My fears about waking up to new snow this morning were not realized. Instead of more snow, we have a beautiful clear and sunny day with some wind and not too high temperatures. The melting and runoff has slowed a bit, and that's good for everyone. It looked as if there might be a skimming of ice on the channel where the water has overflowed the banks. We had temperatures in the teens last night, so it wouldn't be surprising. I took a picture, but of course can't really tell if it was water or ice early this morning. By now any ice has melted, I'm sure.

Soon after I took the picture of the channel, Fred spotted a fisherman on the ice behind the big island. It would take a lot of courage for me to go out on the ice, but I'm sure because he's been fishing out there all winter, he knows exactly how thick the ice is and obviously isn't worried. Still, we've had lots of water rushing into the pond and that must have worked on the ice from underneath, plus all the rain and warmish weather. I was a little concerned when Fred went out on the ice a little bit yesterday to take pictures of the Ice-Out flag, but he said the ice felt very solid.

I looked out our window the other day and realized we have daffodils up on the south side, so this morning I went out to see just how high they are. Of course they will likely be blanketed with snow at least once more before they are in full bloom, but it was encouraging to see them.

On the front side of the house, also in a raised bed, there are tulips coming up. I don't have lots of them because I've never had good luck keeping the little underground critters from feasting on them during the winter, but a few seem to have survived. The irises are poking out of the ground, too, but they'll take their time to bloom - they aren't as enthusiastic about spring as the daffies and tulips. Most of my flower beds are under 3-4 feet of snow that has accumulated from the snow blower and shoveling off the deck, so they'll show up a little later. I may have flowers from my garden for Easter, though!

I have the scanner going again today. It's a source of great amusement as I listen to the chatter of the road crews. I'm never sure which crews I'm listening to, but sometimes I hear names I know work for Walden or St. J. crews. If the Cabot crew are on, I haven't heard them as far as I know, so my scanner may not be programmed for whatever channel they use.

Today has been fairly quiet on the scanner, but just now I heard someone asking for somebody to come to the aid of someone who "found the only hole we've got on this road and now he's stuck." Sounds like it's one of the town trucks that got in trouble. That driver won't live that down for a while.

Our Cabot trucks have hauled countless loads of gravel to fill the holes along W. Shore Road. We're going to take a walk down that way in a little while to see how it is, but we've had several reports that it's much better than yesterday. We owe them a huge thank you for getting to these spots - I'm sure there are other roads that were/are just as bad, and every town is having the same problems. Trouble is, once one hole gets patched up, one will break through someplace else until all the frost is gone.

I came upon this medal among some "treasures" handed down from one side of the family or another. I know it has to do with Freemasonry, but I don't know for sure whose it was. Family members belonged to the Masons in Cabot and also in St. Johnsbury, and perhaps Canton N.Y. was part of one of them. I think only Grandfather Dimick was in the Commandry, so it may have belonged to him. I have a photo somewhere of him all decked out in his uniform. I'll try to find it and see if this medal shows up there.

Now it's about time to go for our walk to check out the road and the water level, if we can find a place to get close enough to the pond without wading through too much snow or getting our feet too wet.