This is such a pretty day!  We have about an inch of new snow, the sun is shining brightly, and the thermometer is rising steadily - now at about 30 degrees.  Where the sun hits, the snow is melting, of course, but it's still lovely.  This is how things looked a few minutes ago from our front window.

We managed a few firsts of the season this morning.  The town sanded the road - it was very slippery when we came home around 9 o'clock last night; I wore my creepers for the first time this year when we walked/ran up Jamie and Marie's driveway this morning (I walk, Fred runs!); and I got out my snow shovel for the front deck so I can clear a path to my CoCoRaHS equipment each morning.  

Yesterday I found this old photo taken around 1964 of approximately the same view as the picture above.  For a number of years, my folks could see the whole length of the pond from their living room window, and could watch when we took the kids skiing behind "Raja"and with binoculars, could tell which grandson was being towed and by whom.  Now there's only a glimpse of the water towards the south end of the pond, and we are pretty rapidly losing the view of the upper end of the pond.  It's interesting, too that the woods we see in this picture was logged once after this picture was taken, and most of the mature soft wood trees were cut.  It has all grown back now.
We have think our tax rate should be adjusted every 20 years or so as we lose more of the "view" we pay extra taxes for; but we know that's not going to happen.  Now that our neighbor has logged his property, and we are planning to have some of the mature growth harvested on ours, we might get a bit of that view back.  I just hope our taxes don't go up . . . !

Truth is, we enjoy the nearby "view" from our windows - this is our back yard this morning.  It looks like Christmas, doesn't it?  The sky is a beautiful blue, mostly clear, and from my office window I can see just a sliver of moon high in the sky.  The view will change after the larger trees are taken out, but it will still be beautiful, and within a very short time, there will be plenty of new growth.  Below is a picture of the view from my office this morning - but a slightly different view than where the moon is.  I'm noticing that a large cloud bank has just drifted over the moon, so I can no longer make it out.  I guess our weather may change this afternoon.

We went to Burlington last night to pick up our neighbor who was flying in from Switzerland.  On the way over, we hit the commuter traffic on I-89, which we hadn't experienced for a while.  Amazing the traffic between Montpelier and Burlington, going both directions.  There was no snow at all, and on the way back, very little traffic, but the road was wet and we began to see snow be the time we got to Marshfield.  There was no traffic at all on 215 from Marshfield to Walden, but the road was snow covered and it was about 33 degrees - so the snow packs under your tires and gets like teflon.  Of course, for such a small amount of snow, the towns weren't out with plows, sand or salt, so we were very much on our own.  Once on the dirt road, it wasn't as slippery.  We had no problems, but we were glad to get back home.

We have sad news.  We learned this morning that Diane Sherwood's brother, Gary, passed away yesterday.  He had battled glioblastoma for several years, and the family is thankful for the time they've had with him.  It's particularly hard for the family as they have experienced power outage from Hurricane Sandy, and then the snow yesterday in addition to the stress losing their loved one.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them.  Don and Diane's address is:  26 Kings Lane, Southampton NY 11968, if you wish to send condolences.