Another sunny day, and today was warmer - not toasty, and pretty windy, but not the biting wind we've been having. Tomorrow is supposed to get warmer.

I went to Lyndonville to have lunch with an school friend from my Cabot High days. She gave me a couple of photos of us taken way long ago, and we had a good laugh. And no, I'm not going to post them! On the way home, mid afternoon, I stopped at the store to pick up the mail. Things were quiet there, just Garey in the post office and Jane in the store. Jane and I were saying it won't be long before many of you will be back at the pond. She said a few folks are already back - Pam and Joe Hebert are here, but she couldn't think who else. Things will get lively once people come back.

Diane Rossi had knee surgery Monday and is doing fine. Bill expects to bring her home from Dartmouth Hitchcock tomorrow. She planned it so her surgery would be after the Ice-Out crush, and I thank her for that! She's expecting she won't be too limited in what she can do, and it will be a relief not to have that knee bothering.

Henretta Splain called this morning saying she believes she spotted a bobcat on her lawn. She was concerned for Woody, our cat. He was outside at the time, but reappeared shortly after her call, safe and sound. Bobcats are a real threat to small animals and birds, but don't usually bother humans, according to what I've read. We know they are around - Ray Richer has gotten some wonderful photos of them.

I took some pictures of the pond to let you know how our ice is melting. The next few days will take a toll, I'm sure. The first pond is open all the way to the dam, but the ice is still pretty solid by the dock area at Point Comfort. You can see it's gone along the beach area, though.

The middle pond isn't quite free all the way from one narrows to the other, but it's close. There are spots of water here and there. I took the picture from Rt. 2 at Point Comfort Rd. I was thinking I'd go down to the fishing access to get a good picture of the flag, but I knew it would be muddy there and I decided to stop at our camp on W. Shore Rd. and try to get a picture from there with some zoom. You can see the ice is solid as can be. The flag is a little hard to see, but if you click ont he picture you will see it okay.

Shortly after I got home, Fred spotted a couple of ice fishermen in back of the big island again. They are out there nearly every day. I would be a bit worried about the ice, but they must know it's safe, although sometimes there are thin spots where you don't expect them to be. The ice is beginning to darken now, and the channel at the north end of the lake is well opened. We can see quite a way up into the head of the pond area and there seems to be the usual high water there that happens every year as the channel overflows its banks. There were some geese overhead as Fred was taking the picture of the fishermen.

So far our roads have been very good - at least West Shore Road out to Rt. 2, and Brickett's Crossing Road to Rt. 215 are ok. They are rough with pot holes and washboard, but Cabot has put crushed rock or gravel in spots that were getting bad, so it's much better than some years - so far. I haven't heard how other roads around the pond are, but I expect they are pretty good, too. Some years we luck out.

Tomorrow, if the weather is as nice as it's been today, I plan to get outside for some cleanup work on the lawn. Winter always makes a mess of things, especially where our wood piles have been. It's usually too darned cold - or snowy - to bother cleaning up after the last delivery of wood each fall, so we have that to look forward to in the spring. We don't rake leaves. We leave them and mulch them into the lawn with the lawn mower. We do try to repair where the moles or voles or whatever have burrowed and left mounds of dirt, and even with Woody on the job, they make a mess of things every year. We're beginning to see sprouts of green here and there, though, and that inspires me to get started with spring work.