Ok, Mother Nature - it's April 1st and we all know it.  No need to dump more snow on us!  We were doing fine with warmish weather, then a little rain in early afternoon, but now some pretty heavy snow squalls are moving through.  I took this picture and then got busy with some other stuff, and when I looked out again, I couldn't see the road for the snow in the air.  And it's still snowing.  I just had an e-mail from JPA president, Tom Dente and he said they'd just had a thunderstorm in Middletown CT where he and Camilla live.  No thunder with this storm.  It's a reminder we still have a way to go before it's really spring here at Joe's Pond.

We are almost at the end of our Ice-Out Contest!  There's very little sign of melting going on around the pond, and I haven't seen any open water except under the bridge in West Danville, by the dam.  I have heard geese several times, though, in the past few days.  They're obviously impatient to settle back at their favorite summer vacation area and get started raising their "young'ns." I bet that makes the blood pressure rise for a few of our Joe's Ponders.

Diane and Fred interviewed with WCAX this morning about the Ice-Out.  They said it would be on tonight's news, but if you miss it, I believe Fred will be posting a link so you can hear and see it.  I also had a call from Channel 7 News this afternoon - they were amazed that there's still about 16 inches of ice on the pond and a foot of snow on the ground here.  They have no idea.  

We will have the on-line ticket option available until midnight - you can purchase 10 tickets and pay by major credit card on line.  That seems to work well and quite a lot of people have taken advantage of that.  It is really easy, and we immediately have the information so people can literally purchase tickets at the very last minute.  The option will go off line at midnight, however.

To all of you who purchased, sold and/or promoted or otherwise worked on our Ice-Out Contest, we are very appreciative.  It's been another fun, and we hope successful year.  We won't have all the tickets counted and logged in for a few days, at least - but there's time.  The ice won't be going out soon, we're pretty sure of that.  

Temperature now is 30 degrees - the snow has stopped momentarily, but it's going to get pretty cold tonight, so not much melting going on.  

Here's a comment in response to the information I posted about a new bill in Vermont Legislature, H.223:

 I read through H.223 as well. It seems to me to be a solution in search of a problem and yet another big government overreach to control private property. In my opinion, existing rules are sufficient in that they require buffers, approved septic designs, seawalls, etc. In my view it ain't broke so don't fix it. Where there are legitimate problems such as water quality on the northern part of Lake Champlain, then either enforce existing rules or implement new rules to address those specific problems, but there is no need for such a broad expansion of state government control of private property. I don't trust state bureaucrats charged with implementing the statute will use common sense in addressing shoreline issues.     Jack LaGue