for a few days from Long Island. John was out and about today, enjoying the snow.

We think the snow is winding down, but we're in for a cold night. Tomorrow is going to be sunny and cold for our weekly trip into town for groceries and to check Ice-Out ticket supplies in the St. Johnsbury outlets. Right now the hot topic of conversation, of course, is town meeting. The town reports are out and folks are thinking about how their town is spending too much money and how much their taxes will go up if something doesn't change. After next Tuesday, the conversations will probably switch back to the weather and sugaring, and when the ice is going out. Once we get into March, the weather will take a sharp turn towards spring. Already the sun, when it's out, is noticeably warmer, and we're bound to see some of this snow begin to melt in a few weeks.

By the way, you should check the new Cabot Chronicle web site. There is a printed newspaper and this really nice web site that is growing and changing daily. Launch date for the newspaper is about March 1. Cabot Chronicle