It's a real rainy day here. We think this will slow down the maple sugaring because the temperatures didn't go below freezing last night, and maybe the night before. When we were sugaring on the farm and had a hard rain like this, we'd just toss out whatever was in the buckets because usually it was more water than sap. The covers over the buckets were sort of tent-like, but weren't very effective in a driving rain. We haven't been out on our roads today, so I don't know what effect the rain has had on them, but if we don't get freezing temperatures tonight, I expect the roads will begin to break up seriously, and certainly water from melting snow on the hillsides will begin to pour into the pond. This will help melt the ice - so it's probably really good that Ray got the block and flag contraption out yesterday. He said he has sometimes had to use a plank to get from shore onto the ice, but this year there was solid ice yesterday and almost no melting around the shoreline. That will change rapidly in the next few days, I think.

We know some of you folks in Florida are getting severe thunderstorms, and I don't envy you one bit. We're also watching the giant storms in the mid-western states and the flooding in N. Dakota. I guess there's going to be one big storm right on top of another this week. Wicked weather, in every sense of the word.

We're looking ahead to a great summer, though. Along that line, other folks are planning their vacations, and at least one person is hoping to find rental space at Joe's Pond. He posted a plea on our "comments" page, so if you have space or if you can think of someone who may have, send him an e-mail. Go to www.joespondvermont.com and you'll find the comments on the home page menu, far right. Click there and scroll down to the messages.

I'm getting the newsletter ready to go as soon as we have an Ice-Out Contest winner, so if you have something you'd like me to include, get it to me right away. I have several weddings, births, engagements and deaths, but I only know if the item is in one of the local papers or someone alerts me to the news. The newsletter reaches everyone here at Joe's Pond and some beyond, if they are members of a Joe's Pond family, while the blog reaches only people who use computers. There are lots of our Joe's Ponders who either don't use computers or who rarely check the blog, so they may not know the news that is posted here. On the other hand, there are lots of folks who aren't Joe's Pond members that go to the web site.