We're having one of those days when just about everything in the weather arsenal is being thrown at us.  Overnight we had heavy rain - almost an inch measured here - and high winds.  We didn't hear any thunder, but wouldn't have been surprised.  Today we've had sun, rain showers, snow showers, and plenty of wind.  The temperature dropped from a comfortable high of almost 70 yesterday to the 30s and 40s today, depending on whether the sun is out or not. 

I think the ice on the pond melted quite a bit yesterday, but it doesn't look as if much will happen right away, and we're going to have cooler temperatures this weekend.  The good news is that just about all our snow is gone after last night's rain.  There aren't any real signs of green grass around our place yet, but my daffodils are up 3-4 inches, and I have seen other green stuff poking through the winter's mat of compacted leaves and cedar clippings I used in my flower beds.   My vegetable garden spot is free of snow but very wet, so there's nothing ready to happen there.  I don't have any hot beds to start plants early - I guess I'm not that eager any more.  Gardening is a lot of work and I'm mostly interested in having fresh lettuce and other greens available in the back yard than I am in having all those root vegetables and late crops to harvest in the fall.

We'll have lots of raking and cleaning up to do around the perimeter of our lawns this year due to all the cutting we've had done.  I'm looking forward to some of the traditionally wet spots being a bit drier this year and different vegetation showing up now the big trees are gone and the sun can get to the area.  Many years ago I took excess perennials up into the woods and planted them along our walking paths.  Since then the trees have grown so big there was little sunshine for them, so I'm wondering if any will be revived now they have sunshine.

Garey Larrabee down at the post office in West Danville, gave me a clipping  that was published in one of the newsletters published for postal workers.  It was an excerpt from a feature story in a recent issue of Green Mountain Postmaster and was written by a neighbor, Jill McGann, who, although she lives on Route 2 in Cabot, uses the West Danville post office.  Jill was responding to social media criticism of post offices, and said, "if they had West Danville as their local Post Office, they would be singing a different tune."  She mentioned that the postal workers in West Danville are always friendly and accommodating, which of course those of us who know Garey, Diane Jejer and rural carrier Josh Deth heartily agree on.  One think I've been concerned about each time cutting back on rural mail deliveries comes up, it that for many people who live alone, the mail carrier is the one person who visits them every day except Sunday, and more often than anyone knows, the mailman is the first to notice that something isn't right - mail hasn't been picked up from the box or someone doesn't answer the door when they come to deliver the mail (as they very often do for elderly or disabled people who cannot get to a mailbox).  These men and women are truly guardians watching out for all of us along their mail routes.  While many of us could get along fine without Saturday mail delivery, there are many people who would truly miss that contact and the security of the daily visit.  And I can't imagine being without the post office at Hastings Store.