Brrrrrrr!!  This was our first below zero night of the season, and it did itself proud.  One of our thermometers got down to 14 below, while the one outside my office read 20 below at the lowest point - early this morning.  Now the sun is shining brightly and we've warmed up to a more moderate zero.

We went to St. Johnsbury for groceries and haircuts, and it was cold there, too, but not as cold as here.  Burke Mountain fairly sparkled in the crisp early morning air as we came down Dole Hill heading northeast.  There wasn't much traffic, and the grocery stores were not busy at all, so we zoomed through our shopping and were back in West Danville by about 10:30.

Garey at Larrabee's told me long-time Joe's Pond summer resident Irv Pollack (West Shore Road) is very seriously ill.  I was very sorry to hear that, and our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Barbara, and the family.

You will also be saddened to learn of the death of Dr. Roderick Goyette, Joni Calcagni's father.  Condolences may be sent to the family at the following address:  Joseph and Joni Calcagni, 18 windywood Rd, Barre VT 05641.

Cold as it is today, there was a fisherman out on the ice by the boat access this morning.  There was a pop-up shelter, and I expect a heater inside because when we stopped to take a picture there was no sign of anyone outside.  With the sun beating down, it was probably toasty inside the little tent - and that's right where I'd want to be if I had to be out on the ice today. 

On the way home, with our seat warmers on and the steering wheel warmer on, and the car nice and warm inside, Fred and I were reminiscing about how we used to put cardboard behind the grill of our cars on below-zero days.  I don't know if people still do that or not - perhaps on some older model cars?  And occasionally I see something like the canvas snap-on covers we used to have on a truck.  Most vehicles have improved thermostats these days - and the design of cars is different than it used to be, too.  

Lots of things have changed over the years.  There was a framed picture of Hastings Store on their counter today.  It showed a snowbank right in front of the store that reached nearly to the porch roof.  James said it was taken in March, 1933.  That must have been some winter - or some storm!  I'm sure we did get more snow back then, and the wind there would pile the snow right into the roadway, I expect.  Back then there were buildings across the road from Hastings, so there wasn't a lot of room to plow snow out of the way, either.  March in Vermont still often brings heavy snow and stormy weather, but that picture looked as if they had a hard winter in 1932-33.  I did a short Google search and found there was serious famine in the Ukraine, that winter, and at Crater Lake in Oregon, they had a tremendous amount of snow:  Here's an excerpt from Crater Lakes National Parks Service website: 

"The average snowfall at Crater Lake is 533 inches every year. That's about 44 feet. The greatest cumulative snowfall for one season was 879 inches (73 feet) the winter of 1932-33. The greatest depth on the ground at one time was 258 inches (21½ feet) the winter of 1983. Most of the snow usually melts by the beginning of August, although after particularly heavy seasons, there are drifts that fail to melt before the snows return again in the early Fall."

Joe's Pond probably won't see that kind of snow ever - but with all the crazy weather patterns we've had recently, we could see an increase in winter storms here.  For the time being, we're stuck with the cold, and like someone said to us this morning, "Where's global warming when you need it?"