We have a much warmer and nicer day here today.  The sun is out and the thermometer is in the high 30's.  I was a bit surprised this morning to see a skimming of ice on the pond near the channel.  It will melt rapidly today, but at least we know the water is getting down into the freezing range.  The channel itself seems to have a skimming of ice, too - enough to support snow cover.  

Fred remarked this could be one of those years when the pond is frozen by Thanksgiving.  It has happened, but not for a while. 

Every morning when I first look outside, there are fresh tracks where animals have played in our back yard during the night.  This morning I noticed where an apparently pretty large rabbit had gone bounding past the corner of our house - very close, and then made a sharp right turn headed for the lower lawn and woods area.  There were the usual number of deer tracks, but then when Fred went out, he noticed some very large tracks going across the driveway.  At first we wondered if it might have been a bobcat, but on closer inspection, we've decided it was probably a bear.   This last footprint was in a marshy spot on the lawn - the others were on the driveway.  


Little do we know what beasts pass through our yard in the dark of night.  Sometimes Woody gets agitated and we believe he senses something is out there, but even though he begs to go outside, we don't dare let him, for fear there's something big and dangerous lurking there just waiting for a nice fat cat for lunch.


That's about all the excitement here for today, so far.  The roads were a little slippery yesterday, and Jamie told us there was a car in the ditch about by Talbot's when he was leaving for work.  They had someone already helping, and Jamie was on his way to have winter tires put on Marie's pickup, so said he wouldn't have been any help.  


It's that time of year when we not only need to get proper tires on our vehicles, but we also need to remember that roads are slippery, especially back roads that haven't been salted or sanded.  With just a skimming of snow like yesterday, the town usually doesn't waste time and material on the roads, as they generally don't stay snow covered for very long once traffic gets moving.