Again, there isn't much to report. The pallet and flag are still out there in the middle of a huge chunk of ice. The weather hardly warmed up at all today with the wind blowing out of the north. By late afternoon, some of the new ice that had formed over the open water the last couple of days melted, but not all of it, and there is very little indication the ice is weakening. The flag seems to have the same tilt as it has since Ray put it out.

There was a lot of sunshine during the day, and the water at the north end of the pond seems to be cutting further down the middle of the pond each day, but that is the only real sign of progress towards opening up the big pond and finishing off the ice. Mostly, the pond is a very large expanse of white ice.

These pictures were taken at about 7 p.m. and the temperature was still around 41 degrees. We didn't get much warmer than that all day, and tonight it is colder again. There may be a warming trend tomorrow, with some rain late in the day - or snow, which of course is a good possibility for us here at Joe's Pond.

Fred and I met a reporter from the Burlington Free Press today at Hastings store. His name is Matt Sutkoski, and he is doing an article about global warming and was asking if we have noticed a trend as we record the ice-out dates. I went back over the dates and found there does seem to be a trend. I went back to the records my father kept, the earliest being 1968. He recorded when the pond was completely free of ice, and historically, that is 2-3 days after our pallet sinks and the clock stops. From 1968 - 1988 (I didn't find a record for 1980), the ice lasted into May ten times, and went in April ten times. From 1989 to the 2011, we recorded seventeen April dates and seven May dates. So I guess there is a trend there, but whether it's due to global warming or some natural curve of weather, I certainly couldn't say.

Bert Frye happened into the store while we were talking with the reporter, so we introduced them and Bert had some interesting points about the weather, sugaring, and several other subjects, so I think Matt and his photographer went away with a whole lot of information to process. We also took them to see how the pallet and clock are set up, and they took more pictures and asked a lot more questions. Matt said his article will be in the Sunday edition of the Free Press.

That's about it for today, I guess. If we get some rain and more wind tomorrow, I might have more to report.

The muddy roads that got better a few days ago when Cabot put some fill in the mud holes, has now gone the other direction and is getting bad again. This is pretty normal. Some of the same places that were bad before are bad again, and there are some new spots that are getting troublesome. I was over Cabot Plains Road on Monday and that was nearly as good as it is in the summer - but that was then. By now there could be some new breakouts. All the back roads in our area are passable, but we need to allow extra time to get over them because of the washboard and muddy spots.

There were surveyors on Route 2 as we came out of W. Shore Road this afternoon. Apparently they will be working on this end of the Route 2 Project in Cabot - past Molly's Pond going towards W. Danville. I searched for an update on the project to find out how far the widening and straightening will extend, but didn't find anything. I'll keep looking. They will be finishing up the other end of the project, along Molly's Falls Dam, and I was surprised to find surveyors from VTrans this far east today. It would be good to get some of the curves out of that road. There are a lot of accidents along that stretch, especially in the winter.