Today's warm temperatures seem to have melted the layer of snow so at least the pallet is visible again out on the ice.  The flag remains stationary - and if you have looked at the setup on the web cams you've seen two little dots at the left of the red flag.  Those are reflectors put on to warn any nighttime snowmobile travelers.  It wouldn't be good to run into the pallet and flag, either for the contest or for the snowmobile.  There haven't been many fishermen out there this weekend, but the last report we had was day before yesterday when Everett reported 16 inches of ice.  The low  temperature last night was 19 degrees, and we are in for a few days of colder weather, so we don't look for much melting to go on this week.

We've been hearing some people grumbling that their guesses on the Ice-Out Contest are proving to be off due to the weather, so they are buying more tickets in order to have a better chance at winning.  Smart move.  Who knew spring was going to be delayed like this?  After a fairly gentle winter, we might have expected an early spring, but looks as if that isn't going to be the case.  We are reminded that some years the ice has held on into May . . . but that was before anybody knew about global warming.  In more recent years, we've had a see-saw of dates, but the trend has been for the ice to go out earlier than in the first years of the contest.  The chart above shows clearly there's a trend going on, but it's hard to predict how late the 2013 date will be.  

I had an interesting message from Andy Rudin today - about how global warming is, and probably will continue to impact the maple sugar industry in Vermont. Here's the story he sent.  It's amazing to me that pulling the sap out of the trees as they now do doesn't hurt them.  When my family sugared, we were careful where and how many taps we put in a tree, how large or old the tree was, and treated the process more like we were taking some of the tree's life blood than just pulling out as much sap as possible.  And it's scary to think Vermont is likely to one day have a climate that is inhospitable to maples.  

I guess the best we can do is enjoy what we have now and appreciate the colder weather in store for us this coming week.  Perhaps it will extend the sugaring season; probably will also extend the mud season, but after reading that article about sugaring, I guess the cold and the mud has to be considered a good thing.

Get your Ice-Out Contest tickets in the mail or turned in by midnight Monday, then sit back and hope the date you picked is a winner.  This is just another one of those years that proves this contest is a battle of wits - with Mother Nature.