Fred reminded me this morning (and also last night!) that I promised a slide show that I'd never produced. I got busy with Easter preparations and working on the JPA newsletter and the slide show completely slipped my mind. So, here it is - while I was checking at the Danville town offices for any property changes around the pond, Fred took a stroll around town and took pictures: Danville Village

By the way, I didn't know who Thaddeus Stevens was, and if you don't either, here's a link that tells a little about him:Thaddeus Stevens

We have a lovely day here - sunny but cool. It seems we aren't getting any exceptionally warm weather or rain for the next week or so, at least. That can be very good for the roads and also keep the probability of flooding down. Everything will melt very gradually, as it has been doing for the past several days, and I predict that the ice will just sort of go all at once. Without torrents of warm water rushing into the pond, it may be more of a gradual over-all meltdown. Not that it will make much difference in when the block goes down and stops the contest clock - that will still happen on a schedule all its own.

Speaking of the contest - we've been in touch with Karl, our data manager, and he was about half way through the about 12,000 tickets sold this year. He has two part-time helpers, and they are working pretty steadily to get the job done. Diane Rossi and I were wondering if we would eventually need to change the cut-off date for accepting tickets from April 1 to an earlier date, some time in March. If global warming actually begins to affect us here at Joe's Pond, we may need to do that to give our people time to get everything logged in before the clock stops. I don't think the ice is going out earlier than usual this year, but it seems as if something strange is going on weatherwise that's impacting other parts of the country. We're fortunate in many respects, to be living here in the northeast.

I probably will give everyone a break from the blog until next week, so I'll wish everyone a very nice Easter, and unless there's very exciting news, will plan not to blog again until Monday. I need to attend to Easter dinner preparations. We'll have all our family and at least one of our neighbors with us on Sunday. I hope you'll be with family and/or friends, as well. Enjoy, and check in on Monday.