Well, I hope you haven't had too many pranksters pulling April Fool's Day jokes on you today. I almost got caught when I read in my Hardwick Gazette that Tiger Woods had sneaked up to play golf at the Greensboro Country Club "to get away from the media" . . . it sounded perfectly logical to me, even to his landing at the Morrisville airport in his private jet. There even was a picture of Tiger giving some of the locals putting pointers. Finally, I checked the date line on the page I was reading, and of course, it was "April 1, 2010." The Gazette is published on Wednesdays . . . Not only that, but I've been fooled by them before, so I should have known.

This is a picture of our lower lawn - NO SNOW! Way down next to the tree line and under the little apple tree beside the round cedar is where the deer come to feed and play every evening just as it's getting dark.

We walked down to check the water level at Walter's this afternoon. Looks like it's up about four inches, but the next couple of days should finish off the snow in the surrounding wooded hillsides so the worst will be over. The ice is getting pretty dark and has pulled away from the shoreline in most places. Tomorrow and Saturday will do a lot to finish it off. We're expecting temperatures higher than we normally have most summers. I guess we'll just have to sit back and enjoy having a sunny, warm, mud-free Easter weekend.

We took some pictures and I've put them into a slide show. At the end you'll see a comparison shot of the upper end of the pond - can't wait until I'm showing you open water in back of those islands!

We're heading out pretty early tomorrow to pick up all the ice out tickets and to do our shopping in St. Johnsbury. Bill and Diane Rossi are doing the same in the Barre area. This finishes up our Ice-Out ticket sales for this year. It's been a good run, we think - still lots of tickets out there that will be coming in the mail in the next few days, so we'll be checking postal dates. We should have a final tally of the number sold soon. Here are today's pictures: Slides