It seems winter isn't finished with us.  Our brief taste of spring, accompanied by a mini mud season, was just a teaser.  Last night we had a low of -1.1 degrees.  It's been chilly all day although there was lots of bright sunshine until mid-afternoon.  The forecast is for up to a foot of snow beginning sometime tonight and into tomorrow.  Then snow showers off and on for the rest of the week.  How's that to start off the official spring season on Wednesday!?  

We were away most of the day, first to recycle in Wolcott, then back to deliver the last of this year's Ice-Out tickets to the outlets in Walden and Cabot.  In both Walden (actually South Walden), and at the Cabot General Store, they still had tickets on hand, but because we're into the last two weeks before the contest closes, tickets are going to be scarce quickly.  We've had to make special deliveries almost every year in the past to keep outlets supplied.  This year I've divided my remaining tickets among the outlets I keep supplied and if all of them are sold, people will need to go to the web site for their tickets.  Not a bad thing, but lots of folks either don't have computers or prefer to have a regular ticket in their hand.

In the afternoon, we went to St. Johnsbury and delivered remaining tickets to outlets there.  We picked up some tickets and in the ones that we got at Hastings Store, someone had left the wrong end of the ticket - the small portion - and kept the part with all the identifying information on it.  The tickets are numbered 4,125-4,134; they were wrapped neatly in a $10 bill and secured with a rubber band.  Unfortunately, we won't be able to enter the tickets without a name, and all of them had very reasonable picks for dates and times.  I'm hoping someone will realize they turned in the wrong end of the ticket and get in touch with us.  Every year a few people do this.  Sometimes we are able to locate the owner of the ticket, but sometimes not.  Please check the tickets you're holding to be sure you have the smaller portion, which is square, not the larger rectangle that has your contact information.  We'd really like to know who these ten tickets belong to.

When we were in Cabot today, I saw Bobby Searles, the new owner of Harry's Hardware Store in Cabot.  Bobby had owned the general store for some time, but only recently acquired Harry's.  The plan is to operate it as a traditional hardware store and also have other merchants in some of the space.  Butters Restaurant is also poised to open there, but Bobby told me today they don't know yet when the doors will be open.  There are lots of folks happy that there will be gasoline pumps in operation again in town, too.  Bobby could only tell me there will be a "spring opening."  I didn't get to see Stan from Butters - he was at the old space next door, but we were running late and had to get home, and I knew his opening depends solely on when Bobby is ready.  

If you must be out on our roads tomorrow, please drive carefully.  This could be the last of the big snow storms for this year, and this time Joe's Pond may have a fair amount of snow delivered.  I have measured a total of 112.7 in. of snow over the course of this winter, from November 5 when we had the first measurable snowfall, until now.  Not a bad winter for snow at our location.  The most snow I've measured, new and old on the ground, was 24 in. and that was at the end of February lasting into the first week of March.  Those figures are available on the website, www.cocorahs.org.  My station number is VT-WS-12, and my location is 3.9 ENE - measured in miles and direction, as the crow flies, from the town of residence.  You can check stations all over U. S. and some in Canada.  We'll see how much we can ad to that total tomorrow!