I received this message from Marti Talbot today with a link to her daughter Amanda's blog.  Another instance of near misses at the Boston Marathon on Monday.  Marti said Amanda didn't mention that her husband, Kevin's mom was in the grandstand, very near the bombs.  Marti said she was traumatized, but not hurt.   We are very glad the whole family is ok, and we are thankful the whole thing is coming to an end.

We've had two interviews about the Ice-Out in the past two days.  Emmett Fitzgerald (pictured at left) from the international public radio show, Living On Earth, was here yesterday and did interviews with us and several people in W. Danville; today Julia Shipley, who is doing an article for Yankee Magazine that will appear in 2014, came.  I've got a cold, one of those coughing, sneezing, totally irritating things that started off like allergies and is ending up as a full-fledged respiratory attack, so Fred met her at the Rossi's.  We have talked quite a bit on the phone and I've sent her information from my files, but she wanted to see the setup in order to better describe it in her piece.  I was happy I didn't have to leave the house.

The flag is still up and the clock is still running.  There has been a big change in the ice since yesterday, Fred said.  He got some pictures that show how the ice has finally begun to pull away from the shore.  This top picture is from Rossi's boathouse, the second one shows how much water there is along the shoreline. There is open water mostly around the small island now, and all of it is beginning to look pretty dark.  The next few days and nights are going to be colder, but it looks like we could have an end to the contest fairly soon.

When Fred went for his run this morning, he got this picture of "Harvey" who is just changing his white winter coat for a pretty brown one for summer.  You can see some brown on his head.  Fred said it surprised him - at first he thought it was a weathered gray tree stump.  Rabbits are silly, they sometimes freeze in place thinking they are hidden, and probably that's what this one was doing, although it looks as if he was just waiting to have his picture snapped.  Click on the pictures to make them larger.

I've had to do the blog in a different browser tonight - it's complicated, but without frustrations along the way I'd have nothing to complain about.  There are gaps and probably not everything will show up as usual, but tomorrow I'll get back to Firefox and hopefully things will go more smoothly.