I took some pictures on my way to and from Cabot this morning. I was glad I went early because the road was a bit muddy right in front of the Cabot Plains School, and I imagine if I'd waited until this afternoon it might have been much worse. We had bright sunshine here on the hill this morning, but the fog was laying low on the ice of the pond, and when I descended into Cabot Village, I went through a real pea soup fog from the Burt farm where the beef critters are, to about the top of Bond Hill. The village itself was free of fog, but the sun hadn't filtered through that layer of dense fog above it.

I couldn't resist taking the picture of these two guys basking in the sun next to the barn at the Burt farm as I was returning home. They paid very little attention to me. I guess they're pretty used to traffic going by. The rest of the herd was across the road in the big field, upper picture.

Ticket sales for the Ice Out Contest are closed as of yesterday, but we still have work to do. I went to Harry's True Value Hardware in Cabot early this morning and picked up tickets. Walt Ackermann sold every ticket he had this year. He said he was surprised because until the last couple of days before the contest closed, ticket sales had been way slower than last year. He sold about double what he did last year. Folks are beginning to catch on that tickets are available there, I guess.

As soon as I got back home, we had a quick breakfast and headed for St. Johnsbury. As we drove along West Shore Road, I noticed the fog hadn't entirely lifted off the pond, and took this picture of the narrows going into the middle pond. You can see the ice in the big pond is intact. It melted quite a bit today, though, and when we came back around noon, we noticed there is open water stretching about 1/3 of the way down the smallest pond towards the bridge and a good stretch open in the middle pond, but not much water is showing around the shoreline.

I picked up tickets at St. Jay Hardware, Caplans, Thurston Auto, and on the way home, Marty's 1st Stop. I also met daughter-in-law, Theresa, who had tickets Bob had sold. We had pre-arranged to meet at White's Market where we both shop on Thursdays. Bob had the day off and went skiing at Killington. He said reports have it the snow is fading away fast there.

At right I'm picking up tickets at St. Jay Hardware. Owner John Gebbie (camp at 61 Rt. 15) has sold tickets for us for a number of years and always does a great job. Likewise, Dave Caplan (190 Island Drive) and his staff do a great job of selling tickets. That was my next stop. Then I went to Thurston Auto. Ernie (19 Point Comfort Rd) isn't back from Florida, but he sold quite a few tickets down there. That's me in the bottom picture with son, Bill (Ernie's partner), picking up more tickets from him. This is the usual routine. Diane was busy picking up in the W. Danville area, so I volunteered to stop at Marty's. We've both had some very busy days keeping the outlets supplied and picking up tickets. We won't know for a while if we've topped last year's sales, but we think we did pretty well.

On the way home we were able to open the sun roof for the first time in about six months. The air is still kind of cold, but that vented the car just right and it was really nice to have it open. Sort of like when you can open all the windows in the house for the first time after a long winter. Fred took a picture as we were coming into Danville. You can see that most of the snow near the village is gone, but on the hillsides in the distance, even the southeast slopes still have snow, especially in the woods. A few more days like today will make a big difference, though. We noticed a tinge of green along the roadsides, especially in St. Johnsbury. That's always encouraging. I think spring is finally here.

Having picked up all those tickets, I spent most of the afternoon counting and putting them in order. As I was working, Don and Audrey Walker stopped by to leave off what he'd collected in the Montpelier area. They stayed and chatted for a while which gave me a pleasant break from counting. Both are well and looking forward to getting back to camp (on West Shore Road) and hopefully, good weather this summer. Don plays golf and tennis, and Audrey told me she swims every day. That's what keeps them looking and feeling so good, I'm sure.