This is our world today  - the beginnings of "The Big Snow," with four or five inches so far and another 18-20 more to be dumped on us overnight and into tomorrow.  When I measured this morning at 9 o'clock, we'd had only half an inch.  Fred plowed a few minutes ago and will go out again before dark.  So far it's been light and fluffy, and the temperature is dropping, so we think that will keep the snow fluffy and prevent power outages.  There hasn't been much traffic on our road today - I guess everyone is being cautious and only traveling if absolutely necessary.

As for signs of spring, I received these pictures from a friend in Rhode Island.  She said they are expecting a couple inches of snow, but of course  that won't bother their early spring flowers a bit.   The top picture is skunk cabbage, then crocus,  snowdrops and at the bottom, bleeding heart.  Click on them to make them a bit larger.  Thanks to Kate for sending these. 
   
It's nice to know spring is just south of us.  It won't be long (well, a few weeks) before we will be seeing bits of green peeking through the snow.   In the meantime, we still have the Joe's Pond Ice-Out Contest to look forward to, although there are those among us who are predicting the ice won't be gone in time for the Fourth of July Fireworks this year.  That may be a bit pessimistic, but the  additional two feet of snow from this storm will provide plenty of insulation, so I think it's safe to say we won't have to worry about open water happening before the contest closes on April 1st like we thought might happen in 2010.  It actually went out on April 5th that year.  That said, after all this snow, if we happened to get a stretch of really warm, rainy weather for a week or so right after this, I hate to think about how much water would be cascading off the hillsides into Joe's Pond.  That could end the Ice-Out Contest in a hurry.  There's still plenty of time to pick up tickets or to go on line for them.  The contest will close on April 1st, at 11:59:59 p.m., midnight.  Businesses that have regular tickets will sell them until close of business on April 1st.  Any that are being mailed to us must be postmarked on or before April 1, 2014.  Good luck figuring out when the ice might go out this year!  It's never easy, but this year's weather has been really interesting, and iceologists are busy making their calculations and predictions; but only Mother Nature knows.

I had a nice note from Bev and Steve Allen letting us know about an article about Cabot's restaurant, DownStreet Eats  that is on the Seven Days web site.  It's a comparatively new restaurant located where Butters Restaurant was before that moved to the back of the hardware store.  Now Stan Linkovitch, who owned Butters is cooking at Goodfella's in Danville, and Sarah Mangan took over the spot in the hardware store, calling it Sarah's Country Diner.  Sadly, we haven't tried either DownStreet Eats or Sarah's Country Diner yet.  It's been a long winter and we don't get into town (Cabot) often.  We wish them all well, though.